I was watching Terminator Salvation and I thought… why does Christian Bale still sound like Batman? Why does Christian Bale’s Batman sound… uh… odd? Is that supposed to be scary? Doesn’t it really hurt the throat? If you were a criminal, would you be scared because you’re afraid that he’s going to physically hurt you, or more that he’s going to sexually abuse you?

Anyway, back to Batman.

Trawling through the billions of new tracks in the public domain (cough), I came across a certain voice that was all too familiar. Before accusing the band, The Black Ghosts, of being yet another cheap copy off the manufacturing line, I looked them up.

Ah. It’s Damon.

No, not Matt, but Albarn.

You know, from Blur? Oh right, yeah. He gets around, that talented boy / mic hogger.

His guest vocals feature on The Repetition Kills You. It’s not bad, not bad at all.

Now Damon, will you stop mucking about with other projects and either do something with Blur or just kill them off for good!

I like wine. I like expensive wine even more. Thus, I really like sales. Here are four wines I’ve picked up recently, on offer, three from Tesco and one from Morrisons.

I love a good merlot. I like the dark, weighty taste. This is Turner Road's merlot from California, but it's light, even watery. It's ok, but nothing special at all. This is supposed to be a reserve? What a joke.

Recommeded by a friend. Hardy's Crest. Cabernet Shiraz from Australia. It's a strong, heavy red- the kind of wine that gives you a headache if you drink more than a few glasses. I think my friend is depressed - I can't recommend this, even if it's on offer for £5 (normally £9).

Chateau Clos Renon: Fabulous French Bordeaux Superior 2007. What does that mean? Well it's actually made of mostly Merlot, then Cabernet Savignon and Cabernet Blanc. I'm still no expert on wine crops but I know what I like. This is tasty, rounded with a pleasant aftertaste. Especially good with red meat, go get it now while it's still on sale - half price - now £6.50 at Tesco's for a limited time. If you like this, then you like what I like, so whenever I recommend a wine, you know you better get it!

This is why the Rock Band guitar is superior

I had recently described the Guitar Hero guitar as superior, simply because of its switch mechanism for the strum bar, which is all important when you’re trying to hit that note on time.  However, a new development has caused me to change my mind again, and this time, really pissed me off.

Hard mode: this generally involves hitting 5 keys as opposed to medium mode’s 4 (easy being 3).  A good guitarist will move their fingers up and down the keys and not get confused as they have been playing for so long they instinctively use their index finger for the green key.  Ahem.  Confused?  My brain was swizzled.  Green note is coming, er, where’s my hand?  Then my gf pointed out that some guitarists use their thumb.  What?  Oh my freaking god.  After a bit of adjusting, I can now hit all 5 keys, without moving my hand.  Look at the picture above.

As for the GH guitar, well, you can’t do this at all.  Remember my complaint about the pop out buttons?

GH keys

You can’t use your thumb in the same way.  So the GH guitar isn’t that good in the end, at least for hard mode. But what about the RB strum bar?  Yes the strum bar is still crappy.  Note, if you’ve always hammered your strum bar downwards, you’ll find the upwards motion is still fresh and responsive.  Try it! My RB guitar is still under warranty, so I’ll get it replaced first and when that runs out, I’ll do the mod.  THAT modded RB guitar is the best, hands down.

How about the music library comparison? It’s a matter of taste -

I spent some money on DLC last night:  Maximo Park’s Girls who play Guitars, Dear and the Headlights’ Sweet Talk, Radiohead’s Iron Lung, System of a Down’s Toxicity, White Stripes’ Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground and Smashing Pumpkin’s Zero.  Guitar Hero!  No, these are all only available on Rock Band (apart from Maximo Park).  The best thing is, I load up Rock Band 2, and I don’t have to change disks, all my tracks are there (all songs from RB1 have been imported).  With GH, even if I buy stuff from the store, I have to switch disks for certain songs.  That sucks.  I want to do Muse’s stuff, which is mostly on GH3 and GH5.  Grrr.  I’m only loading up GHWT to do Coldplay’s Shiver, REM’s The One I Love and Interpol’s PDA.

Edit: Good Lord, here’s another mod, this time tearing up an old crappy PS2 GH guitar to completely turn your RB guitar into god guitar. I personally wouldn’t bother with the extra keys, just the strum bar. I think the other mod is better, just add switches to the strum bar, that’s all you really need to do!

Heard these guys a few times. Reminded me of the kills. Funny thing is that listening to the guy I suspected he was French! It’s perhaps sad that I want to see what face the voice has, but whatever! Off I went to youtube and wikipedia.

Having a look at the video, I was… er… surprised! Youtubers were quick to comment that the leads look like Kelly Osbourne and Eminem. Well, turns out the whole lot is from West London! Well enough about the looks, the music is good, and yes, it should remind you of The Kills but a lot more downkey. They’re starting to get hype, with some TV play and some festivals. Could be one to keep tabs on – have a quick listen:

I now have both, and I don’t care about which is better, I just want to play the songs I like with the best instruments.

RB guitar

Edit: I have the RB1 guitar and the GHWT guitar. They both have faults and frankly a combination of both would be best – if I modded the RB guitar with a microswitch strum, it would be my favourite, because it’s bigger, longer and the keys are more comfortable. I’d like to try the RB2 guitar, but they are not available in Europe!!!

RB keys

GH keys

At this time, the GH World Tour guitar is awesome, although a little shorter than the RB, the keys aren’t great and I’m having trouble activating star power. Even with these problems, the guitar is better simply because it has a microswitch strum bar, whereas the RB guitar seems to have an analogue strum bar. The GH guitar makes a click when you pull on the sensitive bar, whereas the RB guitar is silent as you pull, but then I’ve recently had to apply more pressure because analogue connectors have that tendency to wear out much faster. So far, when I want to hit the note, the strum bar is most important and the GH guitar is more accurate (but noisy too!).

Now I’m hearing about GH guitars failing. Oh well.

Just a random point, the GHWT game looks a bit more gimmicky and the CG of RB is more to my taste, but who cares, I want those GH songs! Bloody hell, only two tracks from Interpol, one on GHWT and one on RB2! Oh, the price of good taste!

So, what would be the best set up to get the most out of both games?

With RB, I can buy RB and RB2 on PS2 for cheap but then I can’t download more songs and GH guitars on PS2 don’t work with RB.

To have the best guitar (available in the UK to date) and a full libary (and cheaply), this is what you have to do:

If you want the whole band, get either the RB or GHWT full band set, as the GHWT stuff works on RB (PS3). As for Band Hero, er… it’s er… fun for all the family (all mainstream pop songs).

For me, an indie rock fan, Rock Band has the best catalogue, although GHWT and GH5 have a few tracks I’m going to have to have.

Here’s some charts (courtesy of the GH forums) if you want to mess around with components to get the best band instruments…

Oh and finally, the last word on Beatles Rockband:

To walk the walk, you’ve got to talk the talk.

God knows who said it, or even if the quote is correct.

What I get from the saying is that even if you are truly skilled in your art (no pun intended), you’ve still got to be able to talk in order to promote yourself. To let people know about you, you need to talk to other people. Other people who probably don’t have time for normal people or normal talk. So you have to be able to talk using fancy, sexy, interesting or even elitist language, in other words, a combination of bull and absolute shit.

Hirst had a bit of “fun” with the media, who turned more or less against him, as his Nothing Matters exhibition got shot down, and had his quote twisted so that it seemed he said anyone can be Rembrant. This is absolutely not what he said, but I’m not here to save his ass. I met him once, and he seemed nice, and signed a book for an art student friend with a message of encouragement, and even let me take a photo with him (so I could prove authenticity – hell I queued for quite a while I can tell you – and I was amongst the first there). So anyway, what I want to draw your attention to, is his brilliant shit.

Nothing Matters. No shit!

Here is the blurb from the White Cube promo email:

At White Cube Hoxton Square, Hirst will present a group of paintings, which include three triptychs from 2007-09, each depicting crows shot in mid-flight against blue skies, with outspread wings and violent splatters of red paint across their bodies. In the four triptychs on show in the lower ground floor at White Cube Mason’s Yard, these crows reappear, as omens of bad news. They often share the space with ghost-like figures, skeletal forms and objects, including chairs, lemons, knives, animal skulls, wine glasses or a scorpion.

Rudi Fuchs begins his essay with the following reading of these paintings: ‘When I try to pinpoint what the visual mood is in Hirst’s new images, I am constantly reminded of Beckett – not of any one story in particular, though subject matter is important, but of the austere dryness of the language. Sentences are interrupted, lines are broken, observations are fragmented in order to direct us slowly towards a clearer perception of the real.’

I remember reading through the book I bought for my friend, and noting an essay written by some dude, who I suspect to be an art student or maybe even a teacher. It was full of the most head scratching fancy pants bollocks but sounds so out of my league it’s not worth arguing with type lingo I had ever seen. I was amazed, the effect I think he had aimed for when seeing his fly paintings. Fuck that shit, if you want to baffle people into near fainting, just shove more of these essays at them.

Oh and there’s nothing like making a reference to another, hopefully deceased and thus certainly respected, artist. It’s like episodes of Family Guy, where they make constant references to old series eg: the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Lost in Space, Dukes of Hazzard and Chips. That way, everyone’s going all gooey in nostalgia, which makes you forget about the cheap gags.

Hey I could be wrong about all of this, maybe that essay stuff is totally true, or someone’s honest opinion (Oh yeah? Find me something negative in the essay!), and maybe I’m just too low level to really appreciate. However, what I do appreciate, is the skill to talk shit. Frankly, it’s inspirational. People are ready to be shepherded. Why be a sheep, when you can be a wolf?

Actually, no, there’s no shame for the Danish.

If you’ve signed that chain email, you’ve wasted your time, and that of the whales (they’re not dolphins).

The island of Faroe is independent – Denmark has no control over it, so moaning at the Danes will do no good.

This “cultural” event is gradually getting more flak from its people, but at the moment, it’s an important part of island life. Outsiders would think it stupid, barbaric and perhaps wonder why they bother. Hard to imagine growing up with this and seeing it as a celebration, something to see in amazement. A bit like football.

Look son, one day, all this'll be yours.

Perhaps if we were cooped up in a small island with nothing else to do, we’d resort to behaviour that other people would find insane. A bit like voting for a crap President, twice.

At any rate, complaints need to be sent to Faroe, not to Denmark.

You can ask PETA to do it on your behalf, just fill out this form.

With the latest update for PS3 owners, you can now connect your PSNetwork account to your Facebook account. Note there’s no mention of Hi5 or Myspace, so that pretty much sums up that “war” being over (the irony being that facebook is becoming more and more like Myspace everyday). Anyface, once you connect the accounts, your facebook account will automatically post news when you “do” something on PSN, such as achieve a new trophy. Pretty cool eh? Or does it make you look even more like a dork?

What’s Sony’s real motivation behind this? IMHO, it’s aimed at the stereotypical male audience who use facebook, probably especially those with an avatar as they don’t have a high enough self esteem, trying to play upon the stereotypically male uncontrollable urge to compete with others. How does this help Sony?

You’re on facebook, you see your friend has gained a trophy. Let’s not forget you’re a stereotypical male, which means you want to get that trophy, and get one more, or one better. What do you do? Pick up the game (or even better, buy it) and play! Would you like some DownLoadable Content with that? Only 99p for a screensaver or theme! Super size your gaming weapon for only £2.19!

Did you notice that you can only deposit funds in multiples of £5 into your PSN wallet? Did you notice that most DLC rarely cost a full pound? So what?

You’ll more than likely leave at least a penny in your PSN wallet. So? That penny stays in Sony’s bank, gaining interest for them, not for you. So? It’s only a penny. And?

How many people in the world have a ps3 and a penny (or two) in their PSN account?

Very smart, Sony, very smart!

In fact, it’s £25 for Asda’s top 10 games (but this is their own chart lol)

Some say the offer runs up to xmas, others not too sure.

Review:

The line that got me, more or less, was if you don’t have a 360 + left for dead, then get this.

At the same time we have to consider Lost Planet 2 is on its way…

Opportunities… saving money… this is one of them… should we let it pass us by? Remember what happened with Modern Warfare 2? We got it for £28. It’s now back at the usual price of £45…