30 day song challenge: day 18 – a song that you wish you heard on the radio

Well, that would assume that I had a working radio to start with, and was a regular enough listener to know what they didn’t play that I wanted to hear.

30 day song challenge: day 17 – a song that you hear often on the radio

I don’t often hear the radio any more. For some reason the FM receiver on my mobile phone no longer works in my workplace, which is annoying as one of my habits was to dance around my boss’s office doing the filing whenever she was out.

#musicmonday : Inspiral Carpets feat Mark E Smith – I Want You

Conversation (over at CB):

Jack: Inspiral Carpets were f***ing s***.

Me: Inspiral Carpets were great – but very of their time. Couldn’t listen to them now.

Lucy: @Jack. Sorry, you’re wrong about that. Actually, I’m not sorry. You’re just plain wrong.

You voted red instead for Mass Effect 3

Most fans of the franchise know by now about Bioware’s contest to choose a FemShep (female Commander Shepard) design for the promotional artwork for Mass Effect 3. What you might not know is how interesting the competition got before the winning design was picked.

Predators

It’s funny the effect that development hell can have on a project. This one, for instance, was supposed to have been directed by Robert Rodriguez, but ended up being a “Rodriguez presents …” title, with the unknown Hungarian director Nimród E. Antal at the helm. It can be likened in many ways to Pitch Black – an abandoned Alien 3 script rescued by then-unknown David Twohy. Accounting for inflation, the budget, box office and critical reception aren’t too far apart, though Predators is nowhere near as good a film. Even so, it’s a just sequel to the first Predator movie – mostly because Predator was a bit crap. Oh, come on, it was! Fun though, oh yes, plenty of fun.

No Nirvana – A Late Show special

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Since it seems to be Grunge Week on the internet – 20 years since Nevermind came out – with articles in the Guardian and Collapse Board, there seems to have been some controversy as to which bands should be mentioned and which were not part of it at all.

I was reminded of a great episode of The Late Show – a culture programme on BBC2 – called No Nirvana – which simply featured live-in-the-studio performances from alternative rock bands such as Jane’s Addiction, Dinosaur Jr, Sugar, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I thought Rage Against The Machine’s inclusion was a bit odd (if welcome), and REM downright out of place, but you can’t really argue with Sonic Youth’s amazing performance of Drunken Butterfly.

30 day song challenge: day 16 – a song that you used to love but now hate

Hate is too strong a word. I mean, I can think of plenty of songs that I just don’t want to hear again – Fool’s Gold by the Stone Roses doesn’t interest me any more, I’ve no real desire to listen to most of the shoegaze bands I enjoyed as a teenager, and lately Miracle by Foetus has me scrambling for the skip button because I’ve just heard it too many times.

A slight case of overplaying. That was our nickname for the Sisters of Mercy’s “greatest hits” collection, but truth be told I could listen to any of those tracks any time. The winner, though? The one track I literally never need to hear again? I think it would have to be Smells Like Teen Spirit.

13 Greatest comedy moments about video games

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Some of these clips of great comedy about video games are a lot of fun (most of them are barred to the UK), but they often don’t reflect the reality of a household where both of you are gamers. For example, Christian Finnegan talks about arguments, and the tradition of how people tend to keep bringing up past rows over and over and how they’re never really settled.

In our house, both being gamers, we know when an argument has reached a Checkpoint, which keeps things refreshingly linear. We’ve made too much progress to start the whole thing from scratch, so you just have to put up with whatever dialogue choices you’ve made to that point and keep moving forward. Trying to revisit a previous argument is as futile as trying to go back to the previous level, only to find that the door is barred behind you. Tough s***, sucker! You should have picked up the Achievement Points the first time around.

Bioware: RPGs are becoming less relevant

(Click to enlarge)

Which fan is more important? The one who buys ten games from a developer, or the ten fans who buy one game from a developer? Who means more? The one who loves your game, or the one who hates it?

Answer: None of the above.

#musicmonday : Madonna – Nothing Really Matters

Hannah Golightly linked to the Cold War Kids, noting the “punky” use of piano