"This is the end... my only friend the end..."
It's been quite some time since my last update, the longest gap yet. Quite frankly, it's gotten to the point that my spare time has been spent elsehwere, and updates from work have become a total impossibility, which puts the future of Blowin' Smoke into some manner of serious doubt. No, i'm not pulling the plug and abandoning things entirely. Blowin' Smoke will remain where it is for those distinct few who are gracious enough to still care. But updtaes will probably be sporiadic at best until the blogging bug really sinks his teeth in again, which he may yet again sometime in the future.
Some current events: Abby starts Pre-Kindergarten today, and of course we're caught in a goddamn blizzard. It blows my mind that she's crawling towards school already. The last 4 years and change have been a whirlwind, gone in the blink of an eye. She's become a fiercely intelligent, and dare i say independant, little girl, she's not a baby anymore. When i hear her carry on a conversation, or read aloud one of her zillions of books, or have her eloquently tell me about her day, or even pass the buck on something, i can't help but be a proud father. Yep, she's even learned to cover her tracks and shift blame where nessecary - all important life skills right? ;) I look forward to doing it all again with Sammy, she's coming along very well herself - crawling like nobody's business, and calling me "DAD! DAD! DAD!" whenever she gets the chance - not bad for 8 months. Something tells me she's going to develop even faster than Abby did, and we're gonna be in for trouble.
My car is dead. Clutch and Flywheel damaged. Un-freakin-believeable. The car is barely a year old, only 11 thousand Kilometeres (less than 10 thousand miles!). Both myself and Sarah have a decade of experience with a standard transmission - i've never heard of anything like this before. And of course, GM is telling me my 5-year powertrain warranty won't cover it - so i'm looking at about 1500 in repairs. Money i just don't have.
Sarah has a new job with one of the local call-centres. Which is good news, as they pay excellent money. She starts on the 18th of February - which means my already hectic life is about to get that much more hectic. But it's all good.
Top tens for 2007 just didn't happen, for that i apologize, i'm sure 2 or 3 people were looking forward to it. Keep your eyes peeled - something may pop up before the end of February. Maybe not... no gaurantees.
That's it for now. I'll be around - look me up on MSN or drop an e-mail if you feel like getting in touch (stevetp@warp.nfld.net), or you can always find me over at the DVDVerdict forums (Steve T Power). I'm also on Facebook alongside a zillion other Steve Powers.
That's it, grab yer coats. I'm shutting the doors for now, one last rundown for the road:
The rundown:
Watching: Eastern Promises / Sunshine / The Mummy (1999) / Beowulf
Listening to: Magnus Rising - Counting the Numbers / Sheavy - The Machine that won the War / The Fountain OST / Seven Samurai OST
Reading: No Man's Land by Kevin Major / The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E Howard
Playing: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) / Eye of Judgement (PS3) / Mass Effect (xbox360) / Heavenly Sword (PS3)
Eating: Bacon N Eggs
Wishing: My car wasn't gonna cost me 1500 bucks!
"How was i to know she was from Snake Mountain!!?? She was beautiful!!"
Cheers,
Steve
For old times sake:
Where there's smoke... There's a funeral pyre, sending the spirit of Blowin' Smoke to valhalla.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave..."
Just thought i'd share a few pics of the new store with anyone who's lookin'
Cheers,
Just thought i'd share a few pics of the new store with anyone who's lookin'
Cheers,
Steve
"Give them nothing... Take from them Everything!"
Monday, October 08, 2007
"This is Radio Nowhere, is There Anybody Alive Out There?"
It's been one heck of a month and a bit. On the work side of things, we packed all our shit and moved down the road to our new digs. It was nowhere near as painful as our last move a year or so ago. One 14 hour day (capped off with the midnight launch of Halo 3) and we were pretty much back to normal. The new place looks incredible compared to the old, i'm biased and all, but i think it's probably the most presentable looking place in the area. We're right accross the street from a Blockbuster Video, and things have picked up a tad. I'll try and snap a few shots to give you fine folks who don't live 'round here some idea of where I spend the lion's share of my time.
In Game news, I've finally laid mitts on a Playstation 3, and i have to give it to Sony, in spite of all the shit that's been circulating about them, and the PS3 in particular, they've put together one hell of a beautiful machine. Next to the PS3, the 360 feels cheap, and hapahazardly slapped together. Game wise, the 360 still owns the competition, but Sony's machine itself is a beauty. It only cost me a little over 100 games from "the collection", and 1.45, but thus far, it was worth it.
The first playthrough on the new hardware was Heavenly Sword, which had been ranking up scores that land in the higher part of average. I just don't understand it. The game is a phenomenal piece of work. The execution is flawless - from start to finish the game is what i could only call a tour de force! The ending was also a thing of beauty, and while some might call 7-8 hours of game time short, there wasn't a single moment where i grew frustrated, bored, or felt was less than flawlessly presented. How many much longer games can you think of where you have maybe 7-10 hours of sheer bliss alongside a few hours of slogging and grinding (if i ever meet David Jaffe i'm going to kick him in the nuts for the Hades level in God of War). Heavenly Sword remains riveting and rewarding throughout, and that is to be commended. The nature of the game would have made a 15-20 hour game seem drawn out and dull. Worth noting as well that the graphics and sound were phenomenal, some of the best i've seen.
Lair was also a hell of a lot of fun, and while it wasn't the solid 9 game that Heavenly Sword was, it's still a good deal better than the reviews have been painting it out to be. I'd give it a 7 in my book.
Conan and Assassin's Creed have also been pre-ordered, and i anxiously await them.
Also got my copy of Two Worlds for the xbox360, and promptly lost over 10 hours to it.
With the purchase of the PS3 also comes Steve's decent into High Definition DVD madness. After experiencing the joy of Blu-Ray , ipromptly grabbed a HD-DVD drive for the 360, and have begun in earnest to sell off select DVD's from the collection in order to facilitate the purcase of same movies in some shiny new HD format. I'm up to 10 titles as of now, split 50/50 between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and while some of them blew my mind (Blood Diamond), others were signifigantly less impressive (Sleepy hollow). Can't wait for next week (Transformers in HD!!) and December can't come soon enough (BLADE RUNNER). The toughest decision now is which formats to buy on. I tend to enjoy the look of Blu-Ray's packaging a little more (the shiny blue plastic looks less "bargain bin" than HD-DVD's Maroon). I'd also much rather play the stuff on the PS3 with my shiny Blu-Ray remote and whisper quiet operation, even using the HD-DVD add-on, the 360 still sounds like a washing machine.
Music wise, the new Bruce Springsteen is pretty kick ass, and the new Cult CD did not dissapoint. Neither really struck me like a bolt from the blue or anything, but they're both damn tight releases from their respective artists. If Bruce had maintained the awesomeness of "Radio Nowhere" throughout the runtime of "Magic", we'd be looking at definite contender for album of the year. it really is an amazing tune, but the rest of the album falls back into traditional "E-Street Band" territory with lots of wailing saxaphone and loose grooves. I was a little let down to be honest after the awesome rock vibe of Radio Nowhere. It's all solid material though. The Cult meanwhile, hearken back to their Electric/Sonic Temple/Ceremony years on their latest, which is to say, they've dumped the heavy metal vibe of "Beyond Good and Evil". It's not an exceptional piece of work or anything, i doubt it's going to bring about any rise in Cult Awareness or any kind of "She Sells/Firewoman" level of popularity, but it should please fans, and God knows i had my doubts we'd ever see another cult album after BG&E. It's just great to see Astbury and Duffy together again.
Not too much else to report, on the family front, both gals are doing excellent, Samantha loves her Daddy, which is great, and Abby has started on some kind of pre-Kindergarden thing, so we send our kids to school before we send em to school now? Man they do grow up fast.
Congratulations are also in order for some of the guys, Congrats to Jon and Kate, and congrats to Andy and Tracy, all of whom have done the insane and gotten engaged. Why should you guys be happy all your life? And mucho congrats to Russ and Lisa for buying their first home, which is a beaultiful place. If you could combine my home theatre room with the rest of their place, man you would have the ultimate diggs!
The rundown:
Watching: Shooter/Blood Diamond/Heroes: season 1/Deadwood: Season 3/Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Playing: Genji(PS3)/Halo 3(Xbox360)/Heavenly Sword(PS3)/Medal of Honor: Airborne (xbox360)/Forza Motorsport 2(xbox360)/Lair(PS3)/Project Gotham Racing 4(xbox360)/Two Worlds(xbox360)/Resistance: Fall of Man(PS3)
Reading: Conan: The Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories (Marvel Comics reprints)
Listening to: Matt Mays - When The Angels Make contact/Bruce Springsteen - Magic/The Cult - Born Into This/Pearl Jam - Riot Act/Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
That's it,
Cheers,
Steve
"You lost today kid, doesn't mean you have to like it."
It's been one heck of a month and a bit. On the work side of things, we packed all our shit and moved down the road to our new digs. It was nowhere near as painful as our last move a year or so ago. One 14 hour day (capped off with the midnight launch of Halo 3) and we were pretty much back to normal. The new place looks incredible compared to the old, i'm biased and all, but i think it's probably the most presentable looking place in the area. We're right accross the street from a Blockbuster Video, and things have picked up a tad. I'll try and snap a few shots to give you fine folks who don't live 'round here some idea of where I spend the lion's share of my time.
In Game news, I've finally laid mitts on a Playstation 3, and i have to give it to Sony, in spite of all the shit that's been circulating about them, and the PS3 in particular, they've put together one hell of a beautiful machine. Next to the PS3, the 360 feels cheap, and hapahazardly slapped together. Game wise, the 360 still owns the competition, but Sony's machine itself is a beauty. It only cost me a little over 100 games from "the collection", and 1.45, but thus far, it was worth it.
The first playthrough on the new hardware was Heavenly Sword, which had been ranking up scores that land in the higher part of average. I just don't understand it. The game is a phenomenal piece of work. The execution is flawless - from start to finish the game is what i could only call a tour de force! The ending was also a thing of beauty, and while some might call 7-8 hours of game time short, there wasn't a single moment where i grew frustrated, bored, or felt was less than flawlessly presented. How many much longer games can you think of where you have maybe 7-10 hours of sheer bliss alongside a few hours of slogging and grinding (if i ever meet David Jaffe i'm going to kick him in the nuts for the Hades level in God of War). Heavenly Sword remains riveting and rewarding throughout, and that is to be commended. The nature of the game would have made a 15-20 hour game seem drawn out and dull. Worth noting as well that the graphics and sound were phenomenal, some of the best i've seen.
Lair was also a hell of a lot of fun, and while it wasn't the solid 9 game that Heavenly Sword was, it's still a good deal better than the reviews have been painting it out to be. I'd give it a 7 in my book.
Conan and Assassin's Creed have also been pre-ordered, and i anxiously await them.
Also got my copy of Two Worlds for the xbox360, and promptly lost over 10 hours to it.
With the purchase of the PS3 also comes Steve's decent into High Definition DVD madness. After experiencing the joy of Blu-Ray , ipromptly grabbed a HD-DVD drive for the 360, and have begun in earnest to sell off select DVD's from the collection in order to facilitate the purcase of same movies in some shiny new HD format. I'm up to 10 titles as of now, split 50/50 between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and while some of them blew my mind (Blood Diamond), others were signifigantly less impressive (Sleepy hollow). Can't wait for next week (Transformers in HD!!) and December can't come soon enough (BLADE RUNNER). The toughest decision now is which formats to buy on. I tend to enjoy the look of Blu-Ray's packaging a little more (the shiny blue plastic looks less "bargain bin" than HD-DVD's Maroon). I'd also much rather play the stuff on the PS3 with my shiny Blu-Ray remote and whisper quiet operation, even using the HD-DVD add-on, the 360 still sounds like a washing machine.
Music wise, the new Bruce Springsteen is pretty kick ass, and the new Cult CD did not dissapoint. Neither really struck me like a bolt from the blue or anything, but they're both damn tight releases from their respective artists. If Bruce had maintained the awesomeness of "Radio Nowhere" throughout the runtime of "Magic", we'd be looking at definite contender for album of the year. it really is an amazing tune, but the rest of the album falls back into traditional "E-Street Band" territory with lots of wailing saxaphone and loose grooves. I was a little let down to be honest after the awesome rock vibe of Radio Nowhere. It's all solid material though. The Cult meanwhile, hearken back to their Electric/Sonic Temple/Ceremony years on their latest, which is to say, they've dumped the heavy metal vibe of "Beyond Good and Evil". It's not an exceptional piece of work or anything, i doubt it's going to bring about any rise in Cult Awareness or any kind of "She Sells/Firewoman" level of popularity, but it should please fans, and God knows i had my doubts we'd ever see another cult album after BG&E. It's just great to see Astbury and Duffy together again.
Not too much else to report, on the family front, both gals are doing excellent, Samantha loves her Daddy, which is great, and Abby has started on some kind of pre-Kindergarden thing, so we send our kids to school before we send em to school now? Man they do grow up fast.
Congratulations are also in order for some of the guys, Congrats to Jon and Kate, and congrats to Andy and Tracy, all of whom have done the insane and gotten engaged. Why should you guys be happy all your life? And mucho congrats to Russ and Lisa for buying their first home, which is a beaultiful place. If you could combine my home theatre room with the rest of their place, man you would have the ultimate diggs!
The rundown:
Watching: Shooter/Blood Diamond/Heroes: season 1/Deadwood: Season 3/Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Playing: Genji(PS3)/Halo 3(Xbox360)/Heavenly Sword(PS3)/Medal of Honor: Airborne (xbox360)/Forza Motorsport 2(xbox360)/Lair(PS3)/Project Gotham Racing 4(xbox360)/Two Worlds(xbox360)/Resistance: Fall of Man(PS3)
Reading: Conan: The Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories (Marvel Comics reprints)
Listening to: Matt Mays - When The Angels Make contact/Bruce Springsteen - Magic/The Cult - Born Into This/Pearl Jam - Riot Act/Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
That's it,
Cheers,
Steve
"You lost today kid, doesn't mean you have to like it."
Monday, August 27, 2007
"Up so early feel so bright! Didn't get much sleep last night!"
Once more into the breech. Been ages, sick of apologizing to you guys - you understand i'm sure. Life's been hectic, baby, work, blah blah blah...
On August 23rd i turned 30, which was fine, and Saturday past (the 25th) Sarah threw me a little suprise shindig, which was amazing! I've got a nice Kent gift card to work with - the DVD Shelves will be done ASA-friggin-P!
Huge shout outs to everybody, Sarah N Nicole (my ladies!), Russ n Lisa, Chuck n Nicole, Andy n Tracy(Gun show!), Jon n Beth (Love the book - you spoil me dammit!), Jon n Kate, Chris, Brian n Sandra, and of course, my folks and the in-laws for just being awesome.
Huge props also to the guys who couldn't make it: Dana, Jeff (Great to hang out n play games again man... ) Kev (miss ya bro, can't wait till yer back in town), Mark n Daisy (who made up for it with Montanas! Hope you guys had a GREAT first anniversary!) Mark n Mike (two great guys to work with), and Ken (compadre, and senior Microplay guy). And anyone else i may have missed.
Maybe it's the age and what not - but being all introspective and sappy - a guy couldn't ask for a better circle of friends, you guys all kick ass.
So yeah, A message to Southpeak interactive: Where the fuck is my copy of Two Worlds you sons of bitches! People in America have been playing this damn game since last week - and after having it's ship date shuffled oh, somewhere between 10 and 200 times, I STILL don't have a copy of the damn game (which i pre-paid, i might add.) in my hands! If i didn't love the PC version so much when i tried it a few months back - i'd say screw your damn title and move on . I haven't seen this degree of unprofessional bullshit from a software publisher since the NES days.
In other game news, Bioshock is as good as you've heard. It's downright amazing on a game design level. Not quite the counter-argument to Ebert's "Games are not art." comment, but still amazing stuff. Oddly enough, from a storytelling point of view- i still prefer The Darkness - but that's just me. Also been playing a lot of Guitar Hero II on the 360, and Sheavy axe-slinger Dan Moore has seen fit to give the vanilla-white blandness of the 360's X-plorer guitar a fresh lick of paint for me - the results were downright amazing.
In other news - I have become a total Conan freak! My love of Robert E. Howard's sullen-eyed Cimmerian has become something boardering on obsession. I've picked up some amazing books, including "Conan: The Ultimate Guide To The World's Most Savage Barbarian", which was a fascinating read, and the latest collected TPB of Dark Horse Comic's amazing Conan run. Doubly exciting is our return to pen and paper RPG-ing. Mark's been running a damn fun Eberron campaign, and in September i'll be starting up a campaign set in Conan's own Hyborian Age! I can't freaking wait.
Musically - the new Sheavy CD - The Machine That Won The War - has finally made it into my posession - and i must say, it is one hell of a package. Beautifully done 2-disc set. If you can track down a copy, i highly recommend it.
Haven't seen too much in movies lately - Wild Hogs sucked bad, The Simpsons movie was damned awesome, and i'm on a bit of a Robocop kick.
Samantha is doing awesome - she's got a grin that would light up a room, Abby is doing well, Sarah is good, and Work is the same as always (we're moving shop in September, which is going to be busy as hell, and also suck very much).
That's all for now,
The Rundown:
Watching: Pathfinder/Robocop/Rome Seasons 1 & 2/Deadwood Season 3/Basilisk
Playing: TMNT (xbox360)/Persona 3 (ps2)/Conan(xbox)
Listening To: Powderfinger - Dream Days at the Hotel Existence/Jet - Shine On/The Travelling Wilburys vols 1 n 3
Reading: Conan (D20)/Conan - The Hall of the Dead and Other Stories / Dragonlance: The Elven Nations Trilogy
Working On (tm & (c) KJCW): Nothing at the moment.
Cheers,
Steve
"This is Tom Hanks saying if you see me in person, then please, leave me be."
Saturday, July 14, 2007
"There's something happening here... what it is ain't exactly clear..."
It's been ages, I know. I'm at that point in my life where i'm kept so goddamn busy that what little free time i do get is wasted on some unwinding with a game or a movie. To say i just haven't had the mental fortitude to write anything witty or worthwhile would be the understatement of the year. And rather than look at this whole bloggity thing as a chore - and waste my time with half assed attempts and polls and such, I figure i'd just wait until my head was in the right place and go from there - so here I am.
First things first - The Busted controller as many may remember it no longer exists. I just haven't had the time or energy to focus on reviews like i once did. the move from Microplay to Microplay-Jumbo Video combo store has drained any possibility of creativity whilst working from me, and reviews in the past were always something i could put together in the slow time and polish at home. So it's looking like the Dead rising review (published over there in October of 2006) was my last for the time being. Don't get me wrong - there are a ton of games out there that i would love to share my opinion on in a more professionally written manner - the big guns of last year, some of the amazing stuff we've seen so far this year, and some of the stuff to come. I may get back into the swing of things down the road - and i hope i do, but for now i've converted the BC into a collection list. so yeah, head on over there if you want to check out my Game collection in all of it's glory. I've been doing a solid job of keeping my excel spreadsheet updated, and it's relatively easy to port that stuff over to the site - so expect to see it maintained regularly. I'll also be spicing up the look a little in the days or weeks to come.
Transformers was freaking excellent - go see it if you haven't, and if you have, go see it again! Live Free or Die Hard was a colossal letdown - don't waste your time on castrated action fare. Am I the only person alive looking forward to The Simpsons Movie?
Family update - Samantha is doing very well. Alert, aware, laughing and cooing, all that fun stuff. Abby has been giving us a bit of grief around bedtime - just being an almost 4 year old i guess. Hard to believe it's been that long. But everyone is good, and that's all that matters.
Game wise - Snagged Guitar Hero II for the Xbox360, and find it improved on the PS2 one in a big way, most notably in the Iron Maiden department - The Trooper kicks ass! Also getting back into Oblivion again. I'd lost all my save games in a memory card related mishap, so i've started over - and the game still blows my mind with how damn good it is. I've just hit the Shivering Isles expansion, and it's excellent so far.
Best of '07 so far!
Ran through The Darkness - a first person shooter based on a shitty comic book from the mid-90's. The game was freakin excellent all around. One of the best new titles i've played so far this year. Solid 9 game!
Overlord kicks ass as well. If the idea of playing as a Sauron looking mother fucker with a hoard of gremlins following you around eating sheep and burning hobbits (sorry, Harflin's), all infused with that trademark British wit by way of Pratchett/Python sounds like a good time to you, well - find this game. It's an 8 for sure.
Tracked down a copy of the new Smashing Pumpkins CD, called Zeitgeist, over the last week or two, and i must say it is goddamn awesome (thanks Mark!). It'd been ages since i've listened to the band - i did own Mellen Collie and Siamese Dream back in the day, but sold them off shortly after Adore killed my interest. I've since gone back and re-listed to a bunch of the old stuff - man these guys were amazing in the day. I'd put Siamese Dream right up there with Ten, Nevermind, and Badmotorfinger as classic representations of the best the 90's had to offer musically. Need to re-buy all their discs now... damn.
Dang fine little Reunion album ya got there!
See Renaissance yet? No? Dammit people what's with you? It'll be available on R1 DVD from July 24th, after that you have no excuse!
Buy it! Watch it! Love it!
Ta for now,
The rundown:
Watching: Renaissance / The Relic / The Thing / Platoon / Falling Down / Transformers
Playing: Oblivion (xbox360) / Guitar Hero II (xbox360) / The Darkness (xbox360) / Overlord (xbox360) / Motorstorm (PS3) / Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
Reading: Zip!
Listening to: Sheavy - The Machine That Won The War / Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist / Smashing Pumpkins - Mellen Collie and the Infinite Sadness / Chris Kirby - on Rum and Religion / The Music - Welcome to the North
Looking Forward to: Pathfinder: Unrated (DVD) / 300 (DVD) / Two Worlds (xbox360)
Cheers,
Steve
"First we find her, then we sleep."
It's been ages, I know. I'm at that point in my life where i'm kept so goddamn busy that what little free time i do get is wasted on some unwinding with a game or a movie. To say i just haven't had the mental fortitude to write anything witty or worthwhile would be the understatement of the year. And rather than look at this whole bloggity thing as a chore - and waste my time with half assed attempts and polls and such, I figure i'd just wait until my head was in the right place and go from there - so here I am.
First things first - The Busted controller as many may remember it no longer exists. I just haven't had the time or energy to focus on reviews like i once did. the move from Microplay to Microplay-Jumbo Video combo store has drained any possibility of creativity whilst working from me, and reviews in the past were always something i could put together in the slow time and polish at home. So it's looking like the Dead rising review (published over there in October of 2006) was my last for the time being. Don't get me wrong - there are a ton of games out there that i would love to share my opinion on in a more professionally written manner - the big guns of last year, some of the amazing stuff we've seen so far this year, and some of the stuff to come. I may get back into the swing of things down the road - and i hope i do, but for now i've converted the BC into a collection list. so yeah, head on over there if you want to check out my Game collection in all of it's glory. I've been doing a solid job of keeping my excel spreadsheet updated, and it's relatively easy to port that stuff over to the site - so expect to see it maintained regularly. I'll also be spicing up the look a little in the days or weeks to come.
Transformers was freaking excellent - go see it if you haven't, and if you have, go see it again! Live Free or Die Hard was a colossal letdown - don't waste your time on castrated action fare. Am I the only person alive looking forward to The Simpsons Movie?
Family update - Samantha is doing very well. Alert, aware, laughing and cooing, all that fun stuff. Abby has been giving us a bit of grief around bedtime - just being an almost 4 year old i guess. Hard to believe it's been that long. But everyone is good, and that's all that matters.
Game wise - Snagged Guitar Hero II for the Xbox360, and find it improved on the PS2 one in a big way, most notably in the Iron Maiden department - The Trooper kicks ass! Also getting back into Oblivion again. I'd lost all my save games in a memory card related mishap, so i've started over - and the game still blows my mind with how damn good it is. I've just hit the Shivering Isles expansion, and it's excellent so far.
Best of '07 so far!Overlord kicks ass as well. If the idea of playing as a Sauron looking mother fucker with a hoard of gremlins following you around eating sheep and burning hobbits (sorry, Harflin's), all infused with that trademark British wit by way of Pratchett/Python sounds like a good time to you, well - find this game. It's an 8 for sure.
Tracked down a copy of the new Smashing Pumpkins CD, called Zeitgeist, over the last week or two, and i must say it is goddamn awesome (thanks Mark!). It'd been ages since i've listened to the band - i did own Mellen Collie and Siamese Dream back in the day, but sold them off shortly after Adore killed my interest. I've since gone back and re-listed to a bunch of the old stuff - man these guys were amazing in the day. I'd put Siamese Dream right up there with Ten, Nevermind, and Badmotorfinger as classic representations of the best the 90's had to offer musically. Need to re-buy all their discs now... damn.
Dang fine little Reunion album ya got there!Buy it! Watch it! Love it!Ta for now,
The rundown:
Watching: Renaissance / The Relic / The Thing / Platoon / Falling Down / Transformers
Playing: Oblivion (xbox360) / Guitar Hero II (xbox360) / The Darkness (xbox360) / Overlord (xbox360) / Motorstorm (PS3) / Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
Reading: Zip!
Listening to: Sheavy - The Machine That Won The War / Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist / Smashing Pumpkins - Mellen Collie and the Infinite Sadness / Chris Kirby - on Rum and Religion / The Music - Welcome to the North
Looking Forward to: Pathfinder: Unrated (DVD) / 300 (DVD) / Two Worlds (xbox360)
Cheers,
Steve
"First we find her, then we sleep."
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
"Where the Earth Meets the Sky"
It's been a while once again. For that i don't apologize, as i'm sure you're sick of hearing it. So as i type, i'm at work, it's freakin amazing out, with a nice cool summer downpour going on (you can smell the clean smell of the rain - it's awesome), and Queen are on the DVD player. I'm not a huge Queen fan, they're ok - but this is Queen without Freddie Mercury. This Paul whasisface is actually a pretty damn powerful singer, like a Baritone Freddie M, and i'm digging it - but it got me thinking. When my band (tentatively called "The Rock Machine" or just "The Machine") has been 30 years on, with multiple platinum hits well over a decade old, featuring a long period of inactivity, decides to get together for "one last go" - it's gonna be called one of the following:
Other happenings over the last 30 days or so:
- I've left the DVD Verdict forums, personal reasons more than anything else - but i've moved on. I really don't have any sort of online presence anymore outside of this blog and...
- Facebook - This community is retarded. If you thought the Myspace craze was insane, you haven't seen anything. I haven't dove face first so much into the deep end as dipped my toes into the cold cold waters at the shallow end. It's been a real trip seeing people i haven't heard tell of in over a decade add me to their Facebook accounts.
- My xbox 360 library continues to grow with no rhyme or reason. I've broken 30 titles now, with more on the way over the summer. Most recent additions were Shadowrun (pretty damn cool) and Forza 2 (amazing!). The fact that i can take photos of my cars and upload them to the Forza website never ceases to amaze me. Who knew that next gen gaming would mean taking snaps of purdy cars in real time in the middle of a race and sharing them with a community of gearheads.
My first racecar!
- J.R.R Tolkien's new book was bloody amazing!
- Mitch is back online! I'll try and update links accordingly. Head on over there and yell at him for not updating - tell him i sent ya.
- Kev is home for the summer as of this Saturday, coincidentally, this Saturday also happens to be the first official get together of the summer (for Andy's B-day). Good stuff.
Thats all for now:
The Rundown:
Watching: Flags of our Fathers / Letters from Iwo Jima / Inside Man / Twister
Listening to: Xavier Rudd - White Moth / Powderfinger - Dream Days at the Hotel Existance / Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction
Reading: Shadowrun 4th Edition
Playing: Shadowrun (xbox360) / Forza Motorsport 2 (xbox360) / F.E.A.R (xbox360) / Elder Scrolls: Shivering Isles (Xbox360) / Driver '76 (psp) / Two Worlds (PC)
Cheers,
Steve
"He went out and got himself some corporate sponsors! He's in it for the money, not the science!"
It's been a while once again. For that i don't apologize, as i'm sure you're sick of hearing it. So as i type, i'm at work, it's freakin amazing out, with a nice cool summer downpour going on (you can smell the clean smell of the rain - it's awesome), and Queen are on the DVD player. I'm not a huge Queen fan, they're ok - but this is Queen without Freddie Mercury. This Paul whasisface is actually a pretty damn powerful singer, like a Baritone Freddie M, and i'm digging it - but it got me thinking. When my band (tentatively called "The Rock Machine" or just "The Machine") has been 30 years on, with multiple platinum hits well over a decade old, featuring a long period of inactivity, decides to get together for "one last go" - it's gonna be called one of the following:
-The LAST SHOT AT RELEVANCE tour -
-The LAST MINUTE MONEY GRAB tour -
-The STEVE NEEDS A BIGGER HOUSE AND A FEW MORE CARS tour. -
all damn clever names I thought.
Samantha (the new baby) is doing well, one month old today! Abby and Sarah are great, and work is pretty good, busy as usual (main reason you haven't been seeing updates more frequently.)-The LAST MINUTE MONEY GRAB tour -
-The STEVE NEEDS A BIGGER HOUSE AND A FEW MORE CARS tour. -
all damn clever names I thought.
Other happenings over the last 30 days or so:
- I've left the DVD Verdict forums, personal reasons more than anything else - but i've moved on. I really don't have any sort of online presence anymore outside of this blog and...
- Facebook - This community is retarded. If you thought the Myspace craze was insane, you haven't seen anything. I haven't dove face first so much into the deep end as dipped my toes into the cold cold waters at the shallow end. It's been a real trip seeing people i haven't heard tell of in over a decade add me to their Facebook accounts.
- My xbox 360 library continues to grow with no rhyme or reason. I've broken 30 titles now, with more on the way over the summer. Most recent additions were Shadowrun (pretty damn cool) and Forza 2 (amazing!). The fact that i can take photos of my cars and upload them to the Forza website never ceases to amaze me. Who knew that next gen gaming would mean taking snaps of purdy cars in real time in the middle of a race and sharing them with a community of gearheads.
My first racecar!- Mitch is back online! I'll try and update links accordingly. Head on over there and yell at him for not updating - tell him i sent ya.
- Kev is home for the summer as of this Saturday, coincidentally, this Saturday also happens to be the first official get together of the summer (for Andy's B-day). Good stuff.
Thats all for now:
The Rundown:
Watching: Flags of our Fathers / Letters from Iwo Jima / Inside Man / Twister
Listening to: Xavier Rudd - White Moth / Powderfinger - Dream Days at the Hotel Existance / Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction
Reading: Shadowrun 4th Edition
Playing: Shadowrun (xbox360) / Forza Motorsport 2 (xbox360) / F.E.A.R (xbox360) / Elder Scrolls: Shivering Isles (Xbox360) / Driver '76 (psp) / Two Worlds (PC)
Cheers,
Steve
"He went out and got himself some corporate sponsors! He's in it for the money, not the science!"
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