Star Wars Advent Day 8 and a Rogering of the Rogers

Oh my, what a title.

No books today. The books will be back tomorrow.

Yesterday saw me head up to road to Chester and a meet up of the Roll4it community. They're led by some of the Lovely Gaming People over on the right and for this meet up, we were hosted by :

Enter Elysium who is mostly Youtube (link) and also streams (link) and does the Roll4Its.
Mangledpork aka Bentham of the Youtubes (link).

With special guests :
Margaret Krohn of vlogs (link), gaming videos (link) and streaming (more link). (also admin and major organiser for the Roll4its)
FuzzyFreaks of streaming (link)
RandomTuesday of streaming (link), videos (link), amazing cosplay (more link) and great DM'ing.
And finally the wonderfully voiced Josh of streaming (link) and videos (link)

They're a lovely mob and as charming in person as they are on screen.

The meet up is continuing for the cast over this weekend, with more streams coming soon on the Roll4it channel. I can't watch all of the content that appears over there (mostly because of time !) but I have been hugely enjoying the Stargate Horizons stream that has been playing on Sundays lately.

There may have been a series of posters appear in Goa'uld controlled territory as a result of actions that happened in a previous episode.

It's good to be engaged enough in what's going on to have the ideas spark for daft pictures to make. And I do very much like to do nice things for lovely people.

Oh ! What's in the picture ! Today's advent selection was a Battle Droid from the prequel movies joining the rest of the advent thingys. And then we have :

A selection of sweeties, our American friends are being introduced to some of the British sweetie things. I'm wondering what Maggie K and Fuzzy will make of their special teacakes.
A gorgeous dice bag and lovely purple dice within.
Two Roll4it special badges and ...
I picked up a Spider Friend as well.
(There may well have been tastings of the bonbons and the kola kubes too)

I'm super tired now and chilling out to videos, music and writing of the posts. Definitely looking forward to more Roll4it stuff later.

It was fantastic meeting the organisers and the rest of the cast and definitely a highlight saying hello to the rest of this lovely community.

Bee-ing Gromit Hunting and .... a video

More Gromit hunting happened ! Oh and I also reopened that video editing thing ...

This was from Friday last week and it completed the tour. Pics ?

That's from the app and the Light as a Feather was the last one to visit. This was a harder trail than the ones before, there is a lot more gradient involved on that side of town. (Or it was a factor of not feeling that great when starting off).

It started off at Clifton Downs, with George Wallace before heading back into the area by Park Street. There are lots of pretty buildings there (and a Forbidden Planet for peeking at the geeky stuff).

If you looks real close, there's a Gromit in the sightline to the door.

Gromit of the day. A very bright Thermogromit. More sights of the day involved the Clifton Suspension Bridge :

Bridge ... and Bristol Hound Gromit.

More Bridge. From a considerably higher up position than the other picture. The bridge took 33 years to actually build in all (with a pause) and was completed after the death of the original designer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Here's more info (click for bigger as per usual).

I wrote after posting the picture for the last one : "What a long strange trip it's been." It's taken me to parts of Bristol I'd never have considered going to but enjoyed visiting, some parts I'll never go to again (bit rough) and some bits I will definitely look to check out more thoroughly in the future. Worth it. Would I do it again ? Probably not. I still have unfinished business with a couple of them where the shop they were in was closed when I got there.

That's the big comment that I've said before about this turn of Gromit Unleashed, a few too many were locked up behind doors after certain times of the day. Previously, access by the public was pretty much guaranteed.

You want the big pic ... There is a big pic ! Here we go :

Click for bigger again. At thumbnail size, it's pretty much just a jumble of random colour. Apologies for the slightly odd resolution, I was aiming for 1080p but for some reason, couldn't remember the other dimension. Oops !

Talking of 1080p ...

I've been in the video game video game again. This time it was a Warcraft video about one of the achievements. I actually quite enjoyed making it and I've been having the thoughts of doing more. The issues with that are varied but first ... the video :

I hope that doesn't autoplay. The last thing I want is that someone visits a website I'm responsible for and suddenly something starts blaring out with the sound.

Hope you like it ! Not sure if I'll make many more videos and definitely won't be giving up the day job as would be required for making one or two daily videos. Why is that ?

Ideas - the one above is pretty much a one-off. I wouldn't want to subject people to levelling videos. I started watching a much better video person than I (Tradechat !) and I couldn't stick with it. Let's play type series are good though, where you talk around the gameplay of a series like Battletech or XCom 1/2. The creativity comes from how you play the game and how you react to what's going on.

Time - this is the big one. For each video, there is a necessary production and set up time. For the 11.5 minute video above, it needed :
10 minutes or so of time around the recording time to get the character in the right place and to manage the recording software.
Multiple bits of software working together. This isn't actually an issue. I use nVidia's Shadowplay to record gameplay video and audio and Audacity to capture audio from my headset mic. I then use Magix Vegas to stitch them all together. I do it this way because it allows me to mute the voice audio when I sniffle or sneeze (v important) and it allows me to tweak the levels for betterness.
(words are being hard tonight)
Editing time - this needs at least the run time of the video, preferably at least double.
Rendering time. This is where Vegas takes what you produced and turns it into something suitable for uploading to Youtube. The 11.5 minute above took 46 minutes to render on my desktop or would have taken 29 minutes on my laptop. So I'd be doing rendering for further videos on the laptop. It's a very heavy cpu activity, so you wouldn't be able to capture more video while a first is rendering.
Upload time. It felt like this took a couple of hours on my 5Mbit/s line. The actual video was 1.45GB for 11.5 minutes.

I hope you like the video ! One person watched it and the feedback was "You need to make more videos". And that came from the person who got me caught on watching Twitch streams. Coming from the lovely HeyChrissa (link on the right), that comment gave me a huge happy feel.

Maybe more videos again at some point. I quite enjoyed making a video again and was looking for excuses to make more.

I've been buried in Stellaris for the long bank holiday weekend though (outside of a couple of Photoshop/Gimp projects!) and Stellaris was objecting to the Shadowplay capture software ... just pics from that.

But that's for another post ... First :

Building with pointy roof !

Rewriting the songs again

You know sometime, I'll have to get that headset out again and actually try recording some of these parody songs.

Daft post tonight .... Surviving Mars is out tonight, which I've been quite looking forward to. The pre-release streams on the ParadoxExtra with Susie and Nikki of the publishers have been particularly enjoyable. (Here's the link to their playlist again)

Anyway, Nikki mentioned that she's listening to more heavy metal music lately and .... that triggered the "let's rewrite a song into a parody" thing again.

Here goes :
The Martian Immigrant Song

Ah-ah, ah!
Ah-ah, ah!

We come from the home of the pa-ra-dox
From the planet Earth, where the pizza's cold
Managers of people
We'll drive rockets to red Mars
To build the domes, and rush the babes
Mysteries, I am coming!

On we seek with rover drones
Our only goal will be a perfect dome

Ah-ah, ah!
Ah-ah, ah!

We come from the home of the pa-ra-dox
From the planet Earth where the pizza's cold
How fine your dusts so red
Can whisper "look meteor"
Susie the host, Nikki controls
You are our overlords

On we seek with rover drones
Our only goal will be a perfect dome

So now you'd better stop and come join us on Mars
For Nikki's dome will rule the sol despite of all your lazing

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

Here's a link to the Led Zep original of Immigrant Song (you may recognise it from Thor Ragnarok where I was most definitely head bopping along to it in the cinema).

I also rewrote another classic lately for KatherineOfSky, warlord of the Factorio wastes. This one was based on Run To The Hills by Iron Maiden (another link to a youtube version)

Woman came down from the sky
She brought us smoke that made us cry
She killed our blues she killed our nests
She took our dead for her own need

We fought her hard we fought her well
Out on the plains we bit and spit
But still she came with tank and flame
All our colonies will be tamed?

Jumping through ash clouds and barren wastes
Broken tree limbs on the plains
Chasing the robots back to their ports
Biting them in their own game
Murdered for freedom the nuke sneak attack
Woman and turrets and lasers ransack

Run to the hills, run for your lives
Run to the hills, run for your lives

Orange warlord in barren wastes
Hunting and nuking her trade
Mining the iron and stealing the fish
The only good trees meet grenade
Cracking the fuel and being a pest
Destroying the worms and erasing their nests

Run to the hills, run for your lives

Can't beat those classics. But sometimes you can improve on them. I'll leave you with a link to a Weird Al parody based on American Pie. Here is "The Saga Begins". It's brilliant.

PS Too tired to open Surviving Mars tonight but I did enjoy listening and watching to the Susie and Nikki launch stream.

Videoing, cricket, trips

We've been enjoying a fairly sunny bank holiday here, which effectively means an extra day off and a 3 day weekend.

I have, of course, been inside looking after my tortured toes and watching the cricket while doing lots of internet spaceship flying. I have to admit, the addiction is waning a little bit although I think that'll come back more when I'm back in the bubble getting new ships to fly.

I've had that particular ship for very many light years so far :

The green line is approaching the start point again .... Although I will admit, I have abandoned the thought of coming back along one outer galactic arm in favour of straight lining it back again.

And seeing sights like :

I came out of hyperspace at the White (actually very very blue) star and quite possibly bounced off the yellow star behind it. This is after I turned around to take a look.

Yep. Still enjoying seeing the sights in the game. I've produced a third video (which is starved for views so far, I have 19 total to date and this one on docking has just 2), although that one saw the return of nvidia's capture software also unintended, capturing my voice too. I'd recorded that separately and told nvidia to ignore the mic (I know why it happened, I have my mic set to "Listen to this device", so Windows mixed it in).

I think I have sufficient footage to put a fourth video together, involving bimbling around the Colonia region and doing flybys of a megaship plus there might actually be an asteroid base in there. I also have footage from the open beta site. I must put a voice on that at some point. I won't be doing many more videos, unless I decide to make series out of games like Halcyon 6 or Cosmoteer. I've gotten what I wanted out of figuring out what goes into video making, it's up to others really to ... give me the motivation to produce more and the views aren't telling me that's something people want. Plus the days of making a fortune from youtube in your spare time are long gone !

Outside of that, I'm doing ok. I'm seeing slow repairs happen on my outsides. Situation normal there, it's ridiculously easy to set back any healing that happens but it is happening albeit slowly. I just have to give it chance.

My neck has got better ! It started recovering on Friday I think and has relented over the weekend.

I've been watching the cricket too. It's shaping up to be an exciting finish tomorrow, although hopefully not too tense a finish. I'll be happy to be able to disappear from work at about the normal time tomorrow (need supplies again) with the game done and dusted by tea with another England win.

I do like not knowing who's going to win in a game but I also like England teams to win. (Except maybe the footballers cos they ain't really an England team are they ...)

It'll be a great weekend of cricket next weekend too. I still need to watch Spiderman Homecoming ! First thought was to watch that on Friday pm when there was no cricket but .... I hadn't realised the ladies were having their finals day. Want to watch that. Solution - tv box recorder ! And then the mens T20 final is on Saturday. Been saving up my pizza tolerance for that.

Dark Tower was pretty good this week. It kept the tension up and did the required thing of bringing the viewer in steadily to a new and complex world. Definitely enjoyed that. I also enjoyed watching Valerian, making me the heretic amongst the Work-Ish mob.

I'll quite happily be a heretic if it means I'm enjoying something. Hmm. Maybe out in public isn't the best place to admit that.

Let's see .... I need ..... A DISTRACTION !

(Yes - the paint needs a severe case of retouching !)

First Earth like planet I've found so far in the travels.

Signing off for now but not before :

If anyone reading this is in Texas, stay safe !

Making .... better movies ?

Video number 2 is uploading as I type ... (addon - upload complete ! Here's the link)

I didn't link my first effort because, to be honest, I don't think it's anywhere near the standard that I'd want to see from anyone on Youtube. And way below the standards I expect from myself. But that was a lot of the point of making the video, to learn, to test, to figure out what I'd need to do and what facilities I should have in order to make videos.

You can hear people talking about stuff .... but you never really fully understand until you're in the same position or doing the same things.

Tonight's is showing off some of the more beautiful sights I've seen so far in Elite ... and the most dangerous too.

Neutron star pulsar - yesterday. I talk about this one a bit in the video but typing is always more coherent with me. A neutron star is a stellar object that's gone through the lifecycle of being a star, exploded and left behind a fragment that condenses and compresses into the smallest possible object short of a black hole. It is a mass of protons and electrons all mashed up into a quantum soup of neutrons.

They're not so dense that they collapse further into black holes, instead they stay as these highly luminous micro-stars throwing off particle streamers as they rotate. I found a couple that rotated quite slowly, producing gorgeous effects like the one above.

I read an excellent short story covering these Neutron Stars too, by Larry Niven as part of his Known Space universe of novels and stories. I'd recommend trying that short story if you can find a copy.

There are some black holes in the upcoming video as well (it's still uploading as I type but a link will arrive later). They are definitely more terrifying as a moving image as you see the distortion of spacetime around the object of ultimate doom.

It has got me learning though, what would go into making these videos if I were to do them more.

Wot dat ?

Space and storage seems to be the big thing.

You need hard disc space for the games but the video capture, footage and ultimate output take up a lot of space. Tonight's video is about 25 minutes but the captured footage (not using all of it) takes up 15GB. The final video takes up 3.5GB.

I'll run out of hard disc space soon if I keep all the videos !

Processor is another thing that takes a hit. My i5-2500k processor renders the videos at about 4x the run time of the video. So an hour of video will take 4 hours to render. Newer processors are faster, more cores help with Magix Vegas studio.

And a big factor is the capture of sound. You can hugely tell the difference in quality between a headset quality mic and a broadcast quality mic. The sound is hugely different. I wonder how many people recognise my voice from the videos ? I don't recognise it but that's partly because you hear your voice through the direct connection between mouth and ear (the sound travels through your skull). You don't hear your voice how other people hear it.

Graphics .... will depend heavily on the game. To show off a new first person shooter type game, you'd want the super powerful £300+ and better graphics cards. But to capture Elite, my £200 nVidia 1060 seems to be good enough.

I'd want to build a new PC and get a decent microphone set up if I was to do the videos more. At the moment, it'll be occasional videos when I find something I think will amuse people. Perhaps Kerbal Space Program ... that's always good for sudden and hilarious failure leading to massive explosions.

I'm hyped at the moment and I hope people enjoy the video when it goes live ... soon ! (I am looking at the Youtube upload window in another tab and it's taking aaaaages ....) I ain't giving up the dayjob any time soon though. Youtube has turned hostile to its content creators and it wouldn't pay its way now.

Besides, I get to be involved with some very cool kit via work and I work with some great people. Not looking to change that just yet !

Making Movies

Something new today.

I have a video rendering at the moment .... I've done the picture editing and the writing here but video is something I haven't done yet.

It didn't quite go as planned. Haha, I wanted to upload something around 30 minutes but it's ended up being just over 1 hour. Oops. I talk too much and I've fast forwarded through some of the bits of me talking as well.

This is a learning thing really, I fully expect to be hiding the forthcoming video (it's still rendering) and making it private because it falls far below the standards that I'd want to have out there. But .... it's a first learning effort and the point is to pick up all the lessons from it.

It should, however, look amazing. We shall see ! It's currently halfway through the rendering stage, where the 1 hour video will take 4 hours to convert. And then there will be more time needed to upload it to Youtube. That's another point of this learning exercise, to go through that whole process to see what's involved.

Anyway ... I used the nVidia GeForce Experience thing with its game overlay to do the recording. This seems to work really well ! Except for it capturing your microphone in the same audio track as the game audio. This is a problem because you can't independently adjust the levels or mute yourself when you're sniffing or sneezing.

It happens.

I'll update with a link to the video or try to embed it when it's up. We'll see how it ends up ! There's a lot of me rambling, lots of pretty spaceship piloting periods, 3 bits where I fast forward all the jumping and treat you to some non copyrighted music ...

And hopefully you can forgive some of the things like really bad mic sound !

Ahh - one thing I'll do next time is still allow nVidia to record the gameplay audio and video but I'll record me through the Audacity software. That way I can boost my still not working that well microphone up to balance with the audio of the game. Until it's split, you're at the mercy of the levels being a bit odd.

And I think that will up the quality no end.

Perhaps enough to do justice to the pictures ?

I'll also watch out for that length, as 1 hour 5 minutes is really too long. A lot of people do their splits by running to the end of missions, or breaking at 20 to 25 minute points. I don't think that would have worked here, although I can do short videos when I'm at the black holes or later when I'm back in the populated bubble doing trading or other things like that.

Perhaps a script as well ? Nah. I like freeform speech/rambling and making up that script as I go along. I need to watch the umms and arrs though.

The render is scheduled to finish at about midnight here, where I'll hopefully be heading off to either sleep or start it off uploading to Youtube. We'll see.

Before then though, I'll be resting up the pilot at Polo Harbour before heading off into the core :

(Shush whoever spotted that the pic is actually Gagarin Gate ! You shall expose yourself as an incorrigle spotter :-) ).

I'll be picking up more video making ideas though and hopefully making polished shiny ones soon. I think Cosmoteer will give me good material to talk around ... and some of the role playing games with their storytelling.

Later !

PS Addon. Someone I know at work is celebrating a birthday today ...

Happy birthday Miss S ! There may have been cake ... It has mysteriously disappeared now ... :-D

Simply The Best

Have you ever listened to a song and thought ... This is their best, it cannot be beaten.

I have ... and here are a few of them. They're some of my favourites from a multitude of artists but beware, most of the songs in here are in the list because they provoke an emotional response. Some may require hankys !

Oh and there are a few artists I listen to a lot who aren't here ... If you have some amazing music to suggest for me, please leave the track name and artist in the comments. I'm always on the look out for more to listen to. A lot of what I do listen to is due to suggestions from other people.

Bring 'em on ! Oh and this post was mostly inspired last night by me going "I'll just listen to Ting Tings The Wrong Club and go to bed." That track is possibly the best they'll come up with, it's got the words, the message, the music and an excellent video too. It's a track I'll keep going back to.

Labelling something as "the best and they will make nothing better" is a little sad though. It's better when the group constantly surprises you with more and more excellence. Bat For Lashes is a perfect example here. You hear songs like What's a Girl To Do ? (Dat video) and you think it's amazing. Then she beats it with the beauty of Moon and Moon from her second album. And beats it again with the powerful Laura.

But it's best when the groups constantly change their style. Madonna does this with every album, Goldfrapp do to a certain extent. I don't think Goldfrapp have beaten the Metropolis inspired Utopia. I'll keep going back to Alison Goldfrapp's incredible voice that's shown off in Utopia and the weird and wonderful Voicething. And then there's the chill out of Road To Somewhere.

It's a little sad when groups seem to burn out early or they do one song out of character that has total beauty. Here are a few :

T'Pau's - China In Your Hand
A-Ha - Take On Me (still more brilliance to come but nothing got close to this)
Cranberries with Linger, Shakespeares Sister with Stay
Stairway to Heaven ! (I hope they didn't copy)
Dirty Vegas - Days Gone By (perhaps it's the acoustic style)
Alisha's Attic - The Incidentals - I was hoping for much more from these ladies, 3 albums were not enough.
Massive Attack - Teardrop
Morcheeba - The Sea
Snow Patrol and the Martha Wainwright combination for Set The Fire To The Third Bar
U2 with Beautiful Day ? I don't listen to much U2. Too disconnected from reality.
Evanescence with My Immortal

And an advert just gave me a teaser of Kate Bush's forthcoming live album. I'll pick that up at some point but she's a good case of an artist who was incredible for a long time but then seemed to lose the touch. For me, her albums after The Sensual World just aren't nearly as good as what came before. The advert was for a track from Hounds Of Love but I present here, This Woman's Work.

Other groups who have gone away from an earlier style or perhaps ran out of inspiration are people like :

Pink Floyd's style changes with the decades but they were most inspired in the 70s with tracks like Wish You Were Here.
Arctic Monkeys had a brilliant first few albums but have gone off a bit. But then you listen to songs like A Certain Romance again and remember their magic.
Similar with Seal, the voice is still there though but has he ever bettered songs like Future Love Paradise ?
Dire Straits seemed to run out of ideas after Brothers In Arms. Indeed, they split after the following album. Mark Knopfler still makes amazing music and excellent soundtracks.
Air's magical All I Need.

I'd include Portishead here with songs like Roads. You see the intensity in live performances like that and you wonder how they can pull it off so well without collapsing into a mess afterwards.

There are also artists taken from us before we heard all they have to give. I still like Eleanor Rigby best from the Beatles but there was more to come after the Beatles with songs like John Lennon's Imagine and George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. And then there is Thriller by Michael Jackson, he definitely had more gifts to give.

You know. Songs that make you sit up and listen. The Veronicas did that to me with their song Untouched. Very powerful, very dramatic. And the ears always perk up with Little Boots comes on too. I don't think she's bettered Remedy. Paramore's wonderful The Only Exception is always a sit up and listen highlight.

That's a lot of music though. Lots for people to listen to ! (I have been pondering investigating Spotify playlists ... would it be worth it ?)

There have been a few bands who keep coming out with new and even better music than we've heard before. Nina Persson still has it, after starting in the Cardigans, moving through a very dark phase with the Cardigans, transitioning to A Camp with songs that speak to me like Song For The Leftovers and now going solo with tracks like Animal Heart.

I've always kept an eye on Tori Amos too, she just continues to give us new albums with more brilliant music. And there's usually a surprise in there too. Just when you think she couldn't beat Silent All These Years or Space Dog, out comes an I Can't See New York or a The Beekeeper.

All About Eve too, kicking off with tracks like Martha's Harbour, indeed all of their first album was amazing. Then there's Scarlet and Are You Lonely to finish off their third album. And then she comes back with the Mice album ! Love the Doctor Who inspired Blue Sonic Boy.

That's an awful lot to listen to though. (And I'll be catching up the links too !)

One last song. The way an album starts and finishes is very important. Arctic Monkeys did this with A Certain Romance but the one I'm really thinking of is Sleeper. They seemed to be interfered with somewhat by labels wanting to split the singer from the band and never really bettered their first album which finished with the song I'll close on : Click ... Off ... Gone.

Anyone got any more song ideas for me ?

Shop music

I had a request yesterday - a playlist for a shop ...

I think we'd find it difficult to get a cd over to shop (plus I really don't trust my cd drive !) but it sparked one of those dangerous things ... An idea !

So - shop music ? Depends on the shop really. Some shops want to bring you in and show off what they're selling. Other shops want you to hang around, chill out, empty them of coffee, have a natter. Bars will be similar. Nightclubs want to make your ears bleed. And there's the tunes which will stick in your mind and drag you back to the shop later to buy the album.

Mood is a definite reason for selecting certain music. Whether that's wanting to set a certain mood (coffeechill, hyperdance) or catch the general mood. So at the moment, there are two major moods going in music :

Chill out with Take It Easy by The Eagles;
Set a romantic mood with Absolute Beginners by the genius Bowie;
Go for a bouncy mood with Daft Punk (One More Time ?)

The shops will want to draw you in though and hopefully keep you around. And one way of doing that is by having the good music on. I've been caught by that a few times when the shop has been playing some of my favourite music.

It wasn't Untouched by the Veronicas that got me buying their albums in (that shop ending with a V), it was actually You Ruin Me. But Untouched is the track of their's that catches in my head. I'll stick around for that.

The Pretenders do this too, with songs like Brass In Pocket.

More instrumental styles help too, where conversation is important. Enya will always catch the ear with songs like Evening Falls. One for those candlelit restuarants ?

Some artists are a bit mixed. They do gorgeous songs but the mood isn't right. Duffy's Mercy was a nightclub favourite (haha - what do I know about nightclubs ? very little!) but while most of her other sings are absolutely stunning, they're a bit too sad for shops and bars.

With some songs, it's not about the music. It's where you heard it first. Things like hearing Bear Necessities made me want to buy The Jungle Book.

Wonder if I have any songs about chocolate ...

Haha - the Levellers just started with Far From Home. But their song The Boatman makes me dream of being on that narrowboat. Definitely one to play in the bar/coffeeshops near the boating exhibitions.

Christmas songs are very situational but pretty effective too. Can't beat a bit of Wishing On A Star (Rose Royce) or Baby It's Cold Outside.

I wonder how Yello's The Race would do in a car sales place (depends on the car!) or a betting shop ?

Oh my - Eric Clapton with Wonderful Tonight for that bar. Magic. Most of Seal's stuff too. Although sometimes songs like Killer might ... kill the mood. But if you can start a playlist with something like Alisha's Attic's Wonderful You ? (It's a b-side, probably ultra difficult to find sadly) I'm currently listening to Love from Seal's album 7 and it's a good one.

Fleetwood Mac's You Make Loving Fun - wonder when the last time was that this was played in a nightclub ?

Something I've not watched for far too long - T.V. Carpio's version of I Wanna Hold Your Hand from Across The Universe, which had so many fantastic versions of Beatles songs. Imagine that one coming over the speakers when you have someone with you who you wish was ... holding your hand ? And on that note, there's Lisa Miskovsky (who I really need to acquire more albums from) with Take Me By The Hand.

A happy boppy song just started - it's Good Time from Carly Rae Jepsen's album Kiss. Definitely a happy song, it's got me doing the chair boogie that hopefully no one notices you doing. Three albums escaped with me last night, Carly Rae Jepsen's Kiss, Seal 7 and Sia was in there too with We Are Born. I'll be enjoying listening to those bit by bit over the next week or so :-).

Going down my pointers/reminders list I see Glamour Puss (weird video!) by KT Tunstall - one for the clothes and accessories shops ? Also Pretty Woman. Classic.

[cough-splutter] A little further down that list is Lisa Hannigan with Safe Travels (Don't Die). SERVICE STATION MUSIC ! Safe travels on them motorways :-).

And talking of a song that'll stick in your head for days, actually there's a few :
Mindy Gledhill's I Do Adore;
Pretty much anything Nina Simone sings - Feeling Good ?

I'm so tempted to say Ting Tings The Wrong Club, although I'm not sure that's just me seeing it in my list of best songs or whether it's something that might send the wrong message in a shop or a bar. Love the song though and it definitely catches the ear. (Has a swear though!)

I better stop now cos it's going to take a while to catch up with the Youtube links and listen to all these great songs.

Oh - one last one ... This would be a really bad one to have in a Doctor Shop : The Drugs Don't Work by The Verve. Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up might be better.
Maybe one more. However tempted you are by mischievous feelings, I would advise against playing this song in a shop. Any shop. It's Gorillaz with M1A1 and I nearly chose it as a phone ring tone ...

Last one ! What does a shop want you to do ? Linger ! Here's one by The Cranberries, a group that a Very Special Lady reminded me about a little more than a year ago. Cheers !

A to Z - X is for Xylophone (also has Y's, Z's and 0's)

We don't hear enough of the xylophone in modern music.

Create a new cause ! Bring Forth The Xylophone Bands !!!

So what have we got in X ? I am going to cheat too. There will be Y's, Z's and Number Albums here too because we're that close to finishing off.

First up is Coldplay with X and Y. Another good album from them but their main problem is that so much of their stuff just sounds the same as the last track. Which is sad. Great individual tracks, bit of a bore of an album. But still very listenable to.

Next one up is a game soundtrack, this time from Xenonauts. Very creepy soundtrack, rather fitting to the game, which is an Aliens Invade And We're Not Ready game. It's set in maybe 80s time and typically for these, you're outclassed at the start and racing to catch up and then keep up with the technology the aliens have to play with. If you'd like to see more, there's an excellent playthrough from Scott Manley (linky).

The XX are a group that emerged a few years ago. They quickly stood out with a fairly unique sound, with the two vocalists blending in with the instruments in a way that was inspired and sublime. Their self titled album is a cracker to listen to. Highlight ? Crystallised was the track that introduced me to them, it was a freebie from iTunes single of the week.

And we're quickly into the Y's with Franz Ferdinand's You Could Have It So Much Better. This one's a great one to listen to as well. I've been listening to several Kings Of Leon albums too, their Y is Youth And Young Manhood. Again, a decent album but ... it's not that female soaring vocal archetype that gets me sitting up and listening.

No Z's ? That doesn't seem right for a Sleepy Person. Must see if I can find some Z albums.

The Beatles have always been an incredible band and I picked up their 1 album quite a few years ago. Still enjoy it, it's loaded with cracking songs like Eleanor Rigby, Yesterday, Something and Let It Be. They made some very sweet music in their time.

I picked up Air's 10,000 Hz Legend which is another decent album but none that really stand out sadly. Still worth a listen if you can find it cheap. Air are different enough to be very interesting :-).

In seeking to expand my classical collection, I picked up the 40 Most Beautiful Classics album. Classical can benefit from collections. With vocal music, I prefer to avoid collections and get the main albums but classical collections cut out the filler and just have the excellence.

Kasabian's latest is 48:13. Again, a really good album but the songs mush into each other. It doesn't have the character of Velociraptor. Another mushy together album was Kate Bush's 50 Words For Snow. It's a shame Kate Bush reached her zenith with The Sensual World, the rest of her albums were missing that early brilliance. (Must listen to The Kick Inside again soon).

One album of sheer brilliance is Suzanne Vega coming in with 99.9 degrees F. This one is loud, tuneful and showing off some unusual ways of making the music. Possibly her best (after Solitue Standing) and the highlights just keep on coming, including Blood Makes Noise (which makes impressive use of stereo) and the sad songs like Blood Sings and Bad Wisdom. Highly recommended.

Last one for the A to Z's :

2001 was a great movie. Ok, perhaps it was a little slow in parts but it still stands today as one of the best movies ever made. In my opinion :-). The special effects still stand in excellent stead in today's era of computer graphic animation. And what ties it all together is a soundtrack that shows off some of the best classical music. I'd thoroughly recommend watching the film and listening out for that soundtrack.

That's it for the A to Z's ! I may do another at some point for all the music that's appeared since I started these. All those albums that missed out the first time around. I think The Staves with Dead and Born And Grown was one of those. I'm enjoying working my way through listening to their new album but I'm listing it here just so I get an excuse to listen to the amazing Wisely And Slow. Great harmonies.

Great music.

I hope if anyone's been reading these, they've been introduced to some new music they've taken a liking to. That's the main reason I do the music posts, to expose people to new stuff that I hope they enjoy.

As I hope you enjoy this one ! (Listen to the Staves ...)

A to Z - W is for ... Warble ?

It's been a while ...

Not many more of these to go and what a good album to start with - it's The Wall by Pink Floyd. Ok, not the best album but it's the last good one from their 70s era. There's a bunch of classic songs here, like Another Brick In The Wall, Comfortably Numb and Goodbye Blue Sky. I'd recommend the movie adaptation with Bob Geldof as something reasonably worth watching.

Why am I not going nuts over this one ? Pink Floyd struggled somewhat as their band make up changed. 60s was wonderfully psychedelic with Syd Barrett. 70s was angry but tuneful with Roger Waters. 80s and onwards was dull and mediocre (although there is the occasional shining light on A Momentary Lapse Of Reason). This was their last great album. More later ...

Sophie Ellis-Bextor caught my eye again with Strictly Come Dancing reminding me of how well she can sing. She's in here with her latest album, Wanderlust. It's a decent album, albeit lacking a little in inspiration. But still a good listen. Highlight for me here is The Deer And The Wolf.

Oh my - here's a classic. It's the original War Of The Worlds with such legends as Justin Hayward, Richard Burton, David Essex but although I really enjoy Forever Autumn and will happily sing along to Thunderchild, the highlight for me is Spirit Of Man for Beth's (Julie Covington) vocals.

Up next is a couple of soundtracks from an old legend and its promising followup. I really need to continue the playthrough I started. It's Wasteland and Wasteland 2 and the soundtracks are suitably atmospheric.

Did I mention classic vocals ? Here's Enya with her debut album, Watermark. The highlight here will always be Orinoco Flow.

Another debut comes from The Ting Tings with We Started Nothing. I love this album, it's bright pop with lots of punk thrown in too. She's not the best singer, they're not the best band but I still love 'em nonetheless. I regret missing out on seeing them last year (feeling too grotty) but I'll hopefully catch them when they come back to Bristol. One highlight of many is Great DJ.

The classics keep coming - Frankie Goes To Hollywood had a burst of inspiration for Welcome To The Pleasuredome, the first half of which is excellent with tracks like the title track, Relax, Two Tribes, War with The Power Of Love being one of the closing tracks. Decent album but could have benefitted from losing some of the poorer tracks.

Kasabian aren't the female pop/rock/indie vocalist band I'm usually interested in, so their albums must be good. They're here for West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum and my highlight is Fire.

Barbra Streisand is one I borrowed from my dad, she's here with What Matter's Most. She's an absolute legend of a singer and my highlight here is The Windmills Of Your Mind.

I got introduced to Aimee Mann by a good friend oh ... too many years ago. Her W album is Whatever, decent album but I didn't really pick out a highlight.

Arctic Monkeys have been quite prolific although I don't think they're as inspired now as when they came out with albums like Whatever People Say I Am, I'm Not. Great album, it sets a tone early and carries it through. They stand out cos they're different. And this album finishes off wonderfully with A Certain Romance.

Snow Patrol are the opposite, they started a bit weak and definitely improved. Their W is When It's Over We Still Have To Clear Up.

I've enjoyed listening to The White Stripes, they're here with White Blood Cells, again not as inspired as albums like Elephant.

Oh dear ... here comes a Christmas album - yep. I bought White Christmas. Moving swiftly on ...

An oldie but a goodie, classic crooner's Chris Isaak's Wicked Game is a classic album with songs like the title track but followed up with good ones like Blue Hotel too. Well worth a listen.

Paul Weller's Wild Wood is a decent album, although not a favourite. The title track is my highlight.

One of the best albums I have is Wish You Were Here from Pink Floyd. The tribute tracks here are outstanding. One of the strengths of the album is how the tracks link in to each other. Like the track Wish You Were Here starting up as someone changing the radio away from the previous track, jumping over several stations and finally finding a guitar playing. He then plays along to the guitar and off goes one of the best songs there is.

Last one ...

And it's a weird one. Look away now if easily frightened.

Yep. I own this album. And I thoroughly enjoy it. In fact, I may pick up Chas and Dave's collection soon too. There - I said it. Oh this one's a classic. Definitely English/Cornish cider swilling goodness. From The Combine Harvester Ooo-Arr-Ooo-Arr to I Am A Cider Drinker.

You haven't lived if you haven't heard this traditional brand of fun song.

And I'll run off now to join the rest of you who are no doubt, running away screaming ... (there's a song for that too !)

Photo Challenge Day 11 - Green

To be honest,

I still don't have much of a clue for a Green themed photo post. I have another pic coming up later in the month which has lots of green in it but ... I have another theme in mind for that.

How about - anti green ?

Why green ?

Cos the terrible threesome above are sitting in a green screen room, with the image superimposed on top. Or the game video is there instead. Haha - ok, yep. It's a terrible excuse for a green theme but ... the livestream last night was worth it.

More background ?

From left to right in the pic is Killer Kim, Stupendous Simon and Horrible Hannah. They're all 3 members of the Yogscast and (Lewis too), they're the driving force behind Yogscast. They put out incredible amounts of content. They (well, Hannah & Kim !) do the serious reporting. They keep the standards, they set the tone.

What is that tone ? Why do I keep coming back to watch them ? It's :

Fun.
Mischief.
Spontaneity.
Craziness.
Empathy with the game characters and ability to carry the audience along with that.
Incredible voices.
Interesting* content.
*(even when the games are rubbish, Hannah & Kim will make the videos worth watching)
Feistiness.
Confidence.

In a time when my own game playing and my reading have suffered due to the secondary effects of my illness, firing up the videos these two ladies make has kept me going. They're awesome. Their spontaneity and intelligence genuinely adds huge value to the games on screen. You could say it's the gaming version of the audiobook, except they're adding their own comments to the literature of the game.

And those comments can be truly hilarious or deeply saddening, depending on what's going on. I'm rewatching Kim's The Last Of Us series at the moment, that's an example of the sad videos, as was her playthrough of Valiant Hearts which showed the building horrors of the first World War. Hannah's just attacked the first episode of Telltale's Tales of the Borderlands, which I found so amusing that I'm catching up with her Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us series.

May they stay in the video game ... game ... for many more years to come. They're awesome.

So why highlight for this post ?

Yogscast do an annual charity drive with livestreams all the way through December. They've raised $483,000 so far this month, at time of typing. That's pretty good for an internet channel. Hopefully they'll smash through $1m by the end of the month.

I think we need a little bit of linky love ... Here's Hannah's channel, here's Kim's. Enjoy ! And I think we need another pic. Just for Hannah & Kim :

You definitely were last night on the livestream. Oh and, last one, especially for Kim after some words that ended up on the end of the competition instructions :

Muahaha. Cya tomorrow.with "joy is". No - it's not going to be "Hannah and Kim sing", although I'm tempted. I have something else in mind ... Haha, it's not going to be "Pete gets to see movie with Pretty Lady" (Hobbit 3 Monday !) either :-).

PS There's one coming up with the theme "presents", I have something in mind involving another shoutout but if Hannah objects (I hope you scan this milady !) then I'll come up with something different.

A to Z - R is for Recital

I mentioned before - no Q for this series, I don't actually own any Q albums ... Ok, there's 2 Queen greatest hits cds but they're in the G's. Their second greatest hits just joined the collection actually, I needed a second for a 2 for deal to introduce me to Nightwish.

How's Nightwish ? Very theatrical. Very polished. That seems to be a trend in metal music lately. Less thrash, more heavy operatic. I'm not convinced by that trend, by polishing the music, they take the raw emotion out of it. That's why I like Evanescence, because they keep that raw emotion coming through the music.

R's ?

I've found Radio 1 Live Lounge to be a good source of new artists to add to the collection and have a selection of the cd's in the library. Highlights are where artists cover other people's songs and make them truly special. Like Little Boots with Beat Again, Avril Lavigne with The Scientist and Arctic Monkeys with You Know I'm No Good. I prefer all 3 of those over the originals.

One of my teenage music influences was T'Pau and they followed a decent first album with Rage. It's one of those albums which has big highs, big lows, good bits, bad bits. I played the hell out of it and was happily singing along to tracks like Secret Garden. Carol Decker's still got it 20 years after she recorded the original.

Back to something more contemporary. I discovered Daft Punk through enjoying their soundtrack to Tron Legacy and then checked out their own stuff. Random Access Memories is their latest. It's a decent listen, not quite what I usually listen to (not enough girlie vocals) but tracks like Get Lucky still get my toes tapping.

And now backwards - I dislike U2 as people because they're a typical example of what happens when too much money make people a little loopy. But ... they still made some amazing music. Like Rattle And Hum, including tracks like All I Want Is You. Now who might "You" be ?

But I do much prefer female vocals like the ever incredible, ever evolving, ever beautiful Madonna with Ray Of Light (I almost typoed Yay of Light, which sums up what I feel when some of its tracks come on). The famous track here is Frozen but my favourite is Nothing Really Matters.

Strictly Come Dancing has introduced or reminded me about a few people, this time it's Sophie Ellis-Bextor with her collection album, Read My Lips. There's a few great tracks here, Groovejet has that characteristic dance groove, Lover makes you want to have someone feel special, Is It Any Wonder has that ethereal voice

Crowded House have stood the test of time. They're still doing well today and their R album, Recurring Dream, is full of great songs. Like ... the one that opens it, Weather With You. What's it like where you are ? Sunny here today.

Going way back to before I was born now. It's Pink Floyd with Relics. It's a collection of their music in the 60s. Floyd changed considerably with the decades, their 60s music is definitely the quirkiest music they did. I'll pick out Remember A Day here for the Richard Wright tribute.

I don't have too many collections albums in the library, I usually get the full original albums instead. Retrospective by Suzanne Vega is another of these, although it does have some different versions of the original songs, like The Queen And The Soldier.

Another collection ? All About Eve have had their back catalogue mercilessly raided over the years with albums like Return To Eden which has versions of their songs which didn't have the final production polish behind them. It's saved by Julianne Regan's voice and a wonderful cover of Devil Woman.

I have most of the Star Wars soundtracks ! And I'm proud to admit that. Ha. Most of them come under S but there's one under R - Return of the Jedi. You know this one already don't you ?

Paul Simon is another golden oldie that's still knocking around with albums like Rhythm Of The Saints, including tracks like The Obvious Child. He's still got something unique with that soft voice of his.

Franz Ferdinand keep my attention with their quirkiness. Their Right Thoughts, Right Action album is another pretty good one but make sure you get the deluxe version as it has a second cd with live versions of the album plus some of their best stuff like Ulysses.

Paramore burst into everyone's attention with their first album Riot! Love this album, it was a great introduction for another full band group. Tracks like Let The Flames Begin having the band fully complement Hayley's voice.

Chris Rea's been knocking around for a while too and one of his better known albums is Road To Hell. This one's packed with great songs too. Texas ? They got big long roads out there.

Another oldie ? Meat Loaf's been around a while too and I have his Rock N Roll Hero collection. It's ok for a collection but he's not really a favourite. Perhaps I hear the damage he's done to that incredible voice of his.

And talking of an incredible voice, here's Duffy with Rockferry. I have the special 2cd version, which I'd thoroughly recommend because the second cd has some excellent songs on it. Like the plaintive Please Stay but there's also other sad but wonderful songs like Warwick Avenue and Delayed Devotion.

Puss In Boots was a great film (well, I enjoyed it) and it introduced me to the instrumental guitar music of Rodrigo y Gabriela. I need more of their stuff alongside their self titled album with tracks like a sublime cover of Stairway to Heaven.

Last 2 ! The penultimate of Coldplay's A Rush Of Blood To The Head. I'm not sure about Coldplay, a lot of their music mushes into the same track. There's not much distinctiveness to them, outside of their Wall Of Sound technique. Favourite here is Clocks.

And ... finishing on a high note ... Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is one of the best albums of all time. It was born in a time of emotional turmoil for the band and that fire forged an incredible album with tracks like Oh Daddy, Go Your Own Way, You Make Lovin' Fun and ... The Chain.

Yep. I'm a child of the time BBC had the Grand Prix coverage and there's something that feels very Right and The Chain being the theme of Formula One.

Time to close now. S will be on the way ... sometime. But I should actually hit under 1000 tracks left to listen to by the end of today ! That's only taken ... 13 months. Cor.

Seeing a story

I've not been reading that much these days, which I'm a bit sad about.

Depending on the book, I'm a pretty fast reader. Some books take a while, some books I'll fly through. 300 pages in a couple of days kind of thing.

Jack Campbell and Iain M Banks (hope his soul got uploaded to a good place) are examples of really fast reads. At least, Jack Campbell in his Lost Fleet series. I struggled somewhat with his Stark's War series and haven't finished that.

Suzanne Collins first Hunger Games book was a fast read too. I need to read the other two. That's where I've been today actually, watching the third Hunger Games film. I'm kinda glad this time that the third book has been split into two, it gives the story time to tell its tale. The first Hunger Games had a few things cut that added to the menace of the capital and was still quite a long film.

How is Mockingjay part 1 ? It's a stunning film and it almost got those tears out again. I'm really showing those emotions again, they're bubbling under the surface and threatening to erupt more and more. I like that. I buried those emotions for so long I forgot that I had them.

There is a positive and a negative side to that though. The positive is that I'm Feeling things more. From the emotions from a good story to the rush that gets my blood flowing and the muscles pumping. The negative is that the depression triggers are more prone to kick me where I don't want them to.

Things like attempting to interact with people but getting nothing back. A lot of that is my voice getting lost in the noise made by others attempting to interact with the same people. I do feel honoured though that the little lady aka Cupid's Gift has kept on exchanging big long chatty text messages. It always warms my heart (even outside in the freezing Bristol Xmas market today!!) to see one of those texts coming in.

Things like having an inkling, a desire to go to NEC Comic Con tomorrow but that "yeah ! let's go" being balanced by my personal batteries running on empty right now. I could do with a quiet weekend ... Genki Gear have some stuff I really, really want too.

Who knows ? Perhaps one of those new Bristolian regular readers will see this and pipe up with a "That's a great idea, let's go !" Lol :-) I should be so lucky.

So why no books ?

My skin condition has been rather messy and one place it gets messy is on my forearms. Which is where a book can tend to rest ... So I've been avoiding reading in order to stop wrecking my books. I'll not say any more there !

Except to say I'm winning and hope to beat it and be back to "normal"* by Xmas.

*Anyone who knows me well will agree that I'm anything but normal.

So what has been getting my attention outside of the books ?

I've been watching stories over the Youtubes instead. Games are getting more and more story based these days and modern hardware lets them tell the stories better too. Sometimes it's just a play through of a non-story based but campaign progressing game like Scott Manley doing Kerbal Space Program. Or it's the same guy doing a long play through of Xenonauts. In the space program, you're watching him expand the capabilities of what he can do. For a geeky engineer person like me, it's great viewing. In Xenonauts, you're watching him fight the war against an implacable alien invasion.

It's good stuff.

But me being me, it's not the first channel I go to for stories. Nah. I've always been more taken by the female voice.

And my favourite two female voices both belong to the Yogscast. There's a third and fourth now but they don't make nearly as much regular content as Hannah and Kim. Three and Four are KaeyiDream and Zoey. Kaeyi is inspirational for her continuing battle through ill health. Inspirational because seeing people like that fight through worse conditions than what I have gives me strength to fight harder. And Zoey is ... Cuteasheck (and also battling a psychological condition which is quite possibly meaner than the physical conditions)

Anyway - yeah. Hannah and Kim. Two lovely ladies with voices that I could literally, listen to all day.

In fact, I'm so behind on Hannah's content that I might be listening to her all day tomorrow. (Instead of Comic con).

I've mentioned them before but what are they up to at the moment ?

Hannah's working diligently through the Ubipocalypse. They've released a lot of AAA top games over the past week or so and Hannah is working herself into the ground covering them all. For us. Lovely Hannah.

I'm looking forward to :
Hannah's Advent - where she'll open gifts from the fans.
Livestreams - where our Yogscasts will include us, the audience, with the fun they'll have on screen.
More Hannah vids !

She's got a truly gorgeous voice and a personality that really shines through over the videos. I still need to play through the new(ish) Tomb Raider which I bought after thoroughly enjoying Hannah's playthrough.

Kim's always been a total darling for me, ever since she started doing her videos. It's personality again. If she wasn't so adorable off screen, I'd love her to bits anyway due to that wonderful, warm, mischievous, active, jokey personality shining through via her voice overs on the videos. She shares so much with us, it feels like she counts her loyal audience as her best friends.

Looking forward to her livestreams too. With that spontaneous sense of ridiculous fun coming through, what's not to like. Kim's main content is currently a playthrough of Alien Isolation.

I think that's another part of why I've been watching these stories over videos instead of playing the games. I'm actually finding playing games kinda tedious at the moment, although I suspect that would change if I found a coop partner to play games with. I drifted away from the communities in WoW that did that and was logging in too late to join in with the Silvermoon crew.

Kim's stuff ? It's part single player through of horror themed games, part coop on Minecraft or jumpy games like Alien Isolation. I have to admit, I'm finding the Minecraft content to be somewhat stale right now, although that's a failing of Minecraft. I'm still watching the Kim & Duncan and Hannah & Nilesy Minecraft content but it's struggling a bit, saved only by those voices and their ability to get spontaneous Fun out of anything.

Even being scared to death by aliens who like to look in lockers. And I think I promised a medal to someone too. We shall see there.

So yeah - I'm getting my fill of stories right now but instead of books, it's from watching the animated stories via the youtubes, narrated by a pair of wonderful voices backed by amazing personalities that really do add something to the story of the game.

And if you'll excuse me, I'm about to close my eyes to Nightwish on the stereo (they're ok, bit too theatrical polished for my liking though) and quite soon it'll be Kim in Kill Everything mode in Far Cry 3.

But not quite yet. Because that German Xmas market has reawakened an addiction to hot chocolate. Lovely smooth hot chocolate. Hmm.

A to Z - O is for ... Opera ?

Don't worry - I don't have much opera in the collection.

Before I dive into the O's though - I have some feels to get out the way ...

I think I'm feeling a kind of hangover from Comiccon. Part of my psyche involves being quite comfortable on my own but I also crave, require, demand human interaction. And that goes beyond just the simple FB poke or seeing what people are saying on FB or Twitter. It's needing to see what people think of what I write either here or on FB/Twitter.

I dunno - I guess I must have a kind of restlessness coming on from being in better condition on my outsides. Either that or I'm feeling severely short on hugs and am feeling the need to see some smiles answering my trademark grin. But a lot of what that does say is that I enjoyed Comicon quite a bit, so there is that hangover now.

On that feedback thing, I know people look at what I put here. I see the signature of hits coming in from individually tweeted posts, although that isn't quite the same as Google telling me "Wonderful person clicked here". It definitely doesn't tell me what they thought of what I posted or wrote about them and I think that's what I'm critically missing.

So yeah - slightly down at the moment :
Missing hugs
Missing smiles
Restless from wanting to get out and do things (the skin is improving but I wouldn't have wanted to leave the house yesterday or this morning)
Missing seeing what people think about what I write

I write to make people happy but I have that Need to know whether it makes them happy, mad, cringey, interested?, blushy. Any reaction at all. Not having a reaction opens the way to the depressive part of my brain thinking they hate it. Some of that is tied up in knowing what/who I want, knowing from the information out there that she's available but getting absolutely nothing back. (And in the meantime, there's a very busy Pretty Lady on Okcupid who has my interest)

But saying that, it sounds above like I'm Demanding feedback on what I write. I don't have the right to demand that feedback. I can expect it and look for it but I shouldn't require it. Now to get my subconscious thinking that way too !

To the music ?

I don't have many O albums, so I'm going to sneak a few P's in here too ...

O is for Oldfield and Ommadawn. It's not his signature album (that's Tubular Bells) but it is a fantastic album. Well worth picking up for some chilled out instrumental dominated pure music.

Dire Straits last album was On Every Street. Still a really good album but I think they were maybe getting a little tired. The classic track is Planet Of New Orleans.

Buffy brought teen vampire fiction back to our screens with a massive bang. Hugely impressive series while it lasted. It also brought in musical episodes with Once More With Feeling. Great episode but it has the highlight of the entire series with Under Your Spell. Sung by actress Amber Benson, it is definitely one of the very best tracks of the 13000 in my library.

I think that's one reason for my restlessness. I like to do nice things for people and even though I've reached out to a few, I'm not really getting the chance to do those nice things. I'd like to be under someone's spell.

Next up is Kings Of Leon with Only By The Night. They're not bad but very male mainstream and I don't really go for that. Still, Sex On Fire is a pretty decent signature track.

I'm more into those female singers with the amazing voices and there aren't many better than Amy Lee of Evanescence. Their second album, The Open Door, is full of amazing tracks but I'll pick out Good Enough. First impressions are key but with music, it tends to be the last track you listen to that forms that lasting impression and Good Enough closes out this album.

An album I've had for ages is the Original Soundtrack by 10cc. This has some great classics like the eternally amazing I'm Not In Love (I'm in love with people in general but wanting to be in love with one special person). But you all know I'm Not In Love, so I'll link over Brand New Day instead. Love that track.

Last two for the O's are Overexposed by Maroon 5. Not bad ... but the best track on there is the well flogged Moves Like Jagger. And the last one is Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre.

P's ? I have to mention a film here - Pacific Rim wasn't everyone's favourite. I liked it for being over the top silliness and the so sweet, so cute, so gorgeous Rinko Kikuchi playing Mako. I may have to watch this one again, for the action, the hot asian chick (I seem to be chasing those at the moment for some reason, on Okcupid too) and ... the excellent soundtrack.

Coldplay sneak in with Parachutes. I have a few Coldplay albums but on the whole, find them a bit meh. Must be that male bland unspecial thing again. I dunno, I don't find the current male bands to be that special.

Paramore come in here with their reboot album. Again, pretty good but I think they've lost something. There's no track of the quality of The Only Exception here.

I'll close out with a Lisa Hannigan album. I think my phone was having fun with me on Saturday. When I pulled out of the service station after topping up with munchies, guess what the first track it played was ? Lisa Hannigan, with Safe Travels (Don't Die) from the Passenger album. Those lyrics ...

I don't think it could have picked a more appropriate one to start that leg of the trip off with !

PS Huge thanks for those who do give me feedback, even just the hitting of the Like button on the Facebook linkage. It gives me a big lift, more than you might think.

Comic Con adventures

Off to Comic Con in London yesterday ! Gosh that was a long day. No hold ups on the road but 2 hours drive plus 1 hour underground adds up eventually. Enough about getting there, how was the show ?

I have to say it's lightyears ahead of how I found EGX Rezzed but then again, Rezzed was focused on showing off games that I wasn't really that interested in. Lots of stalls to spend your money at (I exchanged all mine for t-shirts), lots of things to look at. And ...

You know I like dwagons ?
You know I like hats ?

What could be more awesome than :

And I will definitely be wearing that t-shirt in work on Friday. There is a picture of me wearing the Dwagon Hat, it's on Facebook but I won't post it here cos : The camera hates me and I took it at maybe 11.30 last night when Sleepy Pete was being Very Tired Sleepy Pete.

I've been writing a decent amount about the Yogscast youtube video people lately and one of them in particular (more on Kim later!). It's amazing how they've exploded into being one of the biggest channels out there. There's a few reasons for that :

They're really good at what they do
They have huge variation so there's something for everyone*
They have a fantastic Public Face

*(I'm a big fan of Kim and Hannah plus Rythian, Duncan and Zoey but not so much for the rest, they don't tend to play the games I look at)

I think that Public Face is really important. It's the first impression that everyone sees first, before checking out the videos. There's a key theme that runs through the illustrations that make up that Public Face : Craziness, Fun, Icons that pick up the character of who they represent. They're immensely clean high quality, they achieve that big objective of selling the brand and they're simple and clean enough that you Remember them.

And I got to meet one of the lovely ladies who is responsible for a lot of that artwork. She was good enough to keep chatting away too, while her comics and posters were merrily disappearing off the stand into people's bags (compensation paid for of course).

She goes by the tally Nina Serena (@NinaSerena on Twitter and comic link, tumblr link) and here's an example :

I hope she doesn't mind me grabbing that from tumblr. It's from the Lelatte comic, which is about a Dark Elf that isn't your normal Dark Elf. This one is super happy, hyper cute and bouncing around like a Sleepy on Espresso. And all she wants to do is hug the unicorns.

Go on, have a read - I did and was chuckling from page to page. Great illustrations from Nina and funny writing from her Partner in Comics and life.

Oh and she thought I was younger than 30. That's guaranteed to make a Sleepy Pete go Bouncy Pete. There might be life in the old dog yet, although I'm feeling the after effects of Comic Con this morning. I need that conditioning back in my legs.

I have a shoutout to an absent friend too, Nina talks about being a twin to another Yogscast linked person. That'd be Kaeyi who's been going through some horrible sounding health issues recently. She's not been served at all well by our health service. Kaeyi wasn't well enough to go to Comic Con but I hope she'll be able to get to the one in Birmingham NEC. She's being nursed back to health by her Kitty Nurses and it's been encouraging to see the progress over the twitter feed. It does give hope to people with long term or chronic illnesses. Yeah, I feel a bit drained now and my outsides aren't happy but examples like Kaeyi's strength give more hope.

And I really hope she makes it to Comic Con escorted by her Dream Prince Martyn.

Last mention before I close - I'd promised Kim over twitter that I'd try and smuggle some noodles her way. Sadly I lacked the courage to do so on the day. One thing about their popularity is that they can get somewhat mobbed, so they have an escort guy to keep the crowds under control. Let's just say he's very fit and since I lost the weight, even bigger than me now. So I left them be.

I do think it would be nice for them to be able to experience the show anonymously rather than be a part of it.

And for random strange men to get the chance to send noodles their way. Well, I missed the chance yesterday but would be overjoyed if I got the chance to make good that promise and get noodles (or other dinner type munchies !) for our ever wonderful, ever adorable Kim. Especially as :

Yey ! I love you too Kim, you're awesome.