Gym Impressions #1

This is going to be the first of what hopes to be a lengthy series of opinions and reviews towards some music that I have listened to, whilst gymming, to use a bastardisation.  As I have mentioned earlier (I hope), I got myself a little mp3 player which I would then load new albums onto, and then go enjoy them at the gym, and thus avoid having to experience any other noises that may be happening.  I also hope to start adding a few pics to the blog, brighten it up a bit with a few album covers by using Windows Live Writer, so here goes.  If it fucks up then I'll take the post down pretty sharpish and try again :s

EDIT: laptop was being incredibly unresponsive when adding the pix so apologies it looks a little crappy and in need of better presentation, but I ran out of hair to pull out arg!

 

 Mike Park - For The Love of Music

Ah, Mike Park, first experienced this guy when he supported Alkaline Trio when a group of us went to see them in wonderful Brum.  For those not in the know, Mike Park is the founder of Asian Man Records, a record label that Alkaline Trio released some of their first material, hence the connection.  Armed with a stool, guitar and a small projector, he put on one of the greatest, and without doubt most enjoyable support sets I have witnessed.

The standout track from the live performance was of course "From Korea" which he is probably the most well known for.  I acquired two albums through Soulseek - a great little App, a peer-to-peer program which I've found to be the best source for the more obscure and/or less known music.  Anyways, back to the review, and I opted to put on "For the Love of Music" onto the mp3 player because of the familiarity of the "From Korea" track.

Now, "From Korea" itself is a very simple song, in which Mike Park explores the misuse of politically incorrect terms like "gay" and "nigger" to quote the song.  Just like at the live show, the song is very immediate, has a wonderful sing-along quality and serves as an obvious entry point into Mike Park's material.

I admit, I was slightly skeptical at what just one guy with an acoustic guitar could do - could it be as good, if not better than From Korea?  The answer, is most definitely yes, and in fact as alluded to before, "From Korea" Is one of the simplest songs on the album, and that a high number of them contain other strings to add layers to help create a greater depth to the songs.  Park has a wonderful sense of melody and by the second chorus I was already armed with the skills to sing along to what are all at times throughout, simply charming lyrics - "You're grade today, an A for loving me".

Other standout tracks are "I'm Supposed to Be There Too" and the other protest (kinda) song "Hey You!".  Overall, a great little album, I can almost guarantee it will not blow you away in terms of stature or content, but if you feel like kicking back and enjoying some charming, acoustic based, and honest music, then look it up.

 

 AFI - decemberunderground

Not so much a new album, it's been knocking about for at least a year, but I felt it deserved at least a listen.  Now, my first exposure to AFI was the album "Sing the Sorrow" and because of this I'm not a fan of the much more raw and lesser produced material which predates that album (sorry).  Before experiencing decemberunderground, reviews I had read on Amazon had expressed generally negative thoughts due to the departure from the type of music which AFI started out with.  Not weighed down with this emotional baggage, I was ready to check it out.

The first song, or more of a short introduction, sets the scene for more to come, mainly the more orchestral-sounding element which first began on "Sing the Sorrow". Also the first vocals are very much of a "Sing the Sorrow" mould and definitely not the more harsh, ragged, more harsh vocals on previous albums.  The first song "Prelude 12/21" also features the lyric, "kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep", which I almost immediately found myself changing to "Kiss my arse and lay me to sleep" - old habits die hard...

After the quiet opener, the album properly kicks off and as is as explosive as ever, and does not let up much at all.  Something that is quite immediate is the high quality of production that this album has been subjected to.  The entire album simply wreeks of slick production, which some purists and hardcore AFI fans may hate, but it's something I am finding myself requiring as a prerequisite to a good album - solid production.

Moving onto the songs themselves, and I regret that there aren't many standout tracks on the album, although saying that the quality of all tracks is high, and there is a good flow to the album.  A flow which is helped very much by the pace of the songs, it's almost a barrage at times.  One reason perhaps why there aren't more standout tracks is the difficulty (i have at least) of understanding and recognising the lyrics which is a continuing element of AFI's music.

If you have never heard of AFI before, I would recommend "Sing the Sorrow" before this one.  The standard is very high on "decemberunderground" but it lacks the standout tracks, which luckily "Sing the Sorrow" posesses in high numbers.  Although that is my personal view, and perhaps a fairer assessment of this band would be to begin at the start of their discography, but again I have given it a try and not found anywhere near as many gyms as can be found on "Sing the Sorrow" and this, their latest albums.

More Gym Impressions later, I am still undecided whether to post the "mini-reviews" altogether or give them their own individual post listings, mmm..

Till then, here's hoping you will listen to something new today.

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Racing Game Improvements...

Hey, I was prepared to post about my thoughts concerning forza 2 and how it compares to pgr3, but it all got a bit waffly and unfocused so I've binned that, but some "final" thoughts on how the genre could be improved will be listed here.

 

First off, The idea of racing your "ghost", your previous best attempt/time is a genius one. I'm not too sure who came up with it, but it's a great idea, probably many years old, but I think it's time for a change perhaps.  When I am performing some kind of time trial, my ghost provides a visual representation of if I'm up or not, but when I am very close to my ghost time, i.e. just behind, the thing just becomes too big a distraction a lot of the time, and generally I either completely miss the breaking spot for the lack of being able to see it, or risk breaking later than my ghost and inevitably miss the turn-in.  Perhaps it's just me who suffers from these complaints and I should shut up, but no, here's how we're gonna fix it people...

The Forza series have a rather smart system in-race whereby the racing line and the required braking is displayed on the track in a variety of colours.  Now, my suggestion is to take this idea and transpose your ghost's performance into a visual much like this.  So, instead of racing what the game considers the optimum line and breaking, it would instead show the lines and breaking performed by your ghost.  They could even colour it the ghostly blues and greys if they so wished.  I think this would be a better system, as you could then explicitly see what lines were taken and how late you braked last time round.  You could then see clearly see where you weren't maximising the track when turning out of the corner, or which apexes you are simply not hooking up.  Also this way, if you are especially slow, say you fall off the track, with the ghost line implemented, you won't lose the valuable information which you would normally, cos the ghost car would be on the other side of the track.

One thing I particularly enjoy with Forza is the recording of all the times and also the in-race telemetry.  Despite how much valuable information could be extracted from someone's driving style, a lot of it is useless in that respect.  If I'm honest the friction levels exerted on each tyre does not help me unlock where I went wrong, or where one of the top players are supremely better than me.  A lot of the time if I push on the telemetry I stay in the default screen, and watch the inputs the best in the world make.  It is actually quite shocking at times watching a replay of the best time on a time trial (where the car used is fixed) and have myself thinking, yeah the guy's neat but nothing mind-blowing, and then watching my best replay and getting a bit embarassed on how much my car is sliding about.  That being said I use the friends leaderboard to rate my skills, and for the majority of the time trial times (where it is the most equal, same car, no upgrades, tunes etc) I am the quickest out of the couple of friends who also play the game.

So yeah, my suggestion on how improving the telemetry is really a step towards the kinda telemetry that professional racing series, not unlike F1, are exposed to.  That being, I want the lap times posted on the scoreboards split into each timing section, so I can a better understanding on where the best are making the time/I am losing the time.  Along with that and an extension to the inputs that players put in, instead of what the current inputs are as shown in the telemetry at the moment, they should be recorded over time, plotted in a graph if you will.  And why not stop there? I would also like to have the "best" inputs plotted against mine - I would like to see where they get on the throttle quicker than me, where they brake later.  I would want all the inputs, throttle, brake and steering input available in graph form to be compared against my inputs.

Although most probably won't have the time or patience to explore this, I for one, would especially enjoy the opportunity to analyse and learn from this information, as I can't help feel for all the effort, the current telemetry in forza is a bit lacking, in that respect.

 

 

 

Here's just trying to sow some seeds...

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Gym update 17th July

Hey peeps, thought I'd give a short update to the masses on my progress a la gym.  It's not been so bad so far, I was initially planning on going every weekday when I first started but as I've quickly learned my body needs time to recover, plus it causes a detrimental effect to the next session, so there.

So yeah, been able to go 3 times a week since starting.  Treadmill-wise I believe I have made great progress on the long term goal I set myself when I started, that being to be able to run/jog a mile and a half in 12mins or less.  The first time I went I ran just a mile in 15mins just to see where I was at.  The next session I moved the distance up to a mile and a half, I believe, I ran that the first time in about 18mins, and since then I've been slashing my PB since then.  As of the 17th, my PB stands at 12:21, which I'm pretty chuffed at considering the short time period in which I've been going.  I'm thinking at the next session, which is booked for Thursday, I should make an attempt at my first time under 12mins.  I actually find the treadmill easier to run faster than, say round a field.  The treadmill carries you to a certain extent, and being able to explicitly control your pace, is something I don't have the discipline to do outdoors.

As I may have mentioned I also jog to and from the gym.  This is usually the distance from one end of the school field, where I start, to the point where I reach the point on the playground which is close to the sports centre entrance.  I timed this the day before I went to the gym just to see what time I would have to leave the house in order to reach the start of the session in time.  Anyways, it's about a min and a half at a temperate jog.  The weird thing is, no doubt down to adrenalin, is the fact that I actually the return leg a lot faster than the initial one.  I even found myself singing along to Sparta, but more about that later.

Weights wise, I have definitely improved upon the initial weights I was using a few weeks back.  The leg press I've improved substantially, no doubt from this extra running I've been doing :D.  Anyways, I think I started on about 10 (they measure only these weights in numbers), and now I'm on about 16-17, which works out at about 150-60kg when consulting their conversion chart thingy.  The max weight is about 220kg on the stack I believe.  As Mike asked, the real only judge of weight training is how much can I bench LOL.  When I started, I worked quickly up to 35kg, finding that challenging enough to form a good basis from.  After a couple of sessions I moved up probs more comfortably than  was expected to 40kg.  As of yesterday's session, I have moved up to 45kg, which only starts to get really really tough towards the end of the hour workout, when I've lifted/ran/rowed/pushed god knows how much.  But yeah I'm really chuffed with the progress I've been making.  There's this one hardcore guy who I've shared one session with who is all about the weight training - particularly the benching.  He is on 80kg so fair play to him - maybe I should feel embarassed when I moved his peg to 40kg, but everyone has to start somewhere.

 

After yesterday's session, I went, as per usual, to book myself in for the next session.  The guy behind the desk let me do it myself, and he noticed my Warwick Uni hoodie I was wearing.  He asked me how long I'd been there, to which I replied that I had finished, graduated last June.  He then asked me what did I study, offering media, and then sport before I could answer.  I'm not too sure what his thinking was behind those suggestions, perhaps that I was more likely to do the subjects cos I was going to the gym, or what my initial reckoning was that he thought I was a bit stupid and not very academically minded.  Well I finally replied "Computer Science" and that shut him up. By this time I had finished booking myself so I promptly left, feeling a slight sense of victory, and then preceded to do some singing while I ran home LOL.

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I need a hero...

So, thanks to a recommendation by my good friend Adam, I recently started watching the show Heroes the other day, and Wow! what a great show, I have got immediately hooked and watched like 6 episodes in less than three days.  I cba to explain the story here, just check it out, but basically it involves a number of individuals, subtly connected,  who slowly discover they have superhuman powers and the show follows their tales.

Anyways, it got me thinking, not unlike a child, how great it would be to have a superpower, perhaps 3.  The characters that I've met so far in the show involve someone who can fly, someone who can alter space/time, someone with incredible regeneration, someone who can paint the future, a mind reader, and possibly the coolest one, like Rogue from X-Men, someone who can seemly borrow other people's powers. Pretty sweet no?

 

So, let's discuss which are the coolest powers from the list above? Lol.  But seriously, I think my faves are the altering of space/time and the mind reader.  The guy who can alter space/time is effectively a Japanese nerd, and thankfully his story so far has provided some light relief from the other stories. 

So yeah, the altering space/time is pretty cool. You could effectively do anything, a lot of the fun options have already been explored by the show including teleporting into the ladies' room, and successfully cheating at gambling in casinos.

The mind reader one is also pretty darn cool.  I am also impressed with the show realising that it wouldn't actually be an ability that you can just turn on and off as required, but you would hear people's thoughts all the time.  I think first done in the original Star Trek series where Spock obviously had his mind-meld tricks, and I remember him saying how it takes years of training to be able to block out all the random thoughts of others.  Boy, wasn't the original series of Star Trek quite cool, in a very low budget, Kirk-also-makes-out-with-a-hot-alien, The crew in red always die kind of way yeah!

The mind reading is particularly cool as the guy uses the ability to "win" any conversation he has, not to mention freak people out with facts about them that they have not openly spoke about.  He has also won back favour with his wife, with whom he is currently having troubles with in their marriage, by setting up the perfect date - everything she has thought would be good.  For selfish reasons, mind-reading would make dating a much more efficient process as once they start thinking, "screw this guy, he's kinda lame", you could then just move on, rather than wait for them to tell you so, a couple of dates later.  The power is actually not unlike the film "What Women Want" which although kinda being a bit of a chick flick, is quite a smart film, only for the cool mind-reading abilities.

 

Here's looking for a local toxic dump from which to gain superpowers. Wish me luck!

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What the Frak?! You motherfrakker!!...

Hey all, Quite recently I've been exploring my interest in sci-fi and decided that I would check out the series Battlestar Galactica.  For those not in the know the show is a remake of the original series made back in the 70s - it is first billed as a remake, but is more of an evolution of the story set about 40 years after the war with the Cylons.  I won't go into any particular plotlines cos frankly that will take too long and I really cba, but I will say that the premise of the show is that after this ceasefire between mankind and cylon (according to them, the plural of cylon is indeed cylon), the cylons begin an onslaught on the human race, trying to wipe them out. The aging ship, the Galactica is the only ship to avoid the attack, and after meeting up with a civilian convoy formed by the new President  - who used to be Secretary of Education (a schoolteacher as they often joke), jump off to some far away part of the Universe away from the Cylons.  This would be ok if the Cylons themselves weren't bent on chasing them down and killing them all for good, and to make matters worse, Cylons can now look like ordinary people, which as even the creators admit, makes special effects a damn side easier, and they are agents within the fleet.  But there is hope, some scripture has already described their journey to a new home which just turns out to be Earth, horray!

 

Ok, hopefully that has wept your appetite, perhaps not, but it shows a lot of promise, but after watching the first two seasons I have my reservations about continuing to watch it.  For a show that boasts it is a sci-fi show, there isn't a terrible amount of sci-fi actually in the show.  The fleet being out in space is a big help, but it could so easily be set on the ocean and they're still encountering the same problems - food, fuel, permanent settlement etc, cylons/pirates chasing them.

Delving a little deeper than the general themes of the show mentioned just, a lot of the plot of the show seems to concern the conflict between the remaining military and a new fledging government.  Also one reservation is the reliance the show puts on Gyuss Baltar, the leading scientist in the fleet, who since falling in love with a Cylon agent back on Caprica(or whatever planet he was on), now sees visions of her talking to him, advising him on what would be best for the Cylons etc.  It was quite smart at first, but having him appear to talk to noone in particular, and them sometimes have his hallucination knock him about a bit, it has got tired. 

Although not a crucial flaw but something that doesn't make complete sense. Not to go into too much detail for those who've not seen the show, but as I said before Cylon agents that are indistinguishable from humans now exist.  Now these agents are notoriously hard to detect, as the show will no doubt explain, even their synthetic blood is identical to human blood.  If these agents have technically the same physiology as their human counterpoints, then the question arises, where do they get this superhuman strength from?  They're exactly the same as the human they replace except they have the ability to pick someone up by their neck and chuck them about a room... yeah right *rolls eyes*.   One particular cylon agent is of this middle aged, and kinda fat guy, and yet he also possesses this incredible strength and speed, but how? I mean, c'mon it can't be something in their muscles or blood or whatever cos it's the say as humans, and you don't see them throwing people about all the time do you?

Another thing which really annoys me, and this is a more general point, but it is now particularily bad on Battlestar Galactica, and that is shows that are obviously censored to not include swearing, but feel that some cursing is crucial to the script, and thus create their own swearwords to avoid censorship - Battlestar is one such show.  The word that they use in Battlestar is Frak, as an obvious alternative to Fuck (sorry kids :s).  The use of the word wasn't immediate in the series, but during the first season, it entered the vocabulary somewhere halfway through and has steadily got worse.  Most uses are along the lines of "What the frak is he/she doing?!" etc, but there have been the odd "For frak's sake!" and possibly the most criminal "Motherfrakker!" *sigh*. It just sounds really lame and quite embarassing for me to be watching it, I hold my head in shame on behalf of the writers...

 

Now, I am not objecting to swearing, nor am in the party that states that there never can be too much swearing, but I like characters to be depicted realistically, and well we all swear, so writers should be given the option/ability to write it in without fear of censorship.  Especially when a show's plots are so character-driven, which is actually one of Galactica's strengths, it just feels really fake, and you suddenly are no longer totally immersed in the story and become very aware that you are watching a TV show - or at least that's me :D

 

Here's leading the charge for free swearing, so come on you bitches and join the cause...

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From Brum to fatherhood (...is my ticket still valid?)

Hey all, got some more scary news to share with the intermaweb.  A week last Sunday (my how time flies :S) I met up with Wilson in Brum for some catching-upness and general merriment.  After going to a few of the regular haunts like the nicer of the two Spoons and getting some grub, possibly fueled by the harder drink, we thought it would be cool to try out a few new and random watering holes.

Well we didn't get that far in all fairness.  We went to O'Neill's which I believe is a part of a chain of bars, a franchise if you will, but it wasn't too bad.  Following that we went down the road about 50 metres to find a new bar called "Walkabout".  Encouraged by the promise of a cider festival which as it happened started that very same day, we popped in to check it out.  Confronted with two Australians behind the bar it prompted the question, "Do you have to be an Australian to work here?" to which the reply was, "No, but it helps...".  One random fruit of the forests cider and some Australian rugby later, it was time to move on again.  It was at this point, that the evening was starting to draw to a close, and I thought best to be off, it was a Sunday, and the trains get really bad late on in the evening. 

We checked in at New Street, realising we had some time to grab another, although good ol' Wilson reckoned we have time for two rounds, mmmm.  Anyways, as it turned out we went to the other Spoons, although it was for a pint of Old Rosie, which is slowly building up the rep it held when I was back at Uni - which is pretty awesome.

That single pint of Old Rosie was proving tougher than originally planned, so had to develop some speed drinking, and bless, I had to help Wilson finish his.  Realising that we had to really go, as in leave about 3 or 4 mins ago, we left at a brisk pace back towards New Street.  I got to my platform and did a little jogging to my train, which was not needed as the train sat there for about another 10mins, grrr, it's so undignified to run for public transport, but I thought I had no choice, alas.

 

So there I sat on the train on my way back home, beer slowly digesting, and feeling pretty good about the brief hours spent in Brum, when uh oh! thanks to breaking the seal in one of the earlier bars, I had to go on the train itself.  Now that is a challenge all on it's own, especially on the older carriages, where it is incredibly bumpy and rickety - would people understand if I had made a mess of myself?  Anyways, on the way down to the train loo, I spotted an old friend John Jones from school.  Once I got back I grabbed my bag and sat with him to catch up on what was happening at his end, which I have not done at all properly - I've seen John getting off the train I get on to get home from work, but that's about it.

 

Anyways, so I got chatting with John, and the reason why he's on the train comes up.  As he tells me, he's on his way back from Kent, which as he stresses is an 8 hour trip and not an enjoyable one.  He continues, and as it turns out, he met a girl when absolutely wasted down in London some time ago, and all he remembers is waking up in this girl's house in Kent.  But the first bombshell is that he has only gone and got this girl pregnant, so she is now with child. I'm not actually sure of the timings and John wasn't completely specific but it seems that the wasted adventure John had in London could well have led to the conception of this child.

I actually asked John, "so do you love this girl?" to which he was especially non-committing and kinda shrugged it off, "Yeah, I gotta" or words to that effect, it was late, and I was liquored up remember.

Scary stuff, so another old friend has joined the list of people who have, or about to start a family.  I was probably in shock for a lot of the rest of the journey.  I often get worried that I'm not growing up like I should, and hearing of people having children does nothing to dissuade that view on my life.  I'm 22 now and although I do believe I have changed considerably in the last year, I still do not feel anywhere near mature enough to raise a child - the question to throw out there is, will I ever feel mature enough?  That's probably how it would all end up, me winging it and potentially screwing up the child's life.  Ah well, it won't be the only one hey? :D  Adding to that, I don't feel the want or need for raising a child right now, so even if I did achieve the maturity, there's no way I'd be up for a child, the whole thing scares me :S

 

Here's waiting for them to invent maturity pills...

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