Crackerwax

I love the principle of cloud storage, that I can save something on my Mac and as if by magic a super clever little daemon whisks away all that data to the, er, well, faery data land. There to be kept safe by the Goblin King and his massive package.

Alas I also have concerns about said faery data land, who’s looking at it? Do I trust them? Will they do me a mischief? Will they sell my data to the papers? I sometimes think about this a lot.

Then I normally remember that Google could have outed me as any number of things a long time ago and settle down to worry about proper stuff, like will the Deadwood TV movies ever get made, will I ever finish The Shield, what’s for dinner and why is George Lucas such a twat, safe in the knowledge that Dropbox is fab.

So this Dropbox then, yes, it’s one of these storage services that allows to chuck all your stuff into the cloud but the difference here is that they’ve got some nifty software to back their service up (excuse the pun).

Not only can you view your data on any web browser and any OS, but you can also get clients for your smartphone – iOS and Android only at the minute, though BlackBerry is coming – and best of all, a tiny little application that runs as a service on your Mac or your Windows box.

This little application is the truly killer bit. It just sits there synchronising the folder of your choice, so that the data sits on your disk and in the cloud simultaneously. No clumsy dragging and dropping, or copying files. No way jose. Dropbox does it all for you, save it in your Dropbox folder and forget about it.

Overnight – well, quicker than that but I’m all about the romantic image – the Dropbox daemon will pop into your computer and create tiny little clones of your data. Awesome!

Of course that’s not all. The mobile apps let you access all your data when you’re out and about and the Dropbox website will let you do the same. I can’t get over how so fantastically well thought out it all is. Dropbox really does deserve your attention.

They give you 2GB storage for free and if your prepared to pay a tiny amount per month you can get 50GB or even 100GB accounts.

The question is though, why isn’t iDisk this cool? Come on Apple, why?

The Commodore 64 was an outstanding machine, its abilities were pretty amazing for the time and whilst its graphical abilities were good, they were matched by other 8-bit machines of the time. Its sound though? Well that’s another story altogether.

The Commodore 64 was home to one of the most powerful sound processors of the time; the SID.

The SID, or Sound Interface Device, was the sound controller that was used in the Commodore 64, essentially it was an analogue synth on a chip and the range of sounds it could produce were streets ahead of anything else at the time.

The guys that managed to coax the sounds from this chip are legendary in retro gaming circles, the most well known proponent of the art – Rob Hubbard – is a genius. To this day he remains practically unknown, he truly deserves more recognition for the part he played in the foundation of digital music.

Even now though the SID is still used, primarily in a MIDI sound module – the SIDStation – and the sounds it makes have been very popular with the rap and R&B communities, with numerous tracks sporting SID arpeggios.

Some producers have been less than honest though. Timbaland in particular. He infamously lifted the entire melody from the Commodore 64 arrangement of an Amiga tune; Acidjazzed Evening and used it in the Nelly Furtado song Do It.

The original composer was given no credit. The whole thing sucked.

Regardless of all that the SID’s sound remains unique and is instantly recognisable to any retro gaming fan or 8-bit afficianado.

It’s good that SID music is still being listened to, and that it’s so easy to get, regardless of the rather dishonest use of those tunes by some.

If you’ve never heard the SID belt out a tune on its own – without an overpaid half wit babbling all over it – you’ve really missed a great experience. That’s why I’ve put together my top ten favourite SID tunes for you to listen to. I’m kind like that.

Sanxion – Rob Hubbard

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Ooh! Sanxion! What a belter this is. Loading a game took ages back in the mid-eighties, so it was always good when you got a rocking piece of music like this to distract you. Mind you I didn’t think that much of Sanxion as a game, it never really did it for me. I suspect I’m in the minority there though.

Wizball – Martin Galway

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Good grief Wizball was an amazing game and it was made by the music. This is the high score theme which is lovely and mellow and would often round off a session nicely.

Its mellow and spacey all at the same time. I love it!

Cybernoid II – Jeroen Tel

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This came slightly later in the Commodore 64′s life and is altogether a bit more full on. That’s not to say it’s not great, because it is, it’s just a bit stronger.

Parallax – Martin Galway

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This piece of music comes from the part of Parallax where you’re running around the deserted cities, usually drugging scientists. It really conjured up the isolation of being in a practically empty, alien city.

Just me then?

The Last Ninja – Ben Daglish & Anthony Lees

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Every single tune in The Last Ninja was a corker. In the end I plumped for this one, no particular reason as they are all mini-masterpieces in their own right.

Tetris – Wally Beben

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The closest the Commodore 64 got to prog rock was this awesome twenty five minute epic that accompanied – in hindsight – one of the worst versions of Tetris I’ve ever played.

At the time though I seem to recall thinking that Commodore 64 Tetris was awesome. I was only thirteen mind and it was a cold winter. Nevertheless listening to this and resetting the line counter twice (it reset at 255) was my idea of a great night back then.

Hunter’s Moon – Matt Gray

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Another loading screen tune and what a stunner it is. The slow militaristic beat accompanied a brilliant loading screen and once again it really got you in the mood for the game to come, which by the way was corking.

I seem to recall it was also quite easy to cheat and rack up a whole host of extra lives because of the regenerating nature of the game world. This meant you could point your ship at an alien structure, pop a book on your fire button, zip off and have your tea, all the while safe in the knowledge you were racking up the points as the computer controlled drones went around rebuilding the scenery you were getting points for destroying! Happy days.

Quedex – Matt Gray

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Quedex, or to give it its full title; The Quest For Ultimate Dexterity! I spent about two hours failing the first level because I hadn’t read the instructions.

The only thing that kept me going was the music, my reasoning being that if the music was this good the game must be pretty special. That and the fact that it had got a Zzap! Sizzler.

Firefly – Fred Gray

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Tidy little game, nothing special but the music was ace!

Zamzara – Charles Deenen

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A scrolling Contra style affair without the delicate control that Contra afforded you. Given that it was a budget title (£2.99, bargain!) the graphics and music were amazing!

This is very simple but I thought you needed to know. Here they are in no particular order the ten best games ever made.

• Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)
• Ico (PlayStation 2)
• Shadow Of The Colossus (PlayStation 2)
• Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)
• Wizball (Commodore 64)
• Pac-Man Championship Edition (Xbox 360)
• Burnout Paradise (PlayStation 3)
• The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Nintendo 64)
• Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords (Nintendo DS)
• Super Mario World (Super Nintendo)

Actually there is an order but only very slight Resident Evil 4 is at the top and Ico comes just after it, the rest are all joint third.

For information Bubble Bobble just missed out on being included and if I’m honest I’d be tempted to swap out Wizball for it but I just had to have a Commodore 64 title in there somewhere.

In the next couple of weeks I’m going to start writing little essays about all those games, so don’t make any plans will you?

I joined Twitter about a year ago and used to really enjoy using it, making the occasional little update here and there, reading my friends updates, engaging in some funny banter, that sort of thing.

Then the celebrities arrived.

The sheer volume of tweets that the likes of Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry post is ridiculous. When you’re reading your Twitter feed on an iPhone and out of all the updates you get ninety five percent of them come from Jonathan Ross and each of those is in reply to some unseen comment, then you get really bored, really quickly.

The Twitter-shitters are one thing but at least they’re funny and/or interesting. It’s when the boring, band wagon jumpers get on board that you have to start worrying. Enter Chris Moyles self styled saviour of Radio One.

Chris Moyles is the least amusing man on the planet but, as I am certain he would point out to me, he does earn way more money than me. I’m fairly certain he’d follow that keen observation up with something about my poxy blog and lack of a breakfast radio show. I guess it’s these two things that makes him think people care about what he has to say.

His show bores me, he bores me and I’m really not interested in anything he has to say so why would I want his boorish, obnoxious musings when I’m on the move? Not only that but everytime he says twittering instead of tweeting (which he does a fair amount on the half hour monologue he does every fucking morning) he’s getting it wrong. No surprise there though is there?

The long and short of it is that I’m going off Twitter, where I was once a staunch advocate. Still I intend to keep tweeting just a little bit longer just to see what happens, I’ve removed all the celebs though, well except Stephen Fry, how could I?

There’s a cutscene I came across in Gears Of War 2 the other day that’s rather moving.

Dom’s wife has been missing for sometime, when he hears news that she may have been taken by the Locust he sets about, with Marcus’ help, trying to find her.

And he does find her.

I thought it was all rather sad and full of pathos.

My Dad bought a Philips Video 2000 system in the early eighties. It came with a groovy little video that showed you how to use it, y’know program it and such.

The one abiding memory I have of this video is a little fella in a hat, that spoke gibberish and had the most amazing bendy fingertips. In fact I sometimes think I imagined the whole thing.

No more though! Now, thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I’ve found the actual video! Rejoice in its bizarre splendour.

Freaky, huh? Made all the more freaky by the weird alien thing that it makes you imagine actually starts your recordings when you’re out and the music towards the end (a cross between Jean Michel-Jarre and a bad trip in a fairground). Amazing stuff.

It looks like BT are flogging a whole series of tunnels underneath High Holborn in London. The asking price is unconfirmed but I bet it’s more than I could raise.

I love shit like this, it’s too cool for words. Can you imagine how amazing it would be if it was turned into a hotel or a night club?

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It’s awesome to think that places like this even exist. It was built during the war, which is clear to see and has ended up, through privatisation, belonging to British Telecom. Now they’re selling it off.

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As is mentioned in the Telegraph’s article it’s unlikely it will be turned into a hotel because of risks about fire evacuation and such but some enterprising individual could work out a way around that, surely?

I recently announced that, thanks in no small part to his outstanding performance at the end of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, my goal for 2009 was to meet William Shatner.

Well no sooner had I announced this, than I had changed my mind and decided that a less prominent target should be attempted first. Almost like a bit of a warm up.

My new target was to be game writing legend Jeff Minter. My thinking being that Wales was easier to get to than California.

Well, I’ve come under heavy fire for this decision. So have opted to give the final say to my reader. So go on, vote away reader!

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I should add that the original decision to stalk Shatner was undertaken whilst heavily intoxicated. Andy and I had had three bottles of red wine, the remains of a box of white and quite a few vodka and lemonades.

In fact Andy had originally pledged to under take this journey with me but I suspect my cherry-beer-fuelled take on Shatner’s famous speech had probably sent him funny.

Have you seen the new Microsoft adverts, featuring former Microsoft CEO William Henry Gates III and comedian Jerome Allen Seinfeld? They’re actually rather amusing.

Fuck knows what the point of them is, they do seem to be entirely without point, but nevertheless they are still rather amusing.

Have a watch. Part one:

Part two:

Let’s just hope they’re not another Lost and we end up watching them for years, not quite knowing what the hell they’re about!

Oh and just one more thing. Note the really rather cool use, in the first clip, of the mugshot from Gates’ 1977 bust in New Mexico for running a stop sign and driving without a license. Neat.

So the Apple event has been and gone and with it my faith in Apple. What the fuck was that about?

My predictions proved very hit and miss, primarily because it was so short.

1. iPod Touch redesigned to have physical volume control, possibly built in speaker
   Victory is mine! Correct
2. iPod Touch range repriced, possible introduction of 64GB model
   A little bit wrong with that one, half a point
3. New iPod Nano design with widescreen
   Correct again, but an obvious one really
4. Possible bump in capacity of 160GB iPod Classic, 80GB to remain
   I would never have predicted a downgrade!
5. iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 2.1 released
   This was touch and go but right nonetheless
6. iTunes 8.0 released, introduction of a subscription service sadly unlikely
   Good guess!
7. Mac Mini possibly dropped from the Mac range
   Given the title of the gig I should have guessed, no Mac news
8. New MacBooks introduced
   See above, October for this now I think
9. iPod Shuffle to receive storage boost to 4GB
   Just plain wrong

4½ out of 9 isn’t bad, probably enough to get an A at A-level these days.

The actual content of the announcement was wank though. ‘New Nanos!’. Yay! Hardware! In lot’s of colours, now we’re talking.

‘The iPod Touch now has volume controls and a wee speaker!’. Good, ok, I can wait for the cool shit.

‘iTunes 8.0 with Genius’. Hmm, yes ok.

‘We’ve decided to downgrade the iPod classic range from 160GB to 120GB!’. Hang on? What?! Eh?

‘Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Johnson!’. Ah-ha, so here we go a bit of Jack and then it’s the one-more-thing announcement!

‘Bye.’. What? Eh?

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

It’s less than twenty four hours until Apple make their latest announcement.

As ever I proffer up my predictions on the content of their Keynote.

1. iPod Touch redesigned to have physical volume control, possibly built in speaker
2. iPod Touch range repriced, possible introduction of 64GB model
3. New iPod Nano design with widescreen
4. Possible bump in capacity of 160GB iPod Classic, 80GB to remain
5. iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 2.1 released
6. iTunes 8.0 released, introduction of a subscription service sadly unlikely
7. Mac Mini possibly dropped from the Mac range
8. New MacBooks introduced
9. iPod Shuffle to receive storage boost to 4GB

I’m usually completely wrong with these sort of things but it I would say that iTunes is a dead cert, as is the new Nano and the increased capacity Shuffle.

Of course all of this will undoubtedly result in me being parted from my cash at some point down the line, although I don’t need any more iPods I think a nice little aluminium MacBook might be nice.

On numerous occasions I’ve considered posting videos on YouTube. After seeing and hearing this I’ve decided that severe quality control is required before such an endeavour is undertaken.

Charismatic, huh?

For those not in the know a Segway can be best described as being the horse-less carriage version of the chariots they rode around in, in Ben Hur. It sounds freaky but it’s great fun, I suggest you try one at the first opportunity.

Sadly I didn’t manage to get a picture of myself on one, scooting around Bermuda on our Segway tour but let me tell you I want one.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Three weeks ago today I queued up outside Carphone Warehouse at a ridiculous time in the morning, coffee in hand, to collect my shiny new 16GB iPhone 3G.

The doors opened at 08:02 and we all filed in to dutifully hand over our £159 to pick up our iPhones. If only it were that easy.

The queue outside was tolerable, good natured chatter and coffee make things tolerable, it was when I got inside that the pain began. O²‘s systems crashed almost immediately leaving me unable to have either a credit check or a proof of address check.

All of this lead to me standing in the shop for over three hours while they repeatedly tried to verify that I lived where I said I did and that I’d be able to pay the bills.

I got it though, obviously, and I’ve been using it for the past three weeks. I have a number of observations about it.

I’d never really fancied the first iPhone, I don’t like to be an early adopter of consumer electronics they’re normally bug ridden or prototypes in need of refinement (Nintendo DS?). So I generally wait for version 2.0 or 3.0 wherever possible, that’s what I did here.

There are lots of pros and cons to owning an iPhone though.

Pros

1. It’s a beautiful piece of design
2. The screen is a delight to use, high resolution and bright
3. It’s also covered in scratch proof glass
4. Everyone’s writing applications for it
5. It has built in GPS, fast GPS
6. 16GB of storage is great, enough for a couple of movies and a lot of music
7. It has a very well designed OS
8. Visual voicemail is superbly implemented
9. The mail client is very usable
10. MobileMe synchronisation is fantastic
11. The ringer is turned off by a physical switch

Cons

1. Battery life is terrible, three hours of full use is not enough
2. The camera only outputs 1600 x 1200
3. It has no flash
4. It doesn’t do video
5. The keyboard is plagued by lag
6. Safari crashes more often than a hypoglycaemic dieter
7. So do a lot of the other apps
8. The phone’s contact list takes forever to load
9. Sometimes calls don’t connect and all you get is crackle and noise (O²?)
10. The 3G signal quality varies wildly
11. Ringtones have to be created, you can’t just use an MP3
12. Sometimes it just locks up
13. The camera requires a screen touch to take a photo, making it very easy to drop
14. No cut and paste

That’s a lot of negative points but I still think it’s the best phone I’ve ever owned. Aside perhaps from the battery life none of the points raised are particularly unfixable and I’m certain that they will be fixed at some point in a firmware update.

The battery life is the biggest stickler though, it’s just too poor to be acceptable. If I watch a movie on my way to work (a journey of twenty five minutes) I’m down to about 70% battery life by the time I get to work. If I make a couple of phone calls during the day, maybe browse a few websites and send some tweets, by three o’clock I’m out of juice.

That really is unacceptable.

My old Nokia 6021 last about two weeks on standby admittedly they’re very different beasts but I still expect more than three hours talk time or a days standby from a phone.

All in all though I standby my love for the iPhone, it is an amazing piece of technology that ten years ago would have been impossible. I can just about overlook the battery life issues with careful placement of chargers and all the really cool stuff it does makes up for it.

Roll on firmware 2.1. That will be the true test of Apple’s commitment to the cell phone market.

From the best PlayStation 2 game ever made, Ico, comes this beautiful track Castle In The Mist.

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Whether you’re a gamer or not you should own this game. It’s actually worth buying a PlayStation 2 just to play it.

Its mixture of puzzling, platforming and action is perfect, the setting is beautiful and the gameplay is evenly balanced. Oh, yeah and the music is perfect.

I remember my first play through with Kate, it was a great joint experience, me at the controls and Kate helping me solve the puzzles. Ah, the good old days!

In the 1980′s if you wanted to film your friends cavorting around (not like that, pervert) then you’d need to carry the slick kit and caboodle pictured on the left.

Of course now here in the brave new 21st century hip young gun-slingers like me carry camcorders like the one on the right.

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If only my grandfather was around to see these amazing advances in technology.

Yet again Twitter manages to subvert its inherent coolness.

Not only was it down for a good few hours this afternoon but it now appears to have lost 22 hours worth of tweets.

Gah!

Sell to Google. Do it now. You know they’ll buy you. Sell!

Really, for fuck’s sake. Sell to Google already.

You Twitter boys provide a great service but you’re fucking it up. Come on, get with it! Google could do wonders with the Twitter brand and you’d never have to work again!

Am I the only person this makes sense to?

Those three things are a heady combo when you’re twelve. The kid in this video obviously has them all in abundance.

It’s really quite cute the fact that the info for the video says:

everything in this video is made out of card board

Bless. What a helpful lad he is for pointing that out! It almost makes up for his attrocious and oh so twelve-year-old’s-mind username of fartbuttface.

I’m really glad YouTube didn’t exist when I was eleven, otherwise the whole world would right now be pissing themselves at the sight of my low rent Thunderbirds clone, Rescue 11. I had a headquarters and everything.

Well I say that, my bed had a headboard on which I stuck a label I’d written Rescue 11 on but to me that was a headquarters.

I swear I have not felt as tired and run down as I do right now.

I’ve had a busy weekend, in fairness I’ve had a busy few weeks, actually let’s be honest I’ve had a fucking nightmare couple of months.

I’m shattered, I’m going to have an early night, maybe have an early start tomorrow.

In cool news the new iPhone is out on Friday, will definitely be scoping out the queues on my way to work and if they’re small enough I will probably pop in and buy one.

That was a boring post wasn’t it?

In the words of Adam West, get a tan.

Twitter is really, really cool and I love using it but that fucking whale suspended by birdies is doing my head in.

Every single time I tweet from my laptop it’s almost guaranteed that at some point I’m going to see this picture.

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What makes all of this worse of course is the serene expression on it’s face, like it couldn’t give a shit, what are they trying to say? Are they calling us oblivious whales? If they are what does that even mean?

Secondly judging by the shape of their, what can only be described as childish, drawing of the whale (let’s call him Blimpy) it’s looks like it’s supposed to be a sperm whale. Now, according to Wikipedia sperm whales are around twenty metres long, that makes those birds just shy of two meters long each. What the fuck kind of birds are they supposed to be?

Thirdly regardless of what kind of bird they are, they deserve a slap. Four of them are flying left and four of them are flying right. How’s that supposed to help exactly? At least get a grip and all fly in the same direction! Flying like that’s just going to spin Blimpy round and round, and probably make him heave planktony sick at the end of it.

Of course in their defence they can’t organise themselves because they can’t communicate properly. Like the dim witted, two metre, monstrosities they are, they’re trying to support Blimpy’s harness with their beaks! This can’t be the best way to hold on to a creature that weighs in excess of 50,000 kg, it’s surely a bit much to expect each bird to lift 6,000 kg with just their beak? A harness of sorts for each bird would make far more sense.

It’s no wonder Twitter’s down so much. If they can’t even get their outage splash page thought through a bit, what hope do we have of a reliable service?

Fair enough I can’t really see how they are able to provide the service they do gratis but even so if their goal is to some day make money from it, they need to ensure that it’s reliable. Of course I have my suspicions that they’re probably just biding their time waiting to be bought by Google.

Tony Blews popped up an interesting post yesterday about a new game everyone can play, Your Debut Album!

Being the type of sucker that enjoys this sort of thing I went along and had a go. Anyway to cut a boring story short, here’s what I got, by the way you should read the rules before you look at all this otherwise it’ll mean fuck all!

My random Wikipedia entry was about the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School.

My random quote turned out to be.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

From J. K. Rowling and her interminable book Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.

And my photo was this delightful piece of pop art.

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So after a bit of crafty Photoshopping I came up with this!

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Nifty, huh?

This is too cool for fucking school. No shit if I had £600 to drop right now, I’d be dropping it ona Tenori-On. Look at this.

That my friends is a Tenori-On, a brand new type of instrument created by two Japanese dudes, Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori. Its original design came about as part of Iwai’s desire to build an electronic instrument of true beauty. By jove, I think he’s got it!

If you watch this video too, you’ll see one of its cooler features.

Those two ladies’ (The Tenorions) Tenori-Ons are playing in sync, their both playing little bits and bobs on each of them and the units are tying in with each other to keep it harmonious. How cool?

I can’t believe I missed this when it came out two years ago! Isn’t the future fantastic?

Read this. Carefully.

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Not tricky is it? ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. …’, it’s not like anyone’s trying to catch people out is it?

It states clearly at the beginning of every Star Wars film (even the shit ones, I-III and VI for the record) that this movie isn’t set in the future.

But it’s got spaceships in it? No! Shut up, fuck off, look, listen. It is set in the past, a long time ago.

But it’s got robots and stuff? And? So has the Toyota factory in Derby and that’s not from the future. What part of this is difficult?

But people shoot each other with lasers? Aaaargh! Look it says in bright blue fucking letters at the start of the film: A. Long. Time. Ago. End of story.

Yet still people insist on describing Star Wars (any of them, they’re not fussy) as a futuristic film, or a fanciful futuristic romp, or whatever.

Look at these reviews for further proof of people not paying attention:

Ken Tucker – New York Metro
“…his [Lucas'] lurchingly thought-out rendering of futuristic politics prevents the entire series from achieving the greatness to which it aspires.”

Jonathan Young – Theosophical Society Of America
“Because the Star Wars stories are set in the future on fictional planets, we are able to get beyond the naturalism of most movies.”

Sean Axmaker – Amazon.com
“Luke faces the black-clad villain Darth Vader (David Prowse, voice of James Earl Jones) in a futuristic sword fight.”

Oh, and for the record the ellipsis at the end of the sentence? There should be four dots, seemingly the first one acts as a full stop. There should also be an extra space between the first dot and the ellipsis, but hey, if no one’s reading it anyway. …

Ooh, look an unreleased still from The Empire Strikes Back.

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Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa just about to share a tender, and by the looks of things steamy, kiss. Isn’t that so romant… Hang on! They’re brother and sister! Twins in fact! This is a kids movie, kids don’t need to deal with incest in their films.

And so begins the first exhibit in the case of George Lucas vs. Coherent Film Making.

Remember when we are first introduced to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke asks about his dead Dad? It went a little like this.

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Right, well, ok, no. No, doesn’t fit with any of the other movies. Lucas had originally intended for Darth Vader to be a name, not a title. All this bullshit of it sounding like dark father is guff. Strike two for consistency.

In the Empire strikes back Vader is obsessed with finding Skywalker all of a sudden, where did this come from? How come he didn’t sense that Skywalker was his son when he followed him down the Death Star trench proclaiming ‘The Force is strong with this one’?

Not only that but if, as every fucker seems to think, he’s the most powerful Jedi ever, why didn’t he sense that Leia was his daughter when he boarded her ship, imprisoned, interrogated and tortured her in A New Hope?

At the end of the day Lucas got lucky with A New Hope (as it later became), it was great, people loved it and it was fun. A trilogy it was not meant to be. In my opinion the Vader as father thing was thought up for The Empire Strikes Back and Luke and Leia as twins was thought up for Return Of The Jedi.

A New Hope was designed to be a stand alone movie.

I can buy this even if he was thinking of a trilogy, if it failed it would have had to be judged on its own, this I can understand. However it was hugely successful, so instead of saying right, let’s go the fun starts here, Lucas started making out that it was always his plan to have three, six or nine movies.

Let it go George. Please.

I’ve never been one of those weird audiophile types. They’ve always struck me as a wee bit odd listening to John Coltrane, in the dark, with their eyes closed, suspended from the ceiling by elastic bands, completely nude. You know the sort of thing.

One of their other bizarre habits, and one which is also shared by the gullible punters who buy TVs at Dixons, is buying obscenely expensive cables.

My HDMI cables cost £3.89 each, if I were to be a cable snob I’d have paid £99.95 for a Monster brand HDMI cable.

And if I’d done that you could rightly claim that I was a complete twat, because I would be.

I recall the father of a friend of mine that bought an £80 SCART cable. He used this to connect a DVD player to a 50″ low definition, back projection television. He was informed by the salesman that it would improve picture quality immeasurably. Immeasurably.

Yeah, maybe if it was fucking magic.

That’s the point though isn’t it, the gullible can be fooled very easily. As can the conceited.

If you think you have some kind of divine power that enables you to sense the effect that using oxygen free copper over regular copper has on the electrical impulse that carries your audio signal to your speakers, you’ve got to have some kind of messiah complex. It just isn’t possible.

The same goes for HDMI cables, the signal is digital it either works or it doesn’t, there’s no in between. Even worse than that is the bizarre swindle of the gold plated optical cable. What the fuck use is gold plating to a device that relies on optical integrity? None, that’s what. How could it be, unless of course gold has some amazing optical properties I’m not aware of!

All of the above just serves to enhance the glee I felt when reading this article about audiophiles being unable to tell the difference between aforementioned Monster cables and coat hangers. That’s right, coat hangers.

Oh, how we laughed.

Get yourself over to the brilliant You Have To Burn The Rope, it’s a proper treat.

It’s all about the music. All about the music…

It’s been months since I last bought a decent gadget and there’s no more decent a gadget than a really little laptop, is there?

So with that in mind let me introduce my two new little friends, the HP 2133 and the Asus EEE PC 900.

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The HP is on the left and the Asus on the right.

The specifications of both are pretty good, given their price points, but in my opinion the HP is the winner really. Then again you know there’s a vote coming so I’ll let you make up your own mind about those specifications.

HP 2133

• Processor: VIA C7 1.6GHz
• Memory: 2048 MB
• Disk: 120 GB HDD
• OS: Windows Vista
• Screen: 8.9″ (1280 x 768)
• Wireless: WiFi a/b/g, Bluetooth
• Communications: 10/100/1000 Ethernet
• Expansion Slots: ExpressCard/54 slot, SD slot
• Price: $750

Asus EEE PC 900

• Processor: Intel 900 MHz
• Memory: 1024 MB
• Disk: 20 GB SSD
• OS: Windows XP
• Screen: 8.9″ (1024×600)
• Wireless: WiFi a/b/g
• Communications: 10/100 Ethernet
• Expansion Slots: SD slot
• Price: $660

Actually just reading the specification vs. price point going on there kind of makes my mind up for me, the HP is clearly better value. Clearly. Right?

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