Well everyone - it's the Sci-Fi Film Festival in London Village this weekend. No decent all-nighters, just a few anime all-nighters instead. Think I'm gonna avoid all the tube hell that's going on at the moment and skip Hypercube tonight. Tomorrow there's the first of 2 Shorts @ Six - a shitload of short films for free in the Curzon Soho bar, which I'll be checking out before Evangelion 2: End of Eva tomorrow night.

Maybe next year it'll be 1) worth going due to decent films and 2) not so feckin cold. :o)

Have a luverly weekend, and try not to spend the entire thing in a traffic jam from tonight to monday morning. Cos that'd suck.

- Have a grrrrrreeeeeaaaaattttttt weekend! FREEEDOM!!

Harvey? We're on the air, Harvey.

Oooooh yeah! I like that alienware stuff!!!

Saturday I ended up in a house party in south london. Bizzareness - for ages Ana's been saying "I know another guy from Ipswich - you must know him!"...

You can imagine my standard response.

Turns out I do know him! From sixth form. Go figure. Anyhow - hung out with him and his mate for the rest of the night! Skuff - you remember Alan from Northgate? That was him. Cool, huh?!

Domonic Dickmond... ah, what a scotch twat...

I saw a trailer for Kill Bill when I saw...uh .... another movie.... oh yeh - 8 Mile. Kill Bill looks like sooooo much fun!!! Uma takes a slash at some dude with that big sword, who just jumps up and stands on her outstretched blade (just like in every other Manga you see!) before kicking her in the face! Nice!

Aiken's Artifact - just completed it. Great fun game - pathetic ending.... ain't that always the truth... dammit... SNES games had some good endings!
Some...

For those of you that didn't know this already - brandy and orange juice are a good mix... found that out at a house party over the w/e - got soooooo hammered..... :o)

Soul Calibur 2 (Game Cube) exclusive character Link, oh yes!!! Click here for more info.

Ooooh, why can't we all just "get'a'long"? I guess however hard you look at the specs for these new consoles, everything depends on the quality of the games and yer own personal taste. I like the old retro games for the SNES (Cherry Roms - a great site to download roms/emulators) and I'm having loads of fun playing the GBA (worth the sore eyes) at the mo'.

Just wondering... if the XBOX is as powerful as you say there must be some clever bugger out there who has a patch to make PS2 discs playable on it, check that out!

Metroid Fusion (GBA) is totally brilliant by the way, plug it into your GC (with the new GC Metroid running) and you can play the very original game too, how cool is that?

Remember this guy......... ....what a tosser!

Anyway, on another note has anyone seen the trailer/clips for the new Tarantino flick "KILL BILL", looks great!



Byyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeee!!!

A hotel all XBoxed up?! Awesome!
I gotta get into media....

Do you think that the decline in interest in the GC is due to an incredible lack of western-oriented games? Don't you think they would have learnt their lesson with the ill-fated N64 (maysherestinpeace)?

(does anyone remember them? Big things - weird controllers. Had a trigger n shit. Remember? Nintendo? Had a big "6" and a "4" on them? no? They weren't around for long, so don't feel bad. Had one decent game, apparantly - Goldeneye, or something.... :o) )

I mean - duh!

Dying to see Getaway - I've heard mixed things about it tho.

As for Street Fighter - I used to be damned good at it sir! Been playing the Capcom Vs SNK on PS recently - still got some kind of ability, that's a good thing to see... :o)

Never liked Tekken, mind you...

Re: gaming sesh. Gimme a date! I'll bring muchos booze! Looking forward to it loads... :o)


....gwaaaaahhhh.... console heaven..... gwaaaahhhh...

Re: press release versions of games. Don't forget these aren't always the final release of the game...

I played Halo in multiplayer on a feckin huge plasma screen and as single player on a regular tv. Then got bored and left.

As for the PS2 not being the same level as the other two;

	Xbox	Sony PlayStation 2	Nintendo GameCube
CPU	733 MHz	294.912 MHz	485MHz Power PC
Graphics Processor	233 MHz custom-designed chip, developed by Microsoft and nVidia	147.456MHz	162 MHz Custom chip “Flipper”
Total Memory	64MB	32MB	40MB
Memory Bandwidth	6.4GB/sec	3.2 GB/sec	2.6GB/sec
Polygon Performance	116.5 M/sec	66 M/sec	6-12 M/sec
Simultaneous Textures	4	1	N/A
Pixel Fill Rate – No texture	3.7 G/Sec	2.4 G/Sec	N/A
Pixel Fill Rate – 1 Texture	3.7 G/Sec	1.2 G/Sec	N/A
Pixel Fill Rate – 2 Textures	3.7 G/Sec	0.6 G/Sec	N/A
Compressed Textures	Yes (6:1)	No	ST3C compressed textures (6:1).
Built in Hard Disk	Yes	No	No
I/O	Game controller x4 Ethernet (10/100)	Game controller x2 USB IEEE1394 PCMCIA	Game controller x4 High-speed serial port x2 High-speed parallel port
Audio Channels	256	48	64
3D Audio Support in Hardware	Yes (64 3D channels)	No	N/A
Dolby® Digital 5.1 Surround Sound in Hardware	Yes	No	No
Parental Control in Hardware	Yes	No	No
MIDI+DLS Support	Yes	Yes	N/A
Hardware audio filtering and EQ	Yes	No	N/A
Broadband enabled	Yes	Optional	Optional
DVD Movie playback	Remote control accessory required	Yes	No
HDTV Movie support	Yes	Yes	No
HDTV Game support	Yes	No	N/A
Maximum resolution	1920x1080	1280X1024	N/A
Maximum resolution (2 x 32bpp frame buffers + Z)	1920x1080	640x480	N/A

Admittedly these were quoted by Microsoft....

But seriously - do think there's a SINGLE game out there that uses any machine to it's full potential?! No chance. Hence all the games that appear on all these systems are the same - you think the games companies are really gonna rewrite a game they've already made to be better on one system than another?! No chance MkII. All they need do is write a game in such a way that the code can be recompiled for each different console. No changes/as few changes as possible.

You've wandered around an HMV when Timesplitters 2 came out, playing it on each system, side by side - doesn't look any different, right? Not that I could notice, anyway.

Tell ya what - when you get the Xbox, play it loads, compare it to your PS2 (techically inferior, but yet it seems to be the fave by all) - then I'll believe ya!

And of course peeps remember the launch of the PSX - zero games. BUT - it had no technically equal competitiors, so any new games could only be released for the PSX. With the XBox, PS2 and GC, they're so similar that games can be produced for all 3 at once!

Who wins? The consumer.
Who loses? No one. The game's producers get more revenue by not alienating a potential audience, and the console's producers don't lose revenue by people choosing a single console on the weight of a game.

..... although.....

Only the PS2 has the GTA series.

And now the Gamecube has the Resident Evil series AND the Final Fantasy series. Which means they've got the Japanese market back in their pockets. The XBox flopped there completely. And here. And in the US! It's an uphill struggle that can only be a good thing for us, the gamers.

Hurrah!

I played Halo at the XBox launch party in Leicester Sq ages ago - it's not that good, really. You may as well get Timesplitters 2, which is out on all the major consoles now. So are all the decent games. They're out on all the other platforms.

So Gamecube has kiddy games? It has others too;
BloodRayne, BMX XXX, Die Hard: Vendetta, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Hunter: The Reckoning, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Soul Caliber 2.

PS2 - you must have that already, right? I can't remember. That's the best, for sure.

XBox..... hmmm..... I reserve judgement.... I've played a few games at that launch, and they really weren't that special. The machine itself wasn't that wonderful... but I guess I'll have to decide all that after a mass gaming/boozin/schmokin sesh at your place sometime, Skuff! :o)

Are they bigger now? Ms Mariah Carey, as pointed out by MGK and as circled by moi, Joe, has big bazookas. Are they bigger than before? or was it just an excuse for me to spend ages staring at boobs?

Now that's a waste of time. Eeeevil Mariah Joker ....

heehee...

Her name is Yoshimi - she's a blackbelt in karate.
Workin for the city, she has to discipline her body.
cos she knows that, it's demanding, to defeat those evil machines.
I know she can beat them -
oh, yoshimi, they don't believe me, but you won't let those - robots eat me,
oh yoshimi, they don't believe me, but you won't let those - robots defeat me.
Those evil robots are programmed to destroy me.
She's gotta be strong to fight them, so she's takin all her vitamins.

Ok - once there was cake. And the cake lived at the back of the fridge. It lived there all through summer.
And all through Autumn.
And most of the way through winter.

Until one fateful day - CJ decided to purchase something that would change that cake forever: double cream.

On that day, did the cake tremble as it was brought forth unto the microwave. And thusly the cake was devoured finally with cream.

Later on that same fateful day, did a bottle of JD appear - and lo! - coffee with cream appeared late that night to accompany the JD.

And life was good.

Here's to Da Gheez on a few days after his 27th birthday - hahahaaaa!!!

Skuff - that link is great - everyone vote at the bottom of the page. The result is quite interesting.. :)

At my local Cineworld;

MONDAY CLASSIC - £2:50 WITH TEA AND BISCUITS
APOCALYPSE NOW

haaaaaahahahahaaa!! I'm there.

A word of warning to those of you less skeptical than myself - there's a chain email going around entitled;

"The US Congress has just authorized the President of the US to go to war against Iraq."

It asks that you sign your name and email it to everyone you know. When there are 500 names on the petition against war, email it to the government.

I've scoured the BBC news site and the CNN, and there is no mention of such an authorisation. Hence this is probably one of those "fwd this email to everyone you know and Bill Gates will donate $1million to orphans" human-based viri. Or viruses. Is that a roman or greek word? Anyway - don't go sending that thing around unless you know otherwise about the authorisation. And tell me, too.

Spank you all, good people!

How much are tickets for that rat thingme? I've got some holiday to use up so could catch up with y'all.

The superb Rat Pack Tribute thingy is back in london for 6 weeks from March 11th. Ned - tell me when you can get time off, and BOOK IT! Dez - when can you get down to London for? Gheez - you up for this? anyone else? It's superb! :o)

Lemme know!

Holy sheeat. You know I said about Hackney being dead dodgy? There's all that damning evidence, dammit! And that's where I used to live? Now check this -



That's where me n Gheez now live! We're around the corner in a really quite nice area, but this is outside Wood Green tube!

A couple of doors to the right is a reasonably nice pub, then the turkish pizza place Gheez always gets his £1 turkish pizzas from! Over the road is the best cinema ever, a Yates, Chicagos, Wetherspoons, Mc D's and some other shite. Amazing.

They're following us, that's what's happening. They're trying to wipe us out. One guy missed our old house by a few doors - he would've finished us off for sure. Now these guys are stopped just short of giving us the final flu we ever get....

Plans must be made.

Escape routes finalised.

I shall be in touch,

Blue Pigeon, over and out.

Has anyone been watching the news? I don't know if this got coverage outside of london, but check news.bbc.co.uk for more info - the longest siege in the UK is still on the go in Hackney after 12 days. A gunman held at least one person hostage and the police had to clear over 150 people out of their homes into emergency accomodation (unless you really wanted to stay, in which case you couldn't leave your house and the cops had to do your shopping for you!! On the council budget! Hah!). The gunman was then demanding food be delivered (KFC - just around the corner, pizza - on the same road, and curry - dunno where they got that from..) in plastic bags, which were attached to a rope for him to pull up to the upstairs window.

Why they didn't just lace the food with sedatives, I'll never know. Although - apparantly he requested they get him loads of weed, too!! Hahah!! And he must have told them where to get it, since they apprantly got it for him and promptly arrest someone for dealing!! Hah!

Why does this interest me? Well, I saw some of the pictures and footage on tv a few days ago. G looks at it and sez - "check it out - hackers".... (pause) .... "shit! there's our old house!"

--- -- hahahahahaaaaa!!!

The house we moved out of (read: ran away from in a terrible state) was on the same block as the gunman's hidey-hole!

Check this -



see that café? They do great sunday morning fry-ups. See the lottery symbol? That newsagents sells the shittest overpriced milk around. It seriously goes bad in a day. Bastards. Just to the left of it is a demin store, then a hairdressers, then a derelict café - then the food store we used to live above...
See the bus stop sign? That's infront of the place where the seige is. I used to get the 38 from there every bloody day for AGES, since there's no feckin tube in Hackney! twats!



The next store to the left is the one we lived above!

The KFC was a regular visit around the corner, and the Pizza Hut was the next thing along form our place - so it REEEEEKED all day of pizza...



The other picture is from just behind the bus stop - see the blue bag? Full of KFC n weed, no doubt. He probably sent them to Wiley's... an almost over-the-counter weed store... damned dodgy area though. Just over the street. :o)

That's where we used to live!

Wheeeee..... :o) Merry New Year, y'all!