GarethRDR

There were BonBonBonBons at the merch table!

I'm having a bit more fun now I've gotten* to the ship building stuff. *via the inevitable craft-levelling and clipping-to-vendor-chests exploits.

Definitely interested in seeing this one. Don't think it'd work with anyone other than Ianucci doing it (give or take Chris Morris, maybe).

A rare appearance but am absolutely buzzing from tonight so, sod it; on-stage with Brian Butterfield (Peter Serafinowicz) at his "business seminar". If you can believe it, I've actually lost a fair bit of weight recently.

I'm a combo of this plus RRP for new shirts is ridiculous (obvs I get that this is a blanket thing, not just a Villa thing) so I'll only buy them at the end of season clearance and only then if they're actually nice shirts, the last couple of seasons they've all been such poor efforts that even on sale I've not bothered (think the last kit I bought was the 21/22 white away one). Other merchandise doesn't interest me as it's generally overpriced tat (again that's a football thing, not a Villa thing), unless it's something so hilariously awful it falls over into wanting it for a jape e.g. the Borussia Monchengladbach toasted sandwich maker I once bought which burnt the badge into the bread (which broke after two uses, because of course it did) or the Fiorentina fake tattoo sleeve which has forever since lived in a box with the rest of our fancy dress gear (gimp suits, luchador masks etc).

No idea on the parking scenario, but it is one of the venues that takes a tube and bus ride out to get to, so if you were say relying on a train home after from Waterloo and your last one was around midnight, you might find yourself with one eye on the clock to make sure you got back in time.

I'm persevering but it's skin of my teeth at this point. I think one of the problems might the glacial pace and cumbersome feel of everything, when I'm coming right off the back of Armored Core 6 which is a textbook exercise in immediacy and handles like a dream. An unfair comparison perhaps, but it's definitely not helping my judgement here. It feels like nothing's really moved on from Skyrim at all (and I get that there is a certain Bethesda formula to these things, but Skyrim was how long ago now?) with the sole exception being some parts borrowed from No Man's Sky that it doesn't do as well as No Man's Sky does. It's a 5/10 to Outer World's 7/10 at the mo, that's my hot take.

Soooooooo... it's not good, is it? At least not as it is now, and possibly this is is just me still being early doors in the game, hoping things pick up considerably once I can get to the ship/colony building stuff. By god the UI is horrible (pathfinding and inventory stuff in particular).

Hope they've reinforced the foundations of whatever venues they are playing, that is going to be loud. We used to get ETS on the somewhat-regular in the piddly (and I do mean piddly) venue we used to have in Basingstoke (RIP Sanctuary), what with most of the band at the time being local. It is quite something to have a juggalo attempt to crowd-surf over you in a room with the square footage of a treehouse and a height clearance that would give Ford transit drivers pause for thought.

I can now only associate Pupil Slicer with their opening patter at this year's Portals, it was something along the lines of: "They say shoegaze is coming back, yeah, I see you all in your long-sleeved shoegaze tees, well it's RUBBISH, it's never coming back!" *launches into Dillinger-esque riffs*. I mean, I don't agree with them, but I was laughing.

Playing catch up here, but that drum fill at 3:20 is absolute filth. Lovely stuff.

I forgot about the new Baroness... it's been a bumper month!

I've not gotten round to listening to any of them yet, but I've got the Empire State Bastard debut (a frankly ludicrous conglomerate of talent in Mike Vennart, Simon Neil and Dave Lombardo), the new Slowdive and the new Explosions In The Sky queued up for tonight. It's gonna be a reet good 'un.

I am ready, willing and able to virtually peruse and potentially buy people's unwanted CDs, incidentally.

I didn't even know Eno and Byrne had a collab album knocking about, there was definitely an audible "OOOOOOOOOOOO" when I flicked to that one.

Wouldn't play CDs in a car but nor would I stream, I'd just be sticking my jailbroken iPod Classic into the aux in (or worst case scenario a loaded USB stick, if no aux in available). Physical media and actually owning my shit trumps the "convenience" of streaming each and every time for me, and as I'm not a vinyl junkie, CDs are my go-to. The mooted decline in popularity has actually been a huge boon for me, as people are flogging off all their CDs at record stores, I get more stuff to browse through and they're priced ever cheaper. Last week alone I picked up the below across three record stores (including two new releases from an HMV, which is admittedly a very rare occurrence these days). Could have been more, Thirteen Records in Dundee (the store that was set up in the wake of Groucho's closing) happily let me in the back (KW.jpg) to flick through the shelves and boxes of second-hand CDs they hadn't gotten round to putting out yet. Could have happily spent hours down there, but at the 30 minute mark I could sense the burgeoning murderous intent from my wife.

I absolutely love the original (some spectacular use of it as an episode opener in the last season of Glow *sob*), but I do have a very specific association with that particular cover version... High Moon really did nail the trailers for this game (and the game itself).

NEW. FLIPPIN'. MCLUSKY. https://mcluskymclusky.bandcamp.com/album/unpopular-parts-of-a-pig-the-digger-you-deep

Rampant Lion... ...o.

Hence the thread.

Smith walked so Emery could run*. *Emery would have to run serpentine, as Gerrard had pooped himself all over the field.

Passed on seeing John Carpenter and Ryuichi Sakamoto at their respective last shows in London. I say "passed", it was more we didn't really have the money for it at the time but boy do I regret that. Spurred me to splash out the hefty sum for Brian Eno this year. Most recently not booking a hotel overnight for The Mars Volta's show at the Troxy, ultimately meaning having to leave before the last two songs as things ran late, those two songs of course being the two I was most excited to hear (Son et Lumiere into Inertiatic ESP).

There were some subtle implications througout Days Gone that it was set in Syphon Filter's universe. Great game that deserved more love, and I say that as someone who it passed by totally on release, didn't play it until it came up on PS Plus one month. The first game where the voice acting and direction was so good that I actively noticed it, Witwer in particular. If I remember I think the studio lead went on some tone-deaf rant about people not buying it full price on release, not a great look when it's an endemic industry problem to rush out half-cooked shite whilst trying to get as much of your cash up front or on pre-order as possible. Anyway yeah, great game. Shame it won't get a sequel, would have loved to get an SF crossover in the vein of Control/Alan Wake.

Some wee shite has slashed our rental car tires so we're losing our £200 deposit (and nearly got stung for the £1500 excess).

Better. Better get a bucket.