I’m sorry all my posts are about gaming recently (I’m not really) but I’ve just been playing Wario Ware, Inc on my Gameboy and laughing out loud. I always knew I’d like this game but I’ve rarely seen it full price and finally saw it secondhand at the weekend. I was not prepared for this amount of hilarity though. It’s basically a non-stop barrage of mni-games which are thrown at you and then immediately taken away again before you’ve had half a chance to react. It’s also done in the most ridiculous old-skool graphics ever. There’s nothing like a mobile phone emoticon shouting BOUNCE at you followed by a game in which a stick man is bouncing in the air requiring you to move a trampoline below and catch him. Then DRESS ME as clothes fall from the sky and you move Wario underneath to clothe himself. Then CHOP as you hit A when the power bar is red to get a chalk-drawn man to karate chop a tree trunk. Then GRAB as you help Wario catch his pint of beer as it slides across the bar. It’s mentalism gone mad. I’ve just completed the Nintendo level (“WOW, marcy, you rock!”, it tells me!) playing mini 5 second versions of Zelda (ENTER THE CAVE!), Super Mario (SQUASH!) Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt and other classics with hilarious results. Ah well, whatever. At least it keeps me off eBay the streets.

(Apologies for the lack of updates – there’s been something up with the diskant FTP so no blogging or anything else)

Anyway, my dad was down visiting at the weekend so we had another Sunday afternoon jaunt to The Lighthouse to see some poncey art and design.

My main reason for suggesting this was an exhibition called Field Trip which I’ve been seeing advertised around the place. Basically five groups of people making journeys in Scotland and “where they went, what they saw and what they brought back”. I thought my dad would like this, he being fond of walking and Scottish history.

Turns out I loved this exhibition myself. The five journeys were all between different places and with different aims. So one group went on the ferry to Bute to see how things have changed since the days when this was a regular holiday jaunt for Glaswegians, another group went through Falkirk along the canal routes and another up the roads to Glencoe noting the signs and notices along the way.

Laid out as five long display units you could view maps of the journeys, the photographs, drawings and notes of the travelers and 3D architectural maquettes of the main locations with their symmetrical trees and step-graded hills. Along the bottom were laid out the items that the groups brought back, from tourist souvenirs to bits of bark. And then at the end were videos showing parts of the journey and geographical and historical information panels.

The main idea of the exhibition seemed to be to remind people about all the interesting stuff right on our doorstep and try and get us all getting out and about. It certainly worked for me as the Bute display reminded me of how much fun it had been to go on the train and ferry to Rothesay with Mogwai and that there was all this stuff that we could have seen there if we hadn’t spent it breaking our ears. I’m also amazed by the Falkirk Wheel and have vowed to go see it in real life at the next opportunity.

So if you’re in Glasgow in the next few weeks then get yourself to The Lighthouse (they also do wonderful shortbread and have the ponciest, greatest, most expensive shop ever). If not, have a think about your local places of interest that you’ve never actually been to or your childhood haunts that you haven’t seen for years. And send us a postcard if you visit them!

Also, apart from the usual trip to IKEA my dad’s other plan was to buy a new GC game, he having completed his racing game. While we chortled over Pokemon Channel and its rapidly decreasing price ticket in every shop we visited, our dad found himself a likely looking new racing game. Upon getting home he then discovered he had liked his old racing game so much he had bought himself another copy! Now, if only he’d bought Mario Kart. “Oh no! I thought this was a different crazy mushroom monkey dinosaur italian plumber racing game. D’oh!”

I got to fulfil another years-old wish on Wednesday. I played a gig with a band with Ian Svenonius in it. Every house I’ve lived in has had the Nation Of Ulysses 13-Point Program To Destroy America poster in the front room. I’m still Ulysses through and through. There was a point in time if you met another person who liked NOU you had found a friend for sure. It’s how I know Marceline come to think of it.

Anyhow we supported Weird War in Lords. I’d seen WW the week before in Nottingham and although the touch paper was visible and always in reach they never quite lit it. The sound was weedy and it did them no justice. Whereas Make Up could survive on a bare sound, Weird War needs maximum fatness and a thick juicy sound to make the most of their tunes. Weird War is infinitely better than the Make Up in my book. I’ve caught myself checking out wah-wah pedals in music shops recently. Weird War is my proof that I might be on the right track.

In Leeds they smoked. Getting Alex Minoff together with Svenonius and Michelle Mae is the shit. Minoff is such a white-hot guitarist this band can’t fail. His playing in Golden is like waking up in the morning to find you’ve grown a 15 inch bright blue cock overnight and it’s looking back at you and singing I Feel Good by James Brown. The man rules. He tears shit up in Weird War. Put that with Svenonius preaching like only he can and Michelle Mae actually breaking a grin at times and you’re on it.

If you can’t beat ’em bite ’em

On Saturday I am going to see my mam fly a plane but if I wasn’t then I would be going to the benefit gig at Stereo from 3pm. It’s for the Glasgow Autonomous Project who I met at the SchNews tour the other day and are nice. There’s 3 bands playing, one of which has a cello (I lost the flyer). All glaswegians should go, it’ll be good.

I would try and make this sound as interesting as it really is but I am very tired. Feel free to add some exclamation marks and capital letters to this using a felt-tip pen.

I’ve got a new standard in hand-made sleeves for albums that all other records will now need to live up to. Remember how the booklet from GY!BE‘s second album stank like some dead fish you’d found down the back of your sofa and then wiped your arse with? I always that would be the most pungent record I would ever own.

BUT THEN! Thankfully, the brand new Espers LP from our most recent interviewees Time-Lag Records, smells HEAVENLY. It’s a lovely chocolate colour mini-pak sleeve, and as soon as you pull it from its plastic sleeve you’re hit by the loveliest aroma imaginable from a mere piece of (thick, highly tactile) card. Seriously, it’s like taking a hit of pure goodness, or something. Nice music too.

You have to love it when mail comes at all hours. It’s 10.30pm and a parcel just arrived, delivered by the neighbour, with a note on it saying “please deliver to number three – thanks, postie”. It actually said “postie” ! Marvellous.

What’s more, the parcel contained the CHECK ENGINE album in its limited edition hand-produced form; hand-sprayed sleeve with hand-written tracklisting and hand-glued googly eyes on the front, and hand-inserted random items inside. God Bless Late Post !

I’ve always been a keen believer in the ‘downloading music actually helps record sales’ line and am now realising my mistake. It is true that I download stuff to hear what it sounds like and that if I really really like it then I go buy the actual record so that I don’t have to listen to it on my computer and/or can have it on lovely vinyl too. BUT I see now what I have actually been doing is going to eBay and buying the records I like secondhand! So no extra money for record label or band. I wonder when the RIAA will turn their stupid minds towards eBay, record exchanges and charity shops. You’re all killing music!!

I’m also vaguely bemused by the fact that the most oft-downloaded MP3s from my collection on Soulseek are the Washing Machine album by Sonic Youth and Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble by PJ & Duncan.

As well as a “log”, this can also be a handy way to communicate. Chris! Don’t buy a Playstation you fool! Get a Gamecube, or a Gameboy Advance, or something else that is made by Nintendo and not by some bunch of Nazis. Get a SNES! They’re cheap on eBay and just as amazing as they were in 1992.

We have a Mac and iPods. We’re going to hell, but in a very nice, flashy, and distinctly non-Microsoft kind of way. We also just got fast internet for the first time, which has made for some very exciting Soulseek experiences. Thanks to Mister Stockwell, Charalambides have also been on my “Why Was I Not Listening To This Band Years Ago” list. Other recent favourites have been Wolf Eyes and anything to do with them, anything on the Siltbreeze or Blackbean and Placenta labels, and in a fit of 6th Form nostalgia, the Super Furry Animals. Them were the days. I also have a part time job in a record store, which pays worse than you could ever imagine, but at this point, I’m in no position to complain. Discounts galore, so I guess it works out. Lastly, we saw Kill Bill Vol. 1, and it was far, far better then either of us were expecting. Quite looking forward to the new one, which I believe is out tomorrow.

ooh, and another thing. i was in a restaurant on Bank Holiday weekend, and who walked in? ‘Hat’ from Busted. I dunno his real name, i forget, so he’s ‘Hat’, because he was wearing one. The one from Southend. I felt his presence before he even sat down, so mighty was the feeling of ROCK within the room.

Then i saw Shaun of the Dead, which was good. Go see that.

“log”, right. got it. i can talk about mundane shit.

i’ve been kinda sickly lately. a cold, they call it. felt worse than that. when you can’t be bothered to say owt cos it seems too much effort to pass air through your throat and you blow blood out of your nose, “cold” seems like a lame description. whatever. it didn’t stop me from smoking a dozen spanish Camel cigarettes a day. Hardcore. And they’re in a SOFT PACK too.

We all know smoking makes you look COOL, but taking a cigarette from a soft pack makes you look 3 times as cool. And if you’re doing it when you’re ill, you’re the coolest motherfucker alive! Yeah. Anyway, soft packs. So cool. Give the pack a wee flick on the bottom and one pokes out of the pack, amazing stuff. I was in a club the other week, looking like the coolest motherfucker alive (naturally), when i flicked the pack and two cigs flew out of the pack, one onto the floor next to me, one onto the dancefloor. So fucking cool.