Jason Kent’s New Album

My Canadian drinking buddy and part time yoga studio sweeper Jason Kent has released his splendid eponymous album for your delight and enjoyment. I think it’s only out in Canada right now, so those non-Canadians out there will have to fly over here and buy it. Off you go now…

In the meantime, here’s Jason demonstrating his musical talents by running through the entire album in one go (with Jen, owner of the best yoga studio in Montreal, on camera):

Another Moment from my Geek Past

When I was younger I was fairly obsessed with my Atari ST, a classic machine that, along with the Amiga, was well ahead of what PCs offered people at the time. It was my first and only Atari, having come from a Sinclair ZX filled background. As well as offering plenty of opportunities to learn C, and other adventure game writing software, the ST also had a fine selection of games to distract me from anything productive. Remember, this was pre-internets… no sitting for hours on IM with real people, we sat for hours with ourselves immersed in code or games – unless similarly geeky friends came over to share our obsessions.

One of those obsessions was the games from the Magnetic Scrolls folks, in particular Guild of Thieves – an immensely enjoyable text based adventure with some nice pictures added on. Ah, those were the days. No worrying about the exact timing when you run through a maze of moving knives, just the constant fun of having to find the exact phrase to type to solve a problem and progress further. Many hours were frittered away on this adventure, and now you can do it again – with this wonderful site dedicated to Magnetic Scrolls’ archive. Splendid.

Super Mattio Galaxy!

As previously mentioned our household acquired a Wii the other day – that most intriguing of new game consoles from Nintendo. Of course as with any games console, it’s no good having the console without having some games so I’ve now picked up the top two games of 2007 – Super Mario Galaxy, and Resident Evil 4 – both of which are very good indeed. These games are about as polar opposite as you can possibly be, with one being a cartoony romp around the galaxy, collecting brightly coloured star bits and killing the cutesy enemies by bouncing on them – and the other being a tense, heart poundingly suspenseful shoot-em-up through dark, mist filled towns populated by zombie-esque townsfolk under the control of an evil overlord. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out which is which, suffice it to say that Mario does not require you to prove you are over 18 to enter their website.

Anyhoo, both games make great use of the Wii motion sensitive controllers – albeit in very different ways, and it’s fascinating to have to work out the completely different body movements needed to play each. Resident Evil is slightly more realistic, with a slashing motion required to quickly use the knife and the ability to point at the screen to aim your gun, but Mario makes up for this by having a wider range of motions to learn. Both are highly enjoyable to play, but one requires me to play loud music at the same time so I don’t have a heart attack whenever a zombie villager jumps out as the game soundtrack is intensely atmospheric and creepy.

I’ve had Super Mario Galaxy a week or two longer and find it much easier just to play when I want to relax, as you really have to be in the mood for Resident Evil. I guess this is why I’ve just managed to finish Super Mario Galaxy all the way through – at least as Mario – with only a few days of practice needed to defeat the ridiculously tricky ‘Purple Luigi’ level at the end. Now I get to go back and find all 120 stars again, this time playing as Luigi… assuming the zombies don’t get me first. Uuuhhh….

Letting the Days Go By

I’m in a total Talking Heads fest right now. It’s funny really, as I was never a big fan of their hits back when they came out, now after some water under the bridge I’ve realised quite how outstanding they were and how much they’ve influenced modern bands. That and lead singer David Byrne was one of my more regular celeb spots back in New York, striding purposefully around the East Village with his spiky gray hair.

Glasto in ‘not sold out’ Shocker

Amazingly this year’s Glastonbury Festival did not sell out over the weekend.. This is a slight change from previous years where the tickets were all but gone within a few hours. I guess that means all my friends will have tickets, but unfortunately I’m at a wedding that weekend so I won’t be there. Ah well.

As to why there are still tickets left, well a number of reasons are being suggested. The ticket pre-registration process was the same as last year, so it is doubtful that that was the reason for the slow down. Most likely culprit is the current line-up which is seen as pretty crap, generally because Jay-Z is the biggest touted headliner and most hardcore Glasto folk are more indie/rock/dance than rap – not that I’d mind seeing him perform as I’m sure it’ll be a good show. Another reason is the explosion of alternative festivals in Britain now, each aiming to be a new Glastonbury. Perhaps we are seeing a social network effect in real life, with big social networks becoming less common and focused, niche networks sprouting up to directly support the needs of smaller groups of people. Would you rather go to a festival that just plays music you like with all you friends, or to a large, expensive, crowded festival that tries to be all things to all people?