Fields of the Nephilim's new album, Mourning Sun, finally dropped through the letterbox today. It pretty much continues from where Elizium finished in 1990 - slow-burning, gothic rock centred around McCoy's gravelly vocals - and eschews the speed metal attempts from Zoon. None of the songs are under five minutes and the album closes* with the 10 minute title track. There's a few new flourishes, such as a choir and female vocals thrown into the mix, but if Elizum was your bag, this one should be too.

* The Limited Edition comes with an extra track, a nine-and-a-half minute version of Zager and Evans's In the Year 2525, which follows in the hallowed footsteps of The Sisters of Mercy's covers of Emma and Jolene. It also comes in a totally black CD case (apart from the cardboard slipcover).

http://www.mourningsun.co.uk

The First disc sounds pretty good - they should swap Goldfrapp's Ooh La La for Number 1 and drop Babyshambles though. The second disk... erk: Coldplay, Keane, Athlete and Embrace? They're practically the same band. And The Tears? Seriously, just reform Suede.

“Disc 1
1. Kaiser Chiefs - 'I Predict A Riot'
2. Gorillaz - 'Feel Good Inc.'
3. Goldfrapp - 'Number 1'
4. Franz Ferdinand - 'Do You Want To'
5. Kasabian - 'Club Foot'
6. The Killers - 'Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine'
7. Hard-Fi - 'Living For The Weekend'
8. Bloc Party - 'Two More Years'
9. Scissor Sisters - 'Take Your Mama'
10. Babyshambles - 'Fuck Forever'
11. The Automatic - 'Recover'
12. Queens Of The Stone Age - 'Little Sister'
13. The Ordinary Boys - 'Boys Will Be Boys'
14. The Futureheads - 'Hounds Of Love'
15. The Bravery - 'Unconditional'
16. Razorlight - 'Somewhere Else'
17. The Subways - 'Oh Yeah'
18. Test Icicles - 'Circle Square Triangle'
19. Maximo Park - 'Apply Some Pressure'
20. Paul Weller - 'From The Floorboards Up'


Disc 2
1. Coldplay - 'Speed Of Sound'
2. The Magic Numbers - 'Forever Lost'
3. Oasis - 'The Importance Of Being Idle'
4. New Order - 'Waiting For The Sirens' Call'
5. Keane - 'Everybody's Changing'
6. Athlete - 'Wires'
7. Embrace - 'Ashes'
8. Snow Patrol - 'Spitting Games'
9. Turin Brakes - 'Fishing For A Dream'
10. Beck - 'E-Pro'
11. Doves - 'Black And White Town'
12. Stereophonics - 'Devil'
13. Kubb - 'Wicked Soul'
14. Super Furry Animals - 'Lazer Beam'
15. Elbow - 'Forget Myself'
16. The Tears - 'Lovers'
17. Bedouin Soundclash - 'When The Night Fills My Soul'
18. Supergrass - 'St Petersburg'
19. Feeder - 'Tumble And Fall'”

NME.COM - News - NME's Essential Bands CD out now

(oh, and Slowdive's old CDs have been re-released)

“The Special Forces are essentially the ultimate infantry in the modern general's arsenal. You didn't get the SAS abseiling in a tank down the front of the Iranian Embassy back in the counter-terrorist day. However, if you come expecting a radical reworking of Battlefield's mandate, you're in for a disappointment. While the sides are various counter-terrorist groups (SAS, Spetnatz, Green Berets, The Girl Guides) and Evil Members Of The Axis Of Evil (Insurgents, Terrorists, obsessive-single-next-generation-format advocates), expect the same flag-capturing conquest style of play.”

Review - Battlefield 2: Special Forces // PC /// Eurogamer

I don't know whether it's a consequence of the improved graphics in more modern MMOs which don't allow many opponents on screen or the slavish devotion to matching levels which means you should fight one-on-one or you're a bad person, but you don't seem to get things like this in the newer games (or you can't survive them):

chopping block...because serial killers are people too

“As of today, Account Creation and Billing services have been suspended for AC2. Players can no longer re-subscribe or create new accounts for the game.

Players who currently have subscriptions to AC2 will no longer be billed (effective today, November 28th) but may continue playing through December 30th.”

Asheron's Call 2 Forums - AC2 Billing Shut Down

• Impossibly-thin supermodel character - check
• huge tits - check
• costume that only covers limbs and naughty bits - check
• fake nipple effects - check
• extensive “up-skirt” camera angles - tbc
• male teenage market sewn up?

(thanks Kotaku)

Penny Arcade! - Even PA Has Limits

“WHAT: Nintendo's E3 Media Briefing

WHEN: Briefing begins at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 9, 2006.

WHERE: Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards), Hollywood & Highland Center, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028

WHY: You know why.”

Revolution Unveiled on May 9? - Kotaku

“Revolution Report recently came across a patent filed by Nintendo which may possibly be related to the Virtual Console function of the company's next-generation console, code-named Revolution.”

Revolution Report - news - New Patent Details Virtual Console Interface?

The Movies - A Lionhead Production

(ends with a dance number)

“Guy #1: Yo, them pants is hot, where'd you get 'em?
Guy #2: Muthafuckin' eBay, nigga!”

Overheard in New York: The Voice of The City - User ID: Golden_Gurlz

After providing the traditional role of “guy in the family who knows how to fix computers” for my brother, as thanks he and his girlfriend paid my share of a visit to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose (spoilers there and here).

Read more »

Seriously, it's a virus checker; where does 58 megabytes come from...

I'm quite enjoying Sigur Rós's Hoppípolla - unfortunately, I can't find hide nor hair of it on the Intarwebs apart from a 29-second clip on XFM. Instead you'll just have to watch the video for Gorillaz Dirty Harry, which is nowhere as good but decent it its own way.

“The thief reportedly held the store manager at gunpoint and forced him to hand over the two Xbox 360 consoles. According to GameSpot the police responded quickly and apprehended the thief shortly after the robbery took place. The store has now been reopened and everyone involved is said to be ok.”

Pro-G - Prodigious Gaming: Thief holds store at gunpoint to get an Xbox 360

...and I haven't even found any secrets.

littleFoot - part 1 of 2 - - by Adam Phillips

National Treasure is, well, slightly cheesy and cliched but nevertheless engrossing and fun. To describe it as Indiana Jones for the Da Vinci Code crowd would not, I think, be unkind. It stars Nicholas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates, scion of a family who've long kept a secret. In the opening scenes the young Ben is taken through the tale by his grandfather, who describes how a vast treasure, originating in Egypt, was gather and hidden by the Knights Templar and subsequently the Freemasons. Eventually it was hidden somewhere in the USA, ostensibly to keep it from the British and the family Gates hold the last remaining clue “The secret is held by Charlotte”.

Despite this warning about who to avoid, we first meet the adult Ben Gates and his compatriot Short Round Riley Poole as he journeys across the arctic snow in the company of Ian Howe, a rich Briton (played by the man who may be most responsible for changing the way people prounounce Sean, Sean Bean) and his henchmen. Howe is obviously after the treasure for nefarious porpoises (though he's supposedly already rich since he's funding the trip, but anyway) and as soon as the clue is discovered, attempts to dispatch Gates as soon as he believes it's been decoded.

The clue leads to the Declaration of Independence and how it hides a map to the treasure. With Howe poised to steal it, and having survived the attempt on their lives and been knocked back by the FBI who don't believe anyone could steal the Declaration, Gates decides to steal it himself, stopping only long enough to pick up the young, sexy National Archives archivist Abigail Chase. As they decipher each clue to lead them closer to the treasure, Howe and his goons keep close behind them. Harvey Keitel does a turn as an FBI agent who's after both groups. B+

Official site: http://nationaltreasure.com/

Be glad there aren't any winds in Azeroth (via The Cesspit):

Jonathan Hanna, Turbine: “There are many factors that contributed to AC2’s ultimate fate, and it’s really hard to single one factor out above the others. [...] One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful.”

Raph Koster, SOE: “Well, it helps for [EQ and EQ2] to be different games! We spent a lot of time during development to ensure that EQ2 was its own thing, a concept deserving of its own game while still in the EQ tradition. If it had been just EQ reskinned, I'm sure that it wouldn't have its own fan base that way. But we built it to attract a different audience, and it has.”

I've always said that AC2 was designed to appeal to different players than AC1 was and the marketing efforts directed at AC1 players were a mistake. Not that is was the only, or even the primary, reason for AC2's slow death - but I've never held the belief Turbine should have made AC1 again and it appears Raph agrees. Of course, EQ has suffered a loss of players after EQ2 launched and EQ2 has not seemingly been doing WoW-level numbers, so it may be that EQ's original large subscriber base hides the fact that sequels simply split your community.

So the plan is to visit Granny in Scotland for Xmas (parents are in Costa Rica; little brother is lunching with his girlfriend's parents since she's working with her loonies). We've got the week between Xmas and New Years off, but I've only got 4 days off left until March rolls around so I'd rather not use those up. Christmas Day is on the Sunday so I can either fly up on Christmas Eve and back the next week, or take the train.

The airlines are clearly gouging on people trying to travel on those days: QueasyJet is the cheapest, and charges £90-£100 for a return flight to Inverness normally, but £120 for a one-way to Inverness on the 24th (£140 on the 23rd). The return leg will set me back £70-£90 unless I want to come back on the 31st, when it temporarily returns to £40 for a day. Flight time is a little under two hours, plus check-in, plus drive to the airport - call it four hours (and then there's parking fees).

The train would only cost £107 return, but the journey time is about 10 hours. And I'd have to lug my luggage on the Tube...

Mind you, when I drove up the other month it took two days and probably cost £120 in petrol.

Was pootling around in AC, learnding a few spells when one +Turbine Sappho popped into general. Initially I thought it was because a few people had decided to take their petty argument public, but in fact Sappho was after “brave warriors” (and, despite the name, not just female ones). As sort of an apology for, largely, cancelling AC2, sticking AC1 on “hold” whilst they made Throne of Destiny and then inadvertently gutting the development team by closing their Californian office, they've been running live events a lot recently - this was one of them and Sappho wanted people to take part.

Read more »

I'd have paid cold hard cash for the transcript if we'd sent the Duke of Edinburgh instead (assuming some congruence between Britain and “Brittain” anyway).

“Two of the world's biggest publishers of MMORPGs, Korea's Webzen and NCSoft, presented their games to Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, during a Korean visit where he worked to find new bilateral trade opportunities for Brittain [sic].”

MMORPGDot@RPGDot - Bringing you the most news

Two stories over at Kotaku...

Apparently the IT industry's disdain for traditional expensive suits is driving the clothing industry to the wall.

“Ms Moss believes money should be no object when it comes to dressing well.

"This is not only about wearing suits, just a good quality shirt with a nice print and smart slacks is often enough as long as everything co-ordinates."”

IT workers dubbed 'worst dressed' - Breaking - Technology - smh.com.au

Here's one of the suggested ensembles you could wear if money was no object (ie you weren't worried that you'd be laughed out of your job):

How else to explain all the big names?

Apple - Trailers - Bloodrayne - Trailer

Additional: Some clues maybe...

• Not turn up to the gym for which you are paying £50/membership for six months: silence.
• Cancel the £50/month direct debit: letter within a week telling you to pay on your next visit.

Update: I wrote a letter this morning, slightly sarky and pointing out their different reactions to my not attending versus my money not attending. However, for some reason either OpenOffice 2 or my printer is being bad and won't print the actual text on the page (it just goes through the motions and produces a page with two straight lines on it). So, with it getting late for me to set off for work, I just called their payment line and asked to cancel. Despite their claim that to cancel you need to visit the actual gym where you signed up or send the manager there a visit, they offered to take the point where I cancelled the direct debit as my letter of cancellation and, as per my contract, I'd need to pay one more month after that to be free! I didn't feel like arguing the toss with some spod in a call centre - so I just paid.

I didn't find these myself - they turned up in my cottage's chest; I guess left by Casper:

Gorillaz “live” at the MTV Europe awards (via MeFi).

DevilDucky - Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc Live

• Bloc Party's Reading set is up on iTunes.
• Muse are going to release a DVD of the Absolution Tour.
• And Mogwai's next album will be called Mr. Beast.

Rares:

New toy; bought off eBay (ex display model), delivered today:

An excellent little revenge thriller Brit-flick. Very few Wikipedia links because this doesn't appear to have made enough of a dent on American conciousness to warrant anything there.

Paddy Considine (also co-screenwriter with director Shane Meadows) plays Richard, an ex-Squaddie who returns to a nowhere midlands town to exact revenge on behalf of his simple-minded brother Anthony. The miscreants, the town's petty drug dealers (so petty in fact, all six of them travel around in a white and lime-green Citroën 2CV), abused Anothony's simplicity and plied him with drugs, drink and women. At first Richard simply scares and confuses them, breaking into their houses to ransack them or paint their faces as they sleep. The leader of the gang, Sonny (played by ex-boxer Gary Stretch), confronts Richard in the street but backs down and the gang return to their base to plan how to deal with him. Before they can though, Richard sneaks in and axes one of them to death and things spiral downwards from there.

Perhaps a touch predictable in places and Richard benefits from a couple of fortuitous events which otherwise would have seen the story finished rather more swiftly and less violently than it does. Well acted and shot and the scenery is suitably bleak and English. A

Official site: http://www.godwillforgivethem.com/

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

I just found the “StarMaker” program that comes with The Movies. In it you can design the look and temperament of your leading actors and actresses. Like the game though it doesn't differentiate on gender issues...

Says Kotaku:

“Lord of the Rings Online has recently announced its player classes: from Burglar to Champion, Lore-Master to Minstrel, they're certainly not going down the usual hunter-ranger-wizard-bard route, at least not quite so obviously, anyway.”

LOTRO: Classes Announced - Kotaku

Hopefully they're being sarcastic since the classes - listed on Turbine's site - are in fact dead-on hunter-ranger-wizard-bard-etc types.

I Picked up Lionhead's The Movies from the Post Office this morning. An interesting concept, half machinima, half The Sims, half Theme Park. You set up a movie studio with sets, script rooms, staff training facilities and lamposts and make movies. There's some degree of micro-management: you have to make your studio look purty or no-one applies to be an actor with you, so you have to keep putting grass down as well as various flim-flams like water fountains and basketball courts. You also need to supply your staff's needs in the areas of intake and output - though having too many dunnies lowers the look of your studio (so far I'm just hiding them behind trees - seems to be working).

You'll need to pamper your stars even more, giving them make-overs and expensive trailers - or they throw hissy-fits. You can also send them to the bar, though there's a chance they'll get addicted to drink or food (but not drugs, because that would be bad™ - so they don't seem to be part of the game).

Once your scripting slaves produce a script, you assign a director (who hopefully has experience in that genre) and a star (likewise) plus any crew or extras the script calls for and they go off and shoot it. You can then view the results - I'm still in the 20s era, so everything's silent anyway, but I don't know if you get any dialogue in later shoots.

One of the amusing things is that, like The Sims, gender is not taken into account for jobs and roles. As a result, I accidently made this lost inter-racial lesbian classic by dropping a female star into the lead role of a romance.

Not long after starting you get the advanced script complex where you can specify the exact scenes for the movie rather than just the genre. I'm not certain how much control you have though - I tried making a Sci-Fi on the Western set and couldn't see how to change costumes at all - the resulting mess I sold to another company for a few thousand dollars. Be interesting if the other game does have that company try and make it...

Firefox is, undoubtably, a better browser than Internet Explorer. When Microsoft was pushing IE a lot during the early browser wars I remember being annoyed when you'd get to a site that said “best viewed in Internet Explorer” - though more at MS and Netscape for attempting to win the battle by adding more obscure competing tags than each other than at designers who cracked and just coded for one set.

So, this doesn't impress me much and this seems irredeemably childish.

“Filming is now underway in Cardiff for the long-awaited return of the Cybermen. The two-part adventure, written by Tom McRae, sees The Doctor and companions battle against a new, more deadly breed of Cybermen who are out to convert humanity into their own kind.”

BBC - Doctor Who - Cybermen Revealed

Mike sent me four pics he'd taken on his cameraphone (a shexy new black Moto Razr).

A small confession: back in the 80s I was marginally a Goth. I never wrote poetry or a journal on how depressing my life was (not least because it wasn't), I just wore black jeans, black T-shirts and - even at school, rebelliously - black boots. Mainly I was in it for the music. The Sisters of Mercy were fairly huge and I saw them at Wembley Arena. Likewise their erstwhile offspring The Mission in the same venue (but a different date, obviously).

One band of the era I wished I seen were Fields of the Nephilim who struggled manfully against critical derision (the NME had a weekly spoof devoted to them) despite seemingly lacking any sense of humour whatsoever themselves, and managed to release three albums of increasingly complex and longer songs (or more proggy if you wish) before splitting due to the usual musical differences (lead singer Cark McCoy felt he was the music; everyone else felt differently).

McCoy - who's singing voice was so deep even Barry White was impressed - went on to gather some session musicians and record an industrial/metal album under the name The Nefilim. The rest of the band recruited a new singer and released two albums as Rubicon.

There were some re-union rumblings in the late 90s and a disowned selection of out-takes released by a disgruntled record label. Early this year, the official Neph website (est. 2003) said sole remaining member McCoy would be releasing a Fields of the Nephilim album this year. After a few regular checks of the site showed no movement, I'd almost given up expectations - but apparently Mourning Sun is landing later this month.

In the mail this morning:

Are you perhaps interested in buying AUZSOFT.COM ?

The domain is for sale through Dommerce for $89.95.

If you are interested signup here:
[URL redacted]

Jessy
$90? I checked the whois records and the domain was free (it wasn't when I originally set up my own website) so it'll cost whatever my usual registrar costs.

Posted in General | No comments »

9-year old Timmy doesn't agree...

November 06, 2005

...he's allergic to glass.

(Spam just gets sillier)

Posted in General | 1 comment »

Since it's the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot...

November 05, 2005

...a contemporary account of the hangings, drawings and quarterings of the conspiritors in the plot to blow up Parliament. How newspapers have changed in the past 400 years...

“[Fawkes] made no speech, but with his crosses and idle ceremonies made his end upon the gallows and the block, to the great joy of all beholders that the land was ended of so wicked a villainy”

Guy Fawkes Arraignment and Execution

Posted in General | No comments »

He understand the history of comedy, you don't

November 05, 2005

(bets on any of the following being made fun of? Scientology, child brides, ritalin, squirty microphones, aggravated couch leaping)

“Extras creator Ricky Gervais has confirmed the show's second series will feature Tom Cruise and also hinted Madonna and Brad Pitt may appear.”

Cruise adds extra punch for Extras

Posted in General | No comments »

Happy Birthday Asheron's Call

November 02, 2005

Six today.

Posted in Playing | No comments »

Get ready for R. Biddy

November 02, 2005

“The company who have bought the rights to Rupert Bear have announced plans to bring him "more into the 21st century."”

Digital Spy: Celebrity makeover for cartoon character

Posted in General | No comments »

The Icebar

November 01, 2005

The Icebar visit bears a few comments I suppose. It's not as impressive as I imagined - I'd persuaded myself it was a veritable cathedral of ice, akin to the ice mansion in one of the recent Bond movies (Die Another Day?). In fact, it's largely an empty room with the walls made of ice bricks. The floor is not ice - which is both good and bad, as several people were worried they'd need to ice-skate to enter. The ceiling is where the heat-exchanger plates are. There's a few ice-benches along one wall and some free-standing ice stools, both with thick padded “cushions” to protect one's arse from the cold. There's an Angel ice sculpture against one wall and a Absolut bottle carved out of another block that you get get into and pretend you're stuck inside.

The drinks - either various fruit flavoured vodka cocktails or vodka-free fruit drinks - come in ice glasses, a rectangular block of ice with a hole in it. You get one free with the £12 entry free and any subsequent rounds will set you back £6 (or £3 for the non-alcohlic drinks). You'll need the gloves on the Emperor-Palpatine-esque robes to drink them as there are few tables around (one ice one in the middle and a few faux-ice perspex ones near the bench).

An interesting bar to visit. Not sure if I'd go back unless someone else really really wanted to go (although Mike suggested taking a date there so she'd be cold and you could offer to warm her up...)

Posted in General | 1 comment »

Cool Birthday

November 01, 2005

Icebar Slogan,
originally uploaded by Auz.

I went to the recently-opened Icebar London for my birthday. Here are a few pics.

Posted in General | No comments »