Ball Ball Ball, Footy Footy Footy

Here we are once again. The weekend is just a hangover away and my team travel to face bottom-of-the-table Inverness on the back of 8 unbeaten in the league. We're in great form but will have to be to beat a resurgent Inverness who look a completely different side since former 'Well managers Terry Butcher and Mo Malpas joined forces again to take over at the Highland side. Nevertheless, I'm quietly confident (which usually spells disaster). If I was a betting man, I'd also be following my hunch and putting a cheeky fiver on Cillian Sheridan scoring first. He's due, or something like that.

In fantasy land, Man Ure are on Carling Cup duty meaning I've got two guaranteed non-starters over the weekend. Injuries and suspensions have ravaged my side which basically means my new star signing (who will also be my captain this week) better have a stormer or I could be falling behind again after a big move up the table last week. We shall see!

Just a wee one today as it's rapidly approaching pub time and if I didn't post now the chances are good that I wouldn't at all or that it would be drunken rambling (as opposed to regular rambling).

Hope you have a great weekend.

Couldn't embed today's video but do click and check it out.

The Prodigy are back. But is it GOOD?

The long-awaited new album from The Prodigy hit the shops on Monday. Here's my attempt to tackle it in some kind of objective fashion. A tough assignment given my love for this evergreen and ever metamorphosing stalwart of the electronica scene.

But first, let me set the scene. It's the early 90s and I'm in high school. The older kids are going to clubs and getting into the ecstasy scene, powered by "Hardcore", a sort of mainstream version of Rave with such illustrious luminaries as 2 Unlimited. I dip my toe into the music with a few compilation CDs (they were new and shiny!) including one called Essential Hardcore. My favourite track on there was "Everybody in the place" by someone called the Prodigy. The fad passed and I didn't really get into the scene at all.

Fast forward a few years and I'm smack bang in the middle of my "mosher" phase. Long hair, leather jacket, tight black jeans, the whole shebang. It's the summer of 1995 and I'm at the second ever T-in-the-park festival back when it was held just a mile or two from where I lived in Motherwell. I was there to see some big metal acts (can't rightly recall who at the moment) and my flavour of the month band, Irish rockers Therapy?. I'd had a phenomenal weekend and things were winding down and the last act of the night were getting ready to come onto the main stage. Shrouded in darkness, we could make out some movement but not much of anything else happening on the stage. An expectant lull descended over the tightly-packed crowd and it became quieter than at any other time over the weekend. The sun was beginning to set on the horizon and we were bathed in a pinkish glow both from that and from the elaborate light show that was starting up on the stage. A giant plastic ball, reminiscent of Gladiators, rolled onto the stage as some brooding bass began to pound out of the enormous speakers all around us. Moving as one sprawling body, the crowd instinctively shifted into regimented lines. My booze-addled mind wondered what was going on as a two or three foot space opened up in front of me. Then it dawned on me. This was my own personal dance floor. Suddenly the stage was flushed with light, dazzling us momentarily and a resounding boom of bass almost split the earth asunder. The giant plastic bubble rolled to a halt and it's human hamster occupant (Keith, of course!) burst forth as the first beats of Voodoo People tore an excited scream from every single member of the crowd.

And then we danced.

Dusk became darkness and almost 2 hours later, drenched in sweat and utterly exhausted, not to mention completely sober again, I'd just been infected with The Prodigy for the first time live. It's an experience I'll never forget. Since then I've followed their careers like any other fan. I've seen them 3 times live now and they truly know how to put on a show. Their energy and enthusiasm for what they do really transmits to the crowd. Listening to their studio albums has never really hit the same high for me, as you might expect, although I love all of their albums to one extent or another. Sure there are low points on Fat of the Land and Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned but I've yet to be disappointed by a new album. So my excitement and anticipation for Invaders Must Die was tempered by a trepidation that maybe this time they wouldn't quite live up to their previous efforts. I have to admit, on first listen I couldn't help but feel my fears were justified.

The album opens with the title track. It's been available to listen to on Youtube for ages now (and I posted it here in my blog a while ago) so it wasn't a surprise to me. Some people have compared it to the style of Pendulum's more recent offerings and I can see why. But it's definitely got that Prodigy air about it. It's actually pretty distinct from any particular album sound they've done over the years though. A typically pounding bass is overlaid with heavy guitar and a scratchy synth sound that definitely gets my head bobbing. A solid 5 minutes of electro-joy and a strong opener for the album, for me.

Track 2 is Omen, another track which has been available for some time and one which I instantly loved on first listen. Again very Pendulum-esque in the juxtaposition of elements. This one has Keith's vocals over the top and the track is full of mini crescendos that when the break hits just makes you want to get up and dance. This one is sure to become a club favourite much in the same vein of Firestarter. It has just enough "rest break" lulls in the beat combined with it's powerful main theme to make dancing to it an utter joy, I imagine. I only wish it was longer than the 3 and a half minutes it weighs in at.

Thunder took me back to Jilted in the blink of an eye. Reminds me of The Heat (The Energy) a LOT, which is by no means a bad thing. Not much more to say on this one. It wasn't an immediate favourite but after 10 listens it's definitely grown on me and now I love it.

Colours is pure Always Outnumbered... through and through. Rapid drums, pounding bass and a little keyboard tinkling make this one a definite head bobber if not necessarily a floor filler.

It wouldn't seem strange if you found out that the next track, Take me to the Hospital was actually a lost track from the Experience album. It's got that old school hardcore sound to it with the chimes and the squeaky vox augmented with a thumping bass that seems to have been lifted from Fat of the Land. Another great track imho.

Warrior's Dance takes a little while to get going but when it does, wow! It does break down a little in the middle when the pulsating bass isn't tearing your sub woofer a new one but it's still pretty good despite that.

Run with the Wolves is another track from the Always Outnumbered... stable. It's very much like Hotride (minus Juliette Lewis, of course) with that albums signature heavy bass and Keith's aggressive lyrics combining to form what is a pretty decent track in and of itself but one that is perhaps overshadowed by the rest of the album. If this is as low as the album gets, then it's a testament to the quality of Invaders Must Die.

Omen Reprise is (one would imagine) Liam just having some fun with what is clearly one of his personal favourite tracks on the album. It's only just over 2 minutes long but has some nice tweaks on the original heard earlier in the album. It does have more of a Jilted feel to it though which is never unwelcome. Listening to it does kinda make me just want to go back to track 2 though. Likely to be the most remixed track on the album I reckon.

World's on Fire is up next and I take back what I said about Run with the Wolves being the low point of the album. This is definitely it. There's nothing particularly innovative in this one. I like the vox-box modded vocals but the beat is just "ok" which is a rarity for the Prodigy as far as I'm concerned. It also briefly goes off on an Experience tangent that just doesn't really work in the context of this song.

The brilliance is back with a bang in the penultimate track, Piranha. This doesn't really sound like any other Prodigy songs that I can think of off the top of my head. Maxim does the vocals on this one and it's just 4 minutes 5 seconds of energetic booming beats. Great way to finish off the album...

... because the final track feels like it really doesn't belong here at all. It's a complete change of pace from anything I've ever heard the Prodigy do before, in almost every way. It's called Stand Up and if anything it reminds of Dry the Rain by the Beta Band. It's melodic and very light on electro interference. There's a guitar, drums, a wind instrument of some kind and a little bit of synth action between choruses. Guess what? I love it! It's... not... Prodigy... but I love it nevertheless. After the intensity of the rest of the album it's a really chilled out way to wind the album down and once again shows just how genius Liam is at composition.

These opinions arrived after at least a dozen listenthroughs and it is absolutely one of those albums which is a grower. If you love Prodigy, like me, then you wont really care and will have it already. If you love raw power, genius composition, thundering bass and a masterful display of electronic finesse then making Invaders Must Die your next acquisition would be far from a bad move. Turn it up and dance your heart out!

Mini-rant

What the hell have they done to the Follower box? It looks terrible now. So much so in fact that I got rid of it altogether. It used to be so unobtrusive and now it's this big ugly box emblazoned with GoogleFriend Connect logo or somesuch. Urrgh. Not nice at all.

That is all, for now. Later today I'll post my review of Invaders Must Die. I bet you cant wait...

For the Emperor!

It's Dawn of War, Jim, but not as we know it.

So Dawn of War 2 hit games shops all over the country on Friday and I managed to hold out until Monday to buy it. For those of you unfamiliar with the franchise, it's set in the world of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K. Developed by Relic, the masterful team behind Dawn of War 1 and WW2 strategy masterpiece, Company of Heroes, DoW2 uses an updated version of the Essence engine from CoH, optimised for dual core DX10 systems. The game requires you to install Steam if you dont have it already and encourages you to get a gamertag from Live, so you can get Xbox-style achievements. Yes folks, I now have Gamerpoints. For shame!

So, trivialities out of the way, let's begin our adventure into Campaign mode. The first thing I noticed about the Campaign was that I didn't get a choice of which race to play. Having just recently finished DoW:Dark Crusade and DoW:Soulstorm, I had gotten used to the idea of having 7 races to pick from but here it was Blood Ravens Space Marines or quit to desktop. Fair enough, says I. Marines were my favourite in the first game anyway. After picking a name for my Force Commander (pick wisely as you will regret calling yourself Geneseed McBigballs when you have to see it over and over and over), you are taken into your first mission immediately. So, Force Commander Proteus (I've played Chaos Gate, I know they're all called Latin names...) and his accompanying tactical squad land on the battlefield and straight away it feels familiar. More polished graphics, for sure. I turned the settings up to full then tuned them down until it stopped warning me my system would have trouble. The landscapes are pretty nice, especially when you zoom right in. Details and animations are good and thankfully there seems to be enough of a range of them that you dont have 5 men performing what appears to be some kind of esoteric synchronised shrugging dance. Scratch the surface though, and the blood and guts of this game have changed in a big way. First of all, there's no resource collection. Now, I dont mean that in the same way you could say there is no resource collection in DoW, where you take a point and it will build up resources for you to buy stuff. There literally are no resources to collect. You dont "buy" structures or units. You dont "buy" upgrades within the mission. Instead you simply have your squads, each with a named squad leader. If a squad member is killed then you get him back by retreating to your nearest "relay" (think checkpoint) and a replacement teleports in. If your squad leader is incapacitated then another squad leader can revive him (in true Gears of War teabagging fashion by standing nearby and waving your arms in the air like some kind of steel-encased Obi Wan Kenobi). This feels really strange at first and you cant help but think to yourself, where the hell do I get more men, damnit!?

You move around and fight just like in CoH, with terrain features offering either no, light or heavy cover depending on what it is. Your troops are relatively smart and will jockey their position to make the best use of available cover, retreating behind walls or sandbags and the like when they catch sight of incoming enemies. Each unit has a few special abilities which are powered by energy and you have to constantly be micro managing this to get the most effectiveness out of your troops. This would be an unholy pain in the ass if it was DoW. But it's not. It's DoW2 and you get, count em, 4 squads of men maximum per battle. And we're not talking 10-strong steel legions raining explosive jacketed slugs of death. Oh no. The tactical squad is 4 men. The Assault and Devastator squads number 3 a piece and your Force Commander is all by himself. Generally in each mission you have 11 men, tops. The key to this working is the new wargear and experience system. Each squad leader character gains XP over the course of the Campaign with which he can boost one of four stats. Health, Melee, Ranged and Energy, would be the basic titles. Like in Mass Effect, hitting a threshold in a particular stat grants new abilities and unlocks access to different weapons or to additional equipment slots. Each point invested in a stat also boosts your associated skills, such as melee skill or ranged damage. It's actually a very fun process to level up, choosing what's the best direction for your squad leader based on the way you like to employ him and his squad in the battle. My only observation on this would be that against some enemies, they have structures which spawn enemies seemingly indefinitely until you destroy the structure. This would indicate that it's possible to "milk" these bottomless udders of XP for as long as you could stomach it but I haven't tested if the time/reward ratio is worth it. The other new(ish) addition is Wargear. In the last two instalments you could pimp your force commander with wargear but here every squad leader has a number of slots which can hold wargear of various descriptions. Weapons, armour, grenades, orbital beacons, medpacks, purity seals etc. It's very VERY much like WoW in this respect. Even down to the fact that basic loots are white text, uncommon are green and rare are blue (haven't seen any purples after 8 hours of gameplay but you know they'll be there...) Each piece of kit further enhances your stats or grants special abilities to the bearer. This loot "drops" from killing standard enemies (sometimes) and from the "boss" fights (always). I'm not sure if there are loot tables or if the drops are predefined. I have a feeling it may be the former. The bosses are good fun to fight and generally have one or two tricks up their sleeve that make the battle a bit more interesting than just mass select and click attack.

Which is not to say that the regular gameplay is anything like the drag-select and zerg that has been the bane of RTS games since, well, since forever. Try that here and you will be torn apart faster than Richard Gere's rectum at the hamster equivalent of Crufts. Each squad has to be individually manoeuvred into position, then the enemy teased into attacking you on your terms while you micro-manage your special abilities to maximise your firepower. As soon as each individual burst of combat is over, your troops regenerate health and energy very quickly so it becomes a series of small skirmishes that you have to carefully manage to be as efficient as possible. You do have some tricks that are limited use, such as grenades and medpacks but these can be topped up by breaking supply crates that litter the maps. I've never ran out of anything yet but I am only playing on default difficulty (2 of 4, I think).

It's really not like DoW at all, to be honest. It's more like a bastard half-breed of Diablo 2, and Company of Heroes set in the 40k universe, with elements of World of Warcraft thrown in. Hmmm. Win?

After a battle you are debriefed and given bonus experience based on 3 key areas: Fury (what % of enemies in the level you killed), Resilience (how many of your squad leaders were incapacitated at any point in the mission) and Speed (how quickly you completed the mission, which for me is always the lowest rating unless it's a computer attacks you type mission). If you score highly enough you can gain bonus deployments on that campaign day (in other words you get to do another mission before the day ticks over, which usually entails some bad shit happening somewhere or other, so it's a worthwhile goal to achieve these bonus deployments).

On the interplanetary scale, there are a number of worlds with available missions on them and after the initial couple you are free to choose the order in which you do these. Tactical considerations come into play here too though as some missions have a date by which they must be done and some missions lower the Tyranid Infestation level of the planet which I can only imagine to be bad if you leave it to build up for too long.

There is a continuous story thread going on as you play which seems so far to be much more solid than the dubiously loosely associated fluffy bits which proliferate the Campaign modes of Soulstorm and Dark Crusade.

I haven't ventured into the peril-fraught world of multiplayer matches yet. I understand you can play as Marines, Eldar, Orks or Tyranids in multiplayer, so I'll be giving that a try once I've played a bit more. It will be interesting to see how the other races deal with the 4 squad limit, or the fact that when fighting Tyranids and Eldar they seem to have buildings. I did notice there is an interesting Co-op multiplayer mode where two players can each take control of 2 squads in campaign mode (I'm looking at you Mr Oakley...)

In the future I can see expansions with other races which if you offered me right now I'd bite your hand off. This game is helluva fun, not many games can keep me playing for 8 hours straight and have me only switching off when I'm bordering on unconsciousness and a few hours away from my alarm going off for work. It's only been one day of playing but I'd recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in RTS games. To me it's made some real innovations to the genre and is almost guaranteed to be a smash hit. If nothing else, it will sate your RTS appetite until Blizzard's Starcraft juggernaut rolls onto the scene. Relic ftw! 9/10

Golf Tango Foxtrot Oscars

I'm not going to talk about the Oscars, much. Not a fan. Slumdog won everything. Heath Ledger got his gong(if there's even been a surer bet I don't know what it is). That's all I have to say on that really. Well done Danny Boyle. Superb director, so he is.

So I was lying in bed last night and thinking things over (as I sometimes do) with regards to what I'm going to next. It's coming up to the 18 month mark that I've been in my current job and it's usually round about that time that I find myself somewhere between utterly hating it and mightily bored and in need of a new challenge. Perhaps somewhat encouragingly, it seems different this time. I dont hate my job. Far from it. I actually get a reasonable amount of satisfaction from it. Sure, I work for a big ass corporation that makes obscene profits every year but at least here I am working on something more important than lining shareholders pockets. The work I do has a genuine impact on the education of the young people of this country and that's something I take immense personal pleasure in. It's the same feeling I got when I worked for the NHS. A sense of social contribution that was completely absent when I worked for the mortgage company, or the casino, or any of the other companies I've been employed by before. The people I work with are great. The atmosphere in the office is by far and away the best I've experienced and the environment and conditions I work under are a lot better than I've ever had before. I'm also well compensated for the work I do and I know that I am lucky compared to the majority. There's a major restructuring going on that might be opening some doors to bigger and better things (well, bigger and better pay at least). So why am I questioning whether I want to stay beyond the end of my contract or not? Is it just that 18-month itch I appear to possess? Answers on a postcard (or comment, if you prefer).

Perhaps the answers lie away from Reading.

So, self-indulgent rambling aside, back to the important matters. Like Motherwell FC. Somehow or other, we managed a point at home to Celtic in a 1-1 draw that by all accounts was far from a spectacle of the beautiful game. The Fir Park pitch is a coo field. Something of an embarrassment if I'm being honest. We cant even blame Gretna this season. Hamilton play just a couple of miles away so we also cant lay the blame at the feet of localised weather conditions either. Nevertheless, the 90 minute game of hoof it and chase produced a relatively entertaining match yesterday and despite my prediction of us taking a doing, the 'Well were good value for our point. A valuable point indeed, as we moved above the Hibees. Anything you get off the Old Firm is a bonus as you dont really expect anyone else to take points from them and yesterdays draw made it 8 unbeaten in the League, a feat not even equalled by Rangers this season. (Dundee Utd went 8, and Celtic went 12 earlier in the season, for your information). If we can extend that run to 12 or more then top 6 should be safely in the bag and a push for one of the two Europa League places could make for a lively final quarter of the season. Can't wait!

Todays video is another great song by Jonathan Coulton, of Skullcrusher Mountain and Still Alive (The Portal end song) fame:

Catching up

Wow. Quite a lot has happened since my last post, despite it being but two short days ago. So let's start in order...

Motherwell lost. 1-0. To St Mirren. *sigh* Mark McGhee described it as one of the "worst experiences and disappointments of my managerial career". We were shite. St Mirren's new stadium has a lovely pitch which I'd hoped would be ideal for the style of football the 'Well have been trying to play ever since MMG took over but alas, the players didn't live up to it and there should a few of them looking at each other and asking questions. Once again our man of the match was loanee Cillian Sheridan. The rest of them need a kick up the arse. Tomorrow we play Sheridan's parent club (Celtic) which means the boy wont be allowed to play so we're really screwed for that one! With Hibs going down to bottom of the table Inverness today, a point against Celtic would move us above the Edinburgh side. We can but hope.

Thursday night was also the launch party which was a brilliant night. There's always something added to a night on the piss when people you never get the chance to see smashed (particularly your bosses...) are there and having a right good time. The food was good, the drink was free (thank god, £6.50 a tequila!) and the casino was good hearty fun (and more than a little competitive given that there was an iPod touch for the overall winner). As it was, it all came down to the last spin of the roulette wheel and my number just didn't come up. I had to make do with the "That's how I roll" prize (a bottle of nice champagne which I dutifully drank from the bottle) for my scrupulous honesty when it seemed everyone else was pooling winnings or colluding in one way or another. The irony of it all is not lost on me... Afterwards a party set out to go to Reflex, which was sadly closed. We ended up in the real casino where I placed one bet, won £100 and cashed out. All in all, Thursday was great.

Friday I had booked off for the inevitable hangover (which wasn't as bad as I anticipated) and spent most of the daylight tucked up in bed watching DVDs. At night I rolled down to Matt's for GTA4 goodness only to find he had loaned the disc for the original game to a friend and couldn't get it back for a few days. Bummer! We played some Tony Hawk and the new Street Fighter game along with some Rockband well into the early hours. The new White Zombie DLC for RB was good fun to sing! Finally we learn the lyrics of More Human than Human! Fun.

Saturday was spent meandering around the shops, contemplating whether to buy Dawn of War 2 or not. Decided against it on account of buying the complete edition of the first game just two weeks ago. I have a bad habit of doing that. Got home and checked the football scores and to my delight Beattie had grabbed a late double for Stoke against Pompey. Yes, of course he is in my fantasy team. All in all it was a pretty good day actually and I climbed to 4th place in the league ahead of tomorrow's matches. I'll not be in that position after tomorrow because most of my team has played where my rivals haven't but I'll be a pretty happy man if Everton and Liverpool dont keep clean sheets tomorrow. Ronaldo scored again, although he did get booked for diving, the cheating bastard. I watched it on Match of the Day and the gelled tumbler wasn't even touched. Honestly, it almost hurts to put aside my personal feelings in the hunt for more fantasy points where this twat is concerned.

One last thing of note about the football today which highly amused me is that Man United finally conceded after, wait for it, 1337 minutes of league football. Ho ho ho. (Half you are scratching your head going 'wtf?' right now I know, so allow me to link...)

So I wrote quite a lot today to make up for the day (and a bit) of radio silence. Well done if you made it to the end of this pointless drivel. I see my musings here have (at least partially) inspired a couple of you to start/pickup blog writing of your own. I look forward to reading your pointless drivel too. ;)

Jode out.

Japan, home of the strange

Cheers to Matt for the heads up on this (although sometimes that boy worries me...)

The plot seems quite straightforward, if somewhat disturbing. Demon Queen possesses man's testicles. Can our intrepid hero save the world by resisting ejaculation for a month? I bet you're all intrigued and disgusted in equal measure.

I have a formal do this evening to celebrate the launch of our new website at work. Dinner suit has been purchased. Shoes polished. Breath minty freshed. Ah, getting boozed up for free at a swanky hotel with ALL your colleagues. What could possibly go wrong? I have the day off tomorrow as a pre-emptive measure should I be wickedly hungover. Genius.

Utterly unimpressed with Christiano fecking Ronaldo today...

Mon the 'Well tonight!

Lots to do so that's it for today. Except for one last thing:

LC DLC FTW!

GTA 4 gets its first DLC on xbox

Back in July last year when I split up with the ex and moved in with my mate, GTA 4 filled many many hours of fun for more or less a complete month as we systematically took the game apart. It was pretty much my favourite game of last year (although my 2 month love affair with WAR comes close but once again, I was left disappointed with an MMORPG). The new episode, which Matt downloaded yesterday is finally here and once again we are getting ready to tear Liberty City a new one. I'm kinda sad that Niko Bellic isn't the protagonist this time around. I've not paid too much attention to the build-up for this so know very little about it but nevertheless I'm really looking forward to playing it. With conflicting schedules, it seems the first available window to try it out will be Friday, which coincides with an online event that will let you play against the developers. I'd really liked to have got some practice in beforehand but meh, what can you do? I'm sure much carnage will ensue.

In other news, this evening sees Man Utd play Fulham in an outstanding fixture that will hopefully see me jump a place in the fantasy league. Most people have Man U defenders and a fair few have the "gelled tumbler" as Captain so there is not too much potential for change in the league but you never know. I could really do with Ronaldo repaying some of the faith I put in him when I savaged my team to afford his exorbitant price, right before he went on a Nani-esque run of doing hee-haw. Things are really tight in the league around me at the moment and a goal or two could see me move up to 5th or 6th, which given I was down in the bottom half before an excellent January would be a decent achievement.

In real life football, it's the 'Well vs St Mirren in the cup replay tomorrow, with Celtic awaiting the victors in the next round. Bit bummed with the draw to be honest but I suppose to win the thing you have to beat at least one half of the Old Firm along the way (usually). That's exactly what happened in 1991 when we beat Celtic 4-2 in a replay at Hampden with Colin O'Neil scoring a wonder strike.



I remember it so well. What a strike! Could this be our year again? We need to dispatch the Saints first which wont be easy by any means. Mon the 'Well!

Not much to say today...

Not much to say today. Hands are still sore (I'd tell you why but I dont want to break the first rule). Also have this weird pain in my chest. It seems to have migrated North West from my right lung. Hopefully it's on it's way out. I seem to be a bit at sea generally at the moment. Forgetting things, messing things up, making stupid decisions. Not quite sure what that's all about.

Some inconsiderate bastard has also given me a lot of work to do so I really should keep this short.

Today's video is really quite amazing...

All's swell with the 'Well

Mark McGhee led my beloved Motherwell to a narrow 1-0 derby victory over Hamilton at the weekend to stretch our unbeaten run to 10 games in all competitions (it sounds better than 4 wins from 10 games, doesn't it?) and fire us into the top 6 for the first time in a loooong time. It seems we're doing ok without "star" striker Chris Porter who departed for sunnier shores (well, Derby) in the transfer window. I'm concerned our goal output isn't going to be good enough to sneak into the top 4 and a UEFA spot. Love him as I do, David Clarkson is not the most prolific of scorers thus far in his career (which is a nice way of saying he couldn't hit a coo's erse with a shovel). Still, we have young Cillian Sheridan on loan from Celtic for the rest of the season and despite not getting on the score sheet on Saturday he was man of the match. Time will tell.

Given the atrocious start to the season we had it's really rather amazing we are still within striking distance. That's one good thing about the top 6 splitting off to play one another for the last few games of the season. It usually means every game has some significance and there are a lot of 6-pointers. I hope the Steelmen are in the shakeup come May. In some ways our team is stronger this season. Losing Porter's a blow that's perhaps as significant as losing McCormack to Cardiff was at the end of last season. I'm sure if anyone can guide us there, it's MMG.

Mon the 'Well!


Todays video is brought to you by the boyband parody society.

The Dress-Down-Day Rant

When I first started working where i am right now every Friday was a dress down day. I'm sure you are familiar with the concept. You get to wear what you like basically. More recently, however, a new fortnightly regime has been introduced to much grumbling in the ranks. I just can't understand it frankly. The reason given was some crock about important visitors who might randomly drop in and every second friday was the most likely time for these appearances. Yeah, sure. There's clearly a gravitation towards abandoning dress down day altogether and only strength of feeling amongst the rank and file has prevented it from happening in a more immediate fashion already.

In an office that is not customer-facing why do we even bother getting suited and booted anyway? Do you get more done if you're in a suit? I'd like to see evidence that supports that. If I'm sitting in comfortable clothes I think I tend to be in a better mood and accordingly get more done, but that could just be my psychological interpretation. I love weeks that have a dress down day in them. It's almost like a 4 day week. Hmmm. Perhaps this is the problem management has with it. Maybe people do have an attitude that a dress down day is somehow an "easier" day. One thing I just thought of is that if every day was a casual clothes day then that once a fortnight wouldn't be quite so special now would it?! Every week would FEEL like a 5 day week, albeit in casual clothes :) I guess you cant win.

Oh, and I'll finish today with a rather humorous video. Makes me so proud to be from Glasgow...

Invaders must die!

Today's happy thoughts centred around the imminent release of Invaders must die, the new Prodigy album. 23rd February! I haven't been this looking forward to a music release since... since I heard about the new Cat Empire album last month! :)

Check out the single in HQ audio while you read:



The Omen single is released next monday too, which is nice. The comments on youtube and elsewhere on t'internet are mixed on this latest Prodigy sound. Some say it's all gone a bit too Pendulum, others say it's rather vanilla when compared to what we are used to. Also, how can anything sound TOO Pendulum?! From the two songs i've heard off the new album, I'm pretty happy. Time will tell if it's the peak of Jilted or the trough of Fat of the Land. Personally I can't wait.


How cool are these?

Project Z

So my next project is a piece of fiction set in contemporary Reading and dealing with some kind of zombie outbreak. Taking inspiration from the BZDL and various other sources, I've already got a framework down and I'm currently tossing around a few ideas for characters. You never know, it could be you...

For those about to rock...

We salute you!

Picked up this for the 360 last week and gave it a good try out on Thursday. One thing. How the hell does he keep that up for an entire gig! His throat must be made of steel. I woke up on Friday spitting blood and feeling like i was swallowing sandpaper. And that had nothing to do with the beer, no sir.

Back to the game and the classics are all there. Thunderstruck, TNT, Dirty Deeds... The list goes on. The game is standalone but comes with a code you can tie in to your xbox live account to download the content for use with RB or RB2, so Matt O was the happy recipient. Makes sense really. I don't have a 360 and he's paid for the rest of the RB fun we'd had over the last year. The instruments and all that DLC probably add up to quite a scary figure... My £30 seems a small contribution.

Buy it. Today.

It's all just fantasy

So my Fantasy Football team had another decent week and yet still I slip a place in the league and lose ground on my rivals. Somewhat annoying. Hopefully the decision to weight the team with Man U and Man City players (both have an extra game this gameweek) will pay dividends and I can climb into the top 5 for the first time this season.

On the plus side, the strong January performance has at least put me in the mix for the top 4. 3rd is maybe a little bit too far ahead to catch by the end of the season. We shall see...

EDIT: Sean Wright-Phillips slapped with a three match ban for his petulance. Oh well, he'll miss that extra game then. Time to ship him out methinks. He's been a poor performer anyway. The good news is I have over 3 million in the bank with which to turn him into someone excellent (although I was contemplating picking up Vidic and/or Terry to try and squeeze a little more joy out of all those clean sheets). Ahh, dilemmas.