Internet Citizen

I saw Brian Wilson at the Kelvingrove Bandstand in 2017 and, while he’s clearly not in great health and being carried by the band, it was just great to hear these songs being played live, with him being there.

Agree with this. I thought the actor that played Anna was pretty awful and had to be carried by everyone else.

American Gods is an example I always use of a show going drastically downhill quickly. The first season was tremendous and the second, almost right from the off, was such a drop off and was all over the place. I didn’t even give the third a chance.

I’m looking forward to seeing Meet Me In The Bathroom based on the oral history of the same name; not out yet, but had its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, so should be out soon-ish. It’s about the rock/indie scene in New York in the 2000s and some of the bands that came out of that scene (Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs etc.). The book is great and I’m interested to see how they’ve managed to make a documentary around it. Seems like they’re concentrating on the early years. It’s a music and time from my mid teens to early twenties so I probably get more of a nostalgia kick from it too. When I read the book I started listening to a lot of that music again for a while.

I’d never really got into audiobooks but had a couple of free audible credits to use. I decided to go for autobiographies read by the person, rather than fiction books, and I’ve really enjoyed listening while I’m driving. Bob Mortimer’s was brillint, and also enjoyed Harry Hill’s. Both were surprisingly candid about their lives, and some of their failings. It’s tempted me to carry on an audible subscription for a while to see what other autobiographies I can find.

I was pretty disappointed with 4 compared to the best. I thought the story was a bit thin and contrived. Agreed the 1st was the best. Like a few shows these days, it felt like they realised they had a bit of a winning formula and dragged it out as much as they could.

I took time over the last year to try and catalogue my collection using Discogs - I couldn’t find anything better to use, to be honest. As others have mentioned, it can take a bit of investigation and a mixture of catalogue numbers, runout etchings and, for example, particular wordings or writing on the label. Took me time, but I wanted to at least have a stab at cataloguing.

There was also a wee reference to Peep Show in this one when Brian Cox called someone a “seat sniffer”

The San Marino Challenge was one of my favourite FM saves. After making the club team a force, the biggest nuisance was trying to coax dual nationality players to pick San Marino as over a certain rating they’d just flat refuse. You’d just have to hope they turned out just bad enough that Italy wouldn’t cap them and then try and pick them up in the longer term.

I used to make a point of buying something every year but it’s just full of out takes and junk no one really wants. Peaked a few years ago for me when they released “Alternative Moondance” which was just a bunch of alternative takes that Van Morrison presumably didn’t like enough to make the actual album.

I’ve just preordered Animal Crossing for my impending quarantine/working from home. Seems like a good idea.

I remember reading somewhere that the reason music piracy went down was because of the size of the catalogue of apps like Spotify; you can get so much in one place for a reasonably price. TV/film has basically went the other way, so piracy is bound to significantly increase again.

Mario Party was pretty fun at Xmas. The board game element is quite long, but the mini game modes were a good laugh.

Outside of the classics, some of these games have aged horribly; same with the NES games. That said I’m giving Super Metroid a go because I don’t remember playing it when I was younger. I was hoping they’d maybe have the licence to put up Secret of Mana but I noticed they’re trying to flog the Mana trilogy for upwards of £30 on the eshop.

I’m enjoying it so far. Been playing story mode and online levels to get some ideas for levels. Also had to do some of the tutorials as there as so many options available. Nothing uploaded yet, hopefully have some up soon though.

Did anyone ever play Mario Maker? I’m thinking of buying Mario Maker 2, as it has a decent looking story mode. Making levels sounds fun, but presumably I’d be terrible at it.

Today is the beginning of the subscription based Switch Online. It’s only £17.99 a year and I’ll pay it, but you don’t really get a great deal for your money. Playing old Nintendo games, whether on or offline will surely only be fun for a limited time.

I’m interested to see how Civilisation VI works for the Switch. Overall some good games announced this week.

I was in the same boat, swithering on the price, but I’d thoroughly recommend it. I get less and less time to play games as I get older, and having something I can dip in and out of when travelling, or play while my gf is watching TV, it’s definitely been a worthwhile purchase. With the amount of units sold, the amount of games available should rise, but Nintendo are great for really good in-house games anyway.

Somehow managed to get Paul McCartney tickets 8 rows from the front this morning. Given that VIP tickets were only guaranteeing tickets in the first 20 rows and charging a fortune, I’m delighted at that.

What this types of documentary shows is how manipulative both the prosecution and defence can be in these circumstances. Frightening.

For all their innovation, Nintendo really like packaging up their old games. I’d imagine those NES titles will get boring relatively quickly, online multiplayer or not. I’m sure they’ll expand it to other old consoles but they’ve probably decided to skip the SNES for now as the SNES Mini would pretty much become redundant.

https://www.nintendo.com/switch/online-service/ That’s Nintendo announced their online package starting from September this year. A little underwhelmed by the NES part, although I’d hope they’ll expand that in the future. All in all it’s not bad for £17.99 a year though.

Arcade Fire. What a show, and unbelievable energy. I had kept away from reading reviews of the tour, although I’d looked at some of the setlists but, even at that, I didn’t expect that, and I’ve already seen them 4 times before.