In tribute to Phillip K Dick, I've pulled my finger out and made a start on "The
Man In The High Castle", one of his most celebrated works that I, for some reason, have never gotten round to reading I'll no doubt post about it here once I've finished it.
To find out more about Philip K Dick:
BoingBoing.net have a radio tribute to him archived on this page
The Philip K Dick tribute blog (amazing name) Total Dickhead
Films
I've listed the films of his that i really enjoyed in no particular order. I guess in the order of most awesome as voted for by me (I'm typing them as they pop into my mind). There are 9 films that I am aware of in total but these four are the ones that I have seen, remembered and enjoyed.
Blade Runner
Directed by Ridley Scott. Film Noir about a dark and not so distant future where a private detective hunts down rogue androids, while questioning his own humanity. "Do androids dream of electric sheep"
A Scanner Darkly
A strange method of filming live action scenes then animating over the top of them was used in this movie. It explores an alternate reality where a small group of friends live with their addiction to the psychoactive drug "Substance D". "A scanner darkly"
Total Recall
Truly, one of the most awesome Arnie movies of all time! This was released in the cinema in 1990 apparently (I thought it was older than that!) This film is about a man who thinks he has paid for memories of adventures to be implanted in into his mind. He quickly begins to discover that he has gotten more than he bargained for. "We can remember it for you wholesale"
Minority Report
Adapted into a blockbuster movie and directed by Stephen Spielberg,
Minority Report is set in a future where murders are kept to an all time low by a police force that relies on the pre-cognitive abilities of three young psychics. The main protagonist is a cop, accused of a murder he has yet to commit and pursued by the very police force he used to serve. "Minority Report"
I saw the Manga movie of Battle Angel Alita when I was still in high school and it was then that the film became firmly cemented in my mind as one of the most amazing cyberpunk universes of all time. I've just finished reading one of the graphic novels about her that a friend has very generously sent over to me and it just left me totally gobsmacked. Alita is a cyborg. Her head and torso are discovered in rubbish dump beneath the floating city by a scientist called Ido, who takes her home and fixes her up. Alita has no memory of her life before she is found by Ido, but as she adjusts to her new home in the city, it emerges that she has abilities in combat that are unusual, even for a cyborg. Battle Angel Alita is based in a city where the useful, wealthy or just plain lucky members of society have fled to a floating city in the sky called Tiphares (Zoram in the movie). The city that sits below the floating utopia of Tiphares is left to rot and ruin, completely overrun by crime, drug abuse and violence. As this is set far into the future, most of the most prevalent criminals are cybernetically enhanced and therefore unstoppable by normal humans. To counter the lawlessness, the governing body of the sprawl known as "the factory" uses bounty hunters to bring in the heads of vanquished thugs and villains. Alita puts her awesome combat skills and abilities to use as a bounty hunter and that is pretty much the beginning of the story. Why is Alita so awesome? So far, I haven't found out much about Alitas background before she became the cyborg you grow to know and love in the stories. However this mystery is an essential part of what makes her character so interesting. She is plunged into a cyberpunk city of sin with a wealth of colourful characters, most of whom aren't totally "good" or "evil" but instead doing a mixture of moral and immoral acts in order to survive. I really like that in characters that I am trying to connect with in stories. This is because, not only is it more realistic than just having a metaphorical Dumbledore or Yoda or any other totally pure character, but also because you just never know if your main character will be screwed over by them on the next page, or if they will be saved by them from the brink of death, albeit for a tidy sum of money or other aspect of personal gain. Maybe this story, this world just appeals to my pessimistic side which tells me constantly... "There is no 'Good', just varying degrees of Evil." There ARE bad guys in this world and some of them are addicted to BRAINS. Yes! One of the more awesome aspects of this crazy cyberpunk future is that some of the massive killing machine cyborgs are addicted to the adrenaline found in human brains and this need drives them to horrific murders for their own personal gratification. It also means that brains and spines are hot property on a black market flooded with other human body parts and this trade in human tissue can also lead characters into interesting and sometimes terrifying situations. I think if i reveal much more about the Alita universe I might give away too much or spoil it for the future initiated fan so I'll leave it at that, with an additional recommendation that Battle Angel Alita should most definitely be checked out.A Little Background
Awesome!
Down the darkest alley of mankind’s possible futures, there is no apocalypse, no great war, no invading swarms of hostile alien forces... there is only Capitalism!
Jennifer Government by Max Barry is set in
The book is non stop action from the word go. It is full of black humour, mostly rising from the super-capitalist world by which the characters are constantly being thwarted and screwed over. There's just the right amount of violence and black comedy to make this one of those books you can't put down. I'd recommend it for anyone who sees themselves as anti capitalist. Fans of Bill Hicks would most likely dig this book too.
Also: There is a free online browser game called Nation States which is inspired by and based in the Jennifer Government world.
OK. The last few months have turned out to be amazing in terms of gaming and I don’t think it will stop just yet, with Fallout 3 on the Horizon, Farcry 2 actually here RIGHT NOW (!!!) and Little Big Planet screaming at me to sell one of my kidneys and finally get my hands on a PS3. Saying all this, I promise the NEXT entry I write won't be about computer games but, as we are truly in the golden age of interactive entertainment, it seems foolish of me not to get in on the action.
Fable 2 is a 3rd person RPG game set in a rural backdrop which looks something like an idyllic version of England before the industrial revolution. The game world is stunningly beautiful as are the inhabitants of the world itself. The game veers away from your usual Orc, Goblin, Dwarf RPG archetype in favour of bandits, slavers, shadows and Hobbes (said to be monsters created from little children that are stolen away in the night by monsters). Expect to use a variety of spells, swords and guns to hack and slash your way through a mass of enemies and, depending on how you play, friendly villagers too.Most of the quests in the game are designed to have an impact on your "good" or "evil" personality, your character changing as you make these decisions in the game. If you make mostly evil decisions you will gradually start to look evil and demonic. Most of this is very familiar to the Black & White games and obviously the Fable predecessor. Some of the biggest changes for me came with the buying and selling of property to generate your income, the ability to hike up the prices on the shops you own if you are evil or lower them if you are a benevolent saint.
Other facets of the game include the ability to buy a home and raise a family (or multiple families). Players can contract STD's from sleeping with prostitutes. You can have children and even become king by eventually owning all the shops and pubs in the land.
This game is seriously addictive. It is playable to the extreme, allowing it to be accessible to players with little experience in RPG gaming. This does however make it incredibly easy for someone who has played Oblivion or Warcraft but no less addictive and fun as a result.
Things I Liked
GFX: This game has fantastic graphics, especially on the backdrops the opening scenes are amazing, especially when you make it to the rural town of Oakvale.
Narrative: The story is very well told (narrated by Zoe Wannamaker) and ties in nicely with the first game, while not requiring you to know too much about it at all. The story is good, if a little obvious to see where it is going from the outset but it is written well enough to get you hooked from the beginning and pull you through to the end.
Playable: The Ranged, Melee and Magical combat are assigned to one button each, a fairly unique combat system sits behind all of this allowing the player to come up with a few simple combos.
Things I Didn't Like
Too Easy: The game is incredibly easy. You could defend it by saying it is designed to be fun for players of all skill levels, and it is, but seasoned gamers will have little trouble rattling through this. Some people will tell you it is also too short but I don't think this is the case. If you want to, the core story thread is there to play through in about 14-15 hours but there is so much other stuff to do in the mean time that you should be able to pad it out easily to 25-30 hours. Then I guess you have to play both good and evil sides of the story which could double that. OK... maybe it is a bit on the short side too.
Casting System: Is very poor. The fact you need to charge up EVERY spell before you can use it means that a lot of the direct damage spells become pointless as you only get to cast against one target before the rest of them are on you. Better to just chop people up with your sword.
Maps: What maps? The only map you'll find for the regions of the game is tiny and you'll only ever see it when you are actually in that region. I managed to get by but this feature was sorely lacking in the game.
Shepherds Bush on a Sunday evening. A lively place filled with sounds of pint glasses clinking in the pubs, revellers denying the end of another blissful weekend. Red double decker busses create guttural rumbles as they ferry throngs of Londoners across a sprawling city that never sleeps. But tonight a new sound joins the evening chorus. Tonight the sound of a dying rancor echoes across the rooftops, the crackle of force lightning arcs down the streets and the sizzling pop of lightsabre on storm trooper startles a city fox rummaging in the bins outside
Although I don't pretend to be a hardcore fan of the Star Wars universe, I enjoyed the movies a great deal, I've read a couple of the books and I have played a variety of the Lucas Arts games set in the Star Wars universe so I had a good idea of the standards I should be expecting from this title. As is true with most of the games, books, comics and movies that are set in the Star Wars universe, The Force Unleashed is enriched by a
The game is played from a 3rd person perspective and is primarily a hack and slash through fairly linear levels. When I say linear, it's not "on rails" but there is clearly only one way to progress through the level, although there are opportunities to explore hard-to-reach areas along the way to discover powerups, lightsabre crystals and experience. The level backdrops look beautiful and most of the time they react when you use your force powers. The force powers themselves are activated by single button pushe
Things I Liked:
Sound Effects : a full range of familiar zaps, fizzles and screams from the Lucas Arts sound department.
Combat: The combat is fluid and the control system is intuitive.
Storyline: The story is well written, the characters instantly seem like they "belong" in the Star Wars world I was completely hooked on the storyline and its characters.
DLC: A new campaign is on the way and 4 new playable characters. I hope they get new moves too. The expansion for this title has some real potential.
Things I Didn't Like:
The force powers can be difficult to control sometimes. Looking at the design of the game, I can't think of a better way they could have approached the issue with the constraints of a console joy pad. The main issue I have with it is the boss encounter which requires the mastery of the force powers to complete it. It is very frustrating and if nothing else, just highlights the issue to the player.
Too Short: I completed the game in about 3 evenings of play, granted i had a weekends worth of play too, i did feel that the game was a little too short and could have done with a few more levels of storm trooper smashing fun.
Replay Value: As I was playing the game I remember thinking, "I'm having fun, I'm going to play through this again!" there is a small element of RPG-esque character development in this game, but as you get towards the end, you should have earned enough points to pretty much max out all the skills, meaning that you aren’t forced to concentrate your characters skills in a particular field. I don’t think this is necessarily a BAD thing, it just means that every player at the end of the game will have exactly the same character, instead of one with different strengths and weaknesses, which would have been far more interesting and an incentive to play it all over again.
In Short...
I would recommend playing this game. It's fun, looks good and is quite immersive. See if you can borrow or rent it as it is short and there isn't really an incentive to buy it again. You could always get it second hand, but i think in retrospect, I would have rented it twice, once to play it through and another time later on next year when the DLC comes out.
By now I'm sure that anyone stumbling across this blog has already heard all about Spore and been exposed to at least some of the surrounding Hype about this game. Yes. The media storm surrounding the game as it built up to its release billed it to be one of the most innovative and original games ever made.
The famous video of Will Wright "um" using the creature creator when it was in its earlier stages was amazing and there is no doubt that the design of the creator and the technology behind it is absolutely astounding and revolutionary.
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Spore received mixed reviews upon release; a recent Amazon.com "glitch" meant that a thread of unfavourable reviews was somehow "lost" from the Spore product page, although after some questioning, the reviews were restored. The biggest controversy to overshadow the game was its stringent DRM (digital rights management) restrictions - which restricted users from installing the game on more than 3 machines and only allowed customers to create a single account capable of receiving the user generated content and adding a users own creations to the collective. EA have since announced that they will be relaxing the rules slightly, allowing the game to be installed on up to 5 machines. This issue is still a point of contention between developer and end user, but it's also a complex one and maybe a topic for another blog.
As Spore is cut up into five distinct sections, which means this review is really 5 mini reviews in one massive block of intimidating text. Sorry about that.
Phase 1: Tidal Pool Phase
This part of the game is awesome. You start as a small amoeba-like creature and have to swim through a primordial soup of other microbes, eating other animals or plant matter to grow in size. Once you have grown, you can munch on the creatures that have been eating you. You are offered the chance to upgrade your organism, giving it different mouths, weapons and methods of propulsion. This part of the game is very addictive, looks great and its great fun. My only real criticism would be that it is too easy and it is over too quickly.
Phase 2: Creature Phase
This looks like World of Warcraft or some similar MMO. You run around with your creature in third person, grinding computer controlled creatures in order to get you experience bar to the top level. You have some skills on a Warcraft-style action bar at the bottom of the screen that vary in degrees of uselessness. There are a few basic quests which give you extra XP, all in all - it is extremely easy and gets boring fast. You are offered the carnivorous "kill and eat everything" route or the herbivorous "eat vegetables and make friends with everything" route. I chose the former as the latter is for girls.
Phase 3: Tribal Phase
Phase 4: Civilisation Phase
The phase itself, again, only lasts a very short time and there is even an "I win" button that you unlock after defeating half of the enemies on the map, making the entire thing completely pointless. The vehicles do look really good but you are restricted in how many you can make, the enemies are very easy to defeat and hardly attack at all, even the "aggressive" ones. Also, this phase suffers the same lack of RTS functionality that the last phase did. Very disappointing. It takes roughly three and a half hours of game time to get to the end of this stage without rushing and this is the penultimate phase of the game.
Phase 5: Space Phase
The Space Phase is the proverbial carrot on the end of the stick which kept me playing through three and a half hours of brightly coloured disappointment.
The phase begins with the creator window again. This time you get to create a spaceship. Once you have created one, you are taken through the tutorials which teach you to master trade, diplomacy, terra-forming and changing the planets you have populated by introducing plants and animals.
This phase looks beautiful and the galaxy you have to explore is HUGE. You zip around in your ship and perform various quests in order to gain currency to improve your existing planets, expanding your empire. Think Master of Orion or Freelancer as a basis for comparison on this stage. My main criticism for this phase is that your massive galactic empire only supports one ship to defend its empire... YOU. If you expand your empire to more than 3 or 4 planets, you will soon find yourself zipping back and forth from planet to planet to defend them, without getting anything done. This is a huge game play design flaw in the phase in my opinion.
Conclusion
The best part about this game is, without doubt, the creature creator. Creating the buildings, creatures and vehicles is really good fun and seeing them come to life is great. I really hope the creature creator is implemented in future games. The game play elements are very poor. It's extremely easy, I doubt younger players would have a difficult time completing it at all and once you have completed it in carnivore and herbivore "modes" there isn't enough there to warrant a third run. The game genres it traverses are already dominated by far superior titles that are specialised in doing that genre WELL. While it has some great ideas I don't think it manages to pull them off to the standard people were expecting. A victim of its own hype, Spore is a jack of all trades, master of none.
Yesterday, the share prices for the Halifax (my building society) fell to an all time low, or something like that. Lloyds TSB bought them out, making them stronger and apparently saving them from the one terrifying event that all banks fear, as depicted so perfectly in Mary Poppins - a Run on the Bank. Which started me thinking... if there was a run on the bank, what fantastic repercussions could we expect? Undoubtedly our society would crumble and descend into anarchy, right? How far could this go?
Week 1: Ground Zero
HBOS - The Halifax and the Bank of Scotland share values drop to an all time low of 51%. Thousands of British shareholders see their share values drop from £10 to £1.85. Shocking. Apart from the odd suicide and a few unhappy savers, nothing too exciting happens. The cogs, however, are well and truly in motion.Week 2: Run On The Bank
On Tuesday 25th September 2008, due to some misguided financial advice from a friend at her local bridge club, Sixty five Year-Old Emily Higgins walks into her local branch of the Halifax building society in Chichester and asks that they transfer all her savings and pensions to her newly opened HSBC savings account. The young teller, James Woodcock, a fine arts graduate of 25 years, informs her that because of a technical issue with their internet connection, they would be unable to do that until the following week. Having no grasp of modern technology or what the internet even is, Miss Higgins panics and kicks up a fuss, loudly declaring that the building society will not give her access to her funds. Within just a few minutes, already worried account holders begin to demand their money be drawn out of their accounts, either in cash, or wired elsewhere. The clamour turns into panic as the painfully slow customer service of the Building society staff exacerbates the situation. Among the growing rabble of angry customers, Dave Watson - Reporter for the Chichester local newspaper makes the call to his editor that would change life as we know it.Week 3: Financial Apocalypse
several of the panicking Halifax patrons post tweets online about their ordeal in the Chichester branch. Many more post phone camera footage onto YouTube of the riot that ensued in the branch and the resulting armed police presence sent to quash them. Dave Watson’s story, however, is sold to Meridian television and broadcast across the nation that evening. Thousands of people turn up at the Halifax branches the following morning in dismay and those that can, withdraw or transfer all their savings. The inevitable knock on effect and rioting occurs in every major city in the UK. No Bank is safe as people stupidly horde cash which is rapidly declining in value. Jails overflow and the BBC news website reports scenes of brutal Police crackdowns all over the country. By the end of the week, the economy "crashes". The cities descend into anarchy; riots, protests and looting are rife. The police battle to restore order against the populace, their lines of riot shields reflecting the fires that are raging in the husks of looted electronics stores and supermarkets.Week 24: The Future
The cities across England are all smouldering husks. The inhabitants of which pick their way through the broken buildings, seeking out food and water to add to their caches. Several gangs have taken refuge in shopping centres and the larger supermarkets, defending their stores of food with fierce and deadly aggression. The police and fire brigade have broken down, unable to cope with the strain. The brave men and women who managed to hold a resistance against the massive tide of looters and rioters have elected to save their own families and flee to more rural areas. Martial law has been declared across the nation and a thin force of British soldiers Police what little is left and enforce curfew. What is left of the emergency medical services use their dwindling supplies to treat the wounded in small makeshift emergency medical HQ's. Dave Watson, reporter for the Chichester Local Newspaper, shivers alone in a dark abandoned flat, his mind crazed through regret and remorse as he sees the outcome of his sensationalist news report.Week 48: The New Curse
Driven mad through grief, remorse and hunger, Dave Watson - Reporter for the Chichester Local Newspaper- steps barefoot into an abandoned street. His filthy black fingernails scratch at a sore on his back, his gums bleed and his matted hair is thinning through mal-nutrition. He casts his glazed and vacant stare slowly from one end of the street to the other, looking for movement. There is none. No one will go near Dave Watsons street. Dave Watsons street is a cursed and fearful place.
These are some pics I took with my phone at the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum, London. (click on them to see them better)
Freemasonry and all the secrecy that surrounds the practice has become an obsession of mine of late. The Masons are a highly ritualised organisation that has spread throughout Europe and most of the westernised world. The organisation currently claim to have over 6 million members indoctrinated and at various levels of rank and power all over the world.
The members of the Freemasons call themselves "The Lightbringers" and it is their mission to spread their light to every corner of the world. They publicly focus their rituals towards a theocratic figurehead called simply, The Great Architect. Because modern day Masons can be of any faith, The Great Architect represents which ever deity the members worship in their own religion. They claim this is so a
ll the members of the lodge can focus their energy on a single iconic figure whilst still remaining true to their own individual faiths. Interestingly enough, the majority of Freemasons last century were Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church shunned the Freemasons and so Catholics weren't allowed to be indoctrinated. I find this strange as the Protestant religion is very specific about not worshipping idols or covering their places of worship in decadance and finery, however this contradicts what you would see if you stepped into the Grand Lodge in London.
The United Grand Lodge in Covent Garden is the focal point for all the masonic lodges in Europe. Freemasonry as we see it today began with this building, formed by the merger of 4 smaller masonic lodges from around the country. Its architecture was designed and built around the strange rituals that are carried out by the Masons during their meetings. There are strong ties to the occult and Freemasonry. The two main doorways to the lodge are preceded by large Pentagrams laid into the floor. Apparently this is to "shrink a persons aura" on entry. The handles of the doors on exit and the symbols and sygils carved around the inner doorways are meant to empower Masons as they leave the lodge and enter the outside world.
The invlovement of the Freemasons in world history has been 
discussed many times before in various books, documentaries and films. If you would like to know more about this, I recommend The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea. There are many documentaries about them on line, The Lightbingers, Emissaries Of Jabulon is my favourite to date. Basically, the background is that the Freemasons have, throughout history, been composed of some of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. George Bush is a member of a lodge called Skull and Bones, Tony Blair is a Mason of the 33rd degree (the highest rank obtainable in the organisation) and so was Lenin. Using the power of their members, the grand masters of Freemasonry, it is said, manipulated the outcome of wars, destroyed cities, caused the French Revolution and are currently to blame for the wars in the middle east. The infamous Masonic motto "New World Order" can be seen on the back of every US dollar bill currently in circulation.
The dollar bill contains many symbols that are allegedly related to the Freemasons. The eye atop the pyramid is also a famous Masonic symbol which is clearly visible in photos of masons in their regaila that are decades old. The number 13 is said to be a mystical and occult number to the Freemasons. The base of the pyramid in "the great seal" below is made up of 13 sections which is said to have special masonic relevance. The phrase annuit cœptis consists of 13 letters and the ribbon beneath the image shows 13 sides.
The Masons are made up of 33 seperate degrees. a mason progresses through these degrees as he moves through the ranks of the organisation.
It is said that the 33 degrees of Masonry are represented in the flag of the united nations, covering the world. Notice the 13 leaves on the olive branches on either side of the globe.
The "Great Seal Of The United States Of America" is also full of these apparently occult and symbolic numbers. The eagle in the seal has 33 feathers in total on its wings. The 13 stars above the eagle are laid out into the star of David (the Jewish Kaballah is the source for alot of this Masonic mysticism. ) The eagle holds 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch with 13 leaves and 13 olives in the other. There are 13 stripes on the shield in the foreground. There are also 13 letters in the phrase e pluribus unum or "out of the many, come one".
Well... It would be rude not to ...
- right?!
So due to an underground fire, an extraordinarily malicious virus or your negligence in paying the phone bill, the internet as you know it has disappeared. What better way to spend those sorrowful hours, being cheered up by some of the best drumming, the best saxophony, the best piano playing or the best and wittiest banter in the city. I am talking of course, about live jazz music.We went over to the Blue Note Jazz Club in Manhattan last night to witness some of the greats show us how live Jazz is done. With Sax, Piano, Double Bass & Drums, the James Moody Quartet played us through our dinner with a mixture of fast and eclectic Jazz and also some beautiful meandering numbers that make a listener stare off into the distance and lose themselves in thought and relaxation. The man himself, James Moody, a spritely 86 years old (!!!), was extremely funny with his crowd banter. We were lucky enough to be at the club for his 17th year wedding anniversary – so I’d like to imagine he played especially well on that night!
I couldn't write a blog about a live music event without focusing on the percussion, so here we go. We were fortunate enough to see Joe Farnsworth play in the Quartet. He is an exceptional Jazz drummer and regarded as one of the best in the world. You should difinitely look at his website or try to listen to examples of his playing if at all possible.
James Moody took us through the first half of the set, then passing
the front spot over to Jon Hendricks. James Moody is the oldest person on his bandstand, but Jon is only 3 years younger than him. The 83 year old bee bopped, scatted and sang for a good 40 minutes, giving us a great selection of Jazz and Boss nova and the history that goes with it. This Guy should know. His university course on the history of Jazz has been the number 1 course at the University of Toledo for the past three years running!
I would definitely recommend going to steep yourself in some old time jazz, especially if you are fortunate enough to witness people who have lived and breathed the music for the past few decades. New York’s Blue Note was fantastic, You could also try Ronnie Scott’s in London or Matt n Phred’s in Manchester, all of which are fantastic Jazz venues.
Get yourself down to your local museum with a camera and start hunting for dinosaurs. If you live in Manchester, London or New York, you’re in luck because each of these cities has excellent grounds for Dino hunting. There’s plenty of other cities with good places to spot ancient reptiles too! Here's a list of some beauties I spotted this weekend. Click any of the pictures to make them bigger.
Tyrannosaurus Rex: Weighed 6.8 tonnes, bipedal, 13 metres long. Carnivore. Cretaceous. 
Diplodocus: Weighed 10-15 tonnes, quadruped, had a six metre long neck and measured 25m from nose to tail. Herbivore. Jurassic.
Triceratops: Weighed 6-12 tonnes, quadruped, 9 metres long, horns 1 metre long. Herbivore. Cretaceous.
Allosaurus: Weighed 2.5 tonnes, bipedal, 9.7 metres long. Carnivore. Jurassic.
Stegosaurus: Weighed 4-5 tonnes, quadruped, 9 metres long. Herbivore. Cretaceous. Jurassic.