Eye NO!!!
My right eye has had a real year of it. About a year ago I scratched my retina on a pillow in the middle of the night. I had to stick medication in my eye for a couple of weeks. Then a month or so ago there was the Tabasco in the eye incident...
Now this.
Last night I decided to have a nice relaxing bath before going to bed (to get over jet lag). I lit some candles and steamed away the flight. No problem.
Bath time over - I started to blow out the candles. The first two went out okay, the third was stubben. So I got closer and blew really hard.
The molten wax from the candle lept out at me like a face hugger from an egg, covered my face, and got in my eye!!!
I spent the next few minutes with my eyes closed trying to scrape wax off my face. Then when I opened my eyes I realised there were chunks of wax in it.
I stumbled towards a mirror to try and check the damage.
I ended up picking the bits of wax out with my fingers because I was too tired to even think about going to casualty.
I believe I got most of them out. I can still see today - but my eye is sore.
If this 'luck' continues... I'll have a glass eye before the end of 2005 for sure.
Nic.
I'm about to check out...
...but time for a very quick CD review. After a week of listening to talk radio I finally went to Virgin and bought a CD.
Produced by the wonderful Jack Dangers and featuring the wonderful Chuck D, it's got some really good re-working of old Public Enemy tracks on it. It's kinda guitary - and beaty - and bleepy - and scratchy.
Probably more rocky than I normally listen to - but every now and them you need to let loose. This is a good album to do that to.
Also - stuck it in the CD Player of the white stalion... wow - nice stereo... ride back to LAX is going to LOUD :D
Nic.
Camera obscura...
...I went to the Getty Museum today. Another of my many LA firsts. I didn't go for the art though - I went for the architecture. To be honest - the exhibits weren't my kind of thing. Plus - I'm European... we have old stuff hanging off every wall.
Art tastes aside - the Getty is well worth a visit. It's only $7 to park and then the place is then completely open. You take a funkly little tram up to the hills and the views of LA are as spectacular as LA gets. You really do feel like you are on top of the city.
The buildings are pretty special too. Designed by Richard Meier, it's a wonderfully modern space. Open and light - with lots of complex, intersecting angles. I spent my time wandering the space - taking photos. Some were just of the views, the gardens, the building. The rest were of details. To show my artistic side ;) - here's some shots.
Tomorrow I'm meeting my old friend Dana for coffee before shooting off the LAX to catch a flight home. I have to be honest - I'm really looking forward to getting home. LA is okay in small doses. I think this one was a couple days too large. I'll write a full E3 review when I hit the airport if I have time.
Nic.
So desu!!!
Yesterday I did a little thing about there only being 2 places I would live in LA. Well - add a third...
...Sawtelle Blvd.
It's like a little slice of Japan in LA. The main reason I found myself on Sawtelle was to go to 'Giant Robot'...
...which sells lots of interesting things from Japan. Their website is:
http://www.giantrobot.com/They also have a magazine with lots of interesting stuff in it from the far east.
There's actually two Giant Robots on Sawtelle.
Shop 2 sells more 'artist' items than shop 1. Both are worth a visit and a minutes walk from each other.
I browsed around the other shops on Sawtelle...
I got to practice a little Japanese in Asahiya bookshop where I bought a copy of 'Fruits' magazine. I nearly bought a copy of a Halcali DVD but at $37 I backed out. I'll see how much I can get it for online first.
There are lots of little interesting places on Sawtelle like a great shop for hyper cute girls clothes called 'Happy Six' (where I actually bought one of the few boys T-Shirts), an import games shop, an Anime place (natch), a great Japanese supermarket (yum yum), Karaoke bars, video shops and rental, hair dressers (best haircut I ever had was at a Japanese hairdressers) and lots of places to eat like...
...MMMmmmmmm plastic tofu salad. That might be allowed on my diet... crunchy!!
It also seems like a good place to get Boba...
...which is a great drink to suprise friends with if they've never tried it before :)
Unfortunatly Sawtelle is also a great place to get a parking ticket...
...if you're an idiot like me and don't put any money in the meter cos you're just going to be 'a minute'. Maybe I can flee the country and not pay... Hmmmmm....
So as you may have guessed. I'm not JUST here for E3. I do a fair amount of shopping while I'm here. It's always nice to get a 'few' things you can't get back home, or are cheaper in the US. My current clothing tally is...
...as such.
I've been mainly buying stuff at Kid Robot, Giant Robot, Happy Six, Fossil, Urban Outfitters, Macy's, and Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash. It's dangerous buying clothes when I'm still losing weight I know... but I future proofed them a little by making sure things like the jeans were under what I am now. The T's are between M and L - which is where I think I'll always be cos of my wide frame - *muscle flex*.
I've only got about another 6-7 weeks to go on this diet anyway. I haven't cheated while I've been out here which is amazing when you consider how driven by food marketing and food outlets America is. I think it must be a 1000 times harder to be slim over here.
Tomorrow I might do something cultured and go the Getty... or go looking for those Invader Zim boxsets for Barns and Wayne.
Nic.
E3 raw footage...
...is online
HERE.
Nic.
"'Snooochi-booochis"...
...It's no great secret that I'm not a great fan of LA. Sure - it's a good place to come and do business, but beyond that. Well...
I've known people specifically come here for a holiday. That's kinda like going to Milton Keynes for a weekend away.
Sure there are a few things to do for tourists, but you can do them in a day. It has a Universal Studios and a Disney thing - but Florida has way larger versions of them and is more geared up for tourists.
But for all my nay-saying about the place, there are two areas I really like. Santa Monica, and Westwood.
Westwood is next to UCLA and has a different feel to the rest of LA. It's almost for a San Francisco vibe - in a weird kind of way. It is also a great place to get Japanese food and there is a large Asian community there too. That always makes me feel more comfortable.
There's also another reason to go to Westwood...
...Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash.
I didn't realise they had opened one in LA. But there it is. They have lots of props from Kevin Smith's Movies inside like...
...the Bluntman...
...and Chronic costumes from 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back'...
...Jay and Silent Bob's costumes from 'Mallrats'. And I particually liked this...
...a gay porno featuring Ben Alfleck and Jason Lee (or good look alikes). I guess this is just a background prop from one of the movies.
Definitely a place you should visit if you are a Kevin Smith fan.
"I filled the cup".
Nic.
"Your paws... give them to me..."
In the 1950's - when they were talking about domestic robots, something must have got lost in the translation.
Here's a 'domesticated' robot.
(click on the pic for a movie of it in action)
I'm not exactly sure why you'd want to robo-kitty. But just in case you did always want one - your dream has come true.
I wonder if it chases your cordless mouse - boom boom.
Nic.
E3 Day 3... I know, I know, I know...
...I know I said I wasn't going to go today - but I felt I should go for Suanie. She loves strippers and I knew there were a few I hadn't got photos of.
I also took my DV Cam to shoot game footage. I'll rip that later and post a raw wmv here.
I thought there might be less queues on the last day...
... I was wrong.
The booth babes were also getting ratty after 3 days of geeks harasing them for photos. What with that and the night time gig - I'd be ratty too.
The girl really didn't want her photo taken...
...neither did these girls...
This guy didn't want me to take a picture of this DOA girl...
...not sure why. Maybe he won her on EBay. Regardless he wasn't going to let me take a photo of just her. Maybe he is her manager/boyfriend or something. All I know is when I asked for a photo, the girl looked at him - and he looked at me as if I'd asked to fuck her.
These girls didn't mind one bit having their photo taken...
...no idea what they were there for.
These guys REALLY wanted to be there...
...and these guys were mentally on holiday in Hawaii listening to the gental lapping of the shore - I would imagine.
Yet still the geeks came...
...he probably did.
These girls were stupidly good at DDR...
...and I found some 'Cosplay' girls.
So honestly this time, that's your lot - pictorially - from E3. It's over for another year.
I will spend some time thinking over the event and post my thoughts. I've having difficulty really pinning down what I thought. Yes there was lots of product. Yes the industry is very healthy. Yes there were new consoles. No - I couldn't tell you what was any good.
There was a lot of similar titles. Lots of Need For Speeds. Lots of 'Urban' games. TONNES of free-roaming fighting games (when 2 years ago my free-roaming fighting game got canned cos no one wants to play them... Hmmmm....). A million and one first-person shooters that all look the same.
I'm not looking for innovation. There is so little room for that these days cos of the cost of games. I WAS expecting to see something steal the show, and I really didn't see anything like that.
When the best thing there was the Metal Gear Solid 4 teaser trailer (which is really, really funny - check it out at
http://www.gamespot.com) - you got to worry.
I'll post the wmv later today. Till then - hope you enjoy the pics Suanie!!!
Nic.
E3 Day 2... a.k.a. The last day...
Way hey... I drove to E3 again this morning. I decided to forget the I-10 and took Olympic all the way to Downtown (my hotel is on Olympic). This was a smart move for a couple of reasons.
1: It only took me 30 minutes to get to the conference center instead of an hour.
2: I drove through 'Korea Town'.
Korea town is great. If I was to ever move to LA - I think I'd move there. I've got used to lots of Spanish everywhere, but in Korea town - everything is in that cool Korean caligraphy.
In just 24 hours, the price of parking has gone up 100%. Yesterday was 10 doll dolls for the day. Today was 20... I guess cos so many people have gone this year they can pretty much charge what they want.
So I parked the white stalion...
...and headed inside - again.
It's at this point I realised that I had pretty much seen everything E3 had to offer, 10 times over, yesterday. I must have wandered between halls 8 times, desperately looking for things to see.
Ya see - there's A LOT of stuff there... but not a lot to really get your juices going.
I eventually found my way over to the Nokia stand (again) and they were doing something to do with System Rush (the game I worked on last).
For the guy who likes the girls... here's some more:
She's secretly wishing she knew what the hell she was talking about.
The guy in the green and yellow was either being shown the door, or told that he could sleep with her if he pretended to like our game.
Since I'm in the mobile sector at the moment I did check out what everyone else is up to. Most things are basic Java downloads still - but I found this kinda funny.
Picture is crap... but on the right is the official Sonic the Hedgehog running on some kinda phone. On the left is Sonic the Hedgehog running on a Megadrive/Genesis emulator on my phone.
Guess which runs quicker... yup - the emulator :)
Oh -while we're still doing the phone thing, this...
...is System Rush running on a standard Nokia series 60. And now I promise to never mention the game again.
These girls really wanted their picture taken...
...and these girls didn't.
And this model was officially the least plastic of the show.
I mentioned yesterday that the EA stand was impressive. Click on the pic below for a short movie of their 360 degree cinema thing. It was crowded inside so you'll have to image that it goes all the way round.
I tried to get their early enough to stand a chance of meeting Falcoon...
...but again the queues were huge.
These people were talking in some kind of street poetry to a repetative, semi-atonal, rythmical backing track.
E3 is so 'Hip'.
Capcom had a vending machine full of 'joe'...
...and someone was about to get clamped for parking in the lobby.
And that's it. Unless I get extremely bored tomorrow - I think I'll just go do something else.
I'll write up my thoughts about the whole thing sometime in the future, but I'd have to say - all in all - it was a bit of a damp squid. Maybe it always is and we just forget... I'm just happy I wasn't working a stand. That's a tough, tough job.
Nic.
P.S. The booth babes for this game were so explicit - I couldn't even post a picture of them here for fear of being taken down for obsenity... so instead, here's a pic of the game.
Disgusting.
"I love you Nic...
...and I really wanna play your latest game - cos you're the greatest. But... I don't want to buy an N-Gage cos I already have a Nokia 6630."
Awwwwww thanks. I love you too. I have some good news for you! Nokia have opened up the range of phones that can play N-Gage titles and guess what! You CAN play System Rush on your 6630!! AND... It looks SOOO NICE on this phone.
Here's some phones that will play N-Gage titles. Oh and the screen isn't showing System Rush cos I tried taking a photo and it didn't come out right... so this screen is from the ever exellent
www.engadget.com.
Nic.
E3 Day 1...
YAY! It was the first day of E3! What is E3 some of you might be asking? Well... it's a magic time when those chosen enough to be able to attend get to see the absolute in state of the art videogames.
Oh yes - it seems impossible to imagine the leaps technology has made in the last 20 years.
E3 is also a time of year when every Asian model in the Los Angeles area...
...and Gary Coleman...
...are guaranteed 3 days work.
I-10 welcomed me with open arms this morning...
...by allowing me to carefully examine every inch of the road for 10 minutes at a time.
But when I finally got to the show...
...it was good to see that things hadn't changed. Oh yes... the first sight was some geek getting his photo taken with some badly dressed strippers.
I pressed on - maybe 20 feet - and stumbled on the Tecmo booth and they were just about to put on a show.
(sorry for the blurry photo)
So basically every year Tecmo wheel out some strippers dressed as DOA characters. And here they are.
They also showed footage from DOA4 and Ninja Gaiden Black. I've always loved Tecmo's stuff and both games look good.
Soon after I bumped into Caspar (ex-Argonaut) at the SCi stand. SCi have jusy bought Eidos - so Tomb Raider is now theirs. Nice. I had a look at 'Roll Call' - a game by Rocksteady who are a fine bunch of ex-Argonaut people. The game looks really nice. It's an FPS, so I'll never play it. But I really hope they find sucess with it.
So E3 is big...
...really big...
...and there are lots of people...
...lots and lots of people...
...and they love to queue.
The lines for the PS3, XBox 360, and Zelda things were huge. The only thing I was thinking about lining up for was this guy (Japanese geek with blond hair).
His name's Falcoon and he's an amazing artist. A huge pervert - but amazing. Do a google search for his name to find some of his wonderful character art.
There aren't as many of these...
...as there used to be. Just lots of random women like this:
I don't think anyone knew who these people were... that guy was probably asking if they have Sony party tickets.
My game was there on the Nokia stand.
The Nokia stand also had the MOST GAY stand model thing with this:
Later in the day I met up with Jamie and Sefton who run Rocksteady and we wandered around the show a bit more. The EA stand is stupidly impresive by the way.
So I know what you're all wondering. You're all thinking - BUT NIC!!! WHAT IS THE BEST THING AT THE SHOW!! Surely it's like that new Xbox thing... or PS whatsit...
Nope. The best game at the show is...
XTango - Shuffling Roses (or something). Basically it's a rhythm/action dancing game...
I love games like this.
I left about 5:30 - which was a big mistake as it took me an hour to go 4 blocks. But on the way home I did find a place to get my hair cut...
I guess they use 'special' product.
So that was day 1. Tomorrow I'll try and find more things to take photos of. Oh - if you're looking for info on the game, go to
www.gamespot.com or something cos there's just too much to talk about and see here.
Nic.
jpg problems...
...forget what I said in the post below about jpg compression... seems Blogger just previews pics with low compression. I checked my actual blog and everything looks okay.
Nic.
Talkin' bout a....
So I go out for a bit and there's more pre-E3 stuff!!! This time Nintendo have shown their hand (a little) by showing off 'Revolution' and 'GameBoy Micro'.
I was leaving this morning and glanced at the paper outside my door and noticed an article on the Nintendo Revolution.
I thought the picture was just a mock up but it does indeed look like this.
It's very - erm... Sony looking. Actually if the PS3 had looked like thatI would have been happy. The big thing I guess is that it is going to run everything in the Nintendo back catalogue from NES to GameCube which is very cool beans. Lots of wireless networking stuff too. Hopefully there will be more stuff at the show tomorrow.
(I picked up my badge btw)
I really must sort out the level of compression on these pics. They look really messy - sorry. I don't have photoshop on this laptop so I'm learning how to use GIMP. Guess there are setting somewhere.
Anyway - Nintendo also announced this:
Very cute and very tiny. Wonder how many more times they can sell the same hardware. I guess it works for phones so why not for GameBoy.
So today I had breakfast with my good friend Pearl. She hasn't seen me in a few years and when she saw me sat at a table in Jack and Jills (Beverly Drive) she stood in the doorway - jaw dropped for about 30 seconds. I've lost a lot of weight :) Was fun to see that. She ended uptaking a photo so she could show people who we know cos she thought it was unbelievable.
After that I went shopping in Santa Monica. Bought mainly T-Shirts. Went to Kid Robot to buy T-Shirts but they didn't have the shirt I wanted in an L, or the Hoodie I liked in an M - so I ended up buying a cute T for my girlfriend instead.
Finally bought a digital camera. After stopping them from trying to sell me a $400 camera - I ended up getting a Nikon Coolpix 4600. It's small, comfortable and takes pictures, that's all I need. It was $199, which in real money is 108 quid, which is a little bit of a saving on UK internet prices I guess.
Not got much else planned for today... will call people to arrange to meet up I guess and get some sleep before E3 tomorrow.
Will post up stuff then.
Nic.
I'm in LA...
I did a few things different this trip. I normally fly Virgin - but this time I flew BA. This is mainly because the Virgin website was down when I tried to book. Was a good flight. Shorter and more comfy than Virgin so maybe I will always fly them.
I'm staying in Century City. Normally I stay in either West Hollywood, or Santa Monica. Century City is basiclly inbetween those two places. I'm about 2 blocks from the Fox building (or Nakatomi Plaza for those fans of Die Hard).
Not a lot to report yet. I had my smoothest trip through US customs ever. Was off the plane and renting a car within an hour. Yet again I have a white rental car. I always seem to be given white cars. I hate white cars. It's a Honda Civic this time round which is a massive step up from the piece of shit I rented for GDC last year (
http://www.medullacorp.com/blog/2004/03/photographic-evidence.html).
The hotel is okay. Nothing special. Will do for a week. I'm doing this semi on budget because as usual - I'm paying.
So far I have only 2 'only in America' stories to report.
1: I walked into my hotel room and the TV was on. The news. The report? How a dog dial 911 and saved it's owners life. Only in America.
2: Shrimp covered steak. How nasty must that be. They love their meat out here. Only in America.
Looks like E3 has already started - with Sony announcing and showing off the PS3. Obviously Microsoft did that crappy MTV thing. Sony actually had something to show.
True to form - I hate the design of the PS3. I hated the PS1 (but liked the PSOne). I hated the PS2. I hate the PS3.
The Final Fantasy 7 tech demo is pretty amazing (
http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/finalfantasyvii/index.html?tag=mp_num1). It's basically a re-working of the original PS1 games intro - but in realtime.
Also Killzone looks pretty nice too (although I'll never play it).
A side note: The hotel is kinda noise. I can hear the guy upstairs taking a shower. At least I hope he is.
So today. I'm going to have breakfast with my friend Pearl, then I'll proably head down to Santa Monica and do some shopping. I also have to call a bunch of people and tell them I am here.
Going to buy a DigiCam so I can get some better shots of stuff and I have my DV Cam here for when the show starts.
Till something happens,
Nic.
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
...I'm off to LA (leaving in about 40 minutes) to go to E3 - and meet up with old friends. I'll try and update this page with E3 still if my room has internet (which it frickin' better). Keep looking for all the stuff on Xbox 360, PS3, Revolution... and of cause, the gaming moment the world has been waiting for -
SYSTEM RUSH!Nic.
Opppssss... there it is...
XBox 360 does indeed look like this... i guess...
Pic from the ever excellent
engadget.
Well - it's a lot better than that ugly black box that is gathering dust under my TV. But I thought they were making it smaller so the Japanese could actually fit it in there homes!!!
Controller still looks shit - and that cam looks like something from a 1970's sci-fi movie.
Also - I'd still prefer to have one of them things in the post below.
Nic.
Oh please - oh please - oh please - oh please...
Look - I know this is a fake... but my god, I WANT ONE!!
You can stick your P.S.P up your A.R.S.E! I want a GAMECUBE ADVANCED!!!
Nic.
The second ever Medulla Corp book review...
I’ve just finished reading Xinran’s “The Good Women of China – Hidden Voices”.
Regular readers will know from my last ‘book review’ that I don’t really read, but since I spend 3 hours a day on a train – book are beginning to enter my life.
Xinran is a Chinese journalist, now living in London, who is famous in her home country for the radio show ‘Words on the Night Breeze’. This show was broadcast every evening and discussed what it is to be a ordinary woman in China.
I’m somewhat of an asian-o-phile, I’m also somewhat of a feminist (as much as a man can be) so even though I knew very little about the book when I picked it up – I felt I may well find the subject matter interesting.
The book holds 15 true stories about women from various backgrounds and the experiences they encountered, mainly during China’s cultural revolution.
The balance in this book is amazing. The stories are nearly always tragic, re-telling experiences that beg belief. The suffering and total degradation re-counted in the book had me in tears on the train on a number of occasions.
It seems impossible to think that some of these events happened as recent as the 1970’s growing up in so many miles away in the UK.
I really don’t want to go into detail about the books content, because if you are at all interested I implore you to pick up a copy and read for yourself. Once you have read ‘The Girl Who Kept a Fly as a Pet’, those little daily annoyances of life seem to wither into insignificance
Throughout, Xinran’s writing keeps you captivated. The stories are told in a direct fashion - not peppered with additional, unnecessary emotion. This writing style makes the stories simply hit home that much more.
It’s hard to say I ‘enjoyed’ “The Good Women of China” – it’s stories are simply too traumatic to be ‘enjoyed’. However I feel this is a book that you should seek out, simply to throw a little perspective on your life.
As I closed the book for the last time, the train passed a piece of graffiti that simply said ‘Fuck this shit’. It really encapsulated the triviality of life in the politically stable, safe, equality driven UK. I’m sure the graffiti author wasn’t being serially molested, abused, and raped by their father.
Nic.
Night Moves...
Last night I was discussing with a good friend the issue of snoring. Now I know from my ex and from one night in an LA hotel with Caspar that I can snore. However, I was much heavier then, and drinking.
So I told her I would record myself and let her know if I still snored. So I set up my laptop – plugged in a mic and about 11pm last night I hit record. Here’s the waveform for 11pm to about 5:30am (when I woke up).
[click on image for a larger version]
So as usual (because of my diet) I was up a few times in the night to have a pee. As mentioned in an earlier post – when you drink 5 litres of water a day, it has to come out sometime.
Most of the minor peeks are me moving around – I think I move around a lot when I sleep. However, there are two more distinct moments of louder breathing.
The first I call elevated breathing and can be heard
HERE.
The second section I would describe as snoring. This starts off quiet but builds to a little louder over a period of 15 minutes. The last minute can be heard
HERE.
What I find most interesting is that I breathe a lot faster when asleep then awake. Weird.
Maybe I’ll chose another random day to test this again.
Nic.
Pizza...
Seems the only time I ever do any music these days is when I'm trying out a new soft synth or effect I've grabbed. Today - no exception.
I decided to get a hold of this little fella:
http://nusofting.liqihsynth.com/Pizza.htmIt's a synth called Pizza with a pretty unique interface. I liked the sound of the demos so I paid my 5 dollars and recieved it in the mail about an hour ago.
Results of my (as usual) 30 minutes to write a new track with a new synth can be heard
HERE.
It's very IDM (whatever that is) and all parts were played live - just where ever my fingers lannded on the keyboard if I'm honest. All the synth parts are Pizza presets except the last synth that comes in (which is daHornet). As usually with these things it's pretty experimental. Not for everyone - but Barnaby loves these tracks I do... so here it is.
Nic
Dance you piece of shit!!!
Was browsing the other day and found this really nice animation by ex-Argonaut artist Alex Mallinson. It's based on that pretty damn cool Citroen C4 ad. Click on the pic to enjoy.
Source site is
http://www.x-bam.com/Nic.
