So we all get old and then we can’t hack it anymore. Is that it?

Via Nialler9 comes a link to this site on which you can listen to the new Go! Team song “Flashlight Fight” which features the vocal stylings of none other than Mr. Chuck D. Its a pretty darn amazing song in my opinion, the Go! Team’s mentalistic drums and horns and general noise not being a million miles away from Public Enemy’s old Bomb Squad sound. But of course with alot more melody, since the classic Public Enemy sound seemed to be actually offended by anything approaching a tune. Which was a good thing, by the way. Chuck gives it his all on this track, and the Go! Team fulfill their side of the bargain as usual. Good stuff. I haven’t heard much of Chuck’s recent stuff, I don’t think he’s lost it as an MC though, just his choice of backing tracks sometimes leaves alot to be desired. Its Nas “Illmatic” syndrome, when you’ve come out with such an amazing catalogue of early material its hard to best yourself.

I guess its like what Sickboy said in Trainspotting, “Well, at one time, you’ve got it… and then you lose it… and it’s gone forever.” Its definitely true in the hip-hop game, its hard to think of many rappers that have stayed on top of their game for their whole careers. Ghostface Killah maybe? Some fade away into obscurity, some keeping making quality material but its forever in the shadow of former glories (Re: Nas) others recognise that the jig is up and completely change their whole game. Re: Mr. Ice Cube. When Cube first came out he was like Eminem multiplied by Darth Vader. He was the most controversial rapper out there, threatening to burn down Korean shops, calling white women “cave bitches” and generally scaring the piss out of people. I remember as a wee speccy 13 year old collecting together enough money to buy “Death Certificate” on cassette tape, opening the cover and being moderately terrified of the picture of Cube and an army of gang members and militant Muslims staring back at me. I was convinced they were going to march across the Atlantic and enslave us. Its was brilliant. Of course they didn’t, as when Cube’s career starting waining in the face of more palatable pop-rappers such as Jay-Z or Ja Rule he did a 180 and reinvented himself as a kids movie star. So, whilst he once threatened to kill the president now he makes delightful romps about cross country trips with mischievous pre-teens. I suppose its for the best, nothings worse than hasbeen gangsta’s trying to keep up with the young bucks. Cube wouldn’t fit in amongst the current crop anyway. He was articulate, clever and witty, whilst todays super-thug’s are slurring idiots who can barely form logical sentences.

This phenomenon Sickboy reminds us, is found in “all walks of life“. This weekend I saw the Simpsons Movie. The Simpsons at its mighty heights was the best television show ever created. Ever. Then it lost it. Its still good, its still funny but its a shadow of its former self. The Movie does go someway to restoring its reputation, its pretty funny in parts, but in reality it could have been alot funnier. This year Ive seen films like Borat or Hot Fuzz where ive felt like I was going to projectile vomit I was laughing so much. I expected a similar reaction from the Simpsons, but did not get it. Its a very well made film, with some classic moments but its Laughs-Per-Minute ratio was sadly too low. Still, even in its worst, worst moments it pisses on Family Guy from a great height. So the Simpsons, joins Ice Cube, the Prodigy, Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson, and Feast ice-creams as things that had it, and then lost it.

And, want to know the only person who has ever bucked this near-universal trend? Bill motherfuckin’ Murray. He’s like a fine wine, he’s only getting better.

Rté.ie – Internet Hall of Horrors.

Today I was innocently browsing the Rté website, reading the news and noting the continuing collapse of our society when my eyes were assaulted by not one, but two ghastly visages. These two ghouls stared at me from either side of the page:

I wouldn’t mind if these people were involved in the news story in someway, being either child molesters or drug addicted corpses respectively, but these images were chosen as advertisements. Someone decided to use these faces in an attempt to get me to part with my money in some form. The guy on the left with the fuck-you smile and Minority Report hands-free wanker kit was trying to promote Business News text alerts, but does no more to convince us then look like a smug prick. But to be fair, the only people in the world who would probably sign up for business news text alerts are smug pricks with fuck-you smiles and Minority Report hands-free wanker kits.

On the right we have Jenni the Elf from the Bank of Ireland ads. But whereas Jenni on telly is a little pixie looking character, here she looks a cold dead monster from a Japanese Horror movie that has climbed out of Aphex Twin’s arse in a David Cronenberg film. Whilst on heroin. Again, this is probably fitting though, since she is advertising a Bank, which we all know are the soul-sucking, people-hating tenth level of Hell. So its probably pretty honest of them. “This is what you’ll look like after we’re done with you….fuck you and your dreams of owning a home!”. However, while on telly Jenni doesn’t look like some nefarious hell-dwelling demon, she is REALLY annoying. Everytime I see her prancing about amongst the giant shoes I  hope a giant Doc Marten will come crashing in and crush her into the ground.

I can’t be arsed coming up with my own material today, so I can’t be arsed coming up with a title either.

Via TED talks, via Ben Hammersley via Damien comes this fascinating clip….The 4am Conspiracy. Funny stuff. Click it. CLICK IT.

TRANSFORMERS!

With much apprehension and fear I went along to see the big-screen live-action CGI debut of my (and most people of my age’s) childhood hero’s, the Transformers. It was with apprehension because of the fact it was directed by none other than Michael Bay, a man who has a tendency to make shit films more often than good films. In fact, he’s never made a good film, so despite the fact that this was about the fucking TRANSFORMERS there was a high chance this was going to be complete poo. So let’s cut to the chase…TRANSFORMERS IS GOD DAMNED AMAZING!

Ok, its never going to win any awards, its pretty cheesey, its got lots of silly Michael Bayisms (super-slo-mo shots of people looking into the middle distance), but for my money it hit the nail right on the head. I lamented on the fact that Die Hard 4.0 was really stupid, and it was. But Die Hard 4.0 was about a New York cop who takes on terrorists, Transformers is stupid, but its about intergalactic autonomous robots waging a million year war who can turn into vehicles. Its stupid by definition. But thats what makes it amazing. I recently rewatched the original Transformers: The Movie (the animated film from the 80s) and I realised that Transformers sits right on the line between genius and insanity. And that’s in cartoon form, so you could understand how the leap up to live-action could completely miss the mark. But to Bay’s credit he hits this almost pitch perfect. He could have tried some serious po-faced attempt to re-explain the Transformers, but he doesn’t. They are still intergalactic autonomous robots waging a million year war who can turn into vehicles. They still have ridiculous accents, and say ridiculous things, they kept all the good stuff and made it work. Some hardcore Transformers fans might complain about the stuff they changed, but its the stuff they KEPT which wins the day. Not even Michael Bay’s insistence on sticking in an unnecessary love-plot couldn’t ruin the amazingness, he can even get away with having a Transformer pissing petrol on a character….thats how amazing this is. Even stupid plot holes can’t derail this. Once you accept its about intergalactic autonomous robots waging a million year war who can turn into vehicles then this can be one of the most fun films in years. The acting is good, the script is funny, it has Megatron and Optimus Prime kicking the balls off each other….Its funny, stupid, exciting, stupid, fun and amazing. Maybe you have to be a super-geek or grown up with the Transformers to fully appreciate it, but when you see Optimus Prime come bailing down an alley way, turn into a big fuck-off robot and speak in the same voice he had when you were a kid, you can’t help but smile. And maybe wee yourself as well.

Two big robotic thumbs up. It begs the question though, if you were a Transformer, what would you turn into? I’d turn into the Matthews bus. Cuz every time it comes to a halt in Whitehall and begins its painstaking slow roll into Dublin, i’d transform into robotic form and stomp through Drumcondra kicking cars left, right and centre. I might even stomp on Berties house.

Want to see Phil Collins get blown to pieces live on stage?

Of course I don’t, but you might. If you do you are in for a treat, because the good people at Rockstar Games provided you with this opportunity if you played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.

And, if you don’t believe that’s Mr. Collins or you just want to enjoy a computer game version of him singing “In The Air Tonight” live without him suffering a violent death, then check this out:

If you’re wondering what’s with all the references to Phil Collins these days, may I suggest you wonder about something more important, like climate change or your life or something.

Things not to do on Bebo, Part 2.

Welcome back to our continuing series looking at things not to do with your Bebo profile. To recap, in Part One, I showed you how pretending to be child can get you banned by Bebo.

Now, this installment’s lesson is easy. Changing your profile so that you are pretending to be Uncle Phil, the stern-but-fair patriarch of the hit 90s Will Smith sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” may seem like a silly folly to pass the time and confuse your friends, but it has a strange side-effect. The side-effect being that you will receive masses of friend requests from illiterate teenagers late at night whose entire vocabulary appears to be in txt speak. I don’t know if they just thought it would be funny to have Uncle Phil as a friend or if they thought I was really Uncle Phil and wanted to get into some hi-jinx as a result of my famous short-temper or learn valuable life lessons via my reasoned logical mind. Either way I had to politely decline their request and move quick to make myself as inconspicous as possible, less there be more alco-pop swiggers looking to recieve my friendship. Sorry kids, but i’d only be leading you astray. Plus, given my previous record with Bebo, getting friend requests from random teenagers probably isn’t the best idea.

Speaking of Bebo, everyone seems to be migrating to or at least adulterising with Facebook. Damien reckons its an evolutionary  step up from Bebo.  I’ve dipped my proverbial toes in its virtual waters and it seems pretty similar, but looks a bit more smart and sophisticated. Apparently all the cool people are joining Facebook, which is just like Bebo but apparently cooler. Well, I say cool people, but can anyone be cool if they have an online social networking page? And seeing as though everyone has an online social networking page,does that mean there no cool people anymore?

One thing you can be sure of is that having read this blog entry you know you are cooler than I am. Because whilst you have an online social networking page I discuss the merits of having one online social networking page over another. I don’t mind, I don’t want to be cool. As I said, there’s no cool people left anyway.

Fuck it, do we even need another one of these things anyway?

Send me an angel

Given my recent interest in Buddhism I have found myself in book shops browsing the shelves in search of more books on the subject. I have noticed that most book shops have a section called “Mind, Body, Spirit” where they stick all books pertaining to religion or spirituality in. The range of books this covers is amazing. The Christianity section might as well be the “Dan Brown rip-off” section as there are hundreds of “Jesus Code”, “Mary Magdalene Conspiracy” ,”The Lost Gospels of the Guy Who Turned them Away From The Inn” et al books; all unashamedly ripping off the design of “The Da Vinci Code”’s cover. The Islam section has carefully respectful biographys of the Prophet Mohammed (NO PICTURES!) and general “Dummies Guide To…” etc. They even throw in blustery religion-bashers Dawkins and Hitchens in here. But the biggest section, outnumbering all others, is about Angels. From what I can see none of them pertain to be about the Angel’s mentioned in the Christian Bible, the Koran or the Talmud, where Angel’s originated from. None of the ones I flicked through claim to be historical accounts of how the Abrahamic faiths discuss or describe Angels. Nope, these are books about good natured magical angels (of whom we all have a personal one, it seems) who can come down from on high and help us be healthy, pass our driving tests, get a partner and not be sad.

I’m not fond of religion bashing, in fact its one thing that annoys me especially, but some things masquerading as “spirituality” are just stupid, especially this angel stuff. These books are just lazy, new-age waffle which have constructed an image of angels based on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed winged Aryans image. They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but when the cover has a semi-clothed winged Nazi serenely floating above us and features text with every kind of Photoshop effect slapped on my nerdish design instincts tell me to not only judge it, but if possible set it on fire.

Life is not a rollercoaster.

Its with a hint of sadness but with an bonus dash of nostalgia that I read today that Back to the Future…The Ride in Universal Studios is to close. I was lucky enough to have had the experience of going BACK TO THE FUTURE! two years ago when on holidays in America. It had been a childhood dream of mine, and without hesitation I can confirm it absolutely lived up to my dreams. As Back to the Future was and is one of my favourite films of all time, the chance to break the forth wall and live the movie was one I could not miss. A friend of mine took a picture of me moments after it had ended and I looked exactly like a 3 year old child who has just stumbled their way into an ice-cream, toy and puppy-dog factory. I’m eternally thankful that I did get to do it before it was too late. Some years ago I hummed and haa-ed over going to Highbury so much, that eventually it was too late, and I will never get to see a game there.

I suppose there is a lesson to this. The Buddha taught us that life is fleeting and we should live each moment like it is our last. Things can end in an instant, an opportunity that we have longed to take may be gone before we know it. We should live life in the now, and make sure we have no regrets. That is why I have resolved myself to shoot Ronan Keating with a high-powered sniper rifle. I mean, someone else is bound to do it first if I don’t.

Die Hard 4.0 is the stupidest move ever

Imagine a film about Paris Hilton marrying a potato, directed by Fred Durst and written by a chimpanzee with a pen stuck in its eye. That film would be less stupid than Die Hard 4.0. I know its an action film, I know its a Hollywood action film, I know its Die Hard, I like all those things, but really, this is really, really stupid. And i’m not even talking about the over the top action (I like over the top action), which IS stupid, or the stupid way hackers are portrayed (which is stupid) but mainly its the really stupid story. The amazing plot-holes and leaps of logic displayed here suggest they possibly made the film up as they went along. Bits of it are fun, but I spent alot of the time cursing the really stupid things that were happening. Thankfully it does have the really, really, really hot Maggie Q in it, and Bruce Willis punches her repeatedly in the face, but its not enough to stop this movie being stupid. Really stupid.

The BBC is stupid, Chris Rock is clever

So, after showing the fulls sets of the most vapid, bland musical poo ever, the BBC decided to grace us with just 2 songs of the Beastie Boy’s Live Earth appearance, and instead of the rest showed Shakira in Hamburg and Graham Norton interviewing some actor I have never heard of. The Beasties were probably the most relevant, inventive and genuinely politically aware group there but were the Beeb in their infinite wisdom decided we shouldn’t see them. Twats. I mean,Duran Duran? What the fuck.

What made up for it though was Chris Rock’s live interview with Jonathan Ross. Rock, unlike many of the celebrities who waffled on about how these concerts would save the planet, saw through the bullshit and wasn’t afraid to let people know it either. Ross asked him if these concerts would change anything and Rock straight-faced declared “Well, as we all know Live Aid ended world poverty so…” at which point Ross went scrambling to salvage the interview and Ricky Gervais sitting next to Rock split his sides laughing.

Turkey-headed band-wagon hijacking general annoyance Madonna was due to close the show, but I went to the pub so I can’t comment. Pints were nice though.

Sabotage (Sabotaged by the BBC! HAHAHA!! Shut up)