Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Putting off Work

Riding that inate ability everyone has to do absoultely nothing productive for hours I'm going to to try and write a story using nothing but song titles on my mp3 player for the basis of as much of the content as I can.

Let the story begin.
The year was 1991. The planet was L490. And despite a 100 suns shining on it, it was filled with a blue light. Our hero, Mr Misfortune smoked 1000 cigarettes and consequently couldn't walk a milimeter without feeling zzzonked, let alone 9000 miles. This was the least of his problems considering the dragon queen was about. In this city he felt good, but had to cross the cold dessert to enlist the help of juggernauts to kick ass and take names. He walked on,lights and music on his mind. He felt half a world away and then reached Kansas City. Walking through the city he met the kids, a group of super intelligent but ironically dosy midgets. They told him the dragon queen wasn't a queen at all, in fact it was a giant corporation - he needed to kill the director. They also recommended the apple pie, but this as like eating glass, clearly a bad omen. He walked on, before he realised "I'm not alone". Turning round he saw some ghosts 'n' stuff. They knocked him unconcious and stole his faverote green socks, knocking him into flashback. Once again he was 17, a flourecent adolecent getting dosed. Sadly in the real world his end credits were rolling as a rabid squirel drew near. Black and blue and sockless things weren't looking good until Elvi$ appeared for one final encore and harder, better, faster, stronger he gave the squirel a kiss with a fist. The poor thing flew backwards, oddly realising the importance of being idle and how being idle he'd be curled up in bed watching re-runs of top gear on dave. Mr Misfortune woke up, and with Elvi$ sat to watch the sun come up. As they stared something came through the distance - it look pissed and was going in for the kill:s!

more after the dissertation intro is written.

Sunday, 17 January 2010

More musical goodness


Yep, live music is actually awesome! Whether it's an acoustic night at a pub or a massive festival (incidentally Isle of Wight's line up has taken a turn for the worst with the addition of Mr Hudson). Even better when it'll take me away from Saturday night TV and Cila Black regenerated into an irishman with bad catchphrases.

I'm headed to the NME awards tour in Manchester, which has a whole list of bands I've never really listened to. This is a good thing, just like return of another edition of Celebrity Big Brother isn't, but leaves me feeling slightly like a hippocrite. Apart from their Daily Download which in all fairness is awesome, the NME is more trendy and ficle than Noel Fieldings left eyebrow. This is something which is never good, and rightly or wrongly is also something I subconsiously hold against its readers. But considering the line-up (The Big Pink, The Maccabees, Bombay Bicyle Club and the Drums)it sounds like apart from naviagating through masses of fawning indie cindies the gig will be epic, with some ace live music.



Aside from this gig, which is going to be good times ahead, people should still be looking forward to the now immenant release if the new Hadouken! album For The Masses:


Other awesome new tracks that should be checked out include:
30 Seconds to Mars - Vox Populi: Its not a single (yet anyway)but has a big feel and uplifting feel to it. Good times all round, but this is to be fair a very well made album which needs to be listened to for start to finish to fully appreciate it. A more detailed and critical review can be found here. Also check out the Innerpartysystem remix of Kings and Queens, a intersting take in the track.

Passion Pit - The Reeling (Bubblegum Sci Fi Remix): Easily the best remix of this track I've found, and is featured on a Skins trailer so clearly Skins producers via the group of token young people they found are telling us this track represents buzz words like youthfulness, underground and cutting edge. But after 3 series whether Skins will actually do that itself remains to be seen. Having said this, too many listens will make this track so irritating you'll want to rip your ears off with a spoon. Its available here.

That is all, laters :).

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

New Year, New Music :-)

http://rumandcookies.blogspot.com

For anyone whos not stopped drinking since Christmas drinkig, firstly well done you get first prize - a three week memory blank, but secondly its now 2010. Not much has changed really; we're now only two years from not dieing at the end of 2012, the news is still depressing but on a happy end of the news style note mother natures put the country through trial by snow. A fun experience where kids are off school, the streets have become highly drunk unfriendly and anyone wanting to get anywhere can't.

Based on this unless you live in Bangor, the most snow proof place in the world?, then your probably not going to leave your house for twenty hundred years, according to no actual weather guessers. So your going to need several new toys to pipe lovely new music into your world. The first new toy which will save hundreds of hours of snowflake counting is Spotify. Ok, so its not really new, but will give you access to a whole world of music old and new without you having to go outside and risk the public shame of falling on your arse. This blog has a link to get it without an invite, also I forget to mention - aside from the barrells of pride your going to save its also free. What more could you want?!

The second, frankly amazing source, is a website by the name of The Hype Machine. This has a host of random remixes, free tracks and can put you in touch with a many many music blogs. Kind of like this one, except better and with more shiny pictures. Lots of music goodness has also occurred so far however. Some of these are from 2009 and some 2010 but they're all cracking tunes!

The first of these audio delights is quite amazing. I'm fairly certain that if it were a physical thing (preferdly made from pastry and apples) I'd eat it very quickly. It is the Death to the Throne remix of The xx's Shelter, available here (right click and save) it is an electro remix of the band. The first I've found, and I'vr had hours of essay writing time in which to look. I can't decide if its a genius electro re-imagining for the band for a slighlty tedious thing music snobs will come to react to with sentiments such as 'I don't like change'. Either way it deserves atleast a little of your delectation (I heard this word no less than twice on tele during the winter period, therefore it must be good?).

Another promising act for this year is Hadouken! - not only is it a video game finishing move, but also apparently a noise emitting group of people which some people like to call bands. Look at their first release Music For An Accelerated Culture with tracks like this to hear what they're all about

Like that? listen to they're latest release For The Masses, an album mini mix is available here and love it, hate it or express an unsual desire imitate through the art of beatboxing you'll remember it - and with any luck it will stick in your head like pigeon shit to car.

The final track in this blog is probably quite old - but more genius than Brad Pitts itailian accent in Inglorious Basterds. Its a mash-up by of Justice's D.A.N.C.E and Santogolds Les Artists. A mesmerising combination of songs and production work, check it out here (right click and save). Awesome times.

That'll do it I think, theres three very cool tracks. Talking of cool things Isle of Wight festival is shaping up to be something special minus Jay-Z, atleast I hope so as I now possess three tickets. Time to sleep now. Nos da.

Sunday, 3 January 2010

Interactive Fiction

Here's a one off entry to allow the posting of my very own interactive fiction, the final project for this module on E-Publishing. This is a link to download the .z8 file. the final project for this module on E-Publishing. Its a fun story of orange skies, mice and a confused person on a flashback - frankly if this isn't turned into a feature film within a week I'll be shocked. Below are download links for the story file and then interpreter programmes for Windows, Mac and the I-Phone (yep you can play this bad boy on the move).

Orange Skies Interactive Fiction Story

Interpreter for Windows

Interpreter for Macs

Interpreter for I-Phone

More interpreters can be found here. The story is an adaption of a short story I wrote over summer, which can be found here. Its not long, but is slightly different to the interactive fiction version.

Its not a very complex interactive fiction to be honest. To navigate it, you can go north, east, west and south. You can take items. You can eat things. Theres even a bed you can get in :). Good times all round I think you'll agree.

There we go, happy new year. Hope you like it :)

Creative Commons License
Orange Skies by David Horn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.