Some things that irritate me.

Guess what? For the lonely, invisible sailor voyaging through the sea of blogs, a new island of words is on the horizon! OK, so there are many other islands far richer than mine, but if you have been scanning the waves with your telescope hoping for something l-shaped, well, your time has come.
OK, enough of the vaguely-suitable metaphors. If anyone was watching, I pretty much abandoned this blog many, many moons ago, and it was only because I got the urge to bitch that I returned to these desolate plains.
You see, partly due to being the latest in a line of compulsive-moaners on my dad's side of the family, I can't help but see a lot wrong in the world. That sounds very deep and wise, but although I'm left-wing and hate Bush, war, etc., really I'm just talking about the little things. Anyway, unlike my dad, I tend to keep my intolerant, grumpy side locked away, because no-one likes that sort of thing. So, like millions of others, I unleash my inner git in online realms (see: forums, counter-strike).

Example #1: Girls who refer to their other half as "my man".
Now, I say "girls" because it appears to be almost exclusively the 13-20 age group of females who use this term, rather than women whose boyfriend would actually be a man. Anyway my beef with this is that it sounds unnecessarily.. well, possessive. Put it this way: If a male referred to his girlfriend/wife as his "girl" (or worse, "woman"), it would be immediately construed as sexist, no? Rightly so, as it is sexist, but it works both ways, y'know.

Example #2: 4x4s in urban centres.
A land rover, or similar, is a very good car. No doubt about it. They're great for, I don't know, bombing across rugged terrain, tearing through white rivers, or outrunning enraged grizzlies. But getting some milk from tescos? Come on.. not really necessary, is it. I've noticed the adverts don't even pretend that 4x4 drivers go near the country anymore. One I saw today simply depicted a 4x4 idling at a junction, inside was a "safe and secure" family. OK, maybe they are safe and secure. No more so than they would be in any other car, but hey. I guess keeping your kids safe in a fucking tank is more important than preserving the planet for the very same tots? Jesus.

It's late, and my supply of (admittedly mild) vitriol is running dry. Rest assured, next time the world angers me I will return with a fury so great it will shatter the keyboard. You won't see it, but it will happen. Oh yes, for the time being at least, L-Shaped Block will be a cynical and hateful place. Or I may just bugger off for another 18 months.

What boredom can produce (filler)

In one of those wonderfully ironic twists, my first Sunday in months without homework or revision found me mired in boredom by lunchtime. Being by the computer (which is where I invariably end up, no matter what I'm doing), I decided to compile a list, something I do far too often. Today's list was different though, seeing as I've done Top 10 films, games, and TV shows fairly recently (who knows, you may get treated to them on a future Sunday afternoon). Instead I decided to do a list based on the show everybody's talking about. No, not Eastenders, but Lost.
I may have mentioned my love affair with Lost many posts back, I won't go into why right now, as that seems like a topic ripe for future picking. Instead, I'll merely give you this list that is sitting in the "Random" folder of My Documents. NB: If I were to do this list again right now, the results would almost certainly be completely different.

Top 10 Lost Moments/Scenes (as of 11 June 2006)

10) Boone finds a radio (Deus Ex Machina)

9) The Others take Walt (Exodus Part 2)

8) Sun gives Jin the translation book (Exodus Part 1)

7) The tail section crashes into the water (The Other 48 Days)

6) Sawyer and Jack say goodbye (Exodus Part 1)

5) The Crash (Pilot Part 1)

4) Boarding Oceanic Flight 815 (Exodus Part 2)

3) Desmond’s morning routine (Man of Science, Man of Faith)

2) Jack fights Ethan in the rain (All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues)

1) Charlie’s revival (All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues)

Uh, yeah, hope you enjoyed it. I'll hopefully be back soon with a proper post and not just filler. So, 'til then...

It's that time of year again...

I've got the bloggin' fever again. Luckily, I have a perfectly good topic right here at my fingertips: E3 2006.
You may well be sitting there thinking what the dilly-o E3 is. The title itself stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, and that pretty much sums up what it's all about. Every year, in May, game developers and journalists alike descend upon the Los Angeles Convention Centre (or Center, I guess, seeing as it's in America and all), and the resulting flurry of news and revelations is a gamer's wet dream. For someone like me, it's a very exciting time of year.
The Expo's not quite over yet for this year, but (if I remember rightly) I believe today is the last day. Far too much happens at E3 for me to report all of it, especially when there are far more extensive and better-written sources elsewhere, so I'll simply offer my views on what I consider to be the most important (read: OMFG-inducing) news items.
So, in no particular order, we have:

Grand Theft Auto IV + Vice City Stories
Hardly earth-shattering announcements, I know, but the prospect of more GTA was always going to make me salivate intensely (not literally, of course. Speaking of which, does anybody really drool when excited about something. I doubt it.). I'm yet to play Liberty City Stories, but I've heard only good things. Vice City was always my favourite locale out of the PS2 lot, so I've got high hopes for this. As for GTA IV, do I really need to explain? Even if they just remade San Andreas with added graphical and physical pimp I wouldn't be unhappy (that's a lie actually; I'd be fuming), but with Rockstar North's capacity to make GTA constantly bigger and better, I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be my New Favourite Game(tm).

Your wallet might just survive the PlayStation 3
If only just, anyway. If it wasn't for series like GTA, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, Sony's arrogance would probably be enough to put me off PlayStation for good. As it is, I expect I'll get a PS3 eventually, but only after it's been reduced from it's launch price of $500 (about £350-£400 I'm guessing). Honestly, I'm confident it'll be a fine console, but is it really worth that much? Particularly when Microsoft is prepared to sell similar technology for a far lower price? Still, at least it's not in the region of $800 like the rumours suggested, but I'd still rather they'd sell it for less and be prepared to lose money. They'd still be fucking rolling in it.

Guns of the Patriots
I'm still yet to play Metal Gear Solid 3, but numbers 1 and 2 remain two of my favourite games. Yes, I'm aware the storyline of MGS2 is convoluted, far-fetched, ridiculous, laughable, boring, and any other derogatory adjectives you care to mention, but I love it, for some peculiar reason. The trailer for MGS4: Guns of the Patriots is damned impressive (I just salivated again), especially Raiden in his fancy new get-up. I actually quite liked Raiden already, but apparently he sounded like a girl, or something...

Revolution (sorry, *Wii*) might be a bit more expensive than planned. Not that expensive, but just a bit more than we thought it might be.
Uh, yeah, that's basically it.

Brawl!
As expected, a new Super Smash Bros. has been announced for Wii. Slightly less expected was the addition of some minor Nintendo characters. Oh, and SOLID SNAKE!! Other than that it's basically the same game as before, only with a bit of spit and polish, as far as I can tell. The Smash Bros. for 'Cube was easily my favourite game on the system, so this is fine by me. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the freehand controller, or Wii-mote, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work in a beat 'em up.

EDIT: A friend pointed out to me that I neglected to mention Super Smash Bros. Brawl's online capability. Quite how I managed to forget the most important addition to the SSB series is beyond me, but there you have it. Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be playable online (and for free, what's more). Damn, it feels good to say it.

I think that's basically it. Not the most exciting E3 since I've been following it, but still some damned tasty nuggets o' news floating about.

As a footnote to today's post, it's What I've Been Listening To Recently (aka I'm Not Plagiarising)

Modern Girls and Old Fashioned Men - The Strokes with Regina Spektor
Sonnet - The Verve
Ladyflash - The Go! Team
Turn a Square - The Shins
Bullets - Editors
Hard to Concentrate - Red Hot Chili Peppers
See the World - The Kooks
I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic! At The Disco
Don't Get Lost in Heaven - Gorillaz

Thank you, and goodnight.

In clarification

Just to clear up some... confusion, the title of this blog is not a reference to '60s film The L-Shaped Room. I saw it recently and it's nothing to shout about. No, the L-Shaped Block is in fact from the famous videogame Tetris. You must've played it. Yes? Well, glad that's out of the way.

And now for something positive...

A quick scan of my previous posts shows me to be quite a negative chap, doesn't it? I'm not all like that, and to prove it, I'm going on a praise-a-thon. As any sex therapist might just tell you, it's good to gush once in a while.
So, today I'm going to talk about Oblivion. Or, to be more precise, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For PC. Collector's Edition! Not that it makes any real difference to the gameplay, but if I clutch my collector's coin while playing I can pretend I'm really in the game. What? Doesn't everyone do that?
Anyway, the game. As you may have heard, it's rather marvellous. Unless of course you read EDGE, who gave it a good write-up but were so damned grudging in doing so they may as well have just given it a low rating and absorbed the hate mail (I actually quite like EDGE, but they're about as hard to please as... Oh, I don't know).
Anyway, the game. Argh, what happened to "short and concise"? I'm like some kind of digress-o-matic here. Oblivion. Yes, it's good. Very good in fact, and despite having some problems getting it to run stably and with a respectable framerate on my machine, I think it's safe to say I'm enjoying it more than I've enjoyed any game for many months. Yes, World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2 are both quite wonderful games, but the fun you can have playing with other people is inconsistent to say the least, because, and I'm sure many of you (who am I kidding? About three people read this) will agree, most people playing these games are arseholes. Not so in Oblivion. Well, some of the NPCs can be pretty rude, but it doesn't matter so much because they're not real. And because they're not real, you can kill them without reprimand from real people. The guards (in their oh-so-cool armour) will hassle you, sure, but then you can always get a friend to pay them off, provided you're in the Thieves' Guild of course. Or you could run. Become an outlaw. Live in the shadows. It's not very advisable of course, but the point is you can.
On the other hand, you could make a living out of killing. Chances are that snooty shopkeeper you chose to off earned you an invitation to the Dark Brotherhood. Accept, and you become a member of what is essentially the Tamriel Mafia, performing "contracts" and various other nefarious deeds at the behest of a shadowy God.
Of course, that might just be a bit, well, evil for you. The Fighter's and Mage's Guilds are there for those who prefer to be a bit more honourable. Alternatively, you could play the nomad. Wandering the land (and with a game world as beautiful as green Cyrodiil, it's a joy to do so), discovering caves and ruins, taking quests as you find them. One time I discovered a shabby settlement full of hostile villagers, nestled in a densely-wooded valley south of Chorrol, and spent the next hour or so discovering the story behind it. I've forgotten it, mind you, what with my turbulent life as an assassin and thief, flaming portals to Oblivion opening up all over, and a necromancer waiting in a cave somewhere south of Cheydinhal, occupying my thoughts.
That's what I love about Oblivion, the feeling that I really am living in another world, doing incredible stuff that I could never do in real life. It's a geek's paradise. Plenty of games in the past have purported to transport me to some fantastical place, and many have, to a certain degree, but Oblivion is the first to really make me feel it. Ironically, Oblivion's worst feature is the Plane of Oblivion itself. An odd artistic mix of Mordor, Xen, and the Temple of Doom, it's painfully linear and repetitive. Painful, because the rest of the game is anything but.
But this is meant to be a positive post, so I'll end on a cheerful note. Oblivion is very, very, very good (sorry, I'm low on decent adjectives).

"The harder I'd try to stay awake, the faster I'd fall asleep."

Last week me and a couple of buddies, as I almost never call them, got together and for some insane reason decided to watch films continuously for twenty-four hours. We started at about 10:30am, and finished roundabout 9:00am the next day. So I suppose it was more like twenty-two and a half hours, if you're feeling pedantic (I'm nearly always pedantic, but I let it slide this time seeing as all the moisture in my eyes had evaporated). We had about a last supper's worth of junk food to keep us going, consisting of Pringles, popcorn, mouth-drying sweets and the like. Anyway, I can tell you're just dying to know what films we watched, so without further ado, here is the complete list:
- Gladiator
- Forrest Gump
- Saving Private Ryan
- Kill Bill Volume 1
- Serenity
- Big Fish
- Groundhog Day
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Se7en
- National Treasure
- The Incredibles
I won't bore you with what I thought of each one. On the whole it was mighty enjoyable, though we all started snoozing (unsurprisingly) for brief periods during the last couple of films. I'd recommend it if you have the time, the patience, a comfortable sofa and an excuse to gorge yourself for a whole day.
Anyway, to wrap up this entry: Music! The last couple of weeks I have been mostly listening to:
Stumble and Fall - Razorlight
Death on the Stairs - The Libertines
Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Meet Me in the Bathroom - The Strokes
Mary - The Subways
No Use Crying - Embrace
Gotta Keep Moving - Willy Mason
'Til next time.

In defence of black and white

At a recent (highly informal) social gathering, I decided to take some snaps, as is often done at such events. On more of a spur-of-the-moment decision than anything, I switched my phone camera to black and white and proceeded to take photos in this fashion throughout the evening.
Apparently in doing this, I broke some kind of unspoken social taboo, as when I showed the photos around, their monochrome nature evoked confusion, derision, and even what appeared to be mild anger in one case. The general consensus seemed to be: Why on earth would you take pictures in black and white when it's been possible for years to take them in colour?
If you're reading this and you don't know me, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'm just an overly pretentious twat who chose trusty b/w in order to show with crystal clarity the horrors of social degradation, or something. So I'll make it clear right now that's not the case. In any case, making such observations are tricky when you're... Well, you get my drift. Anyway, as mentioned earlier, the colour drain was a decision made in a matter of seconds, based on several thoughts.
One: Sad as it sounds, I like to use all the various "effects" on my sprauncy phone every now and again. I thought I'd give black and white a shot.
Two: Colour is useful for showing up something particularly colourful, but since we would be indoors all evening, I couldn't think of anything that would actually necessitate the use o' colour. Unless, I don't know, I wanted to show up the redness of someone's cheeks while screaming along to Chili Peppers. Exactly.
Three: More geekiness. I like the way shadows and contrast show up in black and white. It can turn an average snap into something really quite pretty.
Finally, four: Just because we can take photos in colour, doesn't mean we have to. Plenty of people still dig out old game consoles (I would, if I still had them) for a quick retro blast. There are those who still favour a vinyl LP over CDs, and there's something very nice about receiving a handwritten letter through the post (having said that, I do love e-mailing, and pretty much everything Internet-related). I don't believe in giving up old technology just because something shinier comes along (again, having said that, I'm a sucker for all kinds of new-fangled gadgetry... I'm really not so good at putting forward an argument).
There, rant over. Hey, that felt good...