LET'S TURN 1990's FOOTBALLERS' NAMES INTO SHOP NAMES AND DRAW THEM ON MS PAINT

Now, I'm like anyone else in that I enjoy a bit of Facebook. However, I'm quite picky over who I make chums with and even pickier over joining groups. Join too many and you're only of those overly-active Facebookers that I REALLY HATE. Anyway, I found a group that appealed to me on a number of levels:

1) Intentionally bad computer art
2) Footballing backwaters
3) Ironic humour

The name of the group is 'LET'S TURN 1990's FOOTBALLERS' NAMES INTO SHOP NAMES AND DRAW THEM ON MS PAINT' and you can find it here. I also like the self-explanatory name of the group and the needless block capitals. Still, the main focus of the group is the actual art itself, so here are my favourites:

FEELY PAL BEAR (Philippe Albert)



Sublime pun. Sublime grasp of the rudiments of MS Paint.

TORY AND DRE FLOW (Tore Andre Flo)



More top-notch punnery. Extra marks for utterly obtuse referencing.

Also, a friend pointed this one out. Not my favourite, but maybe you like it more:



Obviously, I had to have a go myself, being a champion of the word and all, so lap it up, kittens:

PULL PESKY SOLE LIDO (Paul Peschisolido)



INDIGO RAMS (Andy Goram)



As you can imagine, my inspiration for these works is the late, great Tony Hart. Tony, I don't know if you can read blogs but without you, this would never have happened. Thank you.

Old Computer Games Are Well Good #3

I spend a lot of my time on the ol' domestic desktop. I do a lot of my work on it, and because work is officially boring, no matter what it is you're doing, I tend to multitask. I write and research (boring), listen to music (less boring) and play CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER 01/02 (exciting).

The basic idea is that you manage a football team. The amazing thing about CM01/02, or at least the version I have, is that it appears in a handy little window that you can minimize and come back to. Also, there's an amazing forum where you can download data patch updates, so you can use the wonderful flexibility of the old version, but with all the new players. Also, some clever nuggets have made patches so you can play in the Faeroe Islands or Belarus, or somewhere equally conspicuous. The reason why people have put so much effort into immortalizing CM 01/02 is that many see it as the trade-off between entertaining simulation (which the earlier versions weren't enough of) and overly-exhaustive life transplant (which the later ones are too much of).

I don't like spending too long playing computer games - I like picking them up and at some point putting them down again. CM01/02 has enough options to make it quite fun, but I am not planning every meal for my players, teaching them to read, or wiping their bum-bums. Best of all I get to have a life outside of the game, such as flicking through Spotify, Yahoo! Messenger, or, you know, doing work or something useful.

Championship manager 01/02 Windows torrent
CM01/02 Data Update Forum

Review of the Century #4

Album: LCD Soundsystem - 45:33
This Is Fake DIY, 2007.

James Murphy is incredible. He’s totally god-like: conjuring miracles, enabling mere mortals to do the undoable. He’s actually a lot better than a god because he routinely doles out top notch Class A dance joy. So, when something he makes doesn’t get noticed, that is a bad thing. However, when this thing gets re-released so everyone does notice it, that is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Great news then, that 45:33 has been given a second run out. Originally sponsored by Nike to help people forget about the alleged unethical sourcing of their wares, 45:33is really quite simple. It is a sub-46-minute long sprawling dance-a-thon, carved and tweaked to fit the athletic peaks and troughs of running for said duration. Although merely listening to it is enough of a workout, 45:33 - originally a iTunes-only offering – has now been dissected into its 6 distinct but overlapping movements, one of which is noticeable as ‘Someone Great’, one of the very high points of the brilliant ‘Sound Of Silver’. To analyse this rhythmic funk behemoth as the sum of its parts would be grossly unfair: the true majesty of this project is the audacity and deft touches throughout which make 45:33 one of a kind. Not a boring moment in sight, and also the odd chuckle as Murphy hisses ‘Shame on you’. It is hard not to imagine fingers being wagged and love handles being gently tugged, the cheeky so-and-so. As things eventually wind down at the end, you’ll be left exhausted, regardless of how far you’ve ran (or not).

Although ‘45:33’ would be more than welcome on its ownsome, it is backed up by another 3 tracks. Most noteworthy is ‘Freakout/Starry Eyes’ – a tripped-out funk odyssey in three parts, spanning a gigantic 12 minutes. It switches from the jazz-hand-shaking Murphy on the more afrobeat moments of ‘Sound of Silver’ and clunks into heavy percussion in the guise of 80s No-Wavers Liquid Liquid and Konk before winding up again for the bizarrely loveable retro-electro stomp of ‘Starry Eyes’, a story about getting rained on in NYC. On any other album, this offering would be a huge selling point, massively ambitious and in most cases, comparably fantastic, but on ’45:33’ it is dwarfed by the immense magnitude of the eponymous effort. Meanwhile, a dubbing of ‘North American Scum’ and the gurgling ‘Hippie Priest Bum-Out’ do the job admirably, but have the sad fate of being located on the same piece of plastic as ’45:33’ and ‘Freak Out/Starry Eyes’.

The re-release of 45:33 cements LCD Soundsystem firmly atop the podium of amazing aceness, affirming and supporting the quality of the album release earlier this year. The title, signifying the common speeds of modern vinyl records shows the universal nature of this effort, both the pop wonderment found on 45s and the monumental album-length experiences found on 33s. A fantastically ambitious gem, and mercilessly executed: Murphy is simply miles ahead of the pack.

Death of music*

HOLY POP GUACAMOLE. It's (almost) the end of music. And it's almost the end of 2008. How terrible. Thankfully, Eeyogan Quigg didn't win the X Factor, so there's no need for heads in the oven. However, the bells have tolled for the Fashionable Hipster Electronic Chap Band: found in 2008, and found dead in 2009. Here's a recap:

1) MGMT

Pant-swingingly fantastic. Provided the soundtrack to many (ie. 1) 'Skins' epitaph and made bass fat again. Their name is also a contraction of the word 'management' and is therefore 1 finger to The Man. Well done, MGMT. There are two medals in the post for you.



2) Cut Copy

They are from the other side of the world and they possess similar fun dance vibes. Added to the fact that their 2008 album straddles most of the statistically-proven 'good' musical genres and you'll find, via the 'Good Music In 2008' formula (below), that Cut Copy deserve world citizenship. Their light-hearted odyssey shows that, like changing global climates, it can truly be summer all year long. Kudos to you, Cut Copy.



==

OFFICIAL GOOD MUSIC IN 2008 FORMULA ALERT



Good Genres: Guitar-based rock music, minimal techno, French house, gospel, Germanic electro, power pop, Gameboy-core.

Q-values:
1 and under - mediocre
1.5 - optimal quality
2 and over - a bit much

==

Sadly, it's all over. This is Empire Of The Sun, a terrible palarver consisting of Him Out Of The Sleepy Jackson and some other chap who would have been better off remaining exclusive to his Oceanic electro-euphoria maestros P'nau.



As you can see, they're a bit too similar. If you could hear them, they're also a bit rubbish. Oh hang on.

==

DRAMATISATION:

(A party. Everyone is having fun)

World: Wow! This electro hipster pop thing is really great!
MGMT: We know! We love it too! That's why we did it! Go us!
Cut Copy: And us, too!
World: Yes, we love you, Cut Copy, and you, MGMT!
MGMT: And we love you, World! And you, Cut Copy!
Cut Copy: We know we're not from NYC, but...
World: That doesn't matter! We love you!

(World, MGMT and Cut Copy have some more fun. Enter Empire Of The Sun)

ALL: Oh.

(Curtain)

==

* - denotes exaggeration.

Old Computer Games Are Well Good #2

I'm sick of driving around in normal cars. Everyone does it. Brum brum brum - let's go to the supermarket. I don't want to do it in my vital nanoseconds of nonworkdom. Fortunately, the 1990s had it sussed. They didn't want silly more-realistic-than-life Ford Escort-a-thons; oh no, they wanted ridiculous things. No brooding sub-plots and no aspirational speedster bollocks. No, the 1990s was invented for stupid hyper-age fantasies, and wildly exciting they are, too.

The best example of this is F-Zero X on the N64. Slightly less neon than its SNES counterpart (which is relentlessly dazzling, like Shane MacGowan spanking you on the face with a diamond baseball bat), the 64-bit equivalent is whippet-slick and super-space-age. Also, you get to fly around at speeds over 700km/h, which the last time I checked, was enough to wipe your face off.



An integral part of the game is the rather odd and physics-mocking track layouts, which involve a comparably orthodox pipe and half-pipe, but also a more mind-boggling cylinder which involves being magnetically attached to a big worm, which involves getting flung around like an glistening bead of jet-propelled debris. There's 29 other chumps, trying in vain to debunk you in every race as well, which brings a certain pleasure in carving your neon line through the swathes of chaff. And in the classic twist of Road Rash, you get a rival who you can endeavour to pummel the pants off especially. Because you're a citizen of the future, see. You don't have to work, because robots do all that palaver nowadays, and nuclear energy has solved all our problems, so we don't even have to pay any bills. Great, isn't it?

Witness yourself getting whipped upside down and inside out and you'll soon realise that too much F-Zero X is bad for your neck. This too is the genius, as the eccentric curvature of these space landscapes is so convincing that it seems, for a split-second, perfectly feasible to be zapping across these inverted corkscrews and whatnot. In fact, slingshot yourself over 1 of the high-altitude crests and you'll feel your googlies go all googly. It's well Pepsi Max Big One.



Add to that a soundtrack not dissimilar to Mad Capsule Markets having a Prozac party and a commentator that sounds like Sparky the Magic Piano and wham: welcome to the best bit of 1998. Okay, so you can't buy into the F-Zero X lifestyle. But when it's so frenzied, and so pick-up-and-put-downable as this, you shouldn't really want to. And if you do, you're stupid. Because they're space cars AND NOBODY DRIVES SPACE CARS YET.

Download N64 Emulator
Download F Zero X ROM

Old Computer Games Are Well Good #1

Being retro is well cool. Look at Calvin Harris. He gets out his 'Amiga' and bangs out some 'tunes' and now he's apparently shafted Kylie and is the soundtrack to DFS. Good on him. However, playing old computer games is much more fun and in some cases only takes 5 minutes, considerably shorter than the full length version of 'Acceptable In The 80s'.

Everyone bangs on about Street Fighter this and Mario Kart that, but the best computer game is obviously 'Kick Off 3: European Challenge' by Anco (pictured) on the SNES.



Although people would rather you bought into a bit of old-skool FIFA action, or maybe International Superstar Soccer (pre-cursor to Pro Evo), this particular gem has a flowing game dynamic, as well as the tactical option 'Sit on it'. The rickety gameplay is endearing and honest, which allows you to pull off some funky moves which aren't possible in the more rigid titles of the time. The goalkeepers sometimes erroneously come off their lines for crosses, spilling the ball left, right and centre. There's often an infuriating incident, but the genius lies in the fact that it makes the player feel unlucky, rather than the victim of some AI conspiracy.

Kick Off 3 was also designed in an age when games were getting used to the idea of right and wrong. It's great to play a game in which you can benefit from some outrageous offside decisions or cynical unprofessionalism (Steve Bennett and Mark Clattenburg take note). It even has the state-of-the-art inclusion of the backpass rule, which is groundbreaking for 1993/4. The crowds (fat and penant-waving) sing a wonderful, pitch-shifted rendition of 'Ole Ole'. Basically, the game is brilliant and you should give it a go - if you don't, you deserve to get your eyes popped with rusty pins.

There are loads of other great old computer games, but this is my current favourite. Here you can see me taking on the mighty Anco United. I'm obviously Brazil which is my way of opting into an unobtainable, aspirational lifestyle. It's my 'The Hills', okay? OKAY?!

Download the ZSNES Emulator
Download the Kick Off 3: European Challenge ROM