Paul And Spike Show #116 - Monday Catch-up!

Did you miss the show this weekend? Feh, it happens. Don't sweat it. ....that said, grab it NOW. The last five minutes of the show are worth the download. I laughed so hard, a bit of pee came out.

The Paul And Spike Show, episode 116 - Original Radio Six International broadcast: Friday June 26th, 2009

Click here to download the show.
Click here to subscribe to the show in iTunes, or any podcatcher.

Breaking news, which is already well broken. Ropey quality thanks to a computer that's about to go the way of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Mark Sanford's political career, this week's show, which deals extensively with the media coverage of news 'events', was recorded just as news of Michael Jackson's death was breaking.

00:00 Harking back to their days of 'old fashioned radio', The Boys look back to other breaking news that has happened whilst they've been on air, including September 11th and Hitler's invasion of Poland.

03:25 In front of our very eyes, news is breaking at the speed of Tweets, whether it's a celebrity death or a revolution. But whom can one trust? Is the media running away with half-baked tips? Will the established media even survive when every hobbledehoy with a mobile phone and a Twitter account is a "citizen journalist"?

14:31 Joined by Scottish radio production god Stewart Priest, "Stoop" talks about the difference in the way breaking news is covered in the UK from the US media outlets, and the future of news gathering.

33:30 Better late and in a different segment than never, right? Beware those flying sharp shards of show protocol, the news gets countrified in Pickin' And Grinnin'.

36:19 Another great running commentary from Robin - glass o'booze in hand and the lure of an empty Outlook email combined with incendiary comments from Paul on Sarah Palin means that Robin is in rare form... Also, the President of the eUnited States issues a statement on the boys' eRepublik gameplay.

48:02 Paul is well impressed with the comedic skills of friends-of-friend-of-the-show Rebecca Burch, regarding the Mark Sanford scandal. The Boys discuss the case in detail and whether, as a republican, Sanford is getting a raw-er deal from the media than a democrat.

56:48 This Week In Stuff. Having discovered that it is, indeed, himself that sucks, Paul scoops the US Open trophy. Work that one out. Spike's been watching a 1980s-era documentary on the moon, and Paul does the single greatest Wanda Sykes impression in history. So good it ends the show.

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The Paul And Spike Show Forums are open... and we've been waiting for you. Hot topics this week have include Steve Jobs' new liver, the US military accepting neo-nazis but not gays, and a new haiku thread.

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The Paul And Spike Show airs weekly, every Friday night on the mighty Radio Six International, from 11pm UK time and 6pm US eastern time. It also airs on 88.5 World FM in Wellington New Zealand at 7pm Saturday night local time. You can listen online every Saturday morning at 2am US eastern, or 6am UK time. Check out the other great programming on both stations; Radio Six brings you specialist music shows and unsigned artists, plus drama and comedies. World FM's varied schedule includes the best in international news, and music from around the world. You might also hear us on shortwave anywhere in the world, via WBCQ's 5.110MHz and 9.330MHz frequencies.
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We love feedback at the show, and there are plenty of ways to get in touch. You can email us at the usual address, or you can book our faces in the Paul And Spike Show Facegroup Book. Or leave a comment below. If you Twitter, you can befriend Spike here, and Paul here.
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It would be very awesome indeed for you to spread the good word about the show on your blog or your myspace, or your whatever. Click this link, and it will take you to a .txt file, in which resides the raw html code for you to use. Sounds complicated, but it's really not; it's just a cut and paste job, and the html elves do the rest. It will post the fancy-schmancy flash player you see at the top of the screen plus the direct download and the RSS feed. We'd really appreciate your passing the word on!

Paul And Spike Show #115, Monday Morning Catch-Up

A little birdie told me that you missed this weekend's Paul And Spike Show Podcast. Oh, alright. It wasn't a little birdie. It was that guy who's been stalking you. And he knew because he broke into your house in the middle of the night and looked at your browser history. Whilst wearing your dirty undies. Anyway, here's your opporchancity to catch up:

The Paul And Spike Show, episode 115 - Original Radio Six International broadcast: Friday June 19th, 2009

Click here to download the show.
Click here to subscribe to the show in iTunes, or any podcatcher.

Uh-oh... not much fun for those non-geeks as the Dynamic Duo talk about games. Also on the agenda, a healthy dollop of sexchanges, politics, religion and... haircuts?

00:00 Traps open, and away we go. A booze update; one is drinking, one is wussing out. Shocking! Furthermore, the hair situation gets worse. Paul's growing his back, but Spike - following a dare - now looks like a white supremacist.

07:17 An offer from a listener, who has crowned the show his favourite non-gay-specific podcast, to be the show's GLBT correspondent! The Boys discuss the psychological differences between homosexuality and transgenderism, following Chastity "Chaz" Bono's decision to live as a man. Is a fake victorian-era moustache all that's needed for gender re-assignment?

03:15 Following on from a discussion on the new Paul And Spike Show Forums, Spike circumvents the Iran news to talk about the Sarah Palin Vs David Letterman rent-a-rage incident.

26:57 Pickin' And Grinnin' - hooo-whee! Them cousinbrothers view the week's news through the bottom of a moonshine glass, boy howdy. Or something.

29:50 This Week In Stuff (stuff stuff stuff)! Paul goes into more detail about his recently finished Star Trek model, and looks forward to building his 'antique' one. Can he keep the hot babes at bay in the Sci-Fi Model Builders' Forum?

44:01 It's a trip to Sore Armsville for Paul following his recent purchase of both "EA Grand Slam Tennis" and "Tiger Woods' Golf" for the Wii, complete with the Motion Plus dongle. Tee-hee... "dongle". Spike's had his backside consistently handed to him internationally through Mario Kart Wii, and discusses the differences between racing other Americans, and racing around the world.

53:15 Spike's new obsession, the "MMO" game eRepublik, in which he will RULE THE WORLD! MWAAHAAHAAHAAA!! ...or not, as the case may be. The Boys discuss how n00b-unfriendly it is and what could make it more appealing to the head-scratchers.

1:08:47 Time once more for the shopbookexchange.com Haiku Book Review, in which you could win ten dollars to spend at the very cool online store. Alls you gots to do is email a book review or plot summary in haiku form to the usual address by noon on Wednesday June 24th. Feeling all strategistical after playing eRepublik? Check out these babies at shopbookexchange.com - they could help you win your next war and secure your country. Or, if you fancy becoming president, why not learn from those who have been there, with these'ns?

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The Paul And Spike Show Forums are open... and we've been waiting for you. Hot topics this week have included the influence of Twitter in the Iranian revolution, Susan Boyle, a phenominally amusing caption competition, and the very real possibility that one of the board members might have swine flu! Come on over.

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The Paul And Spike Show airs weekly, every Friday night on the mighty Radio Six International, from 11pm UK time and 6pm US eastern time. It also airs on 88.5 World FM in Wellington New Zealand at 7pm Saturday night local time. You can listen online every Saturday morning at 2am US eastern, or 6am UK time. Check out the other great programming on both stations; Radio Six brings you specialist music shows and unsigned artists, plus drama and comedies. World FM's varied schedule includes the best in international news, and music from around the world. You might also hear us on shortwave anywhere in the world, via WBCQ's 5.110MHz and 9.330MHz frequencies.
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We love feedback at the show, and there are plenty of ways to get in touch. You can email us at the usual address, or you can book our faces in the Paul And Spike Show Facegroup Book. Or leave a comment below. If you Twitter, you can befriend Spike here, and Paul here.
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It would be very awesome indeed for you to spread the good word about the show on your blog or your myspace, or your whatever. Click this link, and it will take you to a .txt file, in which resides the raw html code for you to use. Sounds complicated, but it's really not; it's just a cut and paste job, and the html elves do the rest. It will post the fancy-schmancy flash player you see at the top of the screen plus the direct download and the RSS feed. We'd really appreciate your passing the word on!

Attention, Chatty WV Bloggers!

Remember the good old days of the WV Bloggers Board, where we'd all get together and have fun, and a nice little community grew where we traded ideas and thoughts? Well, I'd like to invite you to what - hopefully - will turn into another nice little community, and I'm inviting you specifically because I know from the past board that you can bring the goods. The smarts were there, the funnies were there, the polite debates about news and politics were there on the old board. Quite honestly, I miss it. And I miss the direct conversations, too. It's all fine and dandy commenting on each other's blogs - and I hope that continues too - but I enjoyed the actual interactive conversations even more.

So! I've set up another forum. Initially, it was set up to cater to the podcast, but when I was categorising, the thought struck me that it shouldn't just be limited to the show. There should be other sections that aren't me-centric (tchoh! the idea!), that are similar to the fun times we had together in days of yore. What eventually happened was that the podcast became just one category of nine.

It's here: http://paulandspike.yuku.com/ And if your particular tastes aren't catered to or the reason you'd come back to an online conversational community isn't there, let me know and I can add another section and we can grow the place organically.

In the coming days, I'll be inviting other people from other facets of my online life that I think will be able to contribute something great. I hope you'll come along and do the same.

Oh - a quick word of warning, though. It's yellow. Good news is that that's already up for debate...

Paul And Spike And Rebecca Burch Show, Monday Morning Catch-up!

Dude, WTF? You missed the show over the weekend? Tchoh! Oh well, never mind. Here's your chance to catch up.

The Paul And Spike And Rebecca Burch Show, episode 114 - Original Radio Six International broadcast: Friday June 12th, 2009

Click here to download the show.
Click here to subscribe to the show in iTunes, or any podcatcher.


This week, the Dynamic Duo are joined by artist, art teacher and art critic Rebecca Burch from the bloggin' shop "Carpe You Some Diem" to talk art, lunatics and "The Safety Dance" video.

00:00 The Boys sift through the week's correspondence, which includes Robin's weekly stream-of-consciousness rundown of the last show, plus some more support for "M*A*S*H" and "The Empire Strikes Back" to be inducted into the Paul And Spike Show Hall Of Fame. Oooohhh, and does Paul have a not-so-secret admirer? They love getting your letters, and your Robin-style commentaries of previous shows, so keep sending them to the usual address.

14:40 When the week's news and pa-paw's moonshine collide: Pickin' And Grinnin'.

16:36 After stealing a neighbour's microphone (really!) Rebecca joins The Boys to discuss their Week In Stuff, whether one should nix a nose-picking family photograph, Paul gives a progress report on his recent model-building ...and will Mr Charley Manson Himself make an appearance? Wooooo!

36:55 With a genuine bona-fide artist in residence, it would be silly not to have an art theme for this week's Over/Under, right? You'll learn the international sound of groping, Thomas 'Kink'-aide gets slandered (not really), and who drew the chalk outline of Bob Ross on the floor...? Plus, how you can authenticate a Pollock, a deer in front of a barn in the snow, and the magical effects of the three-wolf t-shirt.

55:20 Who wins $10 to spend at shopbookexchange.com following last week's Haiku Book Review? Some alarmingly literate entries, as always, and Rebecca brings her's to the table. Keep sending them in, and maybe next week, it could be YOU who is a-winnin' ten bucks to shop at the internet's premiere used book store, shopbookexchange.com - you know where to send them; the usual address.

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Thanks to Rebecca for coming on and being awesome! We think you should all go buy something from the Carpe You Some Diem (damnit) store, and subscribe to her blog, ASAFP.

D'yer think you'd be a good guest on the show? We think you would. The Boys are aiming for a summer of guests, so if you'd like to get in on the action, email the show and let 'em know. Whether you have a specialty, something to plug, or you just want to hang out, you're always welcome. Skype's your best option, but we'd also be happy to call you on the phone to join in, too.

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The Paul And Spike Show airs weekly, every Friday night on the mighty Radio Six International, from 11pm UK time and 6pm US eastern time. It also airs on 88.5 World FM in Wellington New Zealand at 7pm Saturday night local time. You can listen online every Saturday morning at 2am US eastern, or 6am UK time. Check out the other great programming on both stations; Radio Six brings you specialist music shows and unsigned artists, plus drama and comedies. World FM's varied schedule includes the best in international news, and music from around the world. It's possible you might also hear us on shortwave anywhere in the world, via WBCQ's 5.110MHz and 9.330MHz shortwave frequencies.
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We love feedback at the show, and there are plenty of ways to get in touch. You can email us at the usual address, or you can book our faces in the Paul And Spike Show Facegroup Book. Or leave a comment below. If you Twitter, you can befriend Spike here, and Paul here. Also, feel free to follow their personal blogs: Paul's is here, Spike's is here.
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It would be very awesome indeed for you to spread the good word about the show on your blog or your myspace, or your whatever. Click this link, and it will take you to a .txt file, in which resides the raw html code for you to use. Sounds complicated, but it's really not; it's just a cut and paste job, and the html elves do the rest. It will post the fancy-schmancy flash player you see at the top of the screen plus the direct download and the RSS feed. We'd really appreciate your passing the word on!

Paul And Spike Show Monday Morning Catch-up!

Missed the show over the weekend? Did it get lost in the cloud of weekendery? Did you just forget? Don't worry. We forgive you. THIS time.

The Paul And Spike Show episode 113: Original Radio Six International broadcast, Friday June 5th, 2009

Click here to download the show.
Click here to subscribe to the show in iTunes, or any podcatcher.


00:00 The show's too damn popular for its own damn good (or, they forgot to pay a bill) because some folks had trouble listening to the podcast last week and our bandwidth ran out. The Boys consider ways to pay the hefty bandwidth bill, including PBS-style pledge drives. Correspondence a-plenty from last week's show, including Robin's unmissably hilarious stream-of-consciousness commentary, and why The Boys are a bad influence on a Twitterer.

Suggestions for the Paul And Spike Show Hall Of Fame came from listener Pat, who thinks that "The Empire Strikes Back", "M*A*S*H" and chipotle sauce be inducted. What's your vote? Yay or nay on one or all? Email the show, or discuss it further in the Paul And Spike Show FaceGroup Book. Get in touch if you want to suggest some of your own, too!

20:10 The week's news gets banjo'd in "Pickin' and Grinnin'!"

22:24 This Week In Stuff! Paul discovers how his Zune becomes "a gay fun party", and Spike talks about watching a 1972 tv play about cannibalism. Also, is it really that hard to make a model kit of the Starship Enterprise? Apparently so. The Boys declare their love for Pixar, and discuss whether it's feasible to compare the hand-drawn Disney movies of yore with the CGI movies of today. Agree? Disagree? Email the show and tell 'em!

45:01 Over/Under. This week, cover versions! Those cheeky chappies who take someone else's song and do things to it. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. What's your Over/Under on cover versions? Lettem know, yo. Get in touch if you have any rebuttals to their choices, too.

1:07:03 The Shop Book Exhange Haiku Book Review is BACK! You could win ten bucks to spend at the phenominal online used bookstore shopbookexchange.com! You could bag yourself "The Panic Broadcast", Howard Koch's excellent 1971 book about Orson Welles' infamous 'War Of The Worlds' broadcast, for example. It'll cost you a mere $2.50! So, even if you don't win, you can still feel like a winner by scoring top literature at awesome prices. Submit your book review or summary to the usual address by Wednesday June 10th.


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Think you'd be a good guest on the show? The Boys are aiming for a summer of guests, so if you'd like to get in on the action, email the show and let 'em know. Whether you have a specialty, something to plug, or you just want to hang out, you're always welcome. Skype's your best option, but we'd also be happy to call you on the phone to join in, too.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RADIO SIX INTERNATIONAL! Oh sure, "doing birthdays" is a little too much like straying into dreary FM morning show territory, but this one's a biggun. Radio Six celebrates its 46th birthday this week! From humble beginnings with a wind-up gramophone to the custom-built studio it operates from today, Radio Six goes from strength to strength and helped to launch the careers of Sony Award winning broadcaster Steve Wright, Scottish radio icon "Tiger" Tim Stevens and broadcasting deity Tony Currie, whose passion and unparalelled dedication is what keeps the dream alive to this very day. We raise one of our many glasses to you, sir! Keep your eye on Radio Six's schedule to catch the hour-long birthday special.

The Paul And Spike Show airs weekly, every Friday night on the mighty Radio Six International, from 11pm UK time and 6pm US eastern time. It also airs on 88.5 World FM in Wellington New Zealand at 7pm Saturday night local time. You can listen online every Saturday morning at 2am US eastern, or 6am UK time. Check out the other great programming on both stations; Radio Six brings you specialist music shows and unsigned artists, plus drama and comedies. World FM's varied schedule includes the best in international news, and music from around the world. You might also hear us on shortwave anywhere in the world, via WBCQ's 5.110MHz and 9.330MHz frequencies. Even in Auchtermuchty!
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We love feedback at the show, and there are plenty of ways to get in touch. You can email us at the usual address, or you can book our faces in the Paul And Spike Show Facegroup Book. Or leave a comment below. If you Twitter, you can befriend Spike here, and Paul here.
-----
It would be very awesome indeed for you to spread the good word about the show on your blog or your myspace, or your whatever. Click this link, and it will take you to a .txt file, in which resides the raw html code for you to use. Sounds complicated, but it's really not; it's just a cut and paste job, and the html elves do the rest. It will post the fancy-schmancy flash player you see at the top of the screen plus the direct download and the RSS feed. We'd really appreciate your passing the word on!

Swept Away By Tideland

Not since the days of Hitchcock has the director been the star of a movie, and if it wasn't for the fact that Terry Gilliam chooses such good actors and coaxes spellbinding performances out of them, he would be. He's a divisive director, but one who is able to create entire worlds within his films, from the grey, bureaucratic "somewhere in the 20th century" maze of 'Brazil', to the wide open spaces and eternal orange sunset of 'Tideland', what makes his films so rich and deep and genuinely beautiful is his ability to completely erase any trace of a world we know and to plonk us slap bang on what seems like another planet.

I've been sitting on "Tideland" for a while now. Gilliam's work is one that needs a person's full attention, particularly on first viewing, and some days you just don't feel like being challenged. I remember watching "Brazil" for the first time in my teens and not getting past the twenty-minute mark, thanks to my shortened attention span. My own frighteningly intelligent mother, having been intrigued by my theory that the most recent Willy Wonka movie would have been forty billion times better had Gilliam directed it, was completely silent when I sat her down in front of 'Brazil', eventually calling it "the most bizarre thing I've ever seen" as the credits rolled - and she didn't mean it as a compliment. One needs to totally immerse oneself in Planet Gilliam in order to enjoy the ride, and be actively willing to do so. Having finally watched "Tideland", I think I can safely say that it's not a movie that one can "enjoy", only 'experience'. I won't be recommending it to my Mum, that's for sure.

In a nutshell; pre-pubescent Jeliza-Rose is daughter to two heroin addicts and, in the only life she knows, helps them shoot up. The high is "a vacation". It's clear that both parents love her and that she's the only responsible one in the relationship, but it's also clear that it's a lifestyle that's headed for disaster. So, when that disaster strikes, it strikes hard. Jeliza-Rose and her father escape to a deserted family farmhouse in Texas when her mother accidentally overdoses on methadone, and it's here that her father overdoses. Obviously well used to her father's unresponsive "vacations", Jeliza-Rose doesn't initially notice that he's dead. She spends several days talking to him and smearing peanut butter into his mouth whilst enjoying her childish flights of fancy, involving several talking doll-heads as playmates. As the film progresses, it gradually shifts from third person perspective to that of Jeliza-Rose's, enveloping the viewer into her fantasy world.

Eventually, she comes across the neighbours, an odd witch-like woman called Dell and her mentally challenged brother Dickens. Dell, already Dickens' primary care-giver, becomes a maternal figure to Jeliza-Rose, owing mostly to what appears to have been a relationship with her father at some point in time, and the realisation of his death. It's not fair to tell you what happens to her father's body, suffice it to say that it is shocking, to the extent of literal jaw-dropping. (mine, not his)

The blossoming relationship between Jeliza-Rose and Dickens, although I believe it to be entirely innocent within the circumstances and the context, is particularly uncomfortable to watch, and reminded me very much of Dennis Potter's pitch-black play "Blue Remembered Hills". It's easy to immediately snap into thought process that their relationship is one of sexual attraction, but I don't see it that way. And I'm married to a former Child Protective Services social worker, so my sense of inappropriateness is often above and beyond the average person's. By this point, we are completely inside Jeliza-Rose's world, in her head. A child of that age is unlikely, hormonally or intellectually, to seek out a sexual relationship. Instead, within her world of eternal playtime, she would be acting out the superficial aspects of the things she's seen adults do. She's pretending to be a grown-up and whilst her talk of marriage and love and babies is unsettling, it's merely a child's representation of adult relationships. Combined with Dickens' disability, which gives him the mental capacity of a child, it's all play. Not that that makes it any less cringe-worthy, of course, but that context does soften the blow somewhat.

As an actor, there's a boat load of pressure put on Jodelle Ferland to run through some bizarre and intense emotions, but she handles it extremely well. Normally, I detest child actors, but her performance is captivating, even with a few minor faults. Gilliam, I think, understands that a child who is given adult lines and actions is often what makes them unconvincing, and thus, Jeliza-Rose is often irritating. But most children are, so it's irritating in the context of the character. Brendan Fletcher is worth the price of admission alone, putting in an intense and unwavering portrayal of the mentally challenged Dickens, a role that could very easily have been played for cheap laughs. Jeff Bridges was decent, but I often felt like he was recycling "The Big Lebowski".

If it's on your radar, do your best to watch it with an open mind. Fellow Python Michael Palin said that he couldn't decide whether it was Gilliam's best work or his worst. Critics hated it, but film festival audiences gave it a standing ovation, so there are no guarantees - even to the Gilliam faithful. If your Netflix queue consists of "Pew! Pew! Pew!" parts three through seven, avoid it. If, however, you appreciated, say, "Man Bites Dog" or "Eraserhead", chances are you'll be blown away by "Tideland". I did, and I was.

It made me laugh, it made me cringe, it made me gasp... but most of all, it made me want to run home and hug my six year old daughter.

Just A Wii Minute

We don't concentrate much on video games on the show, so I thought I'd bring you a few thoughts on what I've been playing lately. I must admit that I'm playing the Wii a lot more than I expected. Ye olde Playeftation Two is on its last legs, and we would bust out a game of The Sims or some other such fare maybe once a month at best, so dropping the cash on a whole new system, and the cost of all-new games, didn't much thrill me. I don't regret it, though. It's saved a lot of dull afternoon and evenings, chez Nez.

Mario Kart: Traded some stuff in today and bought this used ($40) with two used "Whiils" ($7 each). Played it for approximately two hours and have realised that this isn't just a good reason to own a Wii, it might even be a good reason for living. What. A. RIOT.

Opera Browser: Oh, what a disappointment. And a waste of 500 Wii points. If this had come free, I could probably look past its faults and say "oh well, no harm no foul", but the fact that it cost money just makes it's shiteyness all the more insulting. This is the twenty-first century, if people don't have a computer at home, chances are they can get online at work for most of the day, or are able to do their essential online to-ing and fro-ing via their cellphone. So the only real use for a browser on your Wii is for video services like YouTube and Hulu, right? In the ideal world, yes. In Nintendo's world, it's a big, fat, 'no'. Hell, YouTube even offer a "big print" version of their site, specifically designed for viewing on a TV! But the Opera browser is so behind on Flash updates, that trying to watch something fullscreen on YouTube is like watching security camera footage. I'd be shocked if it was as high as four frames per second - and just to put that into perspective, regular telly is 30fps. (25 in Britain) In the smaller window, it fares only slightly better, at roughly 15 frames per second. It's fine if all you want to see is "baby laughs at spoon", but if you want, say, PBS's Nova on demand, you're buggered. Checking my mail on it was frustrating what with all the zooming and such, reading news was pointless since there's a perfectly adequate news channel on the Wii's main screen, and listening to online radio's a no-no thanks to Opera's inability to stream audio. So... really. What's the point? Playing simplistic flash games? Woo. Hold me back. Firefox, please rescue us from this shite and develop a real Wii browser.

Pro Evolution Soccer 08: Got this one free a month or so back thanks to a 'buy two get one' deal on used games, but I only picked it up this weekend because I knew I was going to have to have some peace and quiet to get used to the gameplay. Jeesh... if you had asked me about this 48 hours ago, I would have put it at the top of my 'to trade' list. I've been a Fifa faithful since the mid 1990s, when I had my PS1. That's before it was even the PS1, it was just the PS! Put it this way: I've been married to Fifa for longer than I've been married to my wife! Since then, I've casually kept up with the franchise and used my "pass and dribble to the top left, pass back and down in front of the box, wiggle around the defenders, circle button" technique to great success. Then, via various good reviews, I decided to forgo Fifa on the Wii and pick up the game that all the sports nuts were talking about. And lemme tell ya... my learning curve isn't what it used to be, so when you dump me in the middle of a game that should be familiar, and allllll of the controls are different, it's frightening. Rather than being controlled by the anologue stick, players are now dragged around the field by Wiimote, almost as if they've been lassooed. Shots at goal are achieved by twitching the nunchuck instead of mashing the circle button. Tackling? Forget it. It's got the same hit and miss ratio as trying to find something amusing on Comedy Central: overwhelmingly miss. Tackling is a big part of my football game. If the opponent has the ball, he's going down. If that means I'm playing with eight players, so be it. PES's tackling technique appears to be 'highlight the offending player, drag a defender over to him, pray.' I count myself as being spiritual, but I'm not much of a praying man. I've not prayed for many things in life; health and success, mostly, and you can see how that's worked out for me. Praying to get the ball off an opposing player in PES has the same result.

That said, I'm warming to it. It's clunky and awkward at times, but perhaps that's a more accurate representation of the real game. Particularly Scottish football. What I loved about Fifa was that the same tricks outfoxed the artificial intelligence almost invariably. Maybe not knowing how to swindle PES makes for a better playing experience, even if it does meet with less league success. We'll see. I'll stick with it for a while longer. The on-screen graphics are a bit annoying, and the players small during gameplay, making my elderly eyes even less compatible with my eight year old 27" scratched screen TV, but it looks nice overall. The players in the game move very much like real players do, but they've not mastered making people's faces not look like weird masks instead of actual people in close-up. Realistically, that advancement is probably a long way off.

Party Fun Pirate: Remember that old game where you had to jam swords into a barrel and hope that the pirate wasn't going to pop up? What was that called again? You know the one - the one where you lost if the pirate popped up. Anyway, for a mere 500 Wii points ($5 more or less), the Wii version of that game can be yours, and it's riotously good fun. Use the T-pad to pick a hole in which to shove your sword, old down A, poke your Wiimote. Simple, but fun. It's not got a whole lot of sound variety, which means the "oi, captaaain!" and plinky plonky tunes take on a Chinese water torture feel to them after an hour or so's worth of play, but the ability to play with one Wiimote and pass it, or with up to 4 other Wiimotes makes it a great way to waste an hour with friends or family. Two hours, possibly, if wine is involved. Well worth the points.

Cue Sports: Another 500-point WiiWare purchase comes up trumps! Ever since the days of Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker on the Amiga, I've loved playing pool/billiards/snooker on the computer. I'm rubbish at it in real life, because there are no lines that show you where your shot's going to go, but on the computer... watch out. Cue Sports has 'em all, including 9-ball, pool AND snooker, so it's great to have the choice between them. The in-game music, like that of Party Fun Pirate, has a shelf life of approximately nineteen seconds, but after you've muted that, you're set to go. You can play like a Billy No-Mates and pot all the balls by yourself, play a game against the computer or play online with a friend, which is a nice feature, but yet another reason that Nintendo's reluctance to include some sort of all-game voip communication makes playing with someone you know no different than playing the artificial intelligence. All in all, it would be a game that could easily retail for $15-20, so dropping the equivalent of $5 is a steal. There's a great Geordie review of the game here, which explains the faults (including faulty snooker rules) and advantages much better than I could. And in a far cooler accent.

I've got my eyes on a few games that I'll try and pick up if the opportunity arises; Wii Fit is on my radar as is - surprisingly - the Shawn White snowboarding game, which looks like a lot of fun. Is there anything that my fellow Wii-ers recommend as a must-have?

When Scraps Make A Quilt

It would be wrong me of me to suggest that The You Tube is filled with $20 webcam-owning narcissistic attention whores because in doing so, I'd be tarring myself with that same brush. Ahem. So, what I'll say instead is that The You Tube is filled with people who think they have a particular talent and, for whatever reason, feel the need to look for a wider audience. Whether it's because they think they're a good singer, because they feel that they excel at playing a particular instrument, because they think they're funny or because they want to feel special by proxy by having the world to heap praise on something vaguely amusing their kid did, it's hard not to notice that the current generation gauges success based on the number of views their video gets, rather than concrete achievements in the real world. Feh, what can you do, other than hope one day someone posts a mobile phone video called 'THE DAY I CURED CANCER!" rather than the usual "OMFG!1 CHEK OWT THIS TOTALLY AWESUM THING I DIDD!"

I should point out that there are some legitimate talents on You Tube. One of those people is a You Tube member called "kutiman", who has found a way to take the "look at me! look at me! FOR CHRIST'S SAKES, LOOK! AT! ME!!!" crowd of You Tube and turn it into something valuable. In the tradition of Portishead, a band that didn't sample songs as a backing track to go "ice ice baby" over, but instead took miniscule portions of songs and used them as instruments, Kutiman takes The Drum Guy, The Keyboard Guy, The Cello Guy and The Singer, re-jiggs and re-orders what they do, and combines them together. There's not a scrap of original footage in his videos, it's all recycled - and it's amazing. And I mean "omfg" amazing, particularly when you consider all the work - mental, musical and physical - that goes into creating these songs.

You can check out the whole album of 'found footage' here, at http://thru-you.com/. Here's the best one, though:


It took twenty-one samples to make it, and Kutiman links to all the originals on the main You Tube page. Stick with the song until at least 4:38. It's well worth it.