March 26, 2005

I got a PSP!



I managed to get hold of a PSP in San Fran from the Sony Store in the Metreon Centre. People had been queuing for hours the previous night to get their hands on one at midnight - when they first went on sale. I was talking to one guy who had been there and he told me that a dedicated punter had camped outside the store for 48 hours. In return for this loyalty, the store chauffered him home in a limo. I'm glad I didn't bother with the midnight feeding frenzy though because it was pretty easy to pick one up the next day - I only had to queue for about 30 minutes. Interestingly, two guys were returning their units because of a fault on the screen - at least one pixel remains frozen on virtually all of the initial batch, it's just pot luck where your frozen pixel appears. These guys had theirs right in the middle; mine is at the top of the screen, out of harm's way. Anyway, despite this the PSP rocks - the screen is amazing - like watching HDTV. Wipeout Pure is stunning, and Metal Gear Acid is one of the most addictive games ever; I played it for three hours on the plane home before the battery ran out of juice.

Posted by monoman at 06:38 PM

Kaiser Chiefs Convert



Saw the Kaiser Chiefs at Slim's in San Francisco and they were blindingly good. I went with my cynical head on, expecting yet another bunch of here-today, gone-tomorrow Franz Ferdinand wanabees, but the Chief's converted me to their cause. Not only were the songs immediately catchy; they were also enthusiastically and tightly performed. The between-song banter by Ricky was also very funny - particularly when Peanut's keyboards broke down. They performed 'I Predict a Riot' without him, then played it again as soon as the engineer had made everything work again (despite the drummer protesting: 'no, let's move on.') They've got spirit and energy - and a cool guitarist. And they're from Leeds - so they deserve greatness.

Posted by monoman at 06:34 PM

March 19, 2005

50 People See...

50 People See...
Flickr continues to impress, to the point where I'm sick of talking about it anymore. But when someone uses the service to make images as beautiful as these, it once again demands and commands my attention. To paraphrase the 'artist': he wrote a program to blend 50 Flickr photos which share the same tags, and create an "average" image out of them. No human is involved in choosing, positioning, or blending the images. They remind me of Turner's paintings...

Posted by monoman at 06:48 AM
© copyright monoman 2003-2005