Burst Attention Span

Who’d have thought it… Rockstar Games’ new Bully title managed to get a Teen rating despite Jack Thompson’s best efforts to ban it entirely.

Those clever chaps at Rockstar know how to twist the knife though… no hot coffee this time, but boy on boy kissing is in! Very gay, but if anyone decides to say anything negative to the media, they’d better be ready for the left-wing backlash. Crafty, guys! Video after the link
Bully’s Boy/Boy Lovin’ – Kotaku (with a must-read comments section)
Oh yes… and rumour has it that one of the uphill gardeners at Bullsworth Academy is called Jack Thompson… sweet :)

Sony don’t want us to buy their stuff. Unless it’s on their terms, their price and purchased in our own local region.
Sony frequently release games and consoles on different dates around the world, but still want gamers to wait patiently until the product is released in their region.

For that reason, hardcore gamers go to online importers like Lik Sang to get their fix early. When the PSP was released in Japan but wouldn’t be available in Europe for months, even Sony executives in the UK bought their consoles from Lik Sang.

“Sony Europe’s very own top directors repeatedly got their Sony PSP hard or software imports in nicely packed Lik-Sang parcels with free Lik-Sang Mugs or Lik-Sang Badge Holders”

What thanks do Lik Sang get for their stellar service, massive range of products and expert advice? Why, Sony takes them to court in every EU country, creating a stack of legal charges that no small company could withstand and puts them out of business, of course.

Carrying on from Sony’s Rootkit scandal, I’m fast losing patience with them and their products. Here’s hoping Lik Sang’s staff can resurrect their company without losing the values that made them so popular.

The video pretty much speaks for itself. Chinese soldiers gunning down Tibetan pilgrims while horrified climbers watch from a kilometre away. No evidence of aggression from the pilgrims is visible as they are murdered at a distance.

This must happen all the time (Amnesty International have said so for years), we just don’t see it because those who would report it are no longer around to tell the tale.

Yet another example of how the American authorities are breeding a culture of violence through their intolerant right wing attitudes. This time,
a Two Gallants concert in Houston is crashed by a cop on the claim of a noise complaint – who then proceeds to use unnecessary force on the band and concert goers alike. One victim was a 14 year old boy, at the concert with his parents.

In the past, we’d never have been able to verify what exactly happened – the word of a cop against drunk party-goers will always be stronger with the public – but thanks to camera phones, a number of videos have been made available. Listen out for the tazer in the third video as a girl shouts “What are you doing?”, that’s the 14 year old boy being electrocuted into a corner by Officer Rodriguez. (incidentally that MySpace poster initially got shut down and had to open a new page)

Pitchfork has an interview with the band’s manager.

At least we can perhaps explain why Rodriguez was on his own… because all his colleagues were prepping for a sting on another club in the city the very next night.

I am so going to miss going clubbing when I move to the US, I’ll have to start listening to country music and going to line dances, my iPod loaded with techno. See them catch me :-)

A new tool called Retrievr can find pictures on Flickr based on search terms entered with a mouse painting interface.

I can already imagine what it’s being used for…

It’s always a lottery buying a Babyshambles ticket: will Pete be sober, will his voice last out, will he fall into a sweating heap before the end of the third song, will they even turn up? After a weekend of anticipation and silent denial, it was confirmed that Tuesday’s appearance in Basel’s Kaserne was cancelled, but we were still invited to turn up.

All ticket holders were given a choice, get 20 francs back from the 35 they paid to see the support act and hear an indy DJ afterwards, or get all the money back and go home. It was hard to tell, but it appeared that at least half those that turned up wanted to stay and hear the Veils (or ‘ve whales’ as the Swissies call them) anyway.

If that had been my party, I’d have had records on as everyone arrived. If I’d been the Veils, I’d have taken the headline opportunity, played a longer set and tried to get the crowd jumping.

As it happened, we entered to a silence which carried on for half an hour. The Veils played the least dancy set I have probably ever stood up to see, and afterwards the DJ continued the stoned out slow tunes, refusing even to play a Libertines song for the disappointed fans. I was home by 1am. Just like the AVO Sessions…