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If you’ve been dissatisfied with any of the government whales you’ve been using lately, I can recommend the Freelance Whales. When an album starts with a song like this, you know you’re in for some pretty fucking gentle glockenspiel-banjo times. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. The whole album is good, I got it from here.
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Jason L: Wow, yeahhhhh. Hot Chip and Architecture In Helsinki have a baby?
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The first entry of a Minecraft diary I’m starting just went up on PC Gamer – it’s just a short one to start with, but this might turn into a long-running thing. It’s about playing with a sort of permanent death rule: if I die, I have to delete the whole world and everything in it, then start again from scratch in a new one. It’s also starting from when I first played the game, so I know virtually nothing about how it works. The next entry will go up first thing tomorrow, and it’ll probably be every other day from then on. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. I’m not going to harp on any more about how good Terriers is – it actually had a bit of a dip around episode 9, getting too bogged down with its heroes’ personal problems to investigate any clever plots – but I am going to give you the full song the ridiculously catchy theme tune is taken from. It was written by the series’ composer Robert Duncan specially for it, but I like that he wrote the full song too.
My Call of Duty: Black Ops review also went up on the site this week. I reviewed both the Modern Warfares, and it sometimes felt like I might be the only one not having his mind blown by the unending B-movie combat. Both those games had a saving grace: the first had a few really smart sections, and a level of dazzle that was new at the time; and the second’s co-op mode is still the best thing the series has ever done. Black Ops has neither, and its multiplayer is too glitchy to get much out of yet, so it’s the first time the score really reflects how much fun it is to aim-and-squeeze your way through a badly written action movie. Amusingly, the only other review on Metacritic with a score close to mine calls it “Truly a magnificent single-player experience,” “the best single-player campaign that the series has ever had,” and “stunning”.
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The Cheshire Cat: Any plans to do another Minecraft diary with the release of the new version? According to Notch's twitter, he actually just added in a hardcore feature that does the same thing you were doing - deletes the world when you die.
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This is a thing I do now. Most of this stuff I mentioned on Twitter, but it’s not an ideal channel and I don’t like that I never link stuff here anymore.
Craig Mullins’ extraordinary BioShock 2 tribute art: ’1959′. The first image in years to immediately become my desktop background at home and at work. I love that he can make such a concealed place feel spacious and calm, and it makes me want a game where we see Rapture in its glory – even if it has to be without the people. He’s a concept artist who’s worked on Halo, Fallout 3 and one of the Matrix films. Hard On, by Withered Hand. The name would have put me off, but this came up on shuffle when I was going through Said The Gramaphone’s songs of the year. I love the friendly advice tone of the lyrics. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Amazon customer reviews of a steering-wheel mounted laptop desk: everyone’s a comedian, most of them pretty good ones. Man earns every World of Warcraft achievement: I won’t link it, but this was one of those strange stories where the only thing about the story isn’t true, and the people reporting the story all know it isn’t true. If it were mainstream sources, you’d assume it was ignorance. If it were the guy himself, you’d assume it was mendacity. When it’s disinterested parties who know their stuff, you can only imagine its borne of some kind of news desperation. It’s okay, guys, there’s plenty of news out there that actually did happen! You could report that! Long story short, he hadn’t got every achievement: a bug caused his total to be reported one higher than it is. The story therefore becomes: … The Onion named Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind their film of the decade. An interesting choice – it would have been easy to go with There Will Be Blood without really thinking about it. They also make a good case for their equally surprising #2, another film I love. My list would be Memento, Serenity, Adaptation. Just Cause 2 Vehicle Stunts Trailer: on top of everything else, I’m really excited by how good Just Cause 2 feels – the first game was only really fluid when you were parachuting. Here vehicles seem to have that same smoothness and momentum. Watch for the awesome jump at 2m52s. Just Cause 2 Island In Chaos Trailer: Worth it for what he does after the end titles. Jonty explains the London Underground’s mysterious Inspector Sands. I love codes. Star Trek Online gives you ridiculously good in-game stuff for pre-ordering at various places. The worst use of game content and development time – as bribes to take sides in the puerile retail wars. Got me so annoyed I started an argument about it, which’ll be in the next issue of PC Gamer. IGN’s Rogue Warrior review: “the hit detection is extremely hit or miss”. A Claptrap in a tux. I just like this shot. I still haven’t played any of the Borderlands DLC. Andy Dufresne is tweeting the Shawshank Redemption in first person, in order. “Oh dear God.” is a common update. There really is a gnome of Noam Chomsky. Sad news via @icouldbeahero. LightBox’s Trent Polack finds there’s a thread on the Avatar forums to help fans cope with the depression of returning to the real world after the awesomeness of the movie.
Cute but dark short by a Pixar animator, via Waxy. roBurky notes that Calvin and Hobbes did the ‘where’s the future?’ joke everyone’s been driving into the ground back in 1989. As an eight year old, I don’t think I was actually tired of it then. @ex0′s stupendous Captain Forever ship: like a flying cathedral made of rainbows and pain. Facebook is now the size of the entire internet ten years ago. The average Facebook user spends 55 minutes on it a day.
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Jason L: Hm. Interesting. I'm not sure I'd go as far as 'good', but interesting. If it had been entirely alternate rather than alternate and obfuscatory, I think it would have crested the hill.
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I won’t bore you with any kind of account of my year, but here are some photos I took during it. I guess I didn’t take all of them since I’m in some of them, but I don’t remember so good about those ones. I’ve been working my way through Said the Gramophone’s 75 tracks of the year with an odd cocktail of revulsion and delight. Among the delight, this wonderful song by Vic Chesnutt. Often songs that aren’t about what they seem to be about never let you in on the twist – it was years before I realised Belle & Sebastian’s Century of Elvis was about a cat. Vic’s is from the school of “Two minutes in, just come out and say it.” Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. I approve. It’d be a shame for anyone to hear a couplet so painfully double-edged as “When you touched a friend of mine / I thought I would lose my mind” and miss the grim joke. Oh yeah, good news: I’m working on a really long post about a really esoteric subject that involves lots of strong opinions about game design ideas I have no experience working with. 
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Crilly: Man. I haven't even heard of this person till now, and cried after reading that page. CURSE YOU TOM!
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The silence here lately has been down to a dangerous daily routine of falling asleep in front of Star Trek: The Next Generation, waking up at 5am and playing Prototype until work. Dangerous, but not unpleasant. Prototype has caused me to break a mouse, and Star Trek has my brain quietly working on a master formula to generate Star Trek plots for Star Trek Online quests, and ways they could interact with a player-chosen crew.  Meanwhile, The Sounds have a new album. It’s nudged them back into the lead as my most-listened artist on last.fm, partly because their songs have a tight neatness to them that allows me to listen to them almost indefinitely without irritation, and partly because until this album, they were unique in never having produced a worthless song. That’s the last one on Crossing the Rubicon, but it’s their best album despite it. Two reasons, one of them is this: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Do you find that some bands just sound like two guitars and some drums? When No-One Sleeps When I’m Awake kicks in, it reminds me that The Sounds are one of the few that don’t. They produce a thick ribbon of undulating noise that your speakers seem happy to belt out, as if they’ve finally got something to sink their drivers’ teeth into. The other reason is Home Is Where Your Heart Is, but it’s possible I’m just being a big sap about that one.  I see now why most swords extend in only one direction.
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I Like That You Can Slow Down, by Tom Francis: [...] I only just got this, but Yeah Yeah Yeah is an instant favourite. The Sounds are usually pretty straightforward rock, but here they’re going a little more electronic – some tracks feel more about rhythms and samples than the conventional structure they’ve stuck to before. On Yeah Yeah Yeah it’s excitingly new, but the rest of the album isn’t standing up to Rubicon yet (see I’ve Got Confessions To Make). [...]
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I’ve been wondering when and how best to post something of Florence and the Machine‘s for a while, pretty much since I first heard them on Adam & Joe. I didn’t doubt it would be Dog Days, the exhaustingly energetic rollercoaster of a song I heard first, I was just waiting till they had something out for it to promote. I forgot that what they released could theoretically be better. They still don’t have an album, but this is Dog’s B-side: You’ve Got The Love. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. It’s tumultuous music, melodic but booming and insistent, the vocal a few shades more fierce and assured than a new artist is allowed to be. I like a lot of gentle stuff, but it takes something bold and sharp to grip me this firmly. Like Dog Days, every listen ends with my heart-rate just slightly higher than when it started, and my mood a little warmer. Anyone else care to recommend something they’ve been getting into lately? The great joy of Spotify is that I can investigate tips when I get them, rather than forgetting about them for six years.
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Little Green Man: Its okay on the physical album, which is labelled correctly, but then the actual title along the side sleeve of the album is upside down. So when put upright with other albums you have to turn your head the other way around to read that particular album. It is quite odd.
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Since John Peel died, it’s gone back to being a weird exprience to hear something on the radio and like it. But Five Years’ Time has been forcefully cheering up this miserable British weekend. It’s by Noah And The Whale, who I am hesitant to look up. It works perfectly this once, but I’m pretty sure you can’t get more twee than this without a special permit. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
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Inferno: Ah this is such a cheery song, it's great.
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 Fluxblog’s just totally saved my ass for slacking on Music Week by posting the exact same Alphabeat song I was going to write about tomorrow. His write-up is also better than I was planning to make mine. I was just going to phone it in. James commenter Dave McLeod – who’s probably done other stuff in his life, but that’s the highest possible accolade here – was sat next to me in the office the other week when Alphabeat came up on a Muxtape I was listening to. “I don’t think I’ve ever met another male Alphabeat fan.” Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Since I realised they were saying “Weltpolizei” and not “The bullets fly” (the next line is “Twenty-four seven”), all I can picture when I listen to it is an episode of Thunderbirds where they all have moustaches and perpetuate German stereotypes. In other news, I’m bored of Music Week now and I’ve got lots of other stuff I want to talk about, so James will return to normal programming shortly.
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Pentadact: Yeah, I noticed this pretty early on when I tried using the same formatting to reply to people. I thought about changing it, then remembered I didn't care.
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Plan B
SWAT 4: The Movie
Murder Inc.
Exploded
Don't Make Me Play Football Manager
The Best And Worst Of Mass Effect 2
A Stab At Meet The Spy
GalCiv 2 War Diary
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