Rihanna - Rated R

I've always said i had a very wide musical taste and this proves it more than anything. It's not the usual rock, punk or indie tune. Instead it's Rihanna's latest R&B venture.

First listen through is somewhat positive. I saw her on the xfactor this past week singing russian roulette and that put me in the mood of checking this album out. I listened to that song first and ended up "Loving it" on my last.fm page.

A few more songs that stick out to me though are Wait Your Turn, Fire Bomb, Rude Boy and Photographs amongst others.

I'll continue listening through fully and see what comes of it.

-Dave

Websites

Started trying to get back into making them today. Fetched a couple of tutorials from the net and i'm working my way through them. Not expecting anything decent at the moment but if i stick at it something might happen hopefully. About time i actually used the CS4 collection i've had for about a year. Barely used it at all the past year. Time's are changing though :)

-Dave

Ford Super Sunday

Cracking set of games on today on sky sports. I just caught the end of the merseyside derby, liverpool edging it in the end 2-0. Game of the day's on at the moment though. Arsenal against Chelsea.. has goals written all over it.

Playing it all through my xbox, decided to pick up the sky sports package for 3 months. Been more than worth it so far i think.

Last but not least, the ol' classico is on later at half 5 tonight. Real Madrid take on their rivals Barcelona, some of the greatest players in the world will be on that pitch, im tuning in :)

-Dave

Flashforward

I've just had to majorly catch up with it. I was under threat of it getting spoiled from the father but i've just watched episodes 7-9 in one go.

This show just keeps getting stranger and stranger. There's always something that happens that just makes you go...what?

Great cast too, the show's not been on for long but they've all already established themselves as people to watch. If you haven't checked this out yet be sure too..

-Dave

Christmas Shopping

Just got paid this morning so i took it upon myself to do a little shopping for a certain holiday that's coming up very soon.

Hopped onto play.com, hmv.co.uk among others and got everything i had in mind of getting. Spent roughly £150 up till now. I'm not even sure how much i got paid but it'll be worth it come the day :)

Speaking of christmas, for the first time in years i'm not really sure what the hell i want. I mentioned a couple of things to the mother and father and they thankfully managed to get them... them being Assassin's Creed 2 and Left For Dead 2. I'll be on a zombie hunt this christmas :)

-Dave

True Blood

I'm probably way behind the times on this but i finally got around to watching the first season. I was given the first 3 episodes of season 1 right when it started but i couldn't be bothered getting and watching the rest of them, nevermind season 2. The reason behind it, not sure really. The accents, more vampire stories....

Thankfully though, it's been shown on channel 4 here in the UK at the moment, it's my second chance to catch this show. I "was" recording them on my mum and dad's virgin box but the third episode was deleted..boo :(

So having just been paid today i've took advantage of play.com's deal of the day and bought the first season on dvd for only £17.95. Bargain for what you're getting with this show.

Here's the deal of the day (though it sadly only lasts for today)

If you haven't seen the show yet and fancy a change from the likes of twilight and co.. then check this show out :)

-Dave

Danny Wallace

Some of you might not know who this guy is so if you don't read on and all shall be revealed..

If you do then you'll know he's someone who some might consider a comedy-writing genius.

I'm writing about him having just started reading one of his books. The book being "Yes Man". Some of you might have seen the film starring none other than Jim Carrey but behind the film is where this book shines.

Read on for a little more insight..

New Moon Crazyness!!!

Those faces ring a bell?

They should do, they've been everywhere for the past year and more recently the past week.

New Moon's just hit cinema's and already it's beaten the likes of Dark Knight in the box office records.

I've currently not seen it yet but plan to at some point. I enjoyed the first film a lot, i went seeing it, not having a clue what it was about so as the story unraveled i began to like it. Everyone kinda knows what to expect though with this installment so i doubt it'll come close to the first in terms of story.

Speaking of the first one though, i FINALLY finished reading the book last night. I'm one of those weird people who would rather see the film first then read the book and i'm chuffed i finally got round to finishing the first book. Once i've seen New Moon, then and only then will i pick up and read the book.

Happy Sparkling.....

-Dave

This guy has outdone what it means to make a tit of yourself!

The game's hard at the best of times but taking a camera, positioning it right infront of yourself crying is going a bit too far. Not to mention the view of apparently mashed knuckles. No idea who the guy is but he's definitely now one of the biggest tits i've set eyes on on youtube. Kinda makes me wanna shoot him down in MW2 now ;)

-Dave

MW2! High Rise MP Glitch!

This might be old news to some of you lot but i was playing a bit of multiplayer yesterday and noticed a couple of guys climbed onto one of the top roofs. After shooting them down finally i jumped on here and searched around. Found the video. I'm gonna try it next time i'm on that map.

-Dave

The road has been my way

It's officially 3 years today since i passed my driving test and became a man of the road. November 17th 2006 i was shitting myself at the thought of having to sit my test but i came out of it unscathed with a mere 2 minors, my instructors record :)

So yeah 3 whole years. In that time i've had two cars, a black skoda fabia and my current car, my trusty fiat punto. Hoping once i get a better job in years to come though that i can upgrade slightly.

Fun fact about it all is, i've barely been outwith Dundee in any car of my own. Never had the need to be honest but it would've been cool now and again. It'll happen eventually!

-Dave

Star Trek Bluray has arrived!

I got back from the gym this morning and noticed it had been delivered. Opened it up straight away and checked it out. LOVE the steelbook cover. Makes it that little bit more special. I got the 3-disc edition from play.com

Here

Little bit more costly than the others but it was one of my favourite films of 2009 so it deserves a place in my growing bluray collection. From reviews i've read about it so far, people have said this film really brings out the BEST in your bluray player. It's something i really wanna test out.



One last thing too. This will be my first review on this blog. I'm planning on watching it first off then in a few days i'll hopefully get the review up, complete with Calvin's Thumbs included too.

-Dave

Keep Calm & Carry On

Just got me the new Stereophonics album "Keep Calm & Carry On".

It's due to be released very soon. I think it's actually getting shipped from sites for delivery. Been a fan of these guys for years. Had the privilege of seeing them in my hometown Dundee back in 08. One of the best gigs i've ever been to. Even met Kelly afterwards. He's such a down to earth dude in person. Not the tallest guy either ha!

I'm listening through the album at the moment though. First impressions are it's classic Stereophonics. The track on at the moment is "Innocent". It's a nice laid back track. So the usual, if you're a fan of these guys this albums a must get.

-Dave

Look Alive Video

Here's the video of one of the tracks from the EP i posted about yesterday. We are the ocean's Look Alive EP. The video's the title track "Look Alive". Check it out and leave a comment if you can.

-Dave

Crazy Modern Warfare 2 Knife kill!

There it is. Probably one of the best throwing knife kills there'll ever be in the game. Bit of luck in it no doubt, i'm still not sure how he knew someone would be there. No marker seemed to be on the map. Pretty sweet though. I wouldn't like to be the guy that died though.

-Dave

Look Alive EP is here.

The EP is "Look Alive" and the band is "We Are The Ocean". They've just recently been signed and this EP is taken from their forthcoming album Cutting our teeth, which is due to be released early 2010.

Their myspace is right here

They've been described as the UK's answer to Alexisonfire. With that aside though their still a sweet band. Be sure to check them out or even better order the EP yourself here.

The EP features 4 tracks.

1: Look Alive
2: (I'll grab you by the) Neck of the woods
3: Cutting Our Teeth
4: Drag Me Down

First listen through is taking place at the moment. LOVING it!

-Dave

Green Zone

Nope it's not a post about saving the o-zone layer. Matt Damon has a new film coming out soon. It's from the director of The Bourne Ultimatum, Paul Greengrass.

This film from what i've seen on the trailer, seems to be based in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Damon plays Officer Roy Miller. The Synopsis on imdb.com says the following

"Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer (Damon) to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons on Mass Destruction in an unstable region."

Without giving anything away, it revolves around a group of soldiers going after the "Jack of clubs". It turns out there is more than one group after him though. It definitely has a Bourne feel to it but that's not a bad thing at all. It hits cinema's in the UK on the 12th March next year. One to watch out for.

-Dave

EA MMA

Speaking of UFC, I stumbled across this screen yesterday while on IGN.com. It's a screen of EA's first attempt at an MMA game. They've only released a debut teaser at the moment but judging from this picture, the graphics are definitely looking pretty sweet.

Debut Teaser

I'm still on the bench with this game, I liked the UFC game this past year but originally EA were offered it before THQ but refused to take it on, not seeing MMA as a popular sport. Hmmm?

-Dave

UFC 105

UFC 105 is live on saturday, here in the UK. I planned to actually get tickets for this but their mighty pricey. I'm talking in the £100's. Can't really afford that at the moment but i'd have loved to have went. Here are the bouts, including Michael Bisping and Dan Hardy amongst others. Click Read More for the full card.

Up To Now has arrived!

In the post this morning, the newest addition to my album collection. Snow Patrol's "Up To Now". I've imported it all to my itunes library and it's currently playing through. Song on at this moment in time is "Just say yes" Cracking little, feel good tune.

I haven't checked out the dvd disc yet but it's apparently packed with a tonne of live footage. Sounds good to me. I reckon i'll try give it a full listen through just now, that's 30 songs i'll be chilling away to. You have to get this cd if you're a true fan. Do it ;)

-Dave

Happy 20th Mike!

Friday the 13th. Bit of a weird one to have a birthday but he doesn't mind, it's the dudes' lucky number ha!

I'm most likely not gonna make it out for his bday night out so figured i should give him a mention on here at least.

Have a good one. Welcome to the 20 years :P

-Dave

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Beta Key!

First off, BFBC2, the sequel to one of my favourite games last year. Dice are releasing a public beta on November 19th and its exclusive to the ps3 unfortunately but my little brother just happens to have one so why not go for it i say!

I'm not quite sure how i managed it with the beta being exclusive to North America players for now (UK players will get theirs soon) but i researched around the net and stumbled upon something that would enable me to get my hands on a code.

Glad to say i now have a code for it but whether it works or not is another story in itself. I'll try it out on the 19th and i'll report straight back here. Here's hoping it works. :)

-Dave

CALVIN'S THUMBS UP!

Was having a jolly good time at work this past Wednesday. I was working away with the one and only Calvin Dodds (Gamertag - billybiggles) and we got talking about this blog of mine. He mentioned he actually read it. I asked for some ideas and he suggested reviews of some sort, whether it was a review for a game, a film or even an album.

I'm glad to say i've took the idea on board and plan to start writing reviews at some point in the near future. As for the rating of each product, I'll be scoring them with "Calvin's thumbs up". You'll see what i mean when it happens.

-Dave

Modern Warfare 2 MADNESS!!!

It arrived in the post yesterday morning and was played for the majority of the day. I started off with the single player, thought why not and then proceeded to play it on veteran. Would this be the first COD i could complete fully on veteran?

Snow Patrol - Up To Now

Snow Patrol just happen to be my favourite band of all time and they've just released this "Up To Now" 2CD Album. It's a massive collection of all their work up till now with a few new songs/covers added in for good measure. The deluxe edition with a bonus dvd is only £12.99 on play.com. I've just picked it up.

I first came across them when they released "Final Straw". I bought the album randomly after only hearing their first single from it, "Run".

The album was and still is one of the greatest albums in my collection to date. Every song on it is so easy to enjoy. The likes of "Spitting Games", "Chocolate" and of course "Run" make the album what it is.

Add that on top of the likes of "Chasing Cars", "Crack the shutters" and their newest single "Just Say Yes" and you have yourself a great collection of tracks. This greatest hits-type album is something that should definitely be owned by any Snow Patrol fan. Go pick up yourself a copy from play.com.

Up To Now (Deluxe Edition + DVD) - Play.com - HERE

-Dave

Farewell COD4

Tomorrow's the magic day people. Modern Warfare 2 hits the shops and all the fun starts over again.

Just a little word about cod4 though first of all. It was a groundbreaking game when it first appeared on the scene. Everyone was amazed by the updated shooter. No longer would infinity ward stay in the past. They shoved us into Modern Warfare. Something i just couldn't get enough of.

The success of the game showed when its successor World At War was released. While WAW was still very popular amongst COD fans, COD4 still had a solid fanbase and to this day still features in the Top 10 Xbox Live games being played online.

With Modern Warfare 2 now upon us it's time for COD4 to possibly be laid to rest. I'm sure when i get my hands on MW2 that i'd struggle to return to COD4's gameplay and structure. Who knows though, maybe someday down the line it might still be being played as well as it's being played now. If that fanbase sticks around then there's plenty of chance it will.

so farewell COD4 and for whoever gets MW2, i'll be sure to see you all online.

-Dave

Web Comic

Been thinking the past couple of days of what i wanna do with myself now that i've well and truly got shot of uni. With recent events that have happened, i've found myself motivated to move on and actually do something with my life.

It's been an easy ride so far and i think it's about time things changed. So today i got thinking about what i really wanna do with my time. The answer i came up with was "drawing". I've not sat down and drew something decent for years, i'm talking school days.

With that i think i might be heading in the web comic direction. Or at least something to that sort. I've had an idea about a story i wanna write/draw about for around about a year and a half now. I came up with it at uni funnily enough but i feel nows the time to actually get down and make it happen instead of "hoping" it happens. So keep an eye on this space. I'll be sure to update this with any news of it as soon as it happens.

-Dave

My exit from the Shopto.net Fifa 10 Tournament

This tournaments pretty much been going on since the game came out back in october. There was a tonne of people who entered. Only stipulation was we had to have bought the game from the shopto.net website. (Cheapest site for games btw)

The eventual winner was to get £300 to spend on the site. (That's a lot of games :P )

Not to be though. I made it through to the 3rd round luckily. My last two opponents never actually had the decency to reply to my friend request to play. This was the first proper match i'd actually be playing in the tournament. I played against a guy who i assume was called Bobby his gamertag is Bobberz 92.

First Match got off to a bad start. He went 2-0 up but after a stunning forlan volley (i was athletico madrid) and a nice one-two pass i got it back to 2-2. Not to be though. In the second match i got my ass handed to me 5-0. Then after we lost connection in the third, we restarted again. He went 2-0 yet again. I got it back to 2-1 then he scored a third. Straight after kick off i managed to get one back straight away making it 3-2 then he scored another two towards the end to finish me off and dump me out the tournament. Well played though. Pretty sound guy.

Shopto's URL btw for anyone looking for cheap prices on games

http://www.shopto.net

check it out!

-Dave

Borderlands

First off, back when this game was first announced, i liked the look of it. Looked like something really fresh, unique and of course new. Then i think it was at the past e3, they revealed the cell-shading like overhaul of the graphics. Didn't like it all that much after that.

Fast forward to last sunday and my opinions completely changed on the game. The cartoony look actually works for the game as a whole. I've found myself not even noticing it at times because i'm so INTO the games story. The story kicks ass. The amount of weapons for a start make the game one of a kind in the shooters of today. They range from pistols all the way to rocket launchers and snipers, snipers that can set your enemy on fire. Top stuff.

I got my first taste of co-op today online with my mate kenny (Kendoisonfire) he's a good few levels ahead of me so he helped me out a little. Few other randoms joined in and i had a pretty fun experience.

I thought it looked very similar to fallout 3 at first look but it's its own game now in my mind. Definitely worth checking out though if you're a fallout fan.

After all that though, the game is infact only rented. It's due back at blockbuster this sunday. I've got solid plans to buy it though soon after. Can't miss out on this game now at all.

-Dave

Rat Poison

Aww man, I've watched a good few hours of tv today and at pretty much every ad break that damn rat poison advert has been on. Wtf?!?! Gets the point across MORE than thoroughly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4-Qyu9KbBo

DISGUSTING!!!!!

-Dave

Flashback

I've listened to it on and off for the past month but i finally decided to give it a buy on the itunes store. It's definitely on a par with I'm not alone. Love this side of his sound.

It's currently on repeat in my itunes player. I've checked out the mixes but the original hits the mark. I've heard it's currently only 21 in the charts, it needs to be heading up further.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1y_wo_4fuQ

There's a link to the official video on youtube, check it out if you haven't seen it yet. Definitely has a holiday feel about it.

-Dave

Modern Warfare 2

Gotta give my first mention to the genius that will be Modern Warfare 2. Comes out this coming Tuesday, the 10th of November. No doubt there'll be a tonne of sick days being pulled off around the world ;) I'm luckily off and being honest couldn't really see myself doing that for a GAME. Money's money people.

It's gonna be a great week nonetheless, mostly for that along with other things. If anyone's actually reading this and fancies a bit of Multiplayer action, hit me up on Live, my gamertags dav3duncan.

-Dave

Starting this thing up

Figured it was about time i got a blog up and running so here it is :)
No plan for what content i'll be putting up but whatever sparks my interest around the web and what not will definitely be getting posted. Watch this space ;)