It’s Been a While

Apologies for the lack of updates, yikes, this year!  Life has unfortunately kicked my arse for the last nine months, mainly with work and reaping the benefits of my employment by actually going out and doing stuff.  This isn’t a personal blog so I won’t bore you with those details, so here’s a quickfire recap on a few of the things I’ve missed lately.
The European Football Championship was excellent this summer, of course with Spain winning it after murdering Italy 4-0 in the final.  I must admit that shocked me, I was convinced Italy at least stood a good chance of winning seeing as they had a rock-solid defence and Spain more often than not played without a recognised striker.  Good to see Torres back to his best in the Premier League coming back to recent events, the league is as exciting as ever now that Manchester City have joined United and Chelsea to make it a three horse race for the title this year.  Lots of money has been spent as always, Eden Hazard in particular looks to be a fantastic acquisition for Chelsea as does Santi-Cazorla for Arsenal.  I can’t see them challenging for the league title this year but it would be nice to see them beform consistently between now and May rather than choking towards the end.  Time will tell.

Mass Effect 3 is one of the biggest releases of the year

Video games, always a favourite of mine.  We’ve had some belters this year with the amazing Skyrim, the new Hearthfire DLC is something I’m interesting in purchasing as building a detailed property is a feature I’ve always wanted Bethesda to expand upon.  Good call by them, I’ll try and stick a review up once I’ve played it.  Guild Wars 2 is out as well of course, but I’ve not had the chance to play that either just yet. Luckily it’s my birthday in almost exactly a months time and that’s very high on my list of DO WANT! so again more thoughts and opinions on that when the time comes, no doubt that’s just as fantastic as the first one.  As for games I have played I finally got around to playing and completing all three of the main Uncharted games, which on the whole were fantastic but in my opinion gradually got weaker as the series progressed.  It’s still a memorable experience though and one any PS3 owner shouldn’t miss, so go play them if you haven’t already.   Mass Effect 3 was another big release earlier in the year, and my goodness did that get a reaction.  No doubt you’re aware of the controversy surrounding the… rather poor ending, but thankfully that’s been rectified and the new ending is much, much better.  I can honestly say that the final half an hour before the original ending is the most incredible gaming experience I’ve ever had the pleasure of being on the edge of my seat for, again that’s a series well worth investing your time in if you’ve not already done so.

Matt Cardle’s incredible X Factor performance

I know I’m a little late with this, but this past Saturday I sat down with apprehension to watch the X-Factor on ITV.  Like a lot of people I only really enjoy the audition stage for the atrocious performances, but this week one act above all others caught my attention, and his name is Matt Cardle.

Matt is a guy who hadn’t received an awful lot of recognition leading up to the Bootcamp stage of the competition, he’d comfortably got through his audition but from what I remember (which admittedly wasn’t much) he was a solid yet unspectacular singer.  On this night however he chose to sing Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I saw Your Face, and it stands right up there as one of the most stunning performances see on on these types of shows.  I won’t lie, this reduced me to tears.  Here’s the video of his song, enjoy it.

Friends of DTO

Today I thought I’d tell you guys a little about the various blogs and websites affiliated with this one, as each one is well worth a visit for one reason or another.

Dav3design

http://dav3design.wordpress.com

We’ll start with Dav3design, run by my friend Dave who I’ve known for more than 20 years.  His blog features an eclectic mix of personal adventures, unusual photography and some excellent 3D designs mainly based on various vehicles.

He updates the site regularly so it’s definitely worth bookmarking it, or if you’re a fellow WordPress user, subscribing.

DXX: The Blog

http://dxxtheblog.wordpress.com

Next us is DXX: The Blog, which is one for the wrestling fans; e-fedding in particular.  DXX was one of the most active and consistently enjoyable e-fed forums between 2006 and 2009, in that three year period seeing some memorable feuds, characters, title changes and controversies.

Unfortunately the site was eventually shut down, but fortunately most of the core members keep in contact one way or another and this blog is designed to chronicle an eventual return for the site.  If  e-feds or wrestling in general interest you keep an eye on this one.

A review of Rumble In The Ghetto 3

Rumble In The Ghetto is an annual and successful event at the Westcoast Bar in Margate, generally showcasing local talent with the occasional bigger name.  This years’ headline act was originally supposed to be Deaf Havana, but they decided to cancel at the last moment due to receiving a Kerrang nomination for best newcomer.  They didn’t win, so that was worth it.

Despite that the promoters very kindly lowered the entrance fee, not that it particularly mattered to me either way as the local bands were what I wanted to see in the first place, so a reduction in price was an added bonus if nothing else.

Having heard a few of their songs on MySpace I was particularly interested to see Chronos, as it was their first live gig since forming earlier in the year.  They describe themselves as a post-metal band and take inspiration from the likes of Cult of Luna and Isis, two bands I’m very fond of so this was a band I didn’t want to miss.  I was extremely impressed with what they put together, sadly only performing a couple of songs but they were terrific from start to finish.  They had a very death-doom feel to their music in the same vein as Swallow The Sun and In Vain, and along with the aforementioned influences Chronos absolutely nailed their first gig with some fine musicianship.  I honestly cannot wait to see more from these guys in the future, they can’t come back to Margate soon enough. In fact they are, on September 2nd.

Best And Worst of The Past Decade

Since compiling various Top 10 lists in recent weeks there was one thing that slightly bothered me with it all, and that feeling was rightly echoed by various comments from those who read them.  Not only was it extremely hard to decide what ten video games, films and albums to put in each list but I felt that ten choices simply wasn’t enough.

So, for this blog post I’ve put together what I personally consider to be the best and worse of the decade that has now just passed, hopefully including a few more titles you’d expect to see in there.  We’ll start off with video games as that’s been a talking point for a couple of people, so here are my 25 best and worse of the decade – in order this time.