Football & Musical Titbits

It's getting to that time in the season that's so appropriately known as "squeaky bum time" and of course this season it's more widespread than ever. Unless you live on the south coast. After getting their nine point deduction finalised I imagine Portsmouth's bums are done squeaking and now just weeping pooey tears of relegation. Lovely. It looks like the title is going down to the wire this year anyway, although there's still a 66% chance that the FA can reuse the ribbons from the photo as Arsenal and Man Utd are both in the running with Chelsea now. During a moment of educational procrastination I deduced that by my predictions Arsenal would sneak the title by a point from Man Utd and Chelsea would be consoled a further point behind in third. But this is coming from the man who has been baffled by the 24 hour system on his alarm clock more than once in the last month. So pinch of salt and that. Also getting closer to those Champions League quarters which I am thoroughly excited about. Not excited enough to remember if it's next week or the week after but still very excited. Messi is going to (unfortunately) destroy Arsenal and whichever poor soul gets stuck at right back defending against Robben for Man Utd will be more embarrassed than I was when I accidentally did a fart when waiting for a train a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty damn shamed by that as well. Still exciting times. Even Newcastle are a little on edge these days, although 5 points clear at the top it's ours to throw away. Or punch into our team mate's face. Whichever is more self-destructive for us really.

Got caught up in leak madness today. Not the frankly disturbing video but that of Flying Lotus and his new album. Luckily I was too caught up in the moral quagmire of whether to do it or not to realise that it was in fact not the actual record but a fake or apparently something miss tagged and generally mixed up. Better off waiting then. To fill in the gap though another song by The National has arisen, this one a studio version from the new album. It's up on the official site. It's good, not quite got the same instant impact of Terrible Love though. Also got the new album by Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. They seem to have given up on the Radiohead samples and (in places) got into drum and bass. Which I don't mind. Lyrically it can be quite preachy at times but songs like Snob have that much more relatable subject matter of musical snobs. Kicker of a beat too. Also played on Microsoft's Game Room. I say played; loaded it up, decorated my "room", looked at the games on offer, decided it was shit and turned off the 360. Could have been a good idea but at the moment it's an absolute waste of time and money.

Bioshock 2, Red Alert 3, Frightened Rabbit & A Bit Of Footie

One of the great minds of acting that appear in Red Alert 3 on the left there. The thing I find most amazing was that when I read on the back of the box "over 60 minutes of high def video sequences" I was disappointed. Only an hour? Genuinely want more. The game fits surprisingly well to a console with all your actions mapped to a wheel and there's shortcuts there to help build your power plants when you're scouting out with your team of attack bears. Yeah bears. There's dolphins as well. God knows what else, pretty sure there was a giant robot in one of the FMV's as well. Yet to persevere that far though. I can safely say though that this game was worth the £4 for Tim Curry's Russian accent alone. The bears are a mere bonus.

Polished off Bioshock 2 this week. Feel a bit let down by it, I played through on normal and never really struggled. The only time I died was when I forgot to use first aid. Still thoroughly enjoyed the playthrough. Highlights being the mad ambushes of splicers when collecting ADAM and wandering round the majority of the last stage with my sentry bot chums "Patches" and "Melissa". A solid sequel really. Gave the multiplayer a fair amount of time as well which was a let down. Ignoring the game crashes in the lobby which plagued me throughout it just was pointless. The servers will be empty in a few weeks I'm sure, they were hardly bustling when I was there anyway.

Two final things, got hold of the new Frightened Rabbit album which is fantastic. They sound bigger and brighter which hopefully will see them getting some decent mainstream attention. Current single Nothing Like You has hit written all over it. Also caught the League Cup final today which was both exhilarating and predictable. Vidic should have gone for the last man foul on Agbonlahor right at the start. Apart from that Man United deserved their win, Valencia and Rooney were exemplary and even Berbatov put a bit of effort in. Still wanted Villa to win mind. Oh well, maybe Arsenal have got a chance at the Premiership now. That's my last hope of Man United or Chelsea being embarrassed.