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VSX, A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist: Starbuck Powersurge - a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of Viper Squad Ten, a long-disbanded group of stranded timetravelling troubadours, formed to help finance repairs to their time-machine. Now very much stuck in C21... [ Archives ]
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[ Thursday, May 29, 2003 ]Starbuck [19:39] Comments: 0 [] Chucked the code from Stephen Downes' website into the template. Very interesting. Had never heard of referrals before, but it would explain a lot of the new web's rapid plasticity. Can't stop reading various Matrix discussion boards. It's doing my head in. I've got way too much else to do. Most of it's old ideas which I've contemplated already, but the swell of new posts ensures that still new potentialities continue washing up on the shores of my imagination. (To put it simply.) Right now I should be making my dinner (beansprouts & potatos & lashings of Soy Sauce), and packing for my imminent holiday in Spain with the girlfriend plus in-laws-to-be. But no, I keep on clicking and tapping away... I must make the break from this damned screen. It's not like I'm still in the future. I can't just wave my hands and rely on nanocreate new clothing whilst I'm out there. And I can't just nano-fax my stuff over there. I'm gonna have to put some leg-work into it. With my arms. [ Wednesday, May 28, 2003 ]Starbuck [23:56] Comments: 0 [] Woah! To paraphrase Keanu's defining acting moment. Matrix Reloaded. Fracking incredible. I'd heard the bad reviews. Though a critic is the same as any other individual, only with a potentially smelly outlet. I'd read a terrible review just before in the Metro by someone called Fiona Morrow. She didn't seem to enjoy it. Then again, she didn't seem to have been paying attention, either to the film in hand or its prequel - she called Keanu Reeve's character Nero. Not Neo. And don't get me started on that publicity-seeking git Harry Knowles' factually-inaccurate review. But reviews in the Guardian and the Mirror buoyed up my hope, as did my fellow Dietician Rich's report. And what an experience. Stunning. The action elicited audible gasps and applause from the usually restrained London cinema crowd. It made me flinch at times as if it was a 3D IMAX presentation jumping out at me. Add a twisting and turning story arc, which has got me rethinking the previous film and pondering the possibilities and probabilities of what's going on under the surface of the series, and I am so absolutely desperate for Revolutions to arrive. I've not been stuck in constant thought about a film for a long time. Stuff like Fight Club, one of my favourite films ever, bears up to much repeated viewing, but when you know what is actually happening, its a case of just spotting the clues. Other films that have left me thinking, eXistenZ, 12 Monkeys, also. Matrix is still unresolved. (Just noticed, all these films are very video-game-ic. Mis-spent youth.) Other stuff. This week, I have mostly been listening to Blur's Think Tank and Chemical Brothers' Come With Us. Both stunning. The former a spaceous, breathy, soulful masterpiece, the latter a stomping, neon-sharp, cut and paste, pumping construction of electronic beauty. Or something. Christ, it's nearly midnight. I've been sitting here for hours, brain in a state of near shut-down, absent mindedly hitting a key every now and then whenever a synaptic cascade falls through. Must log out. Thinking of the future. [ Thursday, May 22, 2003 ]Starbuck [00:02] Comments: 0 [] X-Men 2. Just caught it. A most enjoyable 133 minutes 24 seconds of my evening. Just as Matrix Reloaded fever hits the country. Always a few weeks of lag between myself and the crest of most popular culture tsunamis. Saw it on my own in the front row of the fairly deserted main theatre in Brixton Ritzy straight after work. No distractions, no disturbations, just me and the screen, filling my vision. Nice. Sometimes being isolated is fun. And talking of isolation, Magneto's escape from his isolated plastic prison - stunningly inventive. Animatrix is on the telly as I type. Berlimey. Top CGI. Still not had time for more than a curory sift through www.jeffnoon.com, but having read a quick Needle In The Groove review elsewhere, I no longer fear that I have bugs embedded subcutaneously under my skin. Unless when the band disappears, its into the fourth dimension. Still, I look forward to finding out more, now that the dark shadow of paranoia has passed. Won't have any time to update my reports for a few days, as I will be spending some much-needed time with my female counterpart. It's been too long. But I will be throwing out a lifeline to the Manager, or maybe to my Noon-mentor, to keep electronic chatter on Squad/Hell activities blinking away. Over and out. [ Wednesday, May 21, 2003 ]Starbuck [00:54] Comments: 0 [] God, how come London's got so bleedin' cold again. It was so very nice a month or so back. So pleasant. The warmth from the IR-radiation blasts of the day were seeping into the night. Now I'm sitting here shaking like a shiverer mouse. And I don't think I've spontaneously mutated into a dysmyelinated phenotype. That would be ridiculous. Nah, I'm sure that it never used to get this cold at this time of year a few hundred years from now. Sitting here shivering, typing, trying to remember what I'd already typed before my computer decided to dump the contents of the browser. Scavenging over old memories, old inspirations, but finding only detritus. Maybe my original post was this bad. Maybe recycling a post exponentiates it's qualities, in whatever direction. I was going to mention Sentry, the polished & honed piece of nostalgia that I downloaded last night. It is good. Too good - I must desist. I have only played a few levels. Maybe I will lose interest. Maybe it will let me down. I was going to mention Themroc's "Beyond These Things", today's £9.99 prescription to alleviate my suffering from the Do-It-All music. (My PC is refusing to play the godforsaken Do-It-All clip, so I can't even thrash the thing out of my head.) I was going to mention my suspicions regarding an author Jeff Noon, of whom I had not heard before today, basing his entire oeuvre around my life, and that of my fellow travellers through time / musicology. Or maybe not. He has not registered within me; there is no pointer pointing at his position within my mental free-space. My friend Matt is a fan of his works of science so-called-fiction, and has etched some disturbing parallels across my mind. Maybe I am shorting-out on this. When I get the time, I will have to investigate the website www.jeffnoon.com further, maybe put my mind at rest... Something is afoot. And it's on the end of my leg. No time now, though. For now I need warmth. [ Tuesday, May 20, 2003 ]Starbuck [00:46] Comments: 0 [] (picking lime-scale from the kettle-heated-bath out of my teeth) I'm very glad that I've worked out that those mysterious brown flakes that appear in the bath now and again are limescale. Internal jukebox: Killing Joke "Millennium - Back To Orion Mix". Also, the Do-It-All advert theme. Virus news: first copy of Palyh hit my work email account yesterday. Didn't even have a screensaver as promised. Rubbish. Expecting many thousands more copies from all round the world. Last few days I've been a bit too geeky for my own good. It all started when I got a Spectrum emulator on a CD with PC Format magazine. This led to the downloading of a bunch of ROMs and tape images of various old Spectrum games from World Of Spectrum. Rediscovering Geoff Crammond's The Sentinel was a joy - this game I lost months and months to as a kid, and it's still as awe-inspiring as ever. Then I started downloading remakes of old games from places like Retrospec. Got a very nice Lunar Jetman, plus Bloody Tetris. Also a Chuckie Egg & a Skool Daze remake that I may have to reinstall. Loads still to come. As if I don't spend enough time on Spheres Of Chaos and Uplink. And now, although I'm well knackered tonight, and desperately need sleep, I've just stumbled across a remake of The Sentinel, which may or may not work, and may or may not be any good, but is currently downloading as I type. Maybe I shouldn't bother - how could it better the pure beauty of the original? No time to check it out now, anyway. Hibernation time. Ponderings as I slip into stasis: The biochemical intricacies behind Princess Valium's rock-eating-oxygen-harvesting abilities. Also - must contact the Manager. Soon. Things need done. [ Friday, May 16, 2003 ]Starbuck [21:40] Comments: 0 [] Thinking about Hormone Hell, one of these days we'll have to get the Hormone Hell Original Soundtrack in the shops. Just wot the public needs right now, a high quality soundtrack album. Even better than the Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back album. I suppose. Everybody sing: Warhead - hear the thunder roar Warhead - unite the lightning whore Warhead - engraved on flesh & bone Warhead - born of mortal stone Beautiful. Though thinking about it, Venom, for it was they who provided some of the wonderfully cinematic tunes to HH, do sound very much like they have ripped off some of the more controversy-baiting Dieticians/VSX numbers... It certainly doesn't sound like they were influenced by Stryper with lyrics such as "I'm in league with satan, I was raised in hell, I walk the streets of Salem, Amongst the living dead, I need no one to tell me, What's wrong or right, I drink the blood of children, Stalk my prey at night" Nice. More classic Venom lyrics here. Starbuck [21:09] Comments: 0 [] Finally saw Adaptation, after many months of not having the time (or the energy when I've had the time) to get to the cinema. Totally top film. Fantastic, fascinating, and fabulous were the words which bubbled to the surface when I got out of the theatre. It made me exhilerated, it made me feel, it made me think, it made me scared, it made me laugh, it emoted so many things to me. Most of all it perfectly summed up what it is to be human, and what it's been to be human in every time-frame. Every good as Being John Malkovich. Very different, but the same quality production. Though seeing such a well-made film has made me realise that Hormone Hell could probably do with some re-cutting before its re-unleashed upon the world. Maybe we could digitally remove my shite beard whilst we're about it... [ Monday, May 12, 2003 ]Starbuck [19:03] Comments: 0 [] Monday evening. Made physical contact with Aardvark over the weekend in his Bournemouth base. Myself and Earthling-Girlfriend Starbucketta drove down from Birmingham on Saturday. In terms of our 21st Century humanoid identities, it was a brilliant weekend, celebrating his 30th year on this planet (according to the records.) I managed to keep the C2H50H-intake to a constant but manageable level, so as to prevent the emetic downside of previous 30th birthdays, and to allow rhythmical movement using improvised steps and gestures to the music in Clutes nightclub. Aardvark seemed to have a fantastic time, and I'm sure he most enjoyed heading into his GP surgery at 13:00 the next day with his head still buzzing... We also thankfully managed stay incognito within our aliases, saving us from difficult explanations to the 50-odd people there who only know the Commander by his common pseudonym. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to practice any twin Rock-It duelling, so for now, the next evolution of the Squad must remain on hold... Other things: Claire Short's resignation speach - nice one. Dr Germ captured by the Americans - why the frack do they have to reduce EVERYTHING to do with the war or their so-called War on Terror (otherwise known as the American Foreign Policy / Bush re-election campaign etcetera) to the level of a bad movie? DR GERM? Jeez, it gets more like an Austin Powers film every day. (BTW Austin Powers films aren't "bad" movies. They flickin funny. But we don't want the Super-Power to live by their rules.) [ Wednesday, May 07, 2003 ]Starbuck [19:33] Comments: 0 [] Stardate summat summat summat, watching Star fracking Trek on the telly, thinking how easy the gits have got it. They can travel through space. Q can travel through time. I have trouble with communicating with the Aardvark. Got this garbled message from him through the ether: > Wot the? is that all about it reads like an advert. R U secretly sponsored > by Toys R uz. Dont tell everyone about the rockit or we will be rumbled at > our nexzt conzert. Keep it clean brother.(the commander) I think we may be on this dustball for some time... [ Monday, May 05, 2003 ]Starbuck [10:39] Comments: 0 [] Watching Animal Park on the telly. It's theme tune is driving me mad. No vocals, just a (cheap) orchestra. But it uses that tried and tested day-time TV trick of making the theme tune sound like it should have lyrics. Every time I hear it, some piss-poor composer in my head comes up with something like "Come down to the Animal Park", "Welcome to-o Animal Park" etc. GAH! The pain! Some cruel jobbing jingle-writer, not just being content with sharpening my insanity with a catchy tune, but implanting the stimulus, forcing the brain-dead viewer to have to think of the lyrics that he felt were too shoddy for him to get away with himself. Is this what counts as intellectual innervation of the mind in the daytime TV world? This sort of thing was banned in the future. (Now Bullseye. That was a good theme tune. Couldn't find a copy of the theme on toptastic telly site TV Cream, but a damn good description of the show brought nostalgia-tears to my eyes. Nearly.) [ Sunday, May 04, 2003 ]Starbuck [15:05] Comments: 0 [] Toys R Us was a revelation. A stunning emporium of essential goods. Resisting temptation was less pleasurable. I need Nerf guns. Lots of Nerf guns. And an Atari 10-in-1. Etcetera. Generous benefactors to the cause, please point your browsers in the direction of Firebox.com and forward the goods to myself or Aardvark. [ Saturday, May 03, 2003 ]Starbuck [12:47] Comments: 0 [] I have hopefully now managed to make direct contact with the Commander. Well, direct in a kind of vague email, which no doubt will get lost in the detritus of junk communications about penis-enlargements and university diplomas... My task for the day - the purchasement of the tool with which we will enlighten the planet to the poetical beauty that music is capable of (before making our escape from this cursed place.) Yes, the Rock-It. An instrument of awe. But probably sold out. [ Friday, May 02, 2003 ]Starbuck [23:35] Comments: 0 [] At the Ashow base tonight. Tired. Oh so very tired. C21 earth-time is a lot more draining than that a few millenia down the line. On the journey here tonight, I was trying to think of some more money-making schemes for rebuilding the ship. Apart from getting the Squad back together for world domination, of course. Now, getting Hormone Hell digitised and in the shops, that would be a start. Especially if we don't tell any of the other "actors". And modelling. There's good money in modelling, if you're as good looking as this certain Starman. If any fashion talent-spotters out there happen to surf by, and are after someone from the future to throw money at, head to the Home Crew section of earthling friend Matt's Shagmatty website for a site with some pics of a handsome young man, with an amazing ability to bend one of his fingers without moving his others. He's the one who looks like David Brent. Plus there's some of his less-handsome Commander. And I could try to get into the travel-writing game. Never did Paxman / Palin / James (Clive) any harm. Example-work of my travels through China a few years ago can be found here:YES, CLICK HERE! Will have to discuss with Ardvark/Armadillo next weekend. Must go. I've got a few aeons worth of jet-lag (time-lag?) by the feel of it... 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