BenPaddon.co.uk

In an attempt to make my blog seem as mundane as possible, I’m now going to talk about my posture.

Those of you who listened to Saturday’s edition of The Program with Kris Straub might recall a very brief discussion about how photogenic I’m not. Kris mentioned that he’s seen photos of me and I always seem to be slouching, which is something I’ve been vaguely aware of now for a long time. I’m 6′ 4″ and a lot of stuff - door handles, bathroom sinks, elevator buttons, etc. - seems to have been positioned lower than I require it to be. Plus I like to keep eye contact with the people I talk to, so if I’m walking and talking to them it’s easier to simply lower myself down so that they’re not looking up my nose. That and it’s less intimidating. Also I’m scared of heights.

However, Kris is right and I need to be less slouchy and more upright and awesome. That’s been my goal this week - stand tall, walk proud (I narrowly avoided the urge to write “Walk Hard”), etc. I’ve been pretty successful save for the fact that since I’ve been keeping myself upright my back has begun to ache and, as I mentioned above, everything seems to be just out of reach. It’s annoying, to be sure, but I imagine it’s something I’ll get used to.

In other news, I had lunch with Dino Andrade on Tuesday. For those of you who don’t know, he is (amongst other things) the voice of Skull on PvP: The Series, and the founder of geek dating site SoulGeek. He’s also a good friend and a top bloke, and I’ve been wanting to work with him for a while now. Fortunately for me he wanted to work with me as well, and he’s decided I would be the perfect guy to produce and co-host Radio SoulGeek, the official SoulGeek podcast. So lunch was mostly us talking about what we want out of our respective futures (there appears to be a fair amount of overlap there, which is nice) and planning the format for the podcast. It’s all looking incredibly promising and I don’t want to give away too much but besides the usual stuff - Geek News, Interviews, music, all of which will be delivered in a unique, fun way - there’s some really cool stuff that I don’t want to go into too much now for fear of ruining the surprise. I can promise you that it’ll be available to everyone (not just SoulGeek members) and, assuming we do it properly, it’s going to be a must-hear podcast. Whee!

There’s also some very cool stuff happening with Jump Leads in the near future but I definitely want to keep that one to myself for now.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for the moment. I have work to do!

This evening my Dad, Stepmom and I drove over to Ikea (by way of a British pub in Burbank named the Buchanan Arms, which was quite nice despite the fish not quite meeting the standards set by the Robin Hood) where I bought myself a shelving unit for my ever-growing collection of DVDs, books and vidjagames. I was fast running out of space on my current shelving unit, which is more or less the size of a termite’s intestinal tract, so I decided I shell out the dosh on a fairly non-crap sized thing to put my shit on.

I could talk to you about how much of a pain in the arse it was to put the unit together (in short: surprisingly easy, although I had to move it out of my room and into the kitchen to slide the back on… hang on, that wasn’t quite as short as I was aiming for) but instead I’m going to talk to you about Bob Marley. “My,” I hear you say, “That’s quite a tangent even for you, Ben.” But stay with me, because it is loosely connected to our excursion to Ikea.

Whilst in Ikea looking at lighting (because the desk in the office isn’t quite as well-lit as it could be, and in the interest of not causing our retinas to dissolve into a fine paste we were on the look-out for some nice desk lamps) I spotted a guy with dreadlocks. I was ill and my brain wasn’t quite functioning properly and so mentally I made a rather childish observation - “Hey, that guy looks like Bob Marley.” I spent the rest of the walk through Ikea with “No Woman No Cry” stuck in my head, and rather oddly it was (I think) playing on the in-store PA system as I was going through the Check Out. So, not twelve minutes ago, I bought “Legend” on iTunes. I also looked up the guy on Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit) and discovered he died of Toe Cancer.

I’m not kidding. The guy had melanoma on the big toe on his right foot, and chose not to have the thing amputated because it was against his religious beliefs as a Rasta. The cancer spread throughout his body until it reached the terminal stage, and even then he refused to draw up a will because to do so would bely the Rastafari belief that death is not an inevitability*. I’d spent a long time believing that Bob Marley had been shot at a concert for being too much of a hippie or some such thing. But refusal to let someone lop his toe off? Seems a little silly to me. The guy could still be knocking out cracking tunes today if he was willing to part ways with the big spud on his right meatslab.

Oh well. Not much that can be done about it now, is there?

Just found this fan-animated video on Gorillaz Unofficial:

Rather impressive stuff, I’d say.

Very nifty, eh? You can see more pics in the gallery.

Someone once told me that you can tell a lot about a person based on the music you’ll find on their iPod. I don’t think that’s true. I mean yes, it gives you some insight into what their tastes are, but there’s no set “rules” that govern what sort of music a particular person will have on their MP3 player. That doesn’t make sense, does it?

I mean, a cursory glance at my iPod’s list of artists includes people and groups such as Madonna, Gorillaz, Queen, Eminem, MC Frontalot, Adam Ant, Reel Big Fish, Rammstein, Jonathan Coulton, Homestar Runner, Muse, Meatloaf, the Rentals, the Feeling, Robbie Williams, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Staveley Makepeace, Songs to Wear Pants To, Rob Zombie, Dido, Pink Floyd, Adam and Joe, Neil Hannon, Murray Gold, the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra, Alistair Brimble, Kompressor, Paramore, Jennifer Saunders, the Foo Fighters, a rather large selection of Overclocked Remixes, and many more. Order now to receive this bonus disc at no extra va–… no, sorry, hang on. Where was I?

Oh yes. So, what does that selection tell you about my personality? Bugger all. What does it tell you about my musical preferences? Hopefully it tells you that I like a bit of everything. Or, possibly, that I have a bloody awful taste in music. Who can say?

Last night was spent at a free Country Music concert, with a performance by Some Guy Who’s Name I Forget. His music wasn’t bad, lacking the twang of most inbred Country music, but it also wasn’t particularly good. It wasn’t to my tastes, at least. Still, the night wasn’t about the music. Not to me, at least. No, the night was about spending time with my extended family - my Stepsister Jenny, her husband Eric, and their son, Ryan. So I had a fantastic time.

I had my interview at Disney today, as you probably determined from the blog entry below, and it was a crushing defeat followed by a joyous victory. The first interview was with a chap named Stephen, a VP of HR at the WDC (acronyms… yeuch). We had a lovely chat about what I was capable of, what the Walt Disney company does and so forth, which ended with Stephen saying that he thought the job I was going for was perhaps not quite suited to me. Ouch. This was then followed by an interview with a chap named Andy who explained a bit more about the role, asked me some of the usual interview questions, and wrapped things up by saying he thought I was more than capable of doing the job. Score!

I can apparently expect to hear “very soon” about the result, as they’re looking to fill the vacancy soon. It’s a good job, and it’ll get me started and earning some money of my own which I can then use to do things with. Which is nice.  I’m confident that, following my interview with Andy, I’m going to get the job. The people in the department pretty much know me now, and they’re comfortable around me. Which is cool.

In other news, I came to the conclusion that Twelve Stops and Home, which you may recall I purchased at the start of last month, is My Album. If you had asked me a year ago what my favourite album was, I would likely have said Demon Days by Gorillaz. I love the way that album sounds, but it never really resonated with me on the emotional level. Twelve Stops does. I feel like I can relate to every song on that album. For example, Fill My Little World and Never Be Lonely are both, to me, about my relationship with Amy - on one hand, Amy wasn’t the adventurous person I wanted her to be, the person who tried new things and supported me as I tried new things too. That’s Fill My Little World. On the other hand, I didn’t want to leave her because I was scared, utterly terrified, of being alone and not finding anybody else. That’s Never Be Lonely.

Every word of every song just reverberates through my heart, moreso than Scissor Sisters’ The Other Side and Might Tell You Tonight do (as you may recall). The Black Sheep of the album is perhaps Rosé, a song I recently found out is about “love and alcohol,” but even so I can find meaning in the lyrics that relates to myself. This now officially makes me a Hypocrite (well, more of a Hypocrite) as I absolutely hate people who know that Birdhouse In Your Soul is about a Nite Lite but decide instead to believe it is a song about God.

I love this album. I’ve heard that the Feeling are working on a second album and the moment it comes out I will jump on it like a lion on a zebra, clawing away at the flesh and chewing the delicious audio within. Or something. Demon Days was my favourite album. Perhaps it still is. But Twelve Stops and Home is My Album.

What’s yours?

Earlier in the week - it might have been Thursday, actually - I ventured into town to… er… well, I’ve forgotten why. I think it was mostly out of boredom. Unemployment generally means you don’t do much. As most of my things are now packed away to go to Los Angeles, I’d decided I wasn’t going to spend money on Big Things I’d Have To Take With Me. Instead, I decided to buy some music. Music is good. Music fits very nicely on my iPod, and the CD cases are relatively small so they can go in my luggage without a problem.

I bought some music I’d been meaning to grab for some time. Firstly, and most importantly, I snagged Twelve Stops And Home by The Feeling, who are an utterly superb band. I was worried that they would be one of those bands who have really great singles but indefinably shit albums. Fortunately their album is full of cracking tunes. Fantastic.

I also picked up Stadium Arcadium because I came to the shocking realisation that I didn’t own any Red Hot Chili Peppers. And you can’t not like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They’re all kinds of awesome, as Stadium Arcadium proves.

Finally, I grabbed the soundtrack to The Matrix, because it has a few good tunes on it, and the soundtrack to Hot Fuzz which is easily the best soundtrack I have ever picked up anywhere ever.

It’s a shame, I don’t usually buy as much music as I’d like to. Before these albums, the last musical purchase I made was the Frays’ single How To Save a Life, and before that it was a cornucopia of CDs which Amy decided to keep. I think I will set a new rule - buy two albums every month, Or Else. That seems fair.

On the off-chance that anyone from either EA Games, Pogo.com, or Bizarre Creations happens to stumble upon my website, might I suggest you make the soundtrack to your incredible music rhythm game Boom Boom Rocket available either to download for free (as Free Redical Design have done with the ever-awesome TimeSplitters Trilogy soundtrack) or, if nothing else, at least put it up for sale on iTunes or something. I must have that music!

Thank you for your time.

How long have Free Radical Design had their games’ soundtracks up as free downloads on their website? What a find - the TimeSplitters soundtracks are utterly sublime. I suggest you get onto their website and download them all. Or else.

The frontend theme for Civilization IV has overtaken the opening theme to Final Fantasy VI as my favourite piece of music from a computer game. It’s a superb piece of music which has tons of layers that build up the further into the song you go, which is something I really appreciate in good music. The tune currently holds pride of place in my PSP’s MUSIC folder, which I don’t think is something I’ve ever done with any of the arrangements of the FFVI theme I’ve had. You can read a bit more about the Civ4 theme, “Baba Yetu”, on this blog, and you can download the song itself here.

In other news, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time is good, but not as good as Superstar Saga and nowhere near as good as Super Mario RPG.