Reviews of some shite I've enjoyed/hated over the last few months #1 - Fleetwood Mac 10th July

Fleetwood Mac

The O2 Arena was absolutely roasting so that was really nice - not. It was a lovely day in Dublin and an even better night but it was absolutely packed compared to when I went in 2013. I had to pay for tap water which was just great, while the tiny beers were over-priced.

The Chain

What a fantastic way to open the show; I'm glad I didn't check the setlist beforehand as I was absolutely blown away.

You Make Loving Fun

Probably my favourite song by Christine McVie & sorely missing in 2013. The jaunty keyboard and the brilliant and still strong Lindsey/Christine duets made this rock.

Dreams

Stevie Nicks is my least favourite member of the Mac but she wrote some damn good songs. Her voice was a little stronger this time around and her classic break-up piece was probably her best moment.

Second Hand News

I'm 23 and only became a Mac fan at 19 but damn I was super excited when this came on. Lindsey is now the tank of the group and he did not disappoint. I mention the age thing there as I was surrounded by people in the 30-50 mark and they didn't recognise this while I was singing along proudly.

Rhiannon

One of Stevie's old power performances; I don't usually mind when artists mix up their own lyrics for creativity sake but it was a little jarring when the creator of the song seemed to forget her own song.

Everywhere

Christine again and it was fantastic - can you tell she's my favourite member of the group and I'm delighted that she's back?

I Know I'm Not Wrong

I'd never heard of this one before but it was a nice catchy breather.

Tusk

I used to avoid this song but Lindsey has become such a massive presence now that I could not ignore it and this was no exception - bombastic, in your face and full of energy. The crowd loved it.

Sisters of the Moon

Not my favourite Stevie song but she put a lot more into this one than other more mainstream hits so maybe she is more on my level than I give her credit for.

Say You Love Me

Another excellent Christine track in a series of excellent Chris hits. She did not get nearly enough time.

Acoustic Set - Lindsay and Stevie

Can't remember this? I just copy pasted the set list so I don't know, it's September now.

Big Love  (Lindsay Solo)

Always goes down well with the crowd though I had felt it in previous songs that the music wasn;t carrying well enough to the upper rafters or the sound equipment was a little off as a lot of the subtle little changes in this song were lost. It was more epic in 2013 when Chris wasn't there and Lindsey was carrying the whole team.

Landslide

Very sweet as always and perhaps a little less known (though still big) so Stevie really threw herself more into this one.

Never Going Back Again

Another less well known oldie of Lindsey's that the old folks didn't seem to know and I was all over! I loved it, really fun and he played us along with it, slowing down and speeding up and carrying everyone to the end



Over My Head

A lesser known Chris song that I adore all the more for. Heh.

Gypsy

Probably my favourite Stevie song that I felt she didn't try as much in but damn the visuals in the back and the support work by the band helped make one of her better songs of the night.

Little Lies

Probably the band and Christine's biggest hit in the 1980's; probably hasn;t aged as well live as other songs, again I felt something about the sound was being lost either due to technical fault or just the fact I was sitting so far back I could barely make out their faces.

Gold Dust Woman

A kind of mid to upper level popularity hit that Stevie spiced up with some lyric changes mid song but apparently she does that more often than I think.

I'm So Afraid

Again this was something that was a highlight in 2013 but not so much needed or obvious now in 2015, still great to see the mad man with the guitar work the crowd.

Go Your Own Way

Gah yet another one that was MASSIVE in 2013, like so much better than anything and then here it just got lost in with the rest somehow, perhaps the heat of teh crowd and the time of the evening just allowed this one to pass by. Again, sound issues may have reduced it a bit; next time I may try standing.

Encore:World Turning (Including drum solo)

They went away and they came back as planned, yay... Anyway it was really energetic this time and all three singers got involved while Mick's drum solo didn't last as long this time so everyone was happy.

Don't Stop

Probably the one damn song I care less for because everyone else is all over it - the crowd goes wild and old hipster me goes I'm sitting down... oh wait EVERYONE else is standing up here, feck it, I'm not that bitter yet at all at all. It was good, moving on.

Silver Springs

Stevie was always bitter about this being canned on Rumours to make space for everything else and it being a B side to Go Your Ow Way was another thing but it was very slow and sweet and probably one of her finest moments leaving us all thinking she's still got it. If they actually write something after all this I'll let her off.

Encore 2: Songbird (Christine with Lindsay on Guitar)

One of my favourite songs non-live but live it was grand; her on the wheel out piano him on a nice acoustic guitar. It was fine, solid stuff.

Mick Fleetwood came out and stated that the Mac was most definitely back after crediting everyone; I made sure to give John McVie all the noise I could muster, what a solid guy. I ran off and got a bus back to Galway as I was literally only there for the evening but after bussing back and forth between Belfast and Galway via Dublin Airport like five times in a row in 2014 travelling don't bother me much.

So 4/5 or 8/10 whatever floats your boat. Coming from a huge fan of the Mac the 2013 show was great but flawed while the 2015 show had Christine McVie but seemed to be somehow less than the sum of its parts. I feel a third and final show in a few years will settle me but ultimately I can't wait to see them live again so I can determine whether they've still got it or is it just all about the money now.

YouTube 'Shuffleall' playlist, a history of my musical tastes 2006-2015

I'm not much of a historian but I do like two types of history: macro-history, the really big stuff and the story of me... fine I'll type it... me-story. The Me-Story of Eoghan Fallon, I'll write that after the Zodiac Trilogy and the Necut Chronicles. Maybe after I write a thesis on Babylonian bureaucracy or Neo-Heartland Theory and drown in all the political science.

Anyway, YouTube. And years. Time? 2015 is a good number. 2014 is OK, 2013 not so much. 2012 had a nice symmetry to it while 2011 was an unexpected delight. 2010 was pretty damn good all the way through and 2009 was definitely the start of something. My college years and now encapsulated in rambling text about a few numbers.

YouTube! I've been on it since 2006. I watched a few things before they were famous. Little Kuriboh, I followed his stuff up until the Noah arc. He quoted one of my comments in one of his extra videos - simpler times! I used YouTube to listen to music. I remember listening to Fire by Arthur Brown over and over again in 2007. I was entranced by the Ultimate Showdown (of Ultimate Destiny) in 2006. Using Google Videos (heh) and YouTube I managed to catch up on Red vs. Blue from 2008. Zero Punctuation - I hated it at first but then I grew to like the man behind the videos. YouTube!

It's interesting to look at my shuffle playlist and get a sense of time passing. It seems to start before 2009 with a host of wrestling theme songs, probably added for nostalgia's sake. That's certainly why I listen to them now, seeing as I only properly watched wrestling from 2002 to 2004. I was 10 when I started and 12 when it went off Sky on Saturdays!

Obligatory Linkin Park 'In the End' and Lady Gaga 'Paparazzi' aside further down we get into 2009 hits that I probably heard while out in 2010, like Florence + the Machine Lungs stuff and classic sexy stuff like 'Strutter' by Kiss. 'You've Got The Love', 'Howl' and 'Hurricane Drunk' are all there from Florence. I really liked the GTA San Andreas soundtrack so a lot of the K Rose and K DST stuff is there. Plenty of stuff from the heady 2010-2011 days before I left for Finland.

Not much was added in Finland 2011-2012 but some Irish nostalgia crap starts to come in like B*witched creeps in along with a ton of girl (-bands), prominently Girls Aloud (my Scottish room mates influence) and the rise of Katy Perry. I first watched The Wire in the snow of February-March in 2012 in Finland so all the seasons themes are present. Strong sprinklings of Kylie Minogue (all manifestations) are throughout the list, though more appear around this time.

Really new stuff that I might have seen in adverts and such start to appear, certainly Adele with Skyfall and Lykke Li in the camera ads bring along 2013. Carlae Rae Jepsen rubs shoulders with the likes of Bowie and ELO. Nicki Minaj and that catchy Radioactive song. 2013 was kind of steamy in a different way so Florence + The Machine appears again as we were back in the clubs and bars for a time.

Bond themes and nostalgia seem to pick up again in 2014 given the decline in my mood and supposed fortunes.A few Romanian classics and current stuff were picked up from my trip there in the summer - Delia A lu' Mamaia was playing EVERYWHERE in June 2014 in Romania, from the Carpathians to the Black Sea Coast. A big pile of oldies and Fleetwood Mac appear toward the last quarter of the playlist, probably just to include them in the shuffle. Woo! I was also writing my thesis/finishing the MA/not enjoying summer much/dying inside at this time, so probably good to cling to what's good.

Lorde and Taylor Swift seem to mark the post-thesis era, the long unemployment time. I was an Extra in Game of Thrones around here, so more Paul Simon and wrestling stuff appear for my Belfast trips. The winter of 2014 and early 2015 are when I watched and re-watched Reeling in the Years so a big pile of music from 1970's (John Denver) 1980's (Phil Collins) through to 1995 (Republica, though I first binged on them when I was leaving Finland in 2012) and so much 2000's junk appears. Coldplay good, others so-so and guilty pleasures like Avril Lavigne and t.A.T.u..Definitely a more upbeat collection as I sought to rebuild myself by travelling through time with music until I reached the present - then I stopped listening because oh gods current stuff.

We're doing better, getting better! I know how it feels to be in opposition in a parliament, almost 5 years on the sidelines, definitely making an effort to get back in control of my life recently (April onward).

The Enemy Within

I've had a bit of wine in the last hour or two so pardon this post.

Game went really well, Cathy and Royce were superb despite all the constraints like time and energy.

I would like to run this game for newbies in future, perhaps in the near future at Kelly's or FanSci.

The Galway Vindicator

This was the name of a newspaper in Galway that had a limited run around the early 1900's, it was a liberal nationalist paper. In my microfilm readings I never looked at it because it didn't stretch as far as my research (1918-1919) so I just noted how many reels NUIG had.

I was the Galway Walker for 6 years until I realised I don't walk nearly as much as I did when I was 16. I switched to being the Galway Gamer until I remembered that I certainly am not the definitive one, being a self-hating Irishman with no money and lots of responsibility. So now I am named after a long dead newspaper, but I like it for now!

Game Genres I like and some thoughts on modern video games

I owned an original Game Boy in the 1990's, the old block used to belong to my older siblings. I played Mario and Wario on it. I got a Nintendo 64, my first console, for Christmas one year with Goldeneye 64. Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time and Lylat Wars would all follow. I never owned Mario 64 though I played it quite extensively on two friends' consoles. I played Age of Empires 1 and later 2 as well as Sims on PC around the same time. Pokemon came out the year I got a Game Boy Color for Christmas so all was all. One day my Dad walked in with a SNES he got at work and an assortment of games.

I have played a lot of games. I have also owned a lot of different platforms and still have all of them. My foundations may be in Nintendo but after 2006-7 I never forgave them and switched to my Xbox and later the 360 came out and made it all the sweeter. I loved the N64 and the GameCube but having been spoiled by them I couldn't face the Wii and its focus on kiddy and casual games. Around this time I also started playing the PS2 extensively and had played the PS1 on and off for a few years prior and my favourites were Final Fantasy, Silent Hill and all the wacky Japanese titles that came on the market for that platform. I wanted to keep growing up with my consoles and the gimmicky motion controls and appeal to family and newcomers coming from the Wii served to alienate me anyway.

So genres; first person and third person shooters are fine by me; I'm not a huge fan of 3D platformers but I love 2D ones; I love real time and turn based strategies, particularly 4X games; I dislike browser games, probably because one sucked away months my life on two different occasions; I don't really like mobile games or tablet games in general, I have no interest in them; my last handheld was a Game Boy Advance and the last game I bought for it was Pokémon Sapphire - if I really want to play these I'll get an emulator; racing games are OK; I'm not a big fan of fighting games though I have a soft spot for Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur; I love RPGs of all kinds, especially those open world ones currently on the market like Fallout and Elder Scrolls.

I never really got the console wars, they never got to me either - Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all the same. They have their ups and their downs; the Wii U seems to be undergoing a Renaissance of sorts while the other two seem to have hit a ceiling of frames per seconds. They look amazing, but I'm not ready to switch from the 360 to the Xbone just yet, seeing as they are still making games for the former. I was slightly intrigued by the PS4 exclusives but never having played MGS properly I don't really care, while all my old franchises seem to be just releasing more and more of the same: Halo, Gears and Assassins Creed are either finished in my mind or stuck in a rut.

The PC has long been a staple for me. I'm no elitist, all I played on them for over a decade was Age of Empires 1,2,3 and Age of Wonders, an old TBS favourite of mine. I played all the original Sims and its expansions as well as the Sims 2; once you play the latter its very hard to go back to #1. It's only in recent years (2009 onward) that I've owned the entire Fallout series, Borderlands 1, Dragon Age Origins and a number of other titles. In very recent history I've sold my soul and bank card to Steam and have bought a dozen titles. I have friends IRL on Steam who have over a hundred games but I'm not sure how many of them bar one of two have actually played all of them. I really like the idea of buying a desktop in another year or two and basing myself entirely off that, even if its only to play 15 year old turn based strategies in glorious HD.

I'm not sure what I think about the current YouTube Let's Plays and 'personalities' among other things; I like some LPs on games that catch my eye and I want to see them played but I would rarely or never watch one about a game I own unless there was some sort of hook to it or something amusing happened at some point in the video. I am not that surprised that there are people on the internet playing games for other people to watch and they make their living this was, especially if it's Twitch TV and people will throw money at you.

Ramble over, will post again.

Necut as a wiki entry - copied from the wikia

The fourth planet of the Plerojam System in the Galactic South-West. It is a terrestrial planet but it surrounded by a dense magical cloud which gives it a brown-hue. It is slightly larger than Earth and part of the 'genetic code' of the planet is thought to be inspired by Earth as well.

Etymology

Composition and structure

Orbit and rotation

Habitability

Cultural and historical viewpoint

Chronology

Moons, Asteroids and artificial satellites

Etymology

Necut was the name of the planet according to the original inhabitants and their rulers, a race of demigod-avians. Upon the arrival of the Six Gods they destroyed the original world and remade it to their liking, utilising various scripts including Earth's to create their ideal base. Sealed in by the Allies, they re-iterated the name of the planet to their followers and what remained of the original inhabitants.

When the Elven Expeditionary Force set out for the planet-field they dubbed it Yondera II, with Yondera being used for millenia afterward.

Composition and structure

Owing to the presence of the mana field, Necut is a perfect spheroid, not suffering from the effects of gravitational pull naturally yet the planet itself obeys the laws of gravity by the Gods' and the Allies' intervention. This was done to aid intervention should the mana field fall and the Six Gods attempt to rule the galaxy once again.

Like other terrestrial planets Necut is divided into a crust, mantle and core. It is thought to have a unique if unremarkable composition, somewhere between how the planet formed naturally and after being destroyed and rebuilt.

The Earth God Mozeth took care to manufacture the internal processes of the planet properly and tectonic plates are utilised in his system. The greatest zone of separation is in the Emerald Ocean while the Teranese Ocean is extremely volcanic.

Necut is quite rich in water (65%), not quite so much as Earth (70%) and is certainly drier. The mana field created unstable weather formations at the highest altitudes resulting in Allied and later Six God manipulation, cutting short the Ice Ages.

Orbit and rotation

Rotation of Necut relative to the Plerojam Sun is thought to be roughly 18 to 24 hours.

It takes about 360 to 370 days for Necut to orbit the Sun.

Necut was more severely tilted axially prior to re-construction but the Six Gods returned it to a near-perfect axis, resulting in only one month of polar night/day being observed in the North and South Poles a year.

Habitability

Necut supported life without intervention, while a number of animal and plant species were lost forever in the process of reconstruction, yet more were lost attempting to adjust to the addition of the Six Gods' respective servant races.

While still one of only two sites in the system that can support life, it has diminished considerably in comparison to Zutrillia, so much so that only the Gods' intervention and Elven invasion restored some of the balance. The lasting legacy of the planet's mismanagement are the numerous semi-barren plains situated across the planet.

Necut is relatively stable in the Western Hemisphere, while the Eastern Hemisphere is affected largely by monsoon-style rains, hurricanes, tornadoes and volcanic eruptions. The Western Hemisphere landmasses tend to suffer a number of earthquakes in the interior where various plates meet.

In the modern era there are only a small number of states though hundreds existed in earlier periods. There are many nationalities but few states and fewer nation-states. Necut has never been ruled by one world government, though the Council of Necut was established after the Great Elven War to avoid forming one by bloodshed.

Cultural and historical viewpoint

While originally some millions of years old, Necut is now technically 6000 years old if dated from the Six Gods being imprisoned there. Only the last 2900 years are recorded in Myrnan history, with the previous 3000 years roughly recorded between the Six Elder Races (6000) and the Elves (4500 years).

Possession of the meta-knowledge of the planet's existence was deliberately kept from the Elder Races and the Myrnans, while the Elven Expedition lost much of its archives after a period of barbarism. Knowledge of the planes was slowly mapped out, with the biggest advances in the earliest period when the Gods were still active and competing with each other and after the rise of the mage-gene.

Chronology

The formation of Necut was not mapped by the Federation or the Empire, or any other power in the region. It is presumed to have followed a similar course to Earth though more research into the original Necut would be required to confirm this.

An Ice Age was brought on by extreme weather from the mana field, which resulted in Allied assistance being rendered. There have been no other incidents similar to that since. The Air Goddess Ailzor froze a large portion of the Eastern Hemisphere roughly 5500 years ago, causing huge disruption while bizarrely reviving some of the original avian inhabitants of the planet. It was ended soon after after the other Gods attacked.

Ailzor's defeat and the end of her Ice Age resulted in a general warming of the planet for the next 5000 years, with temperatures set to rise - this is not relative to the heat of Plerojam's sun, which is older than that of the Solar System and has risen hugely. It is believed the mana field protects Necut from the sun's rays, while Zutrillia and the Earth Federation must consider countering global warming and the Elven Empire endure cooling.

Moons asteroids and artificial satellites

Necut has one large moon and roughly three or four smaller moons. These smaller satellites are probably more accurately described as asteroids, though they do have a small influence in certain periods of the year.

Federation probes noted on the last visit that all was well but Elven probes between 4500 and 1500 noted the presence of an artificial satellite thought to have originated from the planet itself, which was a partial reason for their expedition.

Stopped Ogame... again

This game takes up way too much time that I don't have. I'm due to start my TEFL course online very soon and in addition to potty-training Theo this week I can't continue doing raids and supervising mining and such. I put my account on vacation mode, so that maybe in a few weeks I can go back and play again.

At night I play some games on Steam or if I'm at home for the weekend I'm almost finished LA Noire on the 360, fun interactive story game.