SteveStreeting.com

I don’t know if this is particularly British thing, but the ‘QuizCom’ has been a staple here for many years. If the term is alien to you, a QuizCom is notionally a ‘quiz show’, except that no-one actually gives a flying monkeys about the score and it’s really just a vehicle for comedy - sometimes topical, often satirical. One of our TV channels ‘Dave’ made January ‘QuizCom month’ and showed loads of them, and it’s always fun to catch. Here are my favourites:

• Never Mind the Buzzcocks - this one is for the music lovers, has been going for over 10 years now, and is probably my all-time favourite. Unfortunately the show’s fantastic long-time host Mark Lamarr, moved on in 2005 and it hasn’t quite been the same since; the new regular Simon Amstell hasn’t really stepped out of Lamarr’s huge shadow yet, although the show has had some good guest hosts, notably Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs did a pretty good job. Bill Bailey and Phil Jupitus are reliable stalwarts though, and the writing is still good even without Lamarr’s particular acerbic edge.
•  QI - the relative newcomer but I’ve grown to like this one a lot; this time the theme is unusual and slightly geeky trivia. Because you get negative points for answering with the ‘obvious’ or widely accepted answer (that’s actually untrue), it’s not uncommon for most people to finish with negative scores - not that anyone cares. Stephen Fry is of course always superb, and Alan Davies is a perfect foil to his intellectual bent (no, that’s not a euphemism).
• Have I Got News For You - the granddaddy of them all - it’s been running for about 18 years now and doesn’t show any sign of stopping. Hyper-satirical look at the week’s news by Paul Merton and Ian Hislop (of  Private Eye) which is a must if you’re at all interested in current events. Long-time host Angus Deaton got fired when he got into a sex & drugs scandal which meant the panel was taking the piss out of him more than the news on the show, but a string of quality guest hosts has kept it going. Probably famous for launching Boris Johnson’s career as the country’s ‘lovable political buffoon’.

I don’t watch lots of TV, but I can always make a bit of time for Buzzcocks or QI especially. Class.

PS3ology

If you missed the whole Tom Cruise Scientology vid thing last week, best go look it up first, since this is just sending that up.

Portal’s ‘Still Alive’ - covered by an 8080

Ok, let’s be clear - Rez HD coming to the 360 on XBLA is a good thing, I’m sure I’ll end up adding it to my growing XBLA collection - Pac Man Championship Edition is one of my favourite I’ve-got-15-minutes-spare games of all time, and Marie can’t seem to ever stop playing Zuma. If we’re really, really lucky, it might be the free game Microsoft will toss our way in recompense for the shaky Live service recently (which has gotten better, but it’s still pretty sluggish at peak times here), although that’s probably military-grade wishful thinking on my part.

One version of the original Rez was bundled with a ‘trance vibrator’ in Japan (where else), a device which buzzed in time to the music. According to its creator it wasn’t supposed to be sexual (er, nice name then), but an exploration of synaesthesia - something that is barely plausible in one of those weird gaming seats, but when you make it a small handheld device? Who are they kidding - of course this being the Internet where news travels fast and filth fastest of all, it wasn’t long before it was being reviewed in its alternate context.

Allegedly Rez HD won’t offer support for the old device, but instead may allow every additional 360 controller to operate as a ‘trance vibrator’ via the rumble reature - that’s 3, all potentially wireless. The mind boggles. At least the game is being offered via a download service so you don’t have to take it home from the shop in a brown paper bag.

Edit: Of course, Penny Arcade does it funnier.

I probably shouldn’t keep linking these because I’m getting predictable, but they’re so bloody brilliant I can’t help it (even when he is bashing a game I’m personally still looking forward to playing).

The music at the start made me think how great ‘A Little Less Conversation’ would be as a Rock Band track…

I’m still sick as a dog, merely the form of my illness has changed - I’m now onto the ‘coughing until you’re sure you ejected a major organ’ stage. 

In my semi-vegetative state I’ve made my way through one and a half books and way too much TV, owing to the fact that my clogged brain can’t cope with anything more demanding. However, it’s not all bad since it led me by pure chance to be watching ‘Dave’ (a TV channel over here - don’t ask why) when something exquisite appeared:

Yes, it’s the worlds only hand-farting duet performing the Mexican Hat Dance. Truly inspired, and you can’t help but admire the technical skill involved - at least I would have done had I been able to see through my tears of laughter and been able to stop coughing my lungs out.

Gentlemen, I salute you.

This cheered me up a bit today after feeling thoroughly rubbish all day: Camelot have had to withdraw some scratch cards because some punters are too dumb to understand negative numbers. When told that to win you have to reveal a number (a temperature) lower than one printed on the card, some consumers were outraged that they were told that they hadn’t won when they scratched off a -6 when the number they had to get lower than was -8.

"I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8, but I’m not having it." said one mentally challenged woman from the Manchester area. "I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression - the card doesn’t say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled."

If all it takes to be ‘misled’ is to have a total lack of primary school level numeracy, it’s a wonder these people can tie their shoes in the morning - but I guess that’s why slip-ons were invented.

ZeroPunctuation is always good, but this one had me choking on my tea. Pure class:

Edit: seems like some people got a little upset about the political satire in this episode. Really, if you don’t like political satire, or you get defensive when sweeping and exaggerated generalisations are made about something you’re associated with (country, religeon, ethnic group) for the purposes of comedy, you really should stay away from edgier material and go watch some banal family-friendly sitcom instead.

A friend pointed me at these this weekend and they are absolutely bloody hilarious. The Escapist hosts a rather off-the-wall video commentary on games called Zero Punctuation, written by a British ex-pat now living in Australia. It’s traditional fast-talking dead-pan British wit, so if you like that kind of thing I can’t recommend these enough.

His Bioshock critique is really funny - as much as I love this game he’s right to point out that it basically is System Shock 2 with the difficulty turned down, a ripped off Fallout retro style atmosphere and the plot changed. Not that I care, nothing has engaged me like it since SS2 anyway, but the ribbing he gives it is very funny 

I also couldn’t help cheering for his Psychonauts review. A man after my own heart there.

He also has a website of his own at www.fullyramblomatic.com

I saw this linked on Raphs blog and just had to post it here too, it’s inspired. It’s a custom level for Super Mario World on the SNES (perhaps the best platform game, ever), where the only way to win is to do absolutely nothing at all:

I dread to think how long this took to set up! It’s the video game equivalent of domino toppling…

Another case of YouTube being able to lead the user to interesting cultural history lessons:

Ballmer’s Sales Pitch for Windows 1.0

Remember kids, never buy anything from a crazy man with unbelievably bad dress sense, even for 1985. And this particular crazy man now controls one of the richest corporate entities in the world - you would have thought he would have calmed down over the years, but clearly not:

Is he for real? Or do they just routinely issue amphetamines to all MS top brass? And who are all those morons whooping his crazed antics? It’s like feeding time at the chimp enclosure. I imagine that if you’re a Microsoft employee having a CEO that cavorts around like this must be quite embarrassing, and perhaps it leads to some ribbing at cross-company parties? If you work at Apple you have Steve Jobs, a generally fairly reserved and dignified chap whilst still managing to hype his products, if you’re with Oracle you’ve got Larry Ellison, a pretty domineering, overbearing chap but at least he doesn’t think he’s a rock star. I can only imagine the ‘Oh God, he’s not going to do it again is he?’ thoughts that must run through the heads of more balanced MS employees on the eve of a conference