Seeing MUSE live at Acer Arena on the 9th of December 2010 was the greatest night of my life, period. I thought I should post every memory I currently have of the night online just in case I forget them at some point in time. So here it is. I've included links to videos of each song throughout the post. Be warned it is long, but to those who read it, enjoy!

-Driving to Sydney with my friend all the way from Newcastle, blasting Muse songs non-stop
-Arriving at my cousins
-Getting into the car with my cousins and making our way to Acer Arena.
-~6:30pm Arriving at Acer Arena, unbelievably excited.
- Buying my Muse T-shirt, talking with some random girls in the line.
- Wearing my Abso T-shirt I got from Parklea Markets anyway :P
- Showing the guy my GA Standing ticket and running down those stairs and corridors like it was the most urgent thing in the world.
- 7:20pm Finally reaching the floor of the arena, the smoke, the colossal three towers, the red/orange tinge to everything.
- Paying like $4.00 for a bottle of water.
- Talking with my cousins and my friend about Muse.
- The lights going off for the first time.
- Getting my ear drums blown out by Biffy Clyro.:evil:Stupid mixing.
- Having my ears ring for about 10 minutes.
- 'Battle Royale' by Does it Offend You, Yeah? coming on the speakers as well as Rage against the machine, getting pumped as I knew they were coming on any minute now.
- Lights going off for the last time, (UNBELIEVEABLY FREAKING EXCITED!) the mad rush towards the stage, full of anticipation:D
- I'm about in the centre of the mosh right now, about 15 metres from barrier

-We Are The Universecomes on, the silhouettes are walking up the stairs on the towers, INSANELY PUMPED AND EXCITED
-People on towers start falling, I start yelling at the top of my lungs!
- Curtains fall down, I'm just like WOAH!:shock:

-Uprising, the whole mosh pit is so packed that it moved as one entity, so unbelieveably happy right now
-Matt's up there on the tower in his wacky Kanye-like sunglasses and his silver suit, pointing at random members of the audience
-The visuals are red and awesome with footage of Dom drumming on the towers.
- I lost my cousins and my friend already, I tried to stay with them but it was impossible. Whatever, I'm having the time of my life, I'll just go with wherever the mosh take me

-Resistanceis playing, I'm starting to fear it's going to be a really safe setlist, but i'm enjoying the hell out of it anyway.

-New Borncomes on, WOW.:shock: :DSuch a big hitter THIS early on in the setlist? This night is going to be amazing.
- Lasers galore, I remember looking back and seeing the lasers form this amazing pattern on the back wall.
- That riff blew my freaking mind!
- I'm like 3 metres from the barrier already!:D

-Map of the Problematiqueup next, *drools* this was probably the first song that got me really into Muse, I'm loving every second of this. Greatest night EVER status already just 3 songs in!

-Supermassive Black Hole: Awesome.

-Interlude + Hysteria:HOLY **** *drools even more* pure aural sex (does that sound wrong? lol), watching and hearing Chris tear that **** up on his bass in person was just MIND-BLOWING.

-Nishe: I was getting pretty tired by this point, so it was a great rest song, Great fun just to sway and clap along with the rest of the Musers.

- Matt makes his dedication to Julian Assange, I'm just thinking "YES!!! MAT YOU JUST GOT EVEN MORE AWESOME!" and then he whips around and starts playingCITIZEN ERASED.CITIZEN ****ING ERASED.

HOLY !^@VDKSAG(^#!@(^#@*!$^@*)!#@$*)#&$*!@&)&@$*#)&$#*) @#*$)& #@YHEJFBDJBFAUCB )*YDS*)YDFSAND_)C &{|KSD}|M@|#WXM()

I've pretty much lost it at this moment, going absolutely freaking insane. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Everything was just epic. The **** and the chorus were just plain awesome, and the breakdown was just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

- Collateral Damage Intro + United States of Eurasia: Can't remember much, just that the Collateral Damage intro was just beautiful, and absolutely everyone was singing out loud at the top of their lungs during USoE, great moment.

-Sunburn:OH MY GOD. WHAT EVEN. MIND = BLOWN EVEN MORE. GREATEST NIGHT EVER. That solo was just inexplicably AMAZING, I couldn't even comprehend how incredible it was.

-Helsinki Jam:I loved that bass line, and Dom's drumming is just superb. It's funny how Chris ends being the coolest looking band member on stage and he actually does the least actions on stage, no spinning, no knee slides or anything, he just takes a wide stance and headbangs like there's no tommorrow.:lol:

-Undisclosed Desires:While still great it was probably the weakest point of the night, but at least the crowd was still enough for me to record the whole song :lol:The lasers were great, I remember being so close to the barrier that I got sprayed by water quite a few times. :-D

-Housing of the Rising Sun Intro + Time is Running Out:Everyone sang along to House of the Rising Sun, and it was at that moment it hit me just how hardcore everyone in the mosh pit was. Best night, amazing setlist, and kickass crowd.
Time Is Running Out was just awesome, I can't remember much of it though, except singing (badly :P) at the top of my lungs for the whole thing, like I did with every other song:lol:

-Vuilstamen riff + Starlight:I don't remember anything of this, at all. I think I heard girls screaming, but the audience was quite tame during this song I think. I have no idea what the Vuilstamen riff is.

-Plug In Baby:*makes epic drooling motion* ****ing epic. and BALLOONS. Freaking BALLOONS. That was so awesome. I jumped as high as I could and I got within like a centimetre of touching one :(still great fun though. The confetti stuff in the eye balloons and watching the crowd tear them apart in other places of the crowd was pretty cool, but I wish I did it with them.

I don't know if it was this song but there was one crowd surfer who kicked me in the back of the head as all of us Musers just pushed him to the barrier where he was taken by security :lol:

- The break before the encore. I knew they were coming back, but I was chanting Muse with the others anyway.

-Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture):They got back up on their towers once again, what a fantastic audio/visual experience. The visuals on the towers were just incredible.

-Stockholm Syndrome:HELL TO THE YEAH!!! I got insanely pumped during this song, holy crap it was just EPIC. The mosh was at it peak intensity during this song I think.
I don't know if it was this song but I remember my area of the mosh having waves where people behind us would run in and compress all of us, and then we'd all move back as we repelled them backwards : P

-Knights of Cydonia + Man with a Harmonica:The Grand finale. This was just brilliant. As soon as Chris started playing his Harmonica everyone knew exactly what was about to be played, such a brilliant intro. And then Knights kicks in, freaking EPIC!!! A brilliant closer, it was just the band rocking the **** out of the arena, it could not have been better to be honest. Everything about it was just more epic than I could have ever imagined.
-I remember at one point Chris was looking directly at me, I was just like 8)
Also there was a mosh circle right next to me, just full of random guys just running at each other, about 20 seconds later they all just stopped fighting and started dancing as they skipped around the circle:lol:it was pretty awesome.
- "No ones going to take me alive" that whole bit with the entire arena chanting along was just brilliant, and then the epic **** at the end. TOO MIND-BLOWINGLY INCREDIBLY INDESCRIBABLY AMAZING.

- And then the gig was over. :(The greatest night of my life. :D

Words cannot describe my love for this show, but i'll do my best.

Community is a comedy about Jeff Winger,a suspended lawyer who was forced back into school after his college degree is deemed invalid by the state bar association because his degree is from Colombia, not Columbia University (which he deems "better than real"). He then forms a Spanish study group in order to seduce ****ate Britta Perry, who brings along some other spanish students which forms the study group that the show revolves around.

What grabs me about this show is how smart, witty, sharp and spot-on the humour is. There are numerous pop-culture references in the show (the study group is essentially a nod to the Breakfast Club), and the show is constantly self-aware, from Abed continually relating antics between the group to films and TV shows to Jeff hating Glee (it gets filmed right after Community) which makes it all the more hilarious. This is a show that rewards you for paying attention.

Another great strength of this show is the excellent cast. The cast is without doubt the most diverse I have ever seen in a TV show, nearly every creed is represented here and their stereotypes made fun of, from Pierce Hawthorn (Chevy Chase) the racist, obliviously ignorant, and obnoxious old man, Britta (Gillian Jacobs) the feminist hipster/buzzkill, Shirley (Yvette Nicole Smith) the sweet divorced christian housewife with rage issues and Ian Duncan (John Oliver) the witty british professor. The bromance between Troy Barnes (Donald Glover) and Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) proves to be one of the most hilarious things on the air, both actors play each role perfectly and are flat out hilarious, as you can see here,hereandhere.

Ken Jeong also stars as deluded spanish teacher Señor Chang (yes you heard that right), and proves to be one of the most hilarious characters on the show. Every cast member is fantastic.

One thing that this show can do that other shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and Modern Family can't do are the pure-awesome "stunt" episodes that this show can pull off. It can pull things like the Goodfellas episode (Contemporary American Poultry) and the hilariously self aware cliche-ridden Paintball episode (Modern Warfare) while still remaining within the shows scope, while also delivering standard fare special episodes such as the Halloween and Christmas episodes while putting a Community-esque hilarious spin to them and not being ignorant of any other cultures. The first season escalated during it's second half with these and other hilarious/epic episodes essentially has imprinted itself on my brain because I watch it so much.

Community is a show that you go to watch one episode and end up watching 5 more. It's a show that has jokes that are witty and smart enough that you constantly replay different parts over and over again in your head. It's original, witty, smart and great to watch, and it's without a doubt the best show to watch on TV right now.

10/10

I don't like Sony's Platinum PS3 cases that much. I don't like them at all. In fact i hate them. Sony goes from those stylish PS2 platinum cases with red platinum badges to the horrible mix of yellow, black and silver that is this:

...

I refuse to buy one of these abominations.This worked for a while, but then i had an urge to get into the Uncharted series, and the first one has gone platinum.

So i did the unthinkable:

I actually bought a game from Dick Smith. The game has been out for over 3 years and it was still $50. This is the only neat thing about them - Their prices are so high that no-one buys games from them, so they still have original cases on sale(i saw MGS4 collector's/carboard case edition up there aswell). When i bought it they tried to give me the Platinum case, but i turned it down and i asked for the non-plat case on display. I still have a platinum disc but it was worth the premium i reckon. Platinum PS3 cases are a disgrace. They should simply have the US Greatest Hits boxes instead.

Will you join me in my crusade?

It's been hailed as one of the greatest series of all time and MGS4 is considered a must play for anyone with a PS3, but i outright refuse to jump into a sequel without experiencing the previous games.

The problem is, how do i do it with Metal Gear Solid?

The actual discs of the PS2 games go for way higher than MGS4 does now, most around $50 or more because of their rarity, and i don't feel like paying that much for the games.

There are two routes i can go with this:

-Get Metal Gear Solid 1 on PSN and get the others off friends and then buy MGS4 on PS3

OR

-Buy a US PS2 and get the Metal Gear Solid Collection on PS2 and MGS4 on PS3

I'm thinking of going the US route but Play-Asia stopped selling it :evil: so i need some ideas.

Any help?

AFTERMATH: Guess what, i won a copy of MAG. best of both worlds i guess.

The new God War 3 traileris too much. The scale, the grandeur, the brutality, all of it, just wow.

The small white figure below the brown spiky legs is Kratos. You're fighting a Leviathan (the water-horse-crab thing) while on Gaia's arm, while it's flailing about and you're upside down clinging for life. The entire Titan AND background is moving while you're trying to kill the thing. High standards or not, that's flat out awesome.

If there's one thing that the God of War does right, it's scale. Whether it's going into Pandora's Temple, fighting a Colossus or waging war with Olympus itself, they know how to do it right. This game takes it to a whole new level. You are fighting gods throughout the entire game. This is usually a once in a game thing for Kratos. Also, The PS Magazine UK review says this game makes God of War 1 and 2 seem like nothing, NOTHING!

Then there's Heavy Rain. I've recently played through the demo and loved it, you just didn't want it to end. You're in control of your current character for pretty much the entire time and you feel the choices you make really have some weight to them, it's not just a really long quicktime event. That said, the quick time events are awesome. The fights feel real and they use the analogue sticks aswell as the six axis, so it isn't just buttons. Another neat thing about the game is that you cannot lose. There is no "Game Over" screen, no "You Died", nothing. You can't lose quicktime events either, they just keep going and you see the effects of your actions. I don't think i've seen a game do that, ever.

Not having a real job (i get $15 a week for lawn mowing) i think these amazing games are going to have to take precedence over the ambitious MAG. if the deals with the official PS3 headset will still be around for a few months then i'm definitely going to wait a while. Besides, the community will probably have washed out all the MW2 addicts by then.

I got around to playing the beta just today for a few hours, and the first thing i realised was that this game NEEDS to come bundled with mics. not just optional either, the bundle has to be the ONLY way to get the game, those already with mics have to get an employee at the store to get a standalone in the back rooms. Apart from that, here's what i think of the game:

Graphics:

I'm very happy with the graphics, i don't really see what everyone was complaining about, it looks great. the visual style reminds me of Crysis in a way. 9/10

Gameplay:

Quite confusing at first, most people don't know where to go/what to do, not very organized. i ended up killing one of my own teamates, i thought he was an enemy because the marker above his head was very hard to see. this game depends on mics. if everyone plays it properly, stays with their squad and focuses on objectives, then the game will become a whole lot more fun to play.

P.S. it doesn't have inverted x-axis controls. it should have them, lots of people have lots of different control styles.

7/10 (potential 9/10)

Customization:

the Customization in this game is fantastic and really in-depth. You can choose how your player looks and speaks, how much armour they wear/what colour it is (for camouflage), what attachments/items you have etc. this game rewards you if you're in for the long haul. 10/10

MAG is a very worthwhile game to look into, can't wait to see the final product.

If anyone else has played the public demo please post your thoughts in the comments.

Browsing through the PS Blog, i found a link to an article named "15 games that defined the PlaystationBrand" from Joystick Division. It had most of what you'd expect (MGS, FFVII, Gran Turismo etc.) but then i stumbled upon Ratchet and Clank, which had a video compilation of all the Ratchet Clank commercials for the PS2 and PSP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH2dM_LLKJg

These things are absolutely hilarious. I was in hysterics after the "Steve? STEEEEEEEEEVE!!!!!!!" one. I then had a look at the old Crash Bandicoot commercials, which had a guy in a Crash Bandicoot suit standing outside of Nintendo headquarters with a megaphone and a stack of TVs. All great commercials. Why don't we have more of these? I know they're starting to bring it back with the "it only does Everything" commercials for the PS3 slim

but why not the games? All the ads for the new Ratchet and Clank games just use in-game footage.

There are so many games which could have great ads using the old R&C formula. Imagine a God of War commercial. How hilarious would that be?

After finally getting the album in my mailbox on Tuesday the 15th (and listening to it a dozen times on Muse's official website beforehand), i've decided it's time to give out my review for Muse's highly anticipated new album The Resistance.

Where could Muse go after the apocalyptic Black Holes and Revelations and the amazing 2-night HAARP shows at Wembley? into obscurity or rocketing into space? if it isn't obvious they chose the latter. This is one amazing album.

Uprising: 9/10 - Great opener. Mixes "Call Me" by Blondie with Doctor Who in a really awesome song. very catchy.

Resistance: 9.5/10 - Amazing, now one of my favourite Muse songs, great chorus, drums are fantastic and give the epic feel of the drums in "Map of the Problematique"

Undisclosed Desires: 9/10 - This song will catch you completely off guard on the first listen. Very RnB, after you get over the fact it sounds nothing like Muse you realise its an excellent song, beats just about everything RnB out there. Very good example of Muse's versatility.

United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage): 8.5/10 - This is the one you've probably already heard. It's Fantastic, love the violins, beautifully made and nostalgic, Queen inspired, piano in Collateral Damage is beautiful.

Guiding Light: 7/10 - Weakest song on the album imo, tries to be over-epic, basically the "Invincible" of this album. It has the same "stadium anthem" like qualities, and a solo in roughly the same part of the song. I couldn't stand this song at first, but after watching the "making of" DVD it has grown on me, still not up to the grandeur of the other songs on the album.

Unnatural Selection: 11/10! - WOW. just WOW. this is the riff we've been waiting for since Absolution and Origin of Symmetry. it has an absolutely incredible, incredible riff and the Metallica inspired outro is just awesome. undoubtedly one of the standout songs on the album.

MK Ultra: 11/10! - Simply mind-blowing (i'm running out of adjectives here lol). it's such an epic song, very Musey, can't wait for this live. Just awesome. This is what Muse can really do.

I Belong to You (+Mon Cœur S'ouvre À Ta Voix): 9.5/10 - Really cool and catchy song, love the beat and the clarinet part, i can't get enough of it.

Exogenesis Symphony: 10/10 - The highlight of Muse's career so far. Perfectly orchestrated and the imagery that the songs give you is amazing, you can literally imagine yourself in this desolate, dying world, desperate to carry on the human race as you send our last hopes of survival (astronauts) into the stars. Part 2 is the best, piano is fantastic and really powerful centre.

Favourite Track: MK Ultra, with Unnatural Selection and Exo part 2 a close second. Unnatural Selection's riff is just pure sex.

"Making Of" DVD: 8/10 - it was pretty good and funny in parts, it's nice to see what goes into each song as they are made. That said they could have gone a little deeper though, especially with "Unnatural Selection" and Exogenesis part 3 (which they didn't touch at all, only played it during credits). That said i could watch Matt play piano all day. he does it so effortlessly it's unreal.

Favourite Moments:

• "Fat cats got a heart attack"

• "It could be wrong" part of Resistance

• piano with epic drum bits of Resistance

• EURA- SIA! SIA! SIA! SIA!

• Unnatural Selection riff

• MK Ultra (breakdown), "We are looosing CONTrol", i love that part.

• I Belong To You start and clarinet bit.

• "You are my Muuuu-uuuuse"

• "TELL US! *tell us*tell us* Tell us your final wish! (exogenesis part 2)

Relative Comparison:
Showbiz: 8/10
Origin of Symmetry: 10.1/10
Absolution: 9.5/10
Black Holes and Revelations: 9/10
The Resistance: 10/10

it isn't better than Origin but it comes pretty damn close and is remarkably different, it show how much Muse have evolved. this is an amazing album. i just wished they came out with an album that was as raw as Origin of Symmetry or Absolution though, as this one very polished.

Score: 10/10

Note:This review will change as I keep listening to the album.