John Walker's Electronic House

The archive of videos at the TED talk site is all the reason I will ever need to adore human beings. Great minds sharing ideas with other great minds, in all manner of fields, made available for less great minds to watch in wonder. After my chum Steph reminded me to delve back in once more, by linking me to the very short talk by wunder-artist Theo Jansen and his mechanical creatures, my evening was eaten by leaping from subject to subject, hoovering up information, music, and, er, beatbox.

Then on a whim I typed “magic” into their search box to see what they might have, and I found Swedish close-up magician Lennart Green. His half hour set is distinct from so many close-up card magicians by his wonderful performance predicated on deceptive clumsiness. Where most card magic relies on clean, crisp displays of digital dexterity, Green relies on cards falling everywhere, dropping them, seemingly making mistakes, and somehow out of this performing the most extraordinary card tricks I’ve ever seen. I suppose people might first think of Tommy Cooper, but that’s an inappropriate comparison. Cooper was a terrible magician, and while he would make lots of pretend mistakes and then reveal the real trick, they were all pretty average tricks. Green isn’t clumsy for pantomime. In fact, while it’s all part of his misdirection, you wonder looking at him – flop sweat and all – whether he really has any choice but to work this way.

It’s just stunning. His dexterity is a pleasure, hidden beneath his haphazard style. There’s something far more impressive about manipulating a deck when it’s sprawled and jumbled, rather than perfectly aligned. And there’s no “pick a card, any card” tedium here. It’s a man demonstrating remarkable skill, rather than tricking audience members. Plus you’ll be doing the wrist trick to everyone you know after you watch this.

I know literally two people who care about this, but baseball has worked out rather well this year.

The White Sox just won their tiebreak game against the Twins for the American League Central Division, with a home run by Thome, and incredible pitching by Danks. And three days ago the Phillies won the National League East Division, in a game I missed while at the PC Gamer Showdown (I got to see their meaningless encore game on Sunday night, which they won 8-3 with their B-team).

Thank goodness for baseball, or I’d have no sporting interests at all. And of course it’s hard to enjoy a sport unless you’re rooting for a team. And so while my relationships with Chicago and Philadelphia are second-hand, these are the teams I’ve followed.

I’ve been watching the sport since 1999, when Channel 5 started showing it, but didn’t take an invested interest until 2005, following the White Sox. I couldn’t really have picked a better year, since they went on to win the World Series. And I was lucky enough to be in Chicago during the Divisional play-offs, and felt the remarkable levity in the whole city as they supported their team. (Well, one of their teams – Cubs fans were less elated. This year Chicago is going to be berserk, with both the Sox and Cubs through to the play-offs for the first time in 102 years).

I think it’s safe to say the Phillies succeeded this year due to my wearing a Phillies cap at all points when outside (it’s that or have my weird, rubbish hair stick out at stupid angles), and most especially when on stage in front of a crowd of literally a few people at the Showdown. In fact, it was that very night that they won their division, so it’s pretty undeniable it was due to me. I look forward to their gratitude.

So yes – the next few weeks are going to be great, so long as both teams don’t go out before at least the divisional play-offs. I’ll allow one of them to not make the World Series, because clearly the confusion of not knowing which side to cheer on might spoil the whole affair. Although I suppose I’d be pleased whoever won or lost in that scenario, so maybe it would be for the best. Yes, okay, I shall expect both teams to make the final. Although I will not be wearing two caps to ensure this happens – there are limits. (And frankly, I’m not really able to bring myself to wear a White Sox cap any more, since it’s encroaching on Yankees territory as a fashion label in this stupid, twattish country. Oh, and all those hundreds of thousands of Yankees-hat-wearing idiots must be very disappointed that their team didn’t make the play-offs for the first time in over a decade. EXCEPT THEY’VE NEVER HEARD OF THE YANKEES, THE FASHION VICTIM MORONS).

Also (and this is a sentence that will only make sense to two people reading this), if the Dodgers win anything in the post-season, I will be demanding some major rule changes. They didn’t even win enough games to win the wildcard in their league. Ridiculous.

(Multiple season 3 spoilers)

Oh good grief. What is wrong with Tim Kring? He appears to believe that saying things to the press magically makes them happen. (He’s the Peter Molyneux of TV). Midway through season 2 he publicly apologised for how atrocious the once-enjoyable show had become. Painfully slow, and a lazy reprise of the previous season’s story, it was an embarrassment. Show runner Kring’s admitting this was a moment of relief. He knew he’d messed up, and he was going to fix it. Then of course the writers’ strike happened, and we never got to see if he’d come through with it. Certainly the few episodes made after his declaration sucked as badly as those before, so it didn’t look good.

Season 3 begins with Kring once again promising that he won’t make the same mistakes again. The show got overly convoluted, too many characters, too much political wittering, not nearly enough of the action that made season 1 a lot of fun. So how does it come back? Painfully slow, over-convoluted, politically tedious tedium. The other major complaint about season 2 was exactly repeating season 1’s story. A vision of the future shows New York being destroyed by mysterious means, and our intrepid band of international heroes must prevent this from happening. This all went especially batshit with Hiro – formerly the show’s star character – exploring ancient Japan and finding an immortal villain, and something something no one cared. The events were predicted through the paintings and comics of Isaacl, who would go into a heroin-induced trance and paint the future.

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Oh happy day! My favourite show of last year, Chuck, is back. And it remains glorious.

It also remains critically ignored. Not a single Emmy nomination last year, while utter shit like Two And A Half Men appeared all over. But then in a year when the smug Mad Men beat Dexter, Damages and House for Best Drama, nothing should be too surprising. Anyhow, bitterness aside, join me in recognising the happiest writing and funniest performances on TV.

Season two opens with the most wonderful gag. The premise of the show… it’s unlikely. So Chuck, dangling from a high window as a thug demands to know who he is, is in a predicament. Explaining that all the secrets of all the governments have been accidentally downloaded into his brain and now he can identify every enemy agent, access all top secret data, and so on. The guy doesn’t believe him – it’s too silly an idea. The show knows it. The show doesn’t care.

The programme has a large capacity for spinning off unlikely spy stories, Chuck spotting something, or someone, which triggers the Intersect in his head and, with the FBI and CIA agents assigned to look after him, they fight crime. Well, Chuck hides from it and trips up. But there was always the weight of knowing that as soon as a replacement Intersect was created, it would mean FBI agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin – Jane from Firefly) has to kill him. It’s this theme that begins season two, with Casey’s conflict over killing Chuck playing the episode’s serious tones.

Chuck spends his regular life working in a Buy More – a perfect clone of Best Buy – a store so well realised by the show that it becomes hard to remember they’re not real. And that’s endemic throughout. So many programmes that attempt to be contemporary are of course the most embarrassing. But Chuck appears to have been made by people who’ve been outside. Which is bizarrely refreshing. Buy More’s tech team is called the Nerd Herd, and is staffed by people you believe have ever used a computer. In fact, it’s staffed by gamers, who reference real games from this decade. The latest episode has a wonderful callback to Morgan’s (Chuck’s best friend, and colleague at Buy More) plans for winning at multiplayer Call Of Duty 4. (Schematics on huge rolls of paper). Season one consistently namechecked the right games, in the right context.

There were so many fantastic jokes in just the one episode, from Casey’s target practise (a visual joke that can be done no justice in text) to Morgan’s amazingly delivered lines when he counsels Chuck. Yvonne Strahovski is brilliant again as Agent Walker, delivering some really stunning fight sequences. And Zachary Levi, Chuck, once more creates a character who is real, warm, frightened and brave.

NBC are clearly behind the show, trusting Levi as an anchor for their recent preview shows for the new season, and bringing it back post-strike without any cast changes or formula meddling. While it may once more be critically ignored because it’s a 42 minute comedy and critics are inexplicably confounded by this model, hopefully it will sit comfortably enough in the ratings to secure a full run. There’s nothing else that deserves to as much.

So after my quite impressive stupidity of announcing I’d never really taken any notice of podcasts, forgetting that I’ve been in a bunch of them, this week two more have come along.

Firstly, I took part in the most recent PC Gamer UK podcast, which you can read about here, and download the mp3 from here. It’s an hour with Editor Ross Atherton, Dep Ed Tim Edwards, Revs Ed Craig Pearson, and tiny, worthless freelancer, me. It’s quite a lot of fun when Ross isn’t going on about Empire Total War, and Tim isn’t listing things. Ha ha. Craig and I have a nice moment of channelling Collings & Herrin.

Secondly, and very excitingly, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has its first podcast up. The RPS Electronic Wireless Show: Episode 1 can be downloaded directly from here, and RSSd to from here.

The RPS one is of terrible audio quality. But that’s the thing about recording something for 45 minutes, and then discovering it sounds appalling – there’s not much you can do about it. So shut up and lump it, whining person. Next time we’ll be much better. But it’s a pretty good listen, for Kieron Gillen and me just rambling.

It has come to the attention of comrade Kim and me that there is a woeful gap in the English language. We have plural nouns for most family relations, but for the connection between someone and their sibling’s children.

See, “siblings”, “children”, all taken care of. Parents, grandparents, cousins, all well and good. So what has happened to aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews? I’ve got a niece and a nephew, but I’m a busy man, and I don’t have time to refer to both. I need a word to collect the two together in my modern, hectic lifestyle. And I need a word to allow me to stand together with my female counterparts.

We’re halfway there. The collective noun for niece/nephew is now ready to be unveiled. Trumpets please:

Neblings.

“Too much like nibblings,” suggests Kim.

“Not enough like nibblings!” I reply. And it is decided.

But there has yet to be progress on the aunt/uncle front. For that, I call for your help, mysterious hundred or so people who read this. It doesn’t have to be an elegant and catchy portmanteau like my genius offering above. But it has to be perfect. Quickly now, there’s a language to improve.

My latest TV post is up on Giant Realm. This time I desperately try to get people to watch Psych. I expect USA to see an astonishing spike in ratings this Friday, and look forward to the resulting credit.

It begins:

Mention Psych and most people react in the same way. “That show? Really? I saw maybe one episode – it seemed all right.” I want to put this situation right. I want to convince you that Psych is the most entertaining show on TV this summer. To accomplish my goal I will use a collection of silly names and a pineapple.

Meanwhile, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in over 300 years:

Things that are bad: Ken Campbell’s dying. Thanks to Tony Ellis dragging a group of us to see a man I only faintly knew from glimpses on television, I was fortunate enough to see him live last year. He was truly magnificent – a tremendous force of humour and intelligence. It is a great shame his voice shall no longer be barked at crowds.

Things that are good: I’m off to America tomorrow. I found out yesterday. Such are the peculiarities of my job, that one day I can be standing in my kitchen contemplating the possibilities of selling my Eee (anyone want a perfect condition Asus Eee 701, white, with a second, super-length battery?) in order to upgrade to an Aspire One based on the knowledge that I wasn’t going out the country for the foreseeable future, and the next packing my bags.

These trips sound so very luxurious. Whisked away to the Americas on someone else’s budget, in order to visit gaming companies and play their games, inevitably staying in lovely hotels and eating delicious food. The romance of it all does somewhat fall apart when you learn these trips last, on average, two nights. So that’s fly in, go to bed, get up, go to the company’s offices all day, eat dinner, go to bed, get up, fly home. Except in this case all the gaps those commas take up will be spent attempting to write the many pages of magazine required almost immediately.

I’m not complaining at all. It’s a joyful and utterly ridiculous job, and I’m luckier than I could ever deserve to be. But this one’s going to be busy, followed by a packed weekend that allows no room for jetlag. I predict that Monday will be spent dying, probably with a miserable cold brought on by the weaknesses inherent in rapid time travel. Or perhaps I shall be mighty and strong, sailing through, maybe even (and here I become delirious) sleeping on the plane! As if.

Instead I’m loading my – for the moment – precious Eee with things to watch when BA’s inevitably poor in-flight entertainment lets me down. Oh, why can’t everyone else mimic Virgin’s astonishingly good system, available to all? As I write absolutely torrential rains rush down from the sky, ensuring that after Saturday’s cruel teasing, August’s remarkable run of miserable weather is to continue through into September, and I really can’t wait to go somewhere with the potential of sunshine. Even for two days. Spent indoors.

Today contained my first trip to the gym. (Which I shall spell “gymn” as I think that is much better, and one should never abandon an “mn” when it is available). I was apprehensive, as you’d probably imagine, being that I am a slovenly and rotund individual, and it is not my natural habitat at all. But I was also resolute that I would go today, so much so that I got up early (that’s the sort of “early” that freelancers would gasp at, and the rest of the working population would spit at me for) to finish a review for PC Gamer, to make sure I wouldn’t fritter the day away and then declare it too late to go. By mid-afternoon I had no excuses, and walked into town.

It is the YMCA gymn, which at least separates it from the worst sorts of rich, high priced ridiculoemporums that I imagine are filled with overly muscular individuals, glaring menacingly at you as they pump their biceps and angle their threatening trouser-bulges in your direction. Men too. But I was surprised quite how modern the equipment was, the large screens mounted on many machines offering television images with the controls super-imposed. It was all daunting, and I supposed the sensible thing to do was to ask a member of staff for some guidance. I figured that I was going to be the clueless fatty whatever happened, so I might as well embrace the role with gusto. Fortunately the man who created me my membership card did not look like the threatening sort (although many other members of staff certainly did). In fact his thick, powerful glasses gave him a distinctly nerdy look.

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