Last night I completed one of my life goals. There are certain acts that I’ve always wanted to see and I’m quite happy that I’ve seen most of the acts I’ve always wanted to live. From a young age I wanted to see Bottom Live, I was worried by the time I was old enough they’d have stopped but thankfully not. I have seen Wheatus many a time, each time is an honor. I have seen Steve Coogan, Bill Bailey, Lee Evans, the Foo Fighters play Wembley Stadium and now I’ve seen the greatest rock band of all time. Spinal Tap.

From the first time I ever saw the film ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ I was hooked. The music was amazing and the act, seminal. I became a fan of everything Tap related. I began to look into the men under the wigs and was introduced to the amazing ability of Christopher Guest. His sense of humour, his creativity is really on my level and I fell in love with his other works such as Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman and of course A Mighty Wind.

In was in said film that we meet ‘The Folksmen’, a folk band trio played by the same group of actors as Spinal Tap and also the support act for the live show at Wembley! How exciting. At the end of A Mighty Wind Mark Shrubb (Harry Shearer) decides he wants to play folk music for the rest of his life and he wants to spend that as a woman. As I sat in the foyer at Wembley Arena I wondered how accurate they would play these characters and if Shrubb would appear in drag. They didn’t disapoint.

As I hoped he was a woman and my admiration grew even more. To continue something like that six years after the movie was released is just great. The Folksmens set was short but was a great and fun way to kick off the show. They opened with Wanderin’ and then A Mighty Wind. They also played Loco Man, a calypso song about a man who does nothing except relax on a beach, Blood On The Coal and Old Joes Place. They were told to leave the stage as Marta Shrubb was explaining the history behind the song Skeletons of Quinto.

As we waited for Tap to take the stage we saw a clip of St. Hubbins and Small backstage playing Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360. Strangley next we got to watch The Majesty of Rock video before another small wait. I noticed some wynches go up to the rafters from the stage making me think that the band would come from the roof, they didn’t. But they came on stage and opened with Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You, Tonight. Such a classic and amazing opener that really pumped up the crowd, as if they needed pumping.

The set was full of all the classics you’d expect from Tap, Sex Fam, Gimme Some Money, Hell Hole, Stonehenge, Cash on Delivery (my favourite)  including some of their new stuff like Back From The Dead. The show ended with Big Bottom before coming back for an encore of Heavy Duty.

Considering the age of Tap the show was incredible with no signs of slowing down. Stonehenge featured a blow up Stonehenge set with some dwarfs dancing. Big Bottom saw the stage filled with ladies dancing and guest bassists including Justin Hawking (formerly of The Darkness)! If I have one critism it was the microphone set up. The sound would go from silent to really loud from the mics at random and when it came to Smalls or Tufnel taking lead vocals you just couldn’t hear them. Also having The Majesty of Rock play on a video then live was a little strange.

Overall however a fantastic night and one I shall never forget. How can I? I’ve seen SPINAL TAP live. Something I never dreamed would happen, ever.

Thank you!

Hey fellow internet folk,

You all know of my undying love for the band Wheatus, and thus you know how I will make your life a living hell by pressuring you to listen to them until you finally cave. But there is a way out.

Just go to www.wheatus.com NOW and download the NEW EP for FREE (or make a small donation).

Plus, if you’re on TWITTER you can win a FREE physical CD/DVD combo of the EP simply by re-tweeting one of Wheatus’ latest tweets. What could be better?

So go…now!

Much rock,

These are cool, thought I’d share:

It what should be the final update in this Saga, ESPN have bought the Saturday tea-time FA Premier League football matches. It means if you’re a Sky subscriber you’ll have to pay an extra £1 a month but its a small price in comparison to the £15 Setanta charged. Plus you’ll get groovy America sports like Major League Baseball, Hockey, NFL and NBA!

The official word:

ESPN has bought the rights to show 46 games in next season’s English Premier League that were to have been shown by struggling broadcaster Setanta.

Disney-owned ESPN has won the two packages of games shown on Saturday teatimes and Monday evenings. Both will be sold to customers through BSkyB.

It has also won the 23 games per season Setanta was due to show from 2010-13.

More after the jump.

Source: BBC News

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I know it has been a long time since I last blogged or even wrote a review, which is odd because I’ve been watching a few films lately.

About five weeks ago I was playing football for the Hornets in their Legends game. On a corner the ball swung in, I leapt to grab it only to feel something in the back of my foot, like someone had kicked me there. I went down. Everyone wondered what was going on, thought I had dived but I was adamant someone had kicked me. I couldn’t stand, I could barely breathe through the pain.

I sat on the sidelines and watched the rest of the first half before conceeding I needed to get this foot iced and elevated. It was a struggle to get to the car and Kaye, bless her, had to drive me home. Lucky I have her as a second driver on my insurance.

Once home we iced the back of my ankle and put it up high, I was in so much pain though, I was in tears. Kaye said I should go to the hospital if it was that bad, she just thought it was soft tissue damage. I said if it is still as painful in the morning then I’d go. Morning came and it was still bad. I rang the NHS Advice number who said I should go to the Minor Injuries Unit in Evesham.

We were the only people there, the first people there in fact. When we saw the nurse she asked me to kneel on a chair as if I were praying. Then she squeezed my calf muscle on my right leg and my right foot twitched. She then repeated this on the left leg and the left foot didn’t move. She deduced that I had ruptured my achilles tendon.

Ten weeks or more in plaster. Brilliant.

So here I am, stuck at home because work won’t let me work from home and no one wants to come pick me up. I can’t drive, I can’t hire an automatic, there are no public transport links and I’m not shelling out for a taxi.

We have been to Cornwall mind you, there last week. It’s very picturesq and very silent. Not even the seagulls seemed to want to break that silence. I was feeling a little glum due to my leg and I seemed to be holding Kaye back from exploring and going on the scenic walks but we have agreed to go back again when I’m better.

So that’s what I’ve been doing, what about you?

To follow up on my last post, more on Setanta.

Bids close on Monday for the rights to broadcast 46 live English Premier League games in the 2009/10 season that were to have been shown by Setanta.

The league took the broadcasting rights back from Setanta on Friday after it missed a payment deadline.

BSkyB and ESPN are the front-runners to buy rights to 23 games each.

The board of Setanta is meeting on Monday to look at ways of saving the company, which is estimated to be losing £100m a year.

Deloitte has been lined up to act as administrator if it fails.

The Premier League expects to announce the winners of the auction of live games by the end of the week.

BSkyB is expected to buy the package of Monday night games, which it has already won from 2010-11 onwards.

EU rules mean that BSkyB cannot own all the rights, however, and Disney-owned ESPN are favourites to buy the games which take place at Saturday teatime.

ESPN has refused to comment directly on whether it will bid for Premier League rights, but has said it is “interested in rights where they are available and where they make business sense”.

Other rights

Attention could now turn to the other broadcasting rights that Setanta owns, including the 23 English Premier League games a season that it is due to broadcast for the three seasons starting in 2010/11.

It also has contracts with the FA for England and FA Cup matches, the Scottish Premier League (SPL), and the Blue Square Premier, the top division of English non-league football.

It recently missed a £3m payment due to the SPL – part of a four-year deal worth £54m over four years from 2006 to 2010.

Setanta also owns rights to the PGA golf tour, as well as cricket and rugby union deals.

It is running at an estimated loss of £100m a year, after missing subscriber targets.

The broadcaster has 1.2 million subscribers, 700,000 short of the 1.9 million that industry experts believe they need to break even.

Source: BBC

Good news sports fans! Setanta Sports looks set to go into administration meaning that its 46 Premier League games for next season and all the American sports I love so much are up for sale. Now Sky Sports can’t take the Premier League games but hopefully someone like the BBC/ITV will step in, putting them on free to view TV or another of the channels on Sky that you don’t have to pay for.

BSkyB’s chief executive, Jeremy Darroch, said that his firm had been “talking to Setanta, and trying to work with them and help them”, but that it could not agree to the Irish company’s proposal.

“At the end of the day, we are not a bank, we are a broadcaster, not a supplier of working capital to a business and rights holder,” he said.

“Our job is not to fund other companies. This is a huge amount of money.”

You can read the full story after the jump.

Source: BBC News

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The long-canceled Fox animated comedy “Futurama” is returning with an order from Comedy Central for 26 episodes to run over two seasons, says The Hollywood Reporter.

“Futurama” creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen already are working on stories for the new batch of episodes of the sci-fi cartoon, slated to premiere on Comedy Central in mid-2010.

As with “Family Guy,” whose improbable return was triggered by big DVD sales and solid ratings for the show’s reruns on Cartoon Network, the performance of “Futurama’s” repeats on Comedy Central and on disc was key to its resurrection.

“Futurama,” which aired from 1999-2003 on Fox, centers on Philip Fry (voiced by Billy West), a pizza delivery boy who accidentally freezes himself on Dec. 31, 1999, and wakes up 1,000 years later with a “diverse” new group of friends including Leela (Katey Sagal), a tough but lovely one-eyed alien, and human-like robot Bender (John DiMaggio).

All key voice cast members are expected to return for the new episodes, along with the series’ core writing team. The new episodes will pick up where “Yonder” took off — with the main characters fleeing death and flying into the unknown.

Source: ComingSoon

USA Today and ScreenRant have published a first look at Mickey Rourke as villain Whiplash at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix in director Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2, opening in theaters on May 7, 2010. Rourke stars with Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Favreau, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Garry Shandling, John Slattery, Kate Mara and Clark Gregg in the sequel.

Whiplash sports a power pack on his chest that looks similar to the one used by Iron Man. “The technologies are definitely related, and that’s part of the core theme of the film,” says Favreau.

The character’s alter ego, Ivan Vanko, is a Russian who, Favreau says, “has constructed his own version of a suit.” Among the creative alterations: a pair of whips, powered by the suit’s glowing chest piece. Whiplash “is going to light them up,” says Rourke.

Source: ComingSoon

I was recently infected with what I learned to be the Seneka Rootkit, this is a tricky bug that infects your computer and stops all spyware, malware and anti-virus utilities from working. It was a huge pain. I first found it when my copy of Kaspersky Anti-Virus wouldn’t update the latest databases.

Especially when all the solutions I found on the internet pointed to software that could beat it, but the virus wouldn’t let me onto their websites or install any programs because that’s what it does.

Eventually I found a website that linked me to Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware utility. Once “quick-scan” (actually took about 15 minutes) with this tool that both downloaded and installed without interuption and it had found the virus and removed it. Just needed to reboot.

I can’t stress enough how much of a pain this virus is and so if you have it I strongly urge you to get the Malwarebytes piece of software and save yourself some headaches.