partir, par terre

A few of my close friends and I took a break this weekend and drove out to Montréal. I think the idea was to consume inhuman amounts of alcohol to celebrate the marriages of two people (ahem) and the 25th Earth-year of one sorry bastard. But before this devolves into a sordid tale of debauchery involving cheap wine and toothless strippers, I'll come to the point. Word of a show featuring The Dears made their way across the breakfast table on Saturday. Instead of paying stupid amounts of money for scalped Canadiens tickets, we decided to head over to the venue that night. It was amazing to see them play live in their home town, and they did not disappoint the crowd with an outstanding performance of their new album. However the show's pinnacle was when they lead into an encore of "Pinned Together, Falling Apart" with a 25-minute jam that was comparable to Zwan's session in the midst of "Jesus, I/Mary Stary of the Sea". Maybe just a bit better. Local band TheBesnardLakes opened for them, and they filled my soul with the hope that Dream Rock might rise again, instead of being delegated to that uncomfortable phase between grunge and britpop of the early to mid 90s.

Afraid I'd fall too far behind my gaming news, I wearily turned on my Game Machine before bed yesterday. Lionhead Studios, who brought you the much acclaimed Black & White, have developed the upcoming Fable. Until recently I believed this game to be an XBox exclusive - and with Lionhead's track record it's easy to see why. However the kindly Avatar pointed out a rumour that this title may be coming to a PC near you. The darkly comical "good or evil" theme borrows a bit from B&W, and once again you are confronted with making these choices for developing your character. Blended together with the typical fantasy setting should make for a very interesting RPG. Check out the official site - the pop-up book is actually a mini-game.

I was also confronted with images of the Playstation 3, which are disturbing. It's very...curvy. The slim design makes me wonder just how Sony is gonna fit in all the good things they promised gamers. One feature that kind of threw me for a loop was the mood recognition. What happens when you get pissed off at the AI for cheating? Does the machine shut off or just laugh at you?

i won't advise, it's full of lies

Update: Turns out that PS3 concept photo I talked about was a fake. It was way more believable than the PSP ones, though, so can you really blame me?