Neil-o-Mac

That second pic...the little robot Snake's kneeling in front of - isn't that Metal Gear from Snatcher? Edit: The third pic has a big pic of the 'Snatcher Metal Gear' lookalike. Needless to say, as a Snatcher fanboy, if Gillian Seed shows up in MGS4, I will mark the fuck out.

I was thinking something a bit different - maybe they'll do another Booker vs. Benoit Best of 7 for the US title?

It depends - the patch change can take a half second to kick in if the two patches are on different amp & speaker models. If you run the same speaker models on two consecutive patches, the changeover delay will be smaller. Are you planning on using the V-Amp live, like? Into an amp or straight into the PA?

Hmm, 2.0 has less features, but it'll do most of the stuff most guitarists would need - clean sounds, distorted sounds, in-between sounds (another area the V-Amp is a bit lacking in- it's at its best either full clean or fat distortion, not great for Stevie Ray Vaughan sorta sounds). If you're not bothered about digital Variax connections, blended amp sims, Guitarport and whatnot, the Pod 2.0 would be pretty good and probably a hell of a lot cheaper than the XT. If you want to hear some V-Amp sounds, head over to http://www.soundclick.com/delusi0n and have a listen to my recordings - all the guitars on them were done on a mark 1 V-Amp direct to either my PC or my old 8-track digital recorder.

Quick info on the two to help you make yer mind up... V-AMP Pros - Cheap. Good distortion sounds. Cheap. Comes with patch up/down footswitch and bag. Cheap. Did I mention cheap? Cons - Plastic casing, no on-off switch, clean sounds are average at best. POD Pros - Good all-round sounds, sturdy metal casing, strong user base (lots of patches to download on-line), XT version can interface with the Variax and the Guitarport & Rifftracker software. Cons - expensive, floorboard is extra if you want to gig it. Both are very good devices for home recording without causing a breach of the peace due to your Marshall stack being cranked up to 11.

That's from the Dark Horse comics, not the books. And the Emporor didn't survive his fall, he was cloned Not to mention the fact that Dark Empire pretty much sucked the fat one, as does most Star Wars stuff written by Kevin J Anderson, IMO.

Yup, pretty much the way I understand it. Palpy & Dooku created the seperatist movement through the whole Naboo blockade in Menace and the snowball effect from that, prodded through Dooku being the 'public face' of the Seps, while Dooku, also posing as Sifo-Dyas (after offing the erstwhile Jedi Master, as stated in the Labirynth of Evil novel), creates the 'opposition' for the seperatitsts in the Clonetroopers. Meanwhile Palpy manipulates his way up the Republic's political ladder and eventually uses the war that he secretly orchestrates to put himself in a position to lay the smack down on the Republic and the Jedi too, through Order 66. All the while, Palpy's grooming Anakin to take the spot at Palpy's side. Dooku *thinks* he's Palpy's #1 chum, but in fact he gets played by Sidious, which he only realises at the end. Palpatine = possibly the best Sci-fi villan ever, in terms of genius machinations.

"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Velocity we go..." ... I'll get my coat.

Good thing he presumably didn't come out wearing a burberry cap...or maybe he did, hence the ant-chav heel heat.

TS9T75 is a nut-job pretending to be Trish, correct? I seem to remember hearing about that somewhere in the distant past. Probably some fat 45-year-old virgin who faps off to the pics on trishstratus.com.

A damn-near-finished version of Prop Arena got leaked to the net last year (same sort of situation as the as-good-as-finished Dreamcast version of Half-Life getting leaked). Naturally, I downloaded the ISO from alt.binaries.dreamcast and burned it. Not bad. I'm sure the online mode would've been fun.

The video for Immortal's Call of the Wintermoon is camcorder-tastic. (Zipped MPEG file, 26.6MB)

Awake and TOT are good picks if you like your prog-metal nice & ballsy. As for Six Degrees, no the whole CD isn't all piano ballads. The Glass Prison (track 1 on disc 1 of SDOIT) is possibly the heaviest thing they've ever done. 14 minutes of non-strop riffage.

They could, it's just that Axl and Sanctuary would get all the publishing royalties (the Velvet Revolver guys would get the performer royalties tho).

I believe Tool are in the writing/recording process for a new album; Robert Fripp was over working with Adam Jones (and presumably the rest of Tool given the timing of it) not too long ago and wrote about it on his site, and I seem to remember reading an online article somewhere that detailed someone visiting Tool's rehersal space (or recording studio) and hearing some of the new material...It's probably not being heavily publicised yet so they can drop it on an 'unsuspecting' general public out of nowhere.

Allan Holdsworth is awesome. One of the kings of fusion jazz guitar. Metal Fatigue and The Sixteen Men of Tain come highly recommended from me (as it's the only stuff of his I've heard so far. )

Chewie's there because... There's a big-ass battle on Kashyyyk where Yoda leads an army of clones and Wookiees against the Seperatists. At some point during or after the battle with the Seperatists, Palpy turns the Clonetroopers against the Jedi, sparking a barney between the Wookiees and the Clones. While all this is going on, I believe Chewie and General Tarfful, a Wookiee leader, help Yoda escape.

Thal could play G'n'R stuff in his sleep. He's an absoluteley tremendous guitarist; the stuff he does with fretless guitar is pretty damn nifty, and to cap it all off, he's a top-class guy and a fucking riot, if his postings on the John Petrucci message board are anything to go by. Not really who I'd choose for G'n'R (shame the Zakk Wylde thing didn't work out - who better to fill Slash's boots than another alcohol-feulled Les Paul strangler?), but Ron Thal getting more exposure can only be A Good Thing Indeed.

Bangai-O for the Dreamcast is right up there. Well, the European version anyway: dunno if the manuals in other versions are more sane. I suspect that the Japanese version is equaly bonkers, if not more so.

Maybe JBL put Undertaker in a chinlock and they decided to take a nap to fill out the time.

So, does that explain 'WHAT?' then?

Word. He and Marty Janetty are working a British Championship Wrestling Show in Kilmarnock in a few weeks. Fucking KILMARNOCK, FFS. To be honest, BCW's last show in Killie was quite entertaining, but it's an example of how the mighty have fallen. And as far as Foley being a mark...isn't it often said in the business that the workers are the biggest marks?

Seconded on the Yamaha Pacifica vote. Probably one of the best sub-£200 guitars out there. And the body and neck's solid enough that one could replace the electronics and hardware down the road and have a great-sounding, sturdy (if a bit plain) guitar for, say, about £500 all-in, but that's for the future. As far as amplification, yeah, a 10-watt practice amp will have to do you, unless you want to gig. When you do need an amp with more grunt, Behringer's new GMX series is top-notch in the bang-per-buck stakes. I have the 100W 2x12" combo (Cost me £195 ) and it sounds good and probably has enough volume to get over a noisy drummer un-miked. So save up and get one of those when the time comes to hit the stage. In the interim you could always open for other bands and use their amps at gigs.

In a similar vein, does Kevin Nash being in the Super Shredder costume count?

Word. Mario RPG over SFII? What. The. FUCK? Wouldn't shock me if Doom jobbed to Earthbound in the first round, such is the rampant nature of the Square/Nintendo/RPG blinkered fanboyism there. Ditto Soul Calibur vs. Kingdom Hearts, Metroid Prme vs. Half-Life, FFX vs. Shenmue... My prediction; Either a Zelda game or a Final Fantasy game wins.