Evening all, it’s been a long time. Due to the Writer’s Strike I have been on hiatus, waiting for justice, inspiration and the correct dosage of alcohol to return. And return I have.

So what have I been doing in the last – say – six months? Well the big thing is that after enough people kept telling me, I decided it was time to write my first album which I started probably around January/February this year and I’m aiming to get fully recorded by mid-2010. I also recently started up my own website: www.PhilHaymes.com which I’m using to promote my stuff, blog about the process of writing an album and learning guitar. The good news is that I’ll also be sharing some of this with the Robot Panic community too.

I’m currently about 30% through the writing of the album, I’ve got a few songs down in rough demo format and an overall structure/tracklist for the album. The title is ‘Bright Shadows and Dark Light’ which is based off of two tracks from the mid section of the album, cunningly called ‘Bright Shadows’ and (yep you’ve guessed it) ‘Dark Light’.

Ok so to give you all a flavor of things to come here’s a couple of videos of some of the rough tracks I’ve been working on:

This first track is lovingly called ‘Giant Enemy Pyramid’ (GEP for short) and it’s the opener for the album. It’s pretty shirt and this is an early version, the current one I have has a much better lead apart as well as a kick-ass synth solo at the end!

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Well folks, a new year is here and I feel fresh, like strawberries and cream or that feeling you get stepping into a waterfall whilst shaking your head around reciting ‘because I’m worth it’. That’s right 2009 is here and I’m feeling good about it. I think I’d describe 2008 as being both the best and worst year of my life wrapped up in a giant ball of yarn. Whilst there were plenty of very bad times though, the positives were just far to great to ignore. So in keeping positive, here is a list of all the very good things that happened last year.

Travel: I managed to travel to Spain, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Seattle, Moscow and London. (Yes contrary to popular belief I do not live close to London).

Work: I got not one but two promotions, and I was able to go and work with some amazing people in Moscow

People: Hanging out with John, Moe and Hilden is an obvious high point. Spending time with M.C. at PAX, getting to hang around with the London crew a little more (Dave, Ben, Kyna, Pete and Kerry) and of course, all the fantastic people I got to meet at the Daryl’s. Not to mention I got to meet with Eddie Olmos, Aaron Douglas and Allessandro Julliani…

Events: The Daryl’s, PAX, London Expo

Guitar: I somehow managed to end up with Dave Weiner (solo artist and second guitarist for Steve Vai) as my guitar tutor. The guy is frankly a living legend in my book, he has a lot of time, and he’s simply one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet and to top it all off he’s one of the finest guitarists on the planet.

Gaming: There have been some simply beautiful games released this year from MGS4 to Lost Odyssey. So many great gaming moments right through the entire year.

So looking back, even though there really were some frankly depressing and awful times last year, the positives have been incredulous. My plan now is to try and keep this momentum up and cut out the bad bits to make 2009 the best year of my life yet.

So to my New Year’s Resolutions:
1 – I will before the end of 2009 release some form of album.
2 – I will attend the Midwest Gaming Classic show
3 – I will go to PAX 09 and not stay in a hotel that looks like No More Heroes and takes an hour to travel anywhere
4 – I will go to Vancouver for at least a few days this time, I WILL smuggle a Raccoon out of the country
5 – I will pass the MCSE exams, every one of them. I want the shiny badge.

Christmas 2008 was sadly less good for me this year, I wasn’t able to get any time off work and seeing as my family live in a different country there was no possibility to take time to travel and see them. That said I did pick up a few games to play during the period. If I had to use one phrase to describe Christmas for me though it would have to be:

“Christmas, it was good except for the Werehog bits”

Funnily enough, that sentence can also be applied to something else… Can you guess what it is yet?

I also picked up a SNES recently and have been topping up my collection of games wherever possible. I was incredibly happy to find on New Years Eve the following classics:

Pop ‘n’ Twinbee
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
U.N. Squadron
Unirally
Lost Vikings

I also stumbled upon a copy of Persona 3 FES which I snapped up immediately. This is a game that you simply don’t see around in the UK at all in spite of its very recent release date. There’s no sign of Persona 4 on these shores for a while so I decided to pick this one up after the glowing comments from pretty much everyone on the DGR podcasts recently.

Oh and I recently picked up Left 4 Dead and an Xbox Live Gold card. I fully expect you all to add me as a friend so we can get some zombie slaying time in soon. My gamercard is: McPhilthy

Peace, Love and Good Happiness Stuff for 2009

Phil Haymes

Merry Christmas and other festive stuff. I have returned from my little stay in Moscow and was saddened to find England in a worse state than I had left it. So it turns out that whilst I’ve been out of the loop, our economy is – frankly – fucked. And I mean seriously fucked. Now I know that you are thinking, “Yes, but the U.S. is also fucked – haven’t you heard?”, to which I agree. What needs to be understood is that there are levels of fucked and we’ve hit a new one. Consider for a moment if you will that the exchange rate in August/September let me buy $1.86 for every £1 spent. I came back from the UK to find that now we’re looking at only $1.42 per £1… This isn’t good at all. All my expenses from Russia get paid back in Russian Rubles which are then converted to US Dollars and then into English Sterling once it hits my account. If you can imagine the cost of a pint in Russia is about $40 you can see how quickly this change in exchange rate is going to rape me.

So the question is why is our economy so shafted? For starters, this year is the first year that we as a country stopped paying the debt for Europe being charged by the U.S. Government for the last 50 years. Yes that’s right, we’ve been paying the U.S. Government for all costs incurred from joining the 2^nd World War for 50 years. That said, we have now finished paying, so this year in particular should be rolling in cash with no issues. So again I ask, what is the reason for this? Seems like some of the banks have screwed up. However, it worries me that when a bank screws up the people have to pay lots of money to fix the situation. Seriously, this seems to be happening everywhere too. Banks are businesses, and as such they shouldn’t be given free run to do anything they want with no consequence. What I’d like to see is that the high salary earners in these banks have to submit 80% of their income back. These are the folk making loads of money, bad calls and costing the average Joe on the street money to pay back in taxes. I was shocked on return to see that pretty much every form of bill has gone up since I left, making the cost of living almost impossible.

Oh and if I hear any more people use the term “current climate” I’ll beat them to death with a really angry Honey Badger. Please make sure you Wikipedia or YouTube to find out what a Honey Badger is. They are frankly the single greatest animal that ever lived.

So how would I fix the situation? Now that’s the big question and naturally, being the opinionated bastard that I am, I actually have an answer. Thing is, people won’t like it.

Number one, we as a country pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq. If there is still a good reason to be there the U.N. shall see fit to bring in whoever needed. I personally don’t think they would.

Number two, we charge the US Government for all costs incurred during the war on these two countries.

Number three, we ship out our criminal population to some other place (maybe Australia again…?)

Number four, we rehabilitate the not so bad criminals that don’t need to be shipped out by making them run in giant Hamster Wheels hooked up to the national grid. This will not only resolve the remaining crime issues but will also allow a great discount to power bills as well as provide more eco friendly power to the country.

Number five, pull the hell out of Europe and stop giving them lots and lots of lots of money each year for almost nothing in return.

Also, I’d make sure that everyone gets a free Crunchie on a Friday and that we only work a 4 day week. Now who would vote me in?

Love, Philthy

Living In The Russian Federation – Mafia, Tetris and Vodka 19/10/2008

So it turns out that I need to travel to Russia. Apparently I’m needed over there for a while to set up a whole load of new IT kit and work with a deluge of new people that will be starting in my company’s fledgling Russian office in Moscow. I don’t speak Russian (yet) and I’ll be literally living there. Apartment, grocery shopping, doing my own washing and of course catching the underground to work each day.

What this means is that I’ll be able to write about the wonderful, different, crazy and extreme things that I see whilst living there. I’ll be searching for Robots, checking out the local food, seeing the sites and being my usual British self so please look forward to some interesting blog updates in the near future.

‘How near?’ I hear you asking… well I fly out in just a few hours and I’ll be getting straight to the day-job as soon as I get there. As soon as I have an established internet connection however, I’ll be posting like a Vodka inspired Tetrimo trying to make a 4-line Tetris.

So my friends, I bid you farewell for now! Please feel free to start up some bets on how fast I get met by the Mafia.

Philthy

Living in the Minus World – The Former United States of America

During your time of  economic crisis and inability to run a National Presidential Election, We the Great British Empire have decided it’s about time that to take the reigns once more. We feel that we gave you more then enough July 4th Holidays and frankly the idea that some of your larger companies that have offices here are forcing this upon the people of our great nation is absurd. 

To provide more information on this, our Chief Ambassador to the Rest of the World, John Cleese has provided a written statement on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen. Please take proper time to read and understand everything listed here. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Sir John Cleese.

To: The citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President
of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the
revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties
over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which
she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for
America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of
you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will
be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and
‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping
half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise.

Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable
levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).

3. Using the same 27 words interspersed with filler noises such as
“like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of
communication.

There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your
behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of
the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn
your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

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So right now it’s 7am and I’m on a train. I’ve been on the train for a while now and I’m tired as hell. It has come to my attention whilst on this train that a) the seats aren’t entirely comfortable and b) other countries do trains way better than we do.

France have their superb SNCF train service that is cheaper and faster, Japan have the Bullet train and a timetable so strict that you get a letter to your employer from the train company should it be more than 40 seconds late. We have knackered up old trains that are not comfortable, cost a lot of money to travel on and really aren’t that fast. So where did we go wrong? Why is this, the greatest nation on the planet, stuck with such a retarded train service?

I’m travelling back to my home city today for the first time in several years to see my Dad, sample some proper ale and get a weekend return to country life. So I’m heading from Leeds (which is in Yorkshire) about 180 miles south to Worcestershire, which is just south of Birmingham. In fact, this trip will have me stopping in Birmingham for about an hour before getting a connecting train to Worcester Foregate St station.
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I’m back, I’m English and I’m a little concerned over the state of my Country. I’ve been writing this column in various formats for a while now and it seemed a good time to drag it out like the old chestnut it is and give it a bit of Robot Panic polish for you all. So for those who don’t know me, haven’t got a clue what this is all about and stuff… well my name is Phil, I’m an egotistical and opinionated bastard at the best of times and this little blog is my way of venting about a) my life and b) living in this beautiful yet somehow screwed up Country.

So I guess even though it’s the middle of summer and still raining and cold in the UK I feel the time is right to talk about air conditioning, or should I say the lack-of. It’s one of those strange things I’ve come across whilst travelling to various countries over the years – every other country has it and for some reason we don’t seem to care. It strikes me as odd that a number of countries with far worse economies and cooler weather than we have seem to place an importance on this important convenience in life when we don’t. Maybe we’re just too tight. Maybe we’re just too English.
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