By Well, 2004 has been consigned to the history books and 2005 is now upon us.
From a personal point of view 2004 has been a good year. I passed my driving test and now have much more freedom to go wherever I like; as attested by the fact that I went to Donnington in June with some friends to the Download Festival, drove down to Alley's in August and drove to Blackpool in November, along with visits to Newcastle and Haydock Park. 2005 will continue the trend with a visit to London in February to watch Rammstein in concert, a trip to Donnington for Download again, probably in June, another trip to Alley's, likely August, and 2 trips to Blackpool; April and November. I'm also hoping to visit Edingburgh and Peterborough sometime during the year, and might go to either Norfolk or Ireland sometime in September or October.
Listened to some great music in 2004, Damageplan, made up of half of Pantera and a couple of other, came out of nowhere to earn a place in my favourites; the untimely murder of Darrell 'Dimebag' Abbott has robbed the world of probably the greatest metal guitarist of the last 10-15 years. Donnington rocked; Saturday highlights included Powder and Iggy Pop, and Sunday included Damageplan, Soulfly, Slayer, Machine Head and Metallica. If the 2005 lineup is half as good as 2004 we're in for a treat. New albums from Melissa Etheridge, Rammstein, Damageplan, Breed 77 and Patti Scialfa got plent of playing time on my hi-fi alongside lots of older favourites and some old albums that I've only recently became aware of.
2004 saw me playing Doom 3, Half Life 2, Need For Speed Underground 2, Football Manager 2005, Unreal Tournament 2004, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines and Prince Of Persia Warrior Within on the PC. Only XBox games I got in to were Burnout 3 Takedown and Driver 3; still mean to get myself Ninja Gaiden, Fable and Halo 2, and looking forward to getting GTA San Andreas and Jade Empire for it. Haven't bothered with my PS2 at all, in fact loaned it for a long period to my nephew. Only new game I purchased for the GameCube was Mario Kart Double Dash. Don't see much to interest me on PS2 or GameCube in 2005.
Movies were quite hit and miss in 2004. Hero and Warriors Of Heaven And Earth were both superb; Shark Tale, The Day After Tomorrow, Van Helsing, Shrek 2 and The Incredibles were all very good. I Robot, The Prince And Me, Employee Of The Month (due out early in 2005), The Butterfly Effect and Taking Lives are also worthy of mention. But, Alien vs Predator, Open Water and King Arthur were all disappointing. Here's hoping some of the selections headed our way in 2005 are worth the wait. 2005 should see Batman Begins, Bewitched, a Darwin Awards movie, Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat, The Dukes Of Hazzard, Dungeons & Dragons 2: The Elemental Might, Elektra (only a couple of weeks away now), Fantastic Four, Final Destination 3, The Green Hornet, Highlander: The Source, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a Knight Rider movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, Rush Hour 3, Spy Hunter, an Ultraviolet movie and 2 War of the Worlds movies. 2006 will see an A-Team movie, The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown), Die Hard 4, Driver (based on the game), Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card), a fourth Indiana Jones movie, a Miami Vice movie, Mission Impossible III, Resident Evil: Afterlife and X-Men 3. And 2007 will see Shrek 3, a new Babylon 5 movie and a new Star Trek movie heading our way. No doubts some of these movies will slip but looks good.
