Matt K (Timberwolf)

@timberwolf.club

166 Followers 79 Following

I have a weakness for isometric management games, obscure simulators, irrelevant details of long-dead memory addressing schemes and listening to "The Legend Of Xanadu" more times than is strictly age-appropriate.

A black hardback book titled "Grand Theft Auto San Andreas City Guides: Los Santos - San Fierro - Las Venturas". It features three slim vertical pictures, each with an in-game screenshot of one of those cities. Inside (not shown) is a piece of optical media with all of the game files on it. You could be on the dark side of the moon with no radio link to Earth and providing you've got electricity and a DVD drive, still install and play the game. Although with this release version you might have an unacceptably high risk of being exposed to hot coffee.
A 1974 record turntable and a late 1980s amplifier sitting between two bookcases. To the left, a copy of"Promise Me Delight", a recent Ace Records compilation of Italo Disco and that sort of thing.
A normal man, just an innocent man, stands between a giant fox holding a sign saying "protect British wildlife" and the 5,900+ year old leader of the Recyclons from Sigma IX who coincidentally happens to look like a man with a giant bin on his head. This may look bizarre to outsiders, but for us here in the UK, it's Friday.
The YouTube Studio comments settings. Comments On/Off and Moderation have been there for ages, but there's a new option to choose whether to restrict comments to subscribers and/or members.
A short excerpt of the 1976 LP "The Bressingham Voigt" playing on a 1960s record turntable, with a Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 box next to it.
A grid showing the box art for 9 racing games: Assetto Corsa Wreckfest Gran Turismo 4 Gran Turismo 2 TrackMania United Forever Forza Horizon 4 Some sort of knockoff box for Sir Geoff of Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix The Need For Speed Grand Prix Legends
A box saying "Trans Rights Are Human Rights", which is a correct statement. It contains some sort of book, I guess. Maybe it's about trains, that would be nice.
A grid of album covers, featuring: * The Headcoatees - Man Trap * Ian Kay - Walk That Road Again * Miles Davis - The Complete Birth of the Cool * Wreckless Eric - England Screaming * The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation * Simon & Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence * Johnny Moped - Quonk! * Talking Heads - Talking Heads '77 * Dum Dum Girls - Only In Games * First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar * The Decemberists - The King Is Dead * The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land * Yndling - Time Time Time * David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World * The Raveonettes - Pe'ahi II * Damien Jurado - Our Turn To Shine * Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music For Airports * Thee Headcoats - The Sherlock Holmes Rhythm 'n' Beat Vernacular * Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets * Thee Headcoatees - The Sisters of Suava * CTMF - Failure Not Success * Woods - Goodnight / It Ain't Easy * Wreckless Eric - Leisureland * Pulp - The Man Comes Around - The William Loveday Intention - I'm Good Enough
A 5x5 grid of album covers: * Bob Dylan - At Budokan * Sufjan Stevens - (invites you to come on feel the) Illinoise * Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session * Radiohead - OK Computer * The Clash - Sound System * The Stone Roses - Second Coming * The Stone Roses * The Velvet Underground & Nico * Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline * Mercury Rev - All Is Dream * Bob Dylan - Hard Rain * Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People * Mogwai - Rock Action * The Cannonball Adderley Quintet - At The Lighthouse * Mogwai Young Team * Jens Lekman - An Argument With Myself * Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee at State's End * Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven * Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin' * Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#∞ * Bondage Fairies - Alfa Gaga Cp Wifi * Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets * Dubmood - Best of 2001-2003 * Flamin' Groovies - At Full Speed: The Complete Sire Recordings * Foxygen - Take The Kids Off Broadway
A picture of me kneeling on the floor playing Geoff Crammond's Revs on the classic combination of a BBC Micro and Microvitec CUB monitor. Somehow I am neither crashing nor spinning out, although this is a practice round and I've set the car up for slight understeer.
A high score table from Chuckie Egg running on a Tatung Einstein. Some say this is the best version. The relevant thing here is player "Timber" has scored 2780 and player "Dudlee" has scored 2760. I am not sure either of these are good scores.
A cardboard coffee cup from some mediocre SSP franchise or other sitting on a train table
A picture of the classic PC simulation game Robert Burns Rally, featuring Robert Burns sitting next to his co-driver, presumably about to drive a Subaru through a forest at high speed while writing verse as the player is tasked to do in the game.
The B-side of a Dire Straits single containing "Walk of Life", one of those songs that was near-ubiquitous through the late '80s and into the early '90s. At least, if you had parents of a certain age.
A clip from a Laurel and Hardy film in which the duo drive a car through a bandsaw, splitting it in half.
A screenshot of a Steam achievements list for Factorio. All of the game achievements are unlocked except for one - the achievement for being run over by one of your own trains.
A screenshot showing the rare Factorio achievement "Express delivery", awarded for finishing the game in less than 40 hours. "0.2% of players have this", according to the description, possibly because finishing the game in a mere entire work week requires quite a bit more than that in preparation and practice.
A photograph of a white Mazda MX-5 parked in a gravel driveway, long since consigned to the scrapyard. The car, that is. I suspect the driveway still exists.
A hand holds up an LP copy of Pulp's latest album "More", and a CD copy of their 1995 album "Different Class". Behind, the "More" LP sits on a 1960s turntable. There is a faded hype sticker on the CD announcing that it includes the singles "Common People", "Mis-Shapes" and "Disco 2000"
A Post-It note reading "I will be at RetroFest 2025. Say hello if you get chance. 31st May - 1st June, STEAM, Swindon".
A copy of Hawkwind's 1974 album "Hall of the Mountain Grill" next to a 1974 Goldring-Lenco turntable.
A screenshot of the game OpenTTD. Three trucks with trailers traverse a snaking road in the middle of the screen. The game purchase menu is open, showing a variety of trucks, each with a variant that has an added trailer. A depot window is open showing some more trucks with trailers attached.
A photograph of The Mighty Wah's "Come Back" held above a very old turntable. I'm doing it. Oh you know I am doing it.
A screenshot of a Duolingo session asking the user to translate "Paul, quel âge as-tu", the resulting "Paul how old are you" scanning perfectly with the chorus to Miko Mission's 1984 Italo Disco hit "How Old Are You", probably helped by the lack of any visible punctuation. I suspect the number of people who care about this is 1, including the person writing this alt text, but I guess here we are and at least we got to listen to some Italo Disco along the way.
A cardboard box containing 7" singles in the middle of a shelf of LP ls. It is full. Wah indeed, as the band name on the front picture sleeve states.
A screenshot of a by now way too long website article. Text reading, That was the battleground of the mid '90s, especially if you were into indie and you had a similarly aged step-sibling who was very much into pop. "Your music sounds like a bunch of people smashing bin lids together because they can't afford actual drums"... "well the only person yours means anything to is the accountant entering sales numbers and cost of material into a spreadsheet". (For reference, actual musical arguments between 13 year olds are not that sophisticated and mostly involve settlements as to where the volume controls can be set on stereo systems in adjacent bedrooms).
A screenshot of text describing an official Queen music video: Mercury stands awkwardly in a suit, Brian May appears to have been annoyed by someone changing all the settings on his keyboard two minutes before he went on stage, the lights in Roger Taylor's drum corner keep going off like an over-eager motion sensor in a toilet, John Deacon hasn't got the memo about the dress code, and behind all this all a screen displays computer-sequenced lights which are as unrelated to whatever else is going on as they were probably state of the art for [the year].
An LP copy of Stray Cats playing on a Dual 1019 turntable with the sleeve balanced behind it. An orange hype sticker details that it includes "Runaway Boys" and "Rock This Town", which would have been recent chart hits at the point this album was sold in early 1981.
A fully completed page from I-Spy Cars featuring the Mk2 Vauxhall Astra, Mk3 Vauxhall Cavalier, Mk2 Vauxhall Carlton, Volkswagen Beetle and Mk2 Volkswagen Polo.
A "recently played" page from a streaming service showing Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" next to Dennis Waterman theme tune classic, "I could be so good for you". These are not conventionally thought of as musically compatible choices.
A small pile of rejected singles sitting on top of a plastic box. Many are in picture sleeves which look kind of fine here but on closer inspection appear to have been stored in a swamp. On the top is a copy of Anthony Newley's "Strawberry Fair". It is not in a condition worth saving even if it was a less horrible record.
A copy of Peter Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way". If you asked an AI to draw you "worthless charity shop single" this is what you'd get, although probably all the text would be wrong.
A square record held up by the corner. It looks concerning and wrong while rotating. You realise 45 revolutions per minute is quite fast.
A Max Bygraves single "Back In My Childhood Days". You can probably guess the lyrical content. B-side is a somewhat more amusing variant "In My Young Man's Days" which does the, "things were so much bette... oh wait, there was a massive war on and it was shit"
A copy of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" sitting on top of a turntable, ready to play. I have just realised all of these things need entering into Discogs.
A worn copy of the Billy J Kramer single "Bad To Me".
A box of 45RPM singles precariously balanced on a speaker next to a Dual 1019 full auto turntable, because god forbid doing this task on something where you have to move the tonearm yourself.
The 2024 Candymouse album "The Light Just Bends" balanced precariously above a late 1960s Dual turntable.
Another page from the I-Spy book, boldly claiming British Telecom and Mercury are the only people allowed to install phone boxes on the streets today. Today! Mercury could install one outside your house this minute and there's NOTHING you can do to stop them. There are four photographs of the pinnacle of circa 1990 public utility architecture, although one of Mercury's efforts is a bit in that exciting neo-deco style beloved of Docklands redevelopment project. I have only referred to these as "the condom phones" a little bit.
A page of an I-Spy book, featuring signs you might spot along the roadside. Happy Eater and Little Chef are listed as 5 points apiece for being very common at the time the book was printed. Good luck with that now.
Two homemade espresso martinis in coupe glasses. Foam is something which happens to other people who are actually good at cocktails.