WJUK's Blog

This is what happens when you’re bored in dorms…

2009-11-13T01:03:00.001Z

It took a few hours but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT.

There are pictures too!

I love dorm life.

Some musings on University Life (and other random things) [UPDATED]

2009-10-09T01:05:00.001+01:00

I’ve been here for about 2/3 weeks now and I’m enjoying it. There’s a lot of freedom and you don’t have people constantly nagging at you. The course moves much more quickly too, they literally throw you into the deep end. Well anyway, here’s some thoughts on my life here:

Yea, this picture is totally irrelevant but it was one of the first things to come up after searching “university life” on Google images.

My dorm shower is weird. It has two turney knob things, the one above controls the pressure of the water and the one below controls temperature. Simple, right? Well, no. The pressure is highly adjustable, which is good, gives some great showers. The temperature knob has a sticker on that goes from red to blue, obviously red means hot and blue means cold in this context. That’s a given. So the first time I get in, I put it to about half-way which sounds logical; then I’d adjust the temperature from there. The shower’s built so you have to close the shower door or water goes everywhere, so there’s no escaping the shower water either. At first, the water was cold (which is predictable because most showers start of cold then get warmer), I let it get warmer then start showering. But then something strange happens… it continues to get hotter. To the point where it’s scaldingly hot, no kidding. I immediately dial it down a notch, but it’s still hot. This repeats a few times until I reach the very blue end where it’s meant to be cold. It’s not. It’s actually still hot. So basically, the shower goes from HOT –> SCALDING –>THE TEMPERATURE WATER BOILS AT (100 degrees) –> SKIN-MELTINGLY HOT –> MIDDLE OF THE SUN HOT. They should replace the sticker on it with a one that goes from red to black, the current one is much to deceptive. To add insult to injury, after I come out my dorm-mate tells me: “Oh yea, the shower is really hot BTW.” *cue ¬¬ face*
The university campus is big. And I mean REALLY BIG. So big, that I had to emphasise this with bold capital SHOUTY letters. I was there the other day and was walking around with a friend and we walked while talking, then after some time we looked up and both said: “Where the f*ck are we?” We had never seen this before, which was a bit unnerving although it was quite cool looking. And yes, we did get out alive.
Apparently the dorm blocks Xbox Live, which sucks. Even though I didn’t bring my Xbox with me; I’ve been meaning to but never got around to doing it and would also need a TV/Monitor.
I’ve started learning two new programming languages: Python and Haskell (with OpenGL). I had heard of Python before, mainly through Google’s efforts on their Google Apps and Google App Engine. But I was WTF with Haskell at first, having never heard of it. I thought there was some relation to PASCAL but turns out there’s no connection whatsoever.
PsychoDuck is back.
The computers they have at the computer labs in the Computer Science block are SWEEEEETTT. Too bad they run Linux which means a lot of games don’t run on them (I’ve already tried my RTW flash pen drive).
I’ve joined a few societies including BBCSoc (British Born Chinese Society) and HKSoc (Hong Kong Society). I’m thinking of joining CompSoc (Computer Society) as they hold LAN nights (followed by curry apparently) and y’know, who wouldn’t wanna be cool and join the computer society?
Speaking of societies, I now play for the HKSoc football team. It’s currently just 5-a-side but there’s gonna be 11-a-side matches soon. But having tried out playing in the league last week, it seems to be a step down from the league I was playing back at my home town. Well, it’s a lot less ferocious anyway. Oh and the game I played last week was for SPARTA FC. No kidding. Turns out HKSoc weren’t playing –and the guy forgot to text me *shakes fist angrily*- and SPARTA FC were down a player so I joined them temporarily. Against BBCSoc. Oh, the irony. We (as in, mostly the members of SPARTA FC) utterly trounced BBCSoc. It’s quite befitting to call them SPARTA FC I think. Apparently the name came out when they spent a wild night in Prague together… Yea, I pictured it turning out somewhat like The Hangover but X-rated.

Again, no relation to what I’m actually saying. I bet it got your attention though.

Surprisingly, I haven’t been living off pure noodles. I’ve hardly touched the box of 30 noodles underneath my bed, sort of depressing really.
It’s warmer here than my home town, I sleep with the window open.
My university has a clock tower and I’ve always wanted to see what was at the top of it. Unfortunately, I don’t see any clear instructions to get up there. Damn. They also project movies (or video, at least) on it at night. Somehow I managed to miss this totally until about 2 hours ago.
Living 5/10 minutes away from university rules.
I like programming.
Somehow I found this on Brad’s website (bornegames.com). Don’t ask me how, or I’ll have to kill you. No seriously, I would.
A lot of American shows have started up again. Currently watching: How I Met Your Mother (LEGEN- wait for it –DARY), Heroes (it’s got off to a good start for this season), Big Bang Theory (you just gotta love those nerds).
OMFG BRAIN TREE IS BACK.
Morrisons has been having a really big sale lately, I managed to get a 35p loaf of bread. 35p! It was so cheap that I’m now comparing that to everything, annoying a friend of mine to no end. Seriously though, I’ve made the comparison like twice today. There’s also 60p packs of Hula Hoops!
It’s about a 15/20 minute walk to town, which isn’t very far. But I find myself procrastinating and putting off shopping anyway.
The University Student Union is AMAZING. I love it. Watched a show called Hypnodog and laughed my ass off. Not to mention there are quite a few bars and a pub there.
Got part of my student loan. Still somewhat worried that I won’t have enough money to make it through the year with rent and the need for food. Oh wait, silly me, who needs food? At least electricity and water is free, I’ve been abusing it to no end.
Speaking of abusing free electricity, a friend of mine borrowed a rice cooker (from my sister, weirdly) and cooked 15 cups of rice –which was over the limit it provided- then left it on “WARM” for a whole weekend. His room now smells like a paddy field and he wants to move rooms.
A kettle and some tea does wonders for thirst.
OH LOOK IT’S TURBO THE (SHORT) MOVIE:

I WISH MY VIDEO GAMES WERE LIKE THIS.

I miss playing on my Xbox. Good thing I get to play it when I get home. Seriously considering getting a TV and bringing it over. Anyone wish to donate some money to me?
LittleKuriboh is beyond awesome. He's super-special awesome.
At a forum I go to they’re getting a bit frustrated at my continued teasing of something I tested that they didn’t get to test. They’re still trying to probe me for information, little do they know that I’ve posted about it here somewhere.
RANDOM COMIC TIME:

My sentiments exactly.
Spotify is awesome, I love it. The ads can get a bit annoying (especially when a few come at once), but hey: it’s free! What do you expect?
It feels weird learning a (two, in fact) programming languages from scratch. There’s a lot of stuff I could bring from my VB experience but it’s hard to apply to it. Not to mention I’m still extremely hazy on Haskell.
I’m also told to do some HTML and CSS stuff for Computer Science. It feels weird to do this again after so long. We’re not allowed authoring tools like Dreamweaver either (thank god, it cranks out some weird broken code).
Derren Brown does a mean accent:

I think that about sums up my random thoughts. I may post some more later. I understand it would probably be easier if I just used Twitter to do random musings like this… But I refuse.

[UPDATE] Another good one:

The most depressing scene I’ve seen is just as I get through the ticket gate, I watch the train I need to catch pull away from the station. ;(

Oh and I found this while digging around my laptop:

This was the original essay.

Link to this essay

This is the revised version for media after my teacher said it was to “Computer Science-y”.

Link to this essay

They’re quite long, aren’t they? I have a (much) trimmed down version of this somewhere. But I can’t be bothered to look for it. And man this post has past 1500 words. Man.

Well, this is my dorm…

2009-09-17T20:15:00.001+01:00

It’s a bit bare bones, but I can deal.

Man, it didn’t feel that long ago since I left Secondary School…

Guess whose going to Uni! [UPDATED]

2009-08-20T13:22:00.001+01:00

Yes, it’s been confirmed.

University, here I come.

[UPDATE] I figured I owe you guys some more content and I was meant to have a longer post, but time constraints and excitement meant I had to cut short (seriously) the original post.

But anyway, today was results day for A-level students. The day that can make or break the next few years for a student. The day where people cry, laugh or breathe a sigh of relief. Fortunately, for me I got the required results I needed (and more!) which means in just over a month I’d be blogging from my sweet-ass dorm.

However, for many others, who have not gotten the results they so dearly needed – I give you my condolences. I know how difficult A-levels are and the weight of expectation can be overwhelming sometimes. Luckily for me, I thrive under pressure so I’m not bothered by circumstances like this but many are. And sometimes, it just drains your heart and soul. You’ll feel emotionally and mentally wrecked by the end and it may seem difficult to be optimistic about circumstances like this.

So I only have these words for these people: Try again.

That may sound harsh when read out loud, especially since tone of voice is hard to convey through the internet, but I mean this in the kindest of ways. Don’t give up, keep trying until you achieve what you wanted to achieve. The precursor to success is failure; it just means you’ll have to work harder next time. When life keeps knocking you down, just keep getting up and plowing straight ahead.

Anyway, enough crazy off-topic ranting. I just went on a complete tangent there as I pretty much type what I think of – obviously I cut out irrelevant content, otherwise you’d be seeing a lot more references to food.

I was going to describe my original feelings of today but now I realise I didn’t feel much about today. Making it rather anti-climatic. I was only reminded at the start of the week and even when my friends are worried and can’t get to sleep, I don’t feel that. I’m the kinda guy that takes what life deals at me and then throws the crap right back at it. I recognise that worrying about something out of my current control is absolutely stupid, it’ll only serve as a detriment to my mental health.

Not to say I didn’t have my doubts; while I was fairly certain I had gotten the grades I needed. One can never be completely sure, there’s always that small inkling at the back of the consciousness (or sub-consciousness) that always thinks pessimistically about what could happen. But as long as you the pessimism doesn’t take over and consume your mind, you’ll be fine.

And wow, this is beginning to feel like some zany story.

So, without further embarrassment to myself, I’ll end this post here. I’m going to be busy up until I’m settled in at my new dorm, so don’t expect much activity here.

Turning 18

2009-08-06T18:24:00.001+01:00

So yea, I’m now officially –by law- classed as an adult. And let me tell you about how that is.

It’s the same.

I’m seeing little to no difference at all. Every kid looks forward to this day so you can now do anything you want (within legal boundaries, that is). But nothing magical happens. A fairy doesn’t appear at midnight to spray some fairy dust on you and take you to magical adult-land. Although, admittedly, that would be kinda cool.

Great, now I’m thinking about how adult-land would be like (and btw, I have no reason why I’m typing adult-land in italics). I’m imagining a world where the internet isn’t full of douche-bags and Xbox Live aren’t full of 12-year olds playing 18+ games. Wow, that tells a lot about me if the first thing I think about are the internet and XBL.

Anyway, I digress. Hitting the magical 18 feels no different than any other day. Ok, sure I don’t have to go “Erm… er… yea… about that…” whenever someone asks me for ID when buying a 18 game or trying to get into an 18 movie – which is cool, but I guess I just expected more. Like my brain just explodes with the sheer awesomeness of being an adult and everything that I didn’t really understand before just becomes shockingly clear. That might be a bit naive but all I’ve gotten is the fact that I sort of missed being young and in school. Things ~~seemed~~ were simpler back then, someone could point me towards a patch of grass and I would play in it for hours.

Oh great, I’ve just become an adult and now I’m starting to feel too old. People have always said my mind is more mature than my actual age, but I didn’t think I’d be thinking I’m growing too old now. I thought it’d be about the time I hit the 30 mark – which everyone seems to fear… for some reason or another.

Turning 18 has brought some perspective into what I want to do in the future. In the immediate future, I suppose I want to get into University this September – which promises to be an awesome experience if it’s anything like I think it’s going to be like; which it probably won’t be. But what about the future future? Like where I’d like to see myself 5, 10 or maybe 20 years into the future. It may sound crazy, but I haven’t really thought much about it before. I’m more of a “in the moment” guy, I find it hard to think past tomorrow.

Strangely though, I see myself playing video games for a long time. I just find the interactive medium really tantalising, it’s at the forefront of technology and it’s always changing. Always improving itself (supposedly). I’m not just talking about the mainstream video game scene either, sure they churn out some of the biggest hits and the biggest sellers. But, for true innovation, you’ve got to turn towards the indie scene and the flash game scene. That’s where you find true variety and not just endless sequels due to the fact that flash games don’t use hype and they only become popular if they are fun. That’s why I’m liking this trend where flash games are converted into XBL/WiiWare/PSN games. It’s great to see this happen and arguably, Behemoth paved the way for the industry with Alien Hominoid and they haven’t looked back. Castle Crasher’s is amazing fun and I’m loving the idea of co-op platformers.

Wow, I guess I really went onto a tangent there. But you understand where I’m coming from.

What a sad state of affairs

2009-07-26T01:33:00.001+01:00

I was just poking around my website when I saw my archives:

Looking at that, I’m asking myself: What the f*ck happened?

No, seriously. In 2007 –when I started up this blog- I managed 279 posts. Then 2008 rolled around and that became 38 posts (that’s about 13.6% of the posts from the year before). And now it’s almost August and I’ve managed 4 posts (5, if you include this one) so far this year. I used to be so enthusiastic about posting here, but my desire to post has just diminished like a slowly dying fire at the crack of dawn.

Now, I know it’s not about quantity but quality(and hopefully, you’ll also agree that my writing style has improved for the better); a good example of which would be GaijinSmash or The Sneeze. But what I’m saying is that: why is it so hard to keep up a regular posting schedule. Something that my friend, Duck may tell you too.

It may be that initially, it’s something new and exciting. But as time wears on, it becomes like a chore. Monotonous and the same every-time. Not to mention that most of blogs like mine get little to no traffic, so there’s almost no incentive to continue writing. That’s why comments are so important, it shows people actually read a blog and wouldn’t mind helping to improve the blog by giving constructive criticism or just give a pat on the back for the writer. Ever since late 2007, I hardly ever received a comment and I just couldn’t tell if anyone was actually reading what I would post up onto the great information super-highway or all my traffic was just someone being directed here by Google Images to steal one of my images.

There’s just not enough support given for most of us small blogs to continue writing, which I understand is a lot to ask since there are tons of small blogs out there that have little to no traffic. But that’s not really what I’m asking. There are some genuine diamond in the rough blogs out there that should really get more coverage than they currently have. All I’m asking is to support some of them. Leave a comment, tell them what a good job they’re doing. It’s not something mind-blowingly hard.

I’ll let you think about this proposal and ultimately agree with me.

And while you’re in this mindset, why not start with my blog?

Although doing so may not even bring me back to posting regularly, I just don’t feel motivated to anymore. So now I just lurk around the internet like some crazed stalker, watching YT videos and browsing forums; in particular Duck's forum and the Bornegames forum. Maybe I’ll see some of you guys there.

EDIT#1: I’m visiting some relative near Manchester and we’ve rented out a pretty awesome hotel. Just thought I’d show you guys quickly.

The room is pretty sweet!

Today I present to you…

2009-07-22T01:56:00.001+01:00

This…

Yea…

I win a T-Shirt

2009-06-29T17:06:00.002+01:00

Apparently I’m a lucky winner of a Windows 7 competition. And subsequently received a t-shirt and Windows 7 RC disk for my troubles.

Yay!

The letter reads:

Dear John,

Congratulations you were one of the lucky winners of the Road to windows 7 competition! Please find enclosed your Windows 7 T-shirt and your Windows 7 RC disc.

And some other stuff you don’t need to worry about.

I quite like the t-shirt, it feels pretty good. And what better way to make people think I’m a nerd by wearing a windows 7 shirt! Hooray! I’m not so sure about the RC disc. If I wanted to I could get the RC from the internet, and it’s going to start shutting down soon anyway so it’s a bit pointless. It would’ve been better if they gave me the RC and a subsequent product-key for Windows 7 so I wouldn’t have to buy it. That would’ve been a good prize, but alas they didn’t (at least, I don’t think so).

I’m still chuffed I won, I’m not really sure how many people entered (my guess is not a lot, if I won). And it’s weird to have another t-shirt sent to me not long after I received the Little Big Planet t-shirt… which I don’t think I’ve shown you guys. It doesn’t really fit me –it’s too small, for once- so I gave it to my sister. It wasn’t really my style either, too superfluous. I’m not sure where it is now, but I haven’t seen my sister wear it once.

Exams are finished!

2009-06-17T12:24:00.001+01:00

Yep, my college life has –hopefully- come to a close after today’s Maths (Statistics 2) exam. If I get the grades I require, I’ll be going to university this September which should be awesome.

I feel like I’ve been lugging a giant boulder around me for the last 2 years, and today I finally threw it off my back.

Picture is unrelated.

In other news, some friends and I went paintballing last Sunday which was a blast. I won’t bore you with the awesome details (like how many headshots I got) but I ended up with no paintball marks at all. While everyone else had at least several. It was a great day and I’d love to do paintball again. It’s not exactly cheap though, ended up costing me £53 all-together.

Still playing L4D at the moment as I promised myself that I’d only get Prototype after my exams have finished but I didn’t get to go to town today; probably won’t be able to go tomorrow either. So it’s Friday at the latest. :(

But no matter, L4D is still an amazing game to play with friends.

Origins of my gaming hobby

2009-05-30T23:58:00.001+01:00

I’m not going to make excuses about my long absence from posting here, it’s been… what? 5 months? Even VGCats is updating more than me (HAR HAR). It’s probably inexcusable to the majority of you but many things have been going on in my life, as well as the coming of exams. But the main thing is probably the dying of my passion to post. More likely than not, you saw that in the last few posts that I did. It was new and exciting at first, but eventually it become a chore.

Anyway, I digress. The blog is probably going to become a place to output my creativity whenever I want to so posting will not be frequent.

I spent a night over at my uncle’s the other day. And some of you may or may not know this, but my uncle was probably the reason I’m such a gamer now. I recall nights when we would be huddled round a screen together playing some new fantastical game that he had bought. We would stay up until very late (and I mean very late, especially considering how old I was).

But now, he’s in his mid-30s (I think), married and has 3 kids. He doesn’t really have time to game anymore and it’s sort of depressing to see, he’s reduced to playing only in the wee hours of the morning. And even then, it’s only every other day at most. Not to mention the mid-range rig he sports is in his children’s room, so he has to play quietly. Quite unlike the days of yore, when we would scream and shout at our epic wins.

He’s also been reduced to buy only from bargain bins, for obvious reasons, so the majority of the games he plays aren’t particularly great and I don’t really have the heart to tell him. It’s upsetting to see someone who use to be at the forefront of gaming to lag behind so much. The latest game he bought was “The Spiderwick Chronicles” for the PC. And no, I’m not joking. Luckily for him (and me), it didn’t work on his computer and neither on my laptop. But he looked genuinely sad that the latest game he bought didn’t work, and it felt like someone tore out my heart and replaced it with a cold hard stone.

Don’t think that it’s all bad though. His gaming collection is still massive, he has tons of games from yesteryear, and quite a few are real gems. I decided to browse through his gargantuan collection and here are a few of the games I found:

>Colonization

>Sim Ant

>Sim City

>Theme Hospital

>Theme Park

>Rome Total War

>Shogun Total War (two of them in fact)

>Civilisation 1,2, 3 & 4

>Morrowind

>Balder’s Gate

>Neverwinter Nights

>Quake 1 & 2

>Halo 1

>Starcraft

>Dune 1,2 & 3

>Star Wars: KOTOR

>Quite a few old-skool Lucas Arts click & point adventures

>Games from the Thief series

>Typing of the Dead – no, I’m not kidding

>Wolfenstein

>Age of Empires 1 & 2

>Games from the Alone in the Dark series

>Clive Barker’s Undying

And the list goes on. I could probably sit here until the end of time just listing his games but I have better things to do (like revising for the 2 exams I have on Monday), there’s still some duds in his collection but that just makes it all the better. Currently I think he’s playing a game called: “Imperial Glory” as well as some other games.

Anyway, this post was mainly to show you one reason that I’m such a big gamer now (although it’s one of the primary reasons, it’s not the only one). Seeing as how my uncle is now, it seems like somewhere along the lines I deviated from him as I only really play console games now – I occasionally play PC games. A far cry from way back when, where I would only play exclusively on the PC. I guess part of the reason is the cost necessary to keep up with the latest specs to play the newest games but also console exclusivity – like Nintendo games etc.

I’m just wondering what I’d be like at his age. Would I still be gaming? Would I only get to game after in the early hours of the morning? Would I only be playing on the PC?

There’s so many questions that I could ask. But I won’t know the answers to until I actually get there. At least I should have a good time getting there. If all goes well, I’ll be gaming through university and after that. I don’t see me dropping my gaming ~~obsession~~ hobby anytime soon. Simply because of the intriguing new ideas the game industry keeps bringing in and the escapism factor, as well as entertainment factor.

Maybe when I’m my uncle’s age I could be gaming with my children, who knows what tomorrow will bring? That’s what makes life so exciting.

Currently playing: Left 4 Dead

Looking forward to: Prototype

As I said, I have no idea when my next post will come. It may come tomorrow, next week or another 5 months later. It’ll come when I feel the urge to write again. Until then: ciao.

[EDIT] As a note, I don’t mind if any of you guys add me on XBL. Maybe we could play some L4D/GTA IV/Halo 3 together. Just make sure you state that you know me through the blog.

Shortest Post Ever

2008-12-25T22:06:00.001Z

[EDIT] Happy belated new year!

Oh and check this out: BEST FORUM EVER

Total Topics: 1093 - Total Posts: 2270

Total Members: 1

Yes, you read that right. ONE MEMBER. *MIND-PLOSION*

Meniscus Film - Anticipation

2008-12-11T21:08:00.004Z

It’s been about a month since my last post (btw: STFU and stop emailing me about it) and I have a perfectly legitimate reason for that. Originally I was waiting for Meniscus to upload our film up onto Youtube. Yes, it’s taken about a month for it to get onto Youtube. But they didn’t upload it, I did.

I had to copy our exported movie from the college computers (it was over 1 GB!) and take it home. I then had to import it into Movie Maker and render it into a smaller file size (got it down to 46 MB) since it would’ve been impossible to get a 1GB video up onto YT. Even if it was possible, it’d take way too long.

Ahem, I digress. Here’s the film:

MR A. IS MAGIC!

Oh if you’ve noticed any of the (numerous) continuity errors, don’t sweat it. We probably know about it. We just didn’t have time (or could be asked) to storyboard or anything so it we pretty much filmed most of these without thinking. XD

And if you’re confused about what the hell is happening… don’t worry. You’re not alone. It’s not really meant to make any sense, it’s just slapstick (or slap-pan, HAR HAR) humour really.

Normally, a normal person would go on about the pre-production and post-production process etc. and the hardships faced. But I’m no normal person, so I’m just gonna say: It was fun. Yes, I did the camera-work, editing and part of the scripting but it was undeniably fun. I would definitely love to make another film, preferably after my exams though. XD

Meniscus Film Festival TOMORROW

2008-11-14T11:55:00.001Z

Yes yes, I know. Ages since the last post YADA YADA BLARGH BLAH BLAH!

The biggest news this week is the upcoming film festival which is tomorrow (if you haven’t noticed already by the title). So I hope you guys wish us luck and that we can bring home the cash prize so I, er… I mean: we can share it. Hopefully it’ll be a awesome night overall even if we don’t win (but seriously, we have a baguette in our film, how can we lose?).

On other news, Brad (creator of Fancy Pants, his blog is here) recently showed off his latest game. As an avid fan of his works I jumped upon the chance of playing it. And I’m proud to say he’s lifted Flash games to new heights! Turns out the super secret project he was working on was a collaboration with EA (Yes, that EA) in creating a Flash version of Mirrors Edge. Much like the Flash Portal game that came out a while ago, it’s ditches the original game’s first person perspective and is in a 2D plane. It runs of the same engine that powered the infamous fancy pants games – so you’ll most doubt notice some similarities. Anyone I’ve rambled on a bit. Here is Brad’s post about it.

Or, if you want here’s the link to the BETA demo.

NOTE: THE FULL GAME ISN’T OUT YET. IT’S JUST A DEMO.

Oh, and here’s my speed-run of the demo level. :D

BEAT THAT!

There’s not much more to add except…

LEFT 4 DEAD IS AWESOME.

It’s a left hand of the dead with FOUR fingers! Get it?

[EDIT]Turns out I got accepted to try out the NXE. I’ll be able to download it 2PM PST – which turns out to be 10PM GMT… From the videos and pictures I’ve seen it looks good, but being able to try it out first-hand would be awesome.

The NXE is coming out in about 5 days anyway (19th November) though, so everyone (who has a 360 connected to the internet) could try it then.

Mentoring and Choices! ~UPDATE

2008-10-07T22:34:00.000+01:00

As I’ve been rambling on about it quite a few times, I’m sure you’re aware I want to do some mentoring of some kind at my college. Well, looks like I’m officially in. Times and such haven’t been set but I’m sure we’ll work that out. It’s all formal-looking as I received an email stating the code of conducts and rules and regulations etc. Should be good stuff. The ‘interviewing’ process that happened today was something I had never experienced before. It was a group interview type thing (which I only found out about the day before) and it was pretty unusual. For one thing, we started playing 20 Questions halfway through. I can’t remember exactly what led to those circumstances though. Anyway, the point is that 6 of us applied and we all got the job. Except, we’re still being tested as up until the half-term we’re in, what I like to call, the “trial period.” Where we have to keep an active log of who we deal with, where and when. Sort of a pain in the ass if you ask me, but I’m being paid. And if I’ve learned anything over the past 17 years of my life it’s that as long as your being paid the right amount, anything’s worth it. And wow, that was a double entendre if I ever did see one.

Anywayz, moving swiftly on, I also had my first Career’s interview today. It went pretty good actually, the woman there did a good job in helping decide what I wanted to do for the next few years. She also showed me how much I’ve narrowed it down already without me consciously knowing so. I’ve got a few courses in mind already, and also some universities that I think would be suitable. The hardest part is deciding which one I like best. Wish me luck, eh?

In other random news, the film for the Meniscus Film Festival – titled: “ANTICIPATION” – has been submitted… at least I think so. I’m still unsure on whether it has or not, last week Jamie and I walked all the way there to that guy’s house to hand him the DVD. We had to because it was the last day for submissions. We slid it nonchalantly through his letterbox before we noticed that we only made one copy of the damn film and freaked out. We spent the next few minutes double checking the house number and street sign to make sure we had the right place. And it was… we think. I told Jamie to check up on it, but he still hasn’t so I’m doubtful whether he has received it or not. Meh, I guess it’s just me being paranoid since we worked quite hard on it. And I’ve got to say, I’m quite proud of the little beast (little beast being a very bad metaphor for the film) and there are some genuine aspects where I think it looks damn professional. And the other parts… well, let’s not talk about those shall we? When, or if, they put the damn thing on YT I’ll be sure to link to it right away. But until then, you’ll have to wait. Sorry.

There’s also news about the 5-a-side league that we were thinking of joining, but so far have been unable to do so. Ash got a call that we can replace a team that has dropped out mid-season. Which means we’re joining half way through the season so the points (if we get any) are worth shit but oh well. I’ll be playing for fun anyway. It just means less pressure for us.

Oh and I’ve also been trying the new Messenger BETA and it’s quite good. Everything looks, well, bigger. As well as cleaner and more minimalistic which is always a pro in my book. And frankly, the tiled mood thing is awesome. I suggest you check it out as well.

…

If you think I’m gonna provide the link than you’d be wrong. I seriously CBA at the mo, so you’re going to have to google-it-you-moron. I mean, how hard can it be?

Oh, and DRAGON BALL.

Wow, that looks beyond suckage.

[UPDATE] I just completed my analysis section for my Computing project. And it was actually quicker than I thought. It was still a pain in the proverbial ass, but at least it’s done now. Just the other sections to go… Well, when we get to it. The Analysis was in for tomorrow and I had hardly done anything! Thank god I’m quick at typing since it clocked in just under 2000 words and 8 pages. All that in about 2/3 hours. Insane.

Anywayz, I still need to decide on my 5 choices and I’ve broadened my search so that it incorporates London as well and some other cities and towns. ‘Cos originally I wanted to go to a Uni near a large~ish city but not London because of the insane costs. But now, thinking about it… London wouldn’t be all that bad I reckon. It’ll certainly be more lively than where I’m living now; hell Humdrum’s more lively than this place.* So far I’ve marked a few prospective Uni’s that look promising. Leeds U, Manchester U and possibly even Aston. Problem is, I have to decide which is my first choice now. And since it will affect my next 3/4 years, and possibly the rest of my life, I’m going to pick wisely. Which is a first for me. :P

*Not true

Mario Kart and Brawl and Movies! Oh my! – UPDATE

2008-09-23T22:13:00.001+01:00

Well, the thing is after hardly touching Mario Kart Wii for months after I got so frustrated by 150cc it’s having a resurgence. It happened when Gavin and Daisy decided to add me into a little game of Mario Kart they were having. Then it just spiraled out of control. I think we’ve played it everyday online (well, except yesterday) since. It’s just immensely fun with friends. Especially when using Skype to trash-talk. Doesn’t get much better than that. Oh and just for the record, I win ~~most~~ the vast majority of the races.

Today though, me and Gav tried our hand at SSBB online. We didn’t play it before because Daisy didn’t have it (FAIL). But after a few prelim games, Gavin (who was hosting) decided to set a 60 MINUTE GAME. Not only that but he set it up so that it was really easy to die. Which obviously meant one thing. Yep. Lots and lots of dying. It was practically one-hit kill for everyone. I was Fox; Gav was Pit; Bowser and someone else was CPU. The game was suitably EPIC. I’m not going to talk about the awesomeness of the game since it was a you-had-to-be-there thing but the scores ended up with me kicking ass with +175 and Gav with –33. The 2 CPU got even worse (one got –155). That was enough Brawl for us that day.

But as I type, we’re starting up Mario Kart again. :D

This is what it’s like to be an addict…

===

Oh and about the Meniscus Film movie thing. We’re pretty much done editing, except there’s some issues with the allocated time (under 5 mins). Basically, our film is too long. DAMN. So we’re going to have to cut some scenes out. :(

I’ll update you later on.

[UPDATE] So, today we pretty much wrapped up editing for our film. It was funny too as we had to get the film under 5 minutes (including credits and such) so we spent most of today just speeding clips up and trimming clips to ensure we were under 5 minutes. In the end we got it to 4 minutes and 59 seconds! There’s only a few minor things we need to add on Monday (Tuesday’s the deadline!) and we also need to export it into an .avi file. The film production is nearing it’s end and I’m actually kinda sad; yea it was more work but it was most definitely fun. Too bad I won’t be doing something like that for a while. Oh well, at least I have the actual festival to look forward to. And since the audience votes on who wins, we may just have a shot at this…

I just need a megaphone so we shout the loudest.

SPORE Review

2008-09-06T20:56:00.001+01:00

Sorry for the 3 week absence; life has been busy- ah screw it. You know that I don't give a damn and I know that you don't give a damn; the reason why you're reading this is because your either at work and bored out of your bloody mind or you've got some serious mental issues.

Now that we've got that over and done with, it's a game review! Yay! When was the last time I've had one of these?*

*Answer: Last one was the Mario Kart Wii Review in April.

For those who have lived under a frickin' boulder for the last 5/6 years, SPORE is Will Wright's next game after the cash-cow that the Sims have become. First shown a while ago (a long while ago) at GDC it quickly become one of my own (and plenty others) most look-forward to game. The whole concept seems mind-blowing, it could've been five different games but no. Its all packaged in one single game. A damn good one at that.

It didn't really provide the seamless evolutionary advancing that Will Wright was boasting but it does a damn good job. Splitting it into stages makes it more casual-friendly and is much easier to have a favourite stage that you can jump into easily. The 5 stages are: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilisation and Space. Here's a little summary of each and what I thought of them:

Cell: What I thought was going to be the most boring stage but it turned out quite well. Things just worked as you ate more and more things. And payback was literally a bitch in this one as it was amazingly gratifying when you devour a creature that was larger than you previously. I found numerous times where I was playing through this stage and was shouting: "HOW'D YOU LIKE THAT, HUH?" and "SUCK IT, BITCH!" or something along those lines. All in the name of good fun...

Cell is quite fun. Nothing to complicated, which is good to start the game with.

Creature: This is arguably one of my favourite stages. It's a step up from cell definitely. You have more things to consider and you finally get a 3D space to roam around in. Changing your creature is seamless; all you have to find is a mate. Which is much easier in SPORE than in real life, mind. It consists of just clicking a "Mating Call" button and heading towards your nest. Simple. At first, the other creatures that are close to your nest are pretty weak (probably that way deliberating to ease players into this stage). But about halfway through the stage, it requires you to move nests. I'm still not sure why, since the one we were using next to the sea was fine I reckon. Maybe we had defiled that nest so much with the "making ~~babies~~ eggs" and other things. Oh and if you explore around, this should be the first stage where you'll get to meet an epic creature. Named appropriately as it's basically a giant version of a creature. And it can be any creature on that current planet, which means there can be some crazy results. Another thing I liked about this stage -and that Will Wright boasted about several several several times- was the community features. It uses other creatures made by some other players (or your own sometimes) to populate your world. Which means the game has an endless amount of creatures to use so you'll hardly ever meet the same one twice.

Yes, upside-down creatures are possible. As well as penis creatures it seems...

Tribe: This is when things started getting a bit... iffy. It basically plays like something like Age of Empires but stripped down to it's basic elements. You can gather food, fight, hunt, fish(if you have the tools) etc. The purpose of this stage is to either conquer the other villages or ally them. And I've found that allying them is much easier whereas conquering takes a heavy toll on your numbers (which starts at 6 and eventually maxes out at 12). Although it seems to drive you towards conquering as it seems much to easy to make them angry at you. Then it requires an offering of food to allow you to even begin allying them, oh and you do that by equipping the members of your tribe with instruments and playing a note-hitting mini-game for their pleasure. But that's not what bugs me most, it's just that they always come at the most awkward times to raid your village (when I'm trying to ally another village, or attacking one - basically when most of my tribe is out). Now, I'm unsure if this is clever AI seeing as they can tell when your village is unoccupied or if it's just a way to rack up the difficulty artificially. But it doesn't become such a big problem as the game gives a notice when the raiding party sets off from the enemy village. The only potential problem I can see is if you have the slowest creature in the world and it'll take you forever to get back. Overall, this stage has it's ups and downs and certainly plays well. Although it seems dumbed down a bit so most people (people who don't normally play games, or people who tried to play this after playing the Sims) can get through it.

A music mini-game. Yes, that's how you get people to like you.

Civilisation: This is the stage that I'm more meh on. It does the job well, but I feel it's pretty similar to Tribe phase just with some new mechanics. Your village becomes your city, your tribe members become your vehicles etc. Now though, food is no-longer the currency. It's Spice. Yes, the thing you sometimes place on your food is coveted by Sporians from all over the galaxy. And you obtain this from Spice geysers that are on your planet by using your vehicles to click on them. At first your limited to land vehicles, then sea vehicles and then finally air. Obviously, you'd need to be next to the sea to make sea vehicles. At first, this stage is a real pain in the ass. Then after you obtain 4 cities, you get air vehicles. It's just a matter of building a fuckton of them now and rushing every city one at a time. Yes, my eventual strategy was just forcefully obtaining cities by building the most air units I can and blitzing each city one at a time. It's a shame really, as this stage had quite a lot of promise.

This could be your city! Or you could have a city of penis buildings... the possibilities are endless!

Space: The final ~~frontier~~ phase. The stage where most people would be spending their time, it brings an absolutely boundless longevity to the game. This is where the game comes into it's own. You can literally do anything after the tutorial (which you can skip), provided you had the tools that is. I haven't unlocked every tool yet, but what I have does look promising. You can sculpt planets, carve out canyons, raise mountains, create oceans. Additionally, you can change the colour of the land, sea or sky. And finally you can change the temperature and density of the atmosphere of the planet. This is the most important factor, as it's the one that decides whether creatures and plants can reside on that particularly planet. There are different tools to do all these things, and seeing as you'll be unlocking them only occasionally, so you're not overwhelmed by them. You'll obviously encounter alien races (notably one race that seems to act as the galaxy super-power and occupy the centre of the galaxy), and you can choose to be friends or enemies. If you become friends, you can open trade routes or form alliances (doing so will grant you one of their ships to join you as a side-kick of sorts - meaning you'll eventually have a whole spaceship posse to wreck havoc on planets on). And if you become enemies... well, you blow the crap out of each other. Simple, really. BUT WAIT. This stage also boasts the most annoying thing ever to grace this game. Remember the thing in tribe where they would attack you while your out, well the space stage takes it to a whole new level. It seems every five minutes, there's a call of help from a colony or ally where their are pirates, that superior race I mentioned earlier or an enemy species are attacking. And it becomes a real pain. I've found sometimes that I was attacking the final planet of one species and I get a notice that the same species was attacking one of mine. Now, wouldn't it be much more intelligent to pull all your ships back and have a last stand on your final planet? Apparently no, as I take out the few ships on the planet and destroy their civilisation. If anyone wants a comparison, just think of it as the blue shell from Mario Kart Wii.

Expand your empire!

Overall, the game is good. No, scratch that. It's great. And out of the 5 stages, you're bound to love one of them. Personally I love the Space stage since it gives you boundless freedom. But I've found some people that prefer the creature stage since it's not as complicated. Each stage gives you something different to think about.

The creators though are brilliant. They work amazingly and I would probably pay for a game just with the creators in. They're easy to use and really efficient. I'd highly recommend it to anyone with some good creativity, they're remarkably easy to get a hang of. Even if you have 5 minutes with the game, try out the creators. It's a pro tip.

Anything that I liked is the scope of the game. The opening cinematic is nicely done and sets you in the mood for the cell stage. And after each stage, the camera pulls out a little. From the tide-pool, you pull out to see a small part of the continent. Then you pull out a bit more to see the whole continent in the tribe phase. The camera then pulls out to the entire planet. And finally you reach space. There you can choose to scroll and focus on a tiny part of any planet or alternatively, you can scroll all the way out to view the whole frickin galaxy. And you'll be wowed when you first do this.

The game also seems complete to me and not rushed. I haven't encountered any slow down at all or frame rate problems and I'm running it on my laptop! I've only had it crash on me twice, the first time it was my fault and the second time it was one of my friend's fault. The first case was I wasn't running it as administrator (I'm using Vista) and after the cell phase, the first time I get into creature is freaks out on me. For some reason I can play the cell phase without being an administrator. The second time was an online friend (that I won't name) who decided to make many large conversations while I was playing. I didn't know at the time since I was playing fullscreen, but when the game finally crashed the first thing I see is my taskbar filled to the brim with 50-odd conversations. That probably overloaded my laptop and it ran out of CPU resources when loading things.

To be honest, I haven't properly finished the game. The object of the Space phase is to reach the centre of the galaxy. And judging by the looks of it, it'd take forever unless I decided to blitz there and ignore everything else. Oh and apparently our solar system is in the game as well, although I have yet to find it myself.

The game also applies an achievement system, much like the achievements in 360 games. There are the run-of-the-mill achievements for completing the phases and also some crazy ones like finding Earth or losing 5 planets. All in all, I won't give this game a score. As to different people, it'd have different scores. For creative people, you'll have endless opportunities to unleash your creativity in the creators. Whereas some less-creative people can just take some content from the creative people, if that floats your boat. In the end, it's one of those: "You've got to try it!" games.

[EDIT] I forgot to give you an update on what’s been going on in my life. And I’m too lazy to make another post, so here’s an update. Let’s get this done with quickly shall we?

The film we’re doing for the Meniscus Film Festival is in the editing stages. We just got it onto the computer today in fact and was going to start editing when we were distracted by a game sale at Morrisons (my friend picked up Brawl for £15 and Guitar Hero: On Tour for £12!).
For anyone wondering, FUCKTARD hasn’t had an update. It stopped at Gavin but he went on holiday and now I’m not even sure what’s going on.
I’m thinking of dropping Computing because I can’t be asked anymore and I’ve got enough to deal with already. Although I may still continue for a bit just to see where it goes. I haven’t done the project either… *sigh* I’ll have to make something up tonight…
Wow, I just noticed that Twitter gadget on my blog’s sidebar. It’s been 110 days since I’ve updated it… Looks like it’s going to stay that way too. :P

That about runs down my life right now. Hectic, to say the least. So much to do, so little time…

A Level Results Day 2008

2008-08-14T13:44:00.001+01:00

I had been meaning to post for a while now. But I've been putting it off repeatedly because... well... I'm lazy.

"Hard work pays off over-time. But procrastination pays off NOW." - A wise man

Ok, enough talk. Let me cut to the chase (in this case: the results).

Subject	Unit	UMS	Subject Award	UMS	Unit Grade
COMPUTING		221	B
	Computer Sys, Prog & Netwk Concepts (105)			70	C
	Princ of Hardware, Software & Applic (105)			74	B
	Practical Systems Development			77	A
GENERAL STUDIES		241	A
	Conflict (100)			100	A
	Power (100)			58	D
	Space (100)			83	A
MEDIA STUDIES		223	B
	Reading the Media (90)*			62	C
	Textual Topics in Contemporary Media (90)			47	D
	Practical Production (120)			114	A

*If you recall this post. They lost the results for Reading the Media, so it's an average of my other grades. Damn, I think I would've got quite a lot in Reading the Media too.

Well, there are the results. It looks about right, although the D in Textual Topics in Contemporary Media totally blind-sided me. I was expecting much better. I'll most likely resit that one.

BUT WAIT.

Maths? Where is the maths?

Well that came on a different piece of paper:

TITLE	GRADE	UNIFORM MARK
Advanced Sub. GCE
Mathematics	A	273/300

Advanced GCE Unit
Core Mathematics 1	A	96/100
Core Mathematics 3	B	79/100
Core Mathematics 4	C	67/100
Decision Mathematics 1	A	87/100

Well, there are all my results. Overall most of it was expected and some were not. I think the only resits I'm going to do are for C4 (Maths module) and the Textual Topics in Media one. Good thing I did good in D1, that was the one thing I didn't want to resit.

In other news, I partook in a badminton tournament the other day (Tuesday, I believe). And if you remember this post from about a year ago, I placed 5th last time. This time, I skipped the singles and just played doubles. And came... wait for it... wait for it... SECOND. Yes, runner-up in Mens Doubles. Sweet. Frankly we pretty much had no chance at winning the final since we up against the two best guys there. The trophy is now stored at the now-infamous trophy cabinet. Not much to report after that, except the final was phenomenal and you should have been there. Despite being the definite under-dogs we got perilously close to winning it.

Here's just a quick update on two projects I'm working on. First the media project for the Meniscus Film Festival that I may or may not have mentioned before. We're pretty far into the project, the script is 80/90% done and all that's left is really the filming and preparation for filming. I'm not going to spoil it since it's actually rather good, despite the whole plot line being conceived on a drowsy Thursday afternoon at Starbucks with Jamie.

Another little project I have going is an appropriately-named: FUCKTARD. Which is the current codename it seems. This idea was conceived in a more crazy way, which consists of me, Gavin and Ashley just randomly coming up with storyline's one day and this one came up. And Ashley decided to start a script. So now we're passing it along and adding things to it. Here's the latest iteration(that I have) of it (I thought might as well seeing as the chance of it being made into film is severely slim).

FUCKTARD SCRIPT.

NOTE: It's work in progress.

I have a good reason for my absence of late... (and bonus E3 Big 3 round-up!)

2008-07-19T01:30:00.001+01:00

It's called: CBA-sickness.

It's a very rare form of cancer that affects the cerebral lobes of my inner-most brain that controls my proactive activity of posting on my blog; according to the doctor I'm seeing (who, I assure you, isn't a drunken hobo that likes to dance the Irish Jig for money) I am currently the only diagnosed patient of CBA-sickness on the planet. Wow. Amazing isn't it.*

Anyway, let's continue to more pressing matters. Since my last post from about a month ago (Toothpaste fixes all) a lot of wild s%*& has happened. And I'm not just talking about the new Hulk film (which is several levels of awesomeness btw). I've had my fair share of action lately; even though college finished almost a week ago I'm still finding myself waking up rather early for the last few days. Hopefully tomorrow will change all that.

And there's also E3. I managed to catch all of the Big 3's conferences despite my busy schedule. And it was slightly... disappointing; to say the least. Out of the three, I seemed to enjoy Microsoft's conference the most for some reason; it certainly started off well with the demos (Fable 2 and Fallout 3 piqued my interest especially), then proceeded to drop off a little - but at least a new PORTAL game was announced!. The Square-Enix trailers helped lift moods a little, then it went out with a bang when FFXIII was announced for the 360. Wow. Who saw that coming? I certainly didn't... well, not until that guy returned to the stage and said: "I have one more big announcement." This is a big blow for Sony in turns of exclusives (somehow I just think that FFXIII would just have moved quite a few units of the PS3 if it stayed exclusive, or maybe that's just me). And despite all that, the new Bungie game wasn't announced! It was allegedly pulled at the last minute! Shame on you Microsoft!

Nintendo's conference fell into second place for me. It started off -in one word- crap. I don't want to hear the "Cammienator" (if that is her real name - you won't get that joke unless you know Nintendo pretty well) talk about her sucky snowboarding skills. I'm watching this for only one reason: -take a guess- games. Finally, it started picking up when Animal Crossing: City Folk was announced. Yes, City Folk. Now, I'm sure I'll get use to that (hell, I got use to Wild World and Wii didn't I?) but the name is a bit... well... funny-sounding now that I think about it. Yes yes, we're talking about Nintendo here and their crazy naming techniques (well DS makes sense at least...). *ahem* I'm babbling, I digress. Anyway, AC Wii looks like it's more of the same from Nintendo. Which isn't a bad thing in these terms, if it still has the surprisingly addictive gameplay of the previous two games then you know that I'll be glued to my couch for days (or weeks). When I go to the toilet, all you'll see is a sweat-stained WJUK-sized patch in the middle of the sofa... Nah, not really. I don't sweat horrendously while playing games (as far as you know anyway); the worse it's ever gotten was during the Wii Sports marathon - oh boy, was that a night to remember. Ok, I'm babbling again so I'll cut it to you straight. GTA DS was announced although nothing else was provided (not even a screenshot or a pre-rendered trailer) which means that the game is pretty early on in development me thinks. Wii Motion Plus demoed, will be bundled with Wii Sports: Resort (yes, RESORT - the funny naming trend continues) and it looks pretty damn good. But this being Nintendo it'll cost a small fortune (especially in PAL regions) which may end up making it not worth it. Wii Music also shown, and playing the Mario Bros song is possible with it. Somewhat.

Wow, talk about more ways of feeling like you can play instruments when you really can't

And finally, the Sony conference. For some reason I found this the least enjoyable. Maybe because I was doing something else at the time, but it doesn't mean it was bad. Resistance 2 showed off a big-ass boss. Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty (can I get a: BOO-TAA!) announced for PSN. But arguably the best part of the whole presentation was when Sack Boy helped out with the sales figures.

Oh Sack Boy. Oh how do I wish to play you... wait... no I mean play with... no, as you... ok I give up.

As you can obviously see, Little Big Planet is shaping up to be quite a game. Oh and Infamous looks good too.

Anyway, I think I should be wrapping this post up soon. I don't want to continue typing this into the wee hours of the morning. Although I will leave you this:

*If you believe any of that: You're an idiot.

Toothpaste fixes all!

2008-06-28T17:25:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I haven't exactly been active lately here. But hell, there's probably 3 people reading this, so whatever.

Anyway, I picked up Brawl yesterday (Friday) and I was like: "Sweet! FIN-FRICKIN-LY"* After about 5 months, we finally get one of the Wii's greatest games and I'm loving every minute of it. I've already unlocked Sonic, Captain Falcon, Luigi and some other dudes; but I've hardly played Subspace Emissary because there have been 4 people playing all the time. Oh well, I'm looking forward to getting R.O.B. too.

So, all was well. Until my sister knocked the Wii over accidentally. It wasn't her fault really, it was just a particularly heated battle and the Game Cube controller wires were particularly short. Damn controller wires. But, long story short, the disc was scratched. Some things didn't work and it just said "Disc cannot be read." Anyone who hasn't been living under a secluded rock under the lost City of Atlantis should understand my pain and frustration here. The scratch was minimal! And yet it's managed to make me unable to play like 4 stages and so many characters. Understandably, I raged. And I mean full-fledged psychotic LCD-inducing rage. Yea... it was pretty bad.

After a while of general sulking and tantrums; I remembered something from my young days. Toothpaste.

No no no, I wasn't trying to remember whether or not I had brush my teeth this morning (which I had, mind you). I was going to put toothpaste on the disc to clear out the scratch marks. Ludicrous, some of you might say (particularly the portion of people who haven't tried this before). But I tempted fate and kicked it's ass!

After about 10 minutes of general rubbing and scrubbing; it was practically as good as new. After a quick rinse under the tap (yes, I used water on the CD). It worked beautifully. Immaculately even.

WJUK: 1. Er... Scratched disc: 0.

Well, my sisters are still playing Brawl upstairs while I'm grabbing a bite to eat. It seems they've become quite addicted to the game, and rightly so. Kicking someone's ass while trash-talking to them is totally what SSBB is about. It's the core essence of it, and I think I do both parts really well. And there's always the annoyance factor, I was getting my ass handed to me while playing Yoshi (random selection FTL) in a 5-stock match. When the smash ball came, I just kept shouting: "YOSHI'S TURN!" In as weird a voice as possible, and the tactic seems to have worked. I turned the match on it's head as I KO'ed everyone twice without taking a single hit (the smash ball helped too). And I actually managed to win... with YOSHI (and frankly, I suck ass as Yoshi).

*ahem* Anyway, I think I've babbled on for quite some time now. And I live you with this:

WHY DON'T YOU HAVE BRAWL YET?**

*More swearing may have been involved.

**Doesn't apply to anyone who has Brawl.

Cast your eyes on the awesomeness:

Rock Band? Not today. ~ UPDATE

2008-05-27T22:08:00.001+01:00

So, wassup?

Let's just get this over with: My life has been hectic yada yada yada etc.

Anyway, I'm currently about half way in of the week off I get from College. Whoop! But I have 2 exams the first day I go back. Damn. It sucks that I still have 3 exams left; I can't believe I have two in a row the second College starts again. And to top it all off, it's a Maths Module first; followed by a Media exam directly afterwards. Which I'm still not fully prepared for. Sometimes, I hate college...

Moving onto some slightly better news. I got Rock Band on Saturday... well, the disc anyway. Since the game is split into the Solus edition and Instruments in a Box version. The Solus (game disc) has come and we've mainly been messing about using the headset but we're still waiting for the instruments because of stupid Parcel Force. It came Friday... at 7:50 in the morning. Then it was meant to be redelivered on Tuesday (today) and I woke up at 7:30 to wait for it. It came at 7:05 apparently. F*CK.

So, we made them redeliver it tomorrow. Hopefully we can actually receive it this time. Damn Parcel Force, maybe they could have given us an estimate time of arrival or maybe, you know, ring us to open the door. Since we're in anyway but just upstairs.

Oh and I've been playing on GTA IV online via XBL and I've gotta say. I'm lovin' it.

The online service is just so well made and voice chat seems to be a great addition that helps a lot during actual gameplay. I've only really played GTA IV online (haven't really tried any other games online yet) and it's really really really fun. It's just the way the game is made, the whole sandbox theme that enables for such unpredictability when playing alone. But when playing online against other people, the unpredictability factor is multiplied ten-fold as the human opponents employ strategies the in-game AI wouldn't use even if I drew it out on the floor for them.

I usually play "Cops 'N Crooks". Which is basically two teams take it in turns to be crooks or cops. Makes sense, right? The crooks have to get to their getaway vehicle (which is either a boat or helicopter) and the cops have to stop them (by killing them). There are two modes: "All for One" and "One for All". I usually enjoy playing One for All since everyone gets only one respawn which means most people are a lot more cautious. But All for One seems to put Teamwork as more of a focus as the crooks have to protect a boss, these games seem to go much faster though as the cops spawn in police cars while crooks spawn out in the open. Meaning it's really hard to get a vehicle.

I've seen all sort of tactics employed during this mode. Everyone just rushing to the waypoint in two cars, everyone splitting up into different cars, everyone staying back and arming themselves to take out cops. There's just so many ways the whole thing could pan out.

Like, for example, when playing I was riding shotgun with my friend who was driving a car while we were chasing the crooks who were in a helicopter. I manage to hit the petrol tank or something with my sub-machine gun when I was leaning out the window and BOOM! The helicopter explodes into pieces. They all die. My friend and I promptly exchange virtual high-fives and "woots!" are heard on the headset. Until I find that we were still travelling pretty fast into the direction of the giant burning ball of flame that is now the helicopter.

"OH SH*T! U-TURN! NOW!" I shout down the head set. But to no avail. It's too late. The helicopter lands right on top of us. Oh my god. It was a bit depressing when we died, but it didn't stop it being any bit the least awesome.

Another time was when their were two crooks left and about 5 cops. One crook had managed to get into the helicopter while the other crook was on the roof of this museum place. I was on the ground with a rocket launcher. The helicopter tried to pick up the crook on the roof before and I shot a few rockets at it and now it was in a bad condition. It wouldn't be able to take many more hits. It flew atop this high sky-scraper where I couldn't touch it and everyone was playing the waiting game. The others panned out in search of rocket launchers and helicopters to try and take it down. So I was left, alone. Against a helicopter and a guy sporting a assault rifle atop a building with only ONE rocket launcher ammo left. I get into a fast car and make it look like I'm off searching for more RPG ammo and the helicopter takes the bait. It starts flying down to pick up the final crook, I execute a perfect 180 and head back the other way. They didn't see me coming and BOOM! I take out the helicopter is taken out by my rocket launcher. I also managed to take out the other crook. Now that is how you play GTA IV. It was truly one of the most intense and great games I have played online.

It's about time I got back to working on revising (I'm meant to be revising now actually...) so I'm cutting this post short. Until next time.

UPDATE #1: Godammit! The kick-pedal's broken! It came off in a particularly heated play of "Run for the Hills". :(

Made me only get 4 stars (I continued with a broken kick-pedal!).

Not mauled by land-sharks (pst~ new banner)

2008-05-13T21:04:00.001+01:00

Contrary to popular belief. I am not dead. And, possibly more importantly, I haven't been mauled by land-sharks. No matter how much you will it so.

Anyway, long time no see. It's been... what? 11 days? According to my memory it has, since my last post was the anniversary post. In that time not too much has happened. Things got even more hectic than before (is that even possible)? As now I'm plagued by the ominous presence of exams every waking moment, and it just makes me stop and wonder: Why the hell am I doing all these exams?

For a sheet of shiny, colourful piece of paper? A letter from the alphabet? Or for numbers to contribute to this total that could affect if I go to university or not?

It's not just me though, for the last week or so, the whole nation has been gripped by exam fever. SATs, GCSEs, you name it. I'm just reluctant to believe the whole: "These are the most important exams of your life and will stay with you FOREVER!" after it's been used THREE F*CKING TIMES already on me. First, Year 6 SATs, our teacher tells us that. We work hard and we're all like: "Yay! Good grades!" Get to secondary school and we're told: "Pft. The SATs you did in Year 6 mean nothing! Now do these SATs for Year 9! It's just like the ones you have already done before BUT HARDER. Oh, and did I add that these exams are the most important exams you will ever take?" So, yet again, we're fooled into thinking that doing bad in this will ultimately mean you end up living in a dumpster, eating rats for a living (professional rat eater FTL). After obtaining damn good grades in that (Daisy still bugs me about the bloody 8 she got in maths, damn woman) we're told: "Screw the SATs! Here come your GCSEs! We decided to mix it up a little so it doesn't seem like your just doing slightly harder exams over and over again! Oh and these are definitely the MOST IMPORTANTEST EXAMS THAT YOU WILL EVER EVER TAKE."

By now, we're all a bit skeptical about the whole educational system and life in general. It's like older people deliberately throw exams in our faces just to see how we thrash about and flail our arms wildly because of all the pressure. Maybe they derive pleasure watching us suffer, who knows what goes through the minds of the people who make the exams. Oh, and while we're on the subject of the 'Exam makers' (what the hell are they called anyway?) I've got a question for them: Why are your questions so awkward?! Let me throw in a similar question that might show up on our exams:

Bill and Ackmed are in a field. They notice a lighthouse 200 metres away. From Ackmed's eye level of 1 metre of the floor, he calculates that the angle from his eye level looking up to the top of the light-house is 56 degrees. Work out the height of the light-house.

Wait, what? Apart from the obvious question of why the hell Bill and Ackmed aren't playing like normal children and are instead doing maths outside, not to mention how the hell they can perfectly pinpoint who far away the lighthouse is and work out the angle that they are looking at to see the lighthouse! If they're so smart why don't they work out the height themselves?! It's not like it'll be difficult to their super-genius brains. You've also got to notice the inclusion of "Ackmed" in a blatant way to introduce an ethnic minority. It's like the people who write these exams deliberately attempt to make the stupidest questions just for kicks.

Where was I now? Oh yea, we finish our GCSEs (some with flying colours) the teaches are like: "Oh good. Yippee. Now go to college." And so repeats the never-ending vicious cycle of work, exam, repeat. Don't think it you break out of this ruthless cycle when you go to work, since there will be exams there. Only they will be cleverly disguised as obstacles and other things. So, in the end most of us live in this monotonous world doing the same things over and over again. Doomed to repeat ourselves.

Gee, the future looks bleak.

That being said, I have 7 bloody exams this week. *sigh* At least I can look forward to the Summer holidays which are tantalizingly close. So close... yet so far away...

***

Anywayz, let me get out of miserable-emo-like-exam-hating mode. In other news, I made my way through GTA IV and utterly loved it. It's just that Liberty City feels so... so... ALIVE. I'm continually awed by little touches Rockstar has put in for guys like me to notice (like the beating heart in the Statue of Happiness), and making it more realistic has really improved how this game immerses us into feeling part of that world. It doesn't mean that the game is not fun anymore as it's too realistic, far from that actually. It's not all realistic like, as I found that in GTA IV travelling quickly in a car and hitting something impossibly tiny and insignificant (like a traffic cone or the odd person) results in a jaw-dropping, eye-melting, five minute long saga of flips, rotations and explosions. Well, what can I say? It's a great way to show off the physics in the game.

The game just never fails to amaze me, while you're driving along there are people who have broke down on the side of the road and are fixing their engines. Other people have hit each other and have decided to settle their quarrels in a contest of who-shouts-the-loudest. Then there's also how you can turn off your radio and have a gander at what others are listening to. And it's a perfect fit. Gangster-types are listening to the rap radio station, while OAPs tend to like listening to Classical music. And piloting helicopters without tails is always fun.

Oh and Rock Band comes out here on May 23rd apparently. After some long discussion, I think we're getting it. Hooray! For quite the hefty price though. £140 from PLAY.com (with both versions), and that's the cheapest I can find them. Man, why is Europe rip-off central? But you can't deny that the game looks fun, especially played in a group of people. As the following picture shows:

Above. How to look like fools when playing Rock Band.

I'll definitely tell you how awesome it is when I get it.

I think that about wraps things up... oh and Super Smash Brothers Brawl is coming out June 27rd! Hooray! FIN-FRICKINALLY.

EDIT#1: New banner. Hooray! I decided to go for a simple design this time, clean and minimalist. That and also because I'm short of time. Enjoy. Here's the banner for future reference:

1 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY!

2008-05-02T00:41:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure if blogiversary is even a word, but hey. This is the internet so meh; who carez bout spelingz aniwayz?

Anyway, as the title suggests today (or rather yesterday - as it's pass midnight here) was the blog's one year anniversary! Yay! Hooray! Break out the champagne! Yea, so it's a big day for us all, especially it seems as the exam gods felt like they would like to mock me by making me have a full day of maths with two maths exams. Argh. Anyway, nevermind the worse is over now and it's clear blue sky until next Tuesday!

Sorry, I digress I've gone off-topic again. It's the one year anniversary for the blog. Yes, it's been one whole year since I first started this devil spawn of a blog and I'm rather impressed. Let's see now... 22613 hits since it started. That's just under 62 visits a day; not bad for a relatively new blog. And let's look at the all important post that started this all off:

Tuesday, 1 May 2007

First Blog

Ok, so after being encouraged by my friends to start a blog - names not included, you know who you are *cough* Gavin & Ashley *end cough* - heres the blog...
Ok, so it needs a little work but geez give me a break; I've only just started blogging.
Right, firstly... erm.... *attempts to think of something funny* heres one - A rabbi, a priest and a monk... ok, actually thats not that funny. Hm... dammit Gavin & Ashley, what was the point of this blog?
Anyway, a little about me:

I'm currently 15, birthday soon (mental note - yea!)

GCSEs are around the corner (mental note - boo)

Drama exam is in two days time (damn... we haven't even finished yet - I blame this on Daisy with her holiday; don't worry if you don't know who she is. Just count yourself lucky)

Well, I have a Wii (yea, Wii FTWZOMGMOO - thats for you Ashley) and if yours is connected online then you can add me:

8879 6062 9250 0429

Currently I have one added Wii (Lewis ☺) but should be getting two more online soon. It's also funny because I originally had two people in the Mii Plaza - Lewis & Gavin - but I... kinda... accidentally deleted Gavin... so Lewis is walking all alone in the Mii Plaza, almost makes me pity him, almost.
So, anyway, thats about it for my first blog. Not much to say, send in your comments and ideas of what I should talk about in my next one and I'll try to oblige.

Ok... woah. Did I really post that? If I did, I'd take some of what I took back then, it's pretty messed up. I gotta say. During this year, a lot of things happened. Gavin joined in on the fun (and we even started this little story - good luck finding that btw) and Kate did later on. But soon, they found other things to do and I'm the lone surviving author for this blog (not that their dead though). It's funny looking back at some of the posts I did; it reminds me of what I was thinking of the time and I can generally look back at it from a different angle and see how things could have turned out. It's all very confusing stuff to the hebetudinous.

Funnily enough, I'd actually been playing this post for quite a while now and thought about what to write in it quite a bit (most of the ideas come from when I'm in the shower, har har har!) but now that it's time to write it, I've gone blank. There's some much I'd like to say but if I told you some of the stuff I knew I'd probably have to kill you.

Ok, let's move on to more recent events in my not-so-but-still-quite eventful life. There was Daisy's birthday bash; which somehow trickled down to a more somber controlled event - most noticeably the loss of a bouncy castle - but it was still fun. It had been a long time since a group of us had been together like that and just chilled for a while (for me anyway as I missed Matthew's party). Not much to talk about really, except I jumped off a roof and we played "Irish Snap" and got my hand cut by someone with long nails; I have yet to figure out who the culprit was.

All in all, we had a laugh.

In other news, I got GTA IV and have been playing for a good few days now. And all I've got to say is: Wow. The game looks awesome and plays well (much better than previous versions) and I'm glad to say that it lives up the the enormous amount of hype it's been generating. And the city just feels so alive, no joke. I was driving along one day when I noticed an over-turned truck which had nothing to do to me and police were coming to the scene and everything; there was also another time where I was walking down the street when a person accidentally rams the car in front at the traffic lights. The person in front doesn't like it and they start an argument, this soon descends into a fist fight and they're duking it out while police sirens get closer. One of them gets arrested while the other runs off, but is shot. I found this hilarious as this was the first time I've seen the police arrest someone other than Niko (the main protagonist).

There's also many chances for hilarious moments, especially with the physics as good as they are. I think the best moment I've had yet was when crashing my car with the car in front and flying out the windscreen I roll over the car in front (it's all in slow-mo and black and white) and into the junction, then BOOM! A truck comes careering into Niko as he's in the air and I've got to say I was cracking up seeing that as it was a one off thing and I doubt I could pull it off again.

Anyway, it's about time I wrap this up. It's getting late and I've got an early start tomorrow. See you in the (hopefully) forseeable future.

Ashley's Gathering among other trivial things

2008-04-21T20:03:00.001+01:00

Ok, things have been hectic (to say the least) lately. So, posting time has effectively tended towards zero. Homework has increased exponentially in the last few weeks, and the much-needed half term break offered an equally packed schedule of things to do; including a gathering at Ashley's house (which I'll talk about later). Not to mention the exams that are drawing ever closer, like a pack of savage bloodhounds. As you may know, I'm not exactly the type that likes exams.

Ok, so I may as well start off on a more positive note. I've finished Oblivion's main quest and the final battle is... well... epic. That's the only way I could possibly hope to describe it. I won't spoil it for you, just in case you haven't played it yet, but A GIANT-ASS DRAGON (CALLED AKATOSH, WHO IS SUBSEQUENTLY ALSO A GOD) TOTALLY THROWS THE BEAT DOWN ON THIS DEMON LORD/PRINCE (CALLED MEHRUNES DAGON) WHO WAS UNLEASHED FROM THE PLANES OF OBLIVION AND WAS OWNING ASS UNTIL THE DRAGON CAME ALONG. Yea, that's about it. It's totally kick-ass, here's a video of it:

If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.

Moving swiftly on. Ashley's "gathering", of sorts. Things started out well... kinda. I got there before the others and Ashley was watching the match (Man U vs Blackburn) and was thoroughly frustrated as Man U was losing by a goal to nil. I found this funny. The others arrived not long after (the others include: Gavin, Matthew and Daisy). It seems they came in the same car, I'm not sure how that works out but meh. Soon after Man U score a goal (well, Tevez does) and Ashley roars triumphantly, despite his team (which is leading the Premiership for others that are not familiar with this) drawing. Gavin makes a passing inquisition to Ashley about who scored the goal followed by: "Torres?" And Ashley practically exploded and continued to say "Bah. Torres?! Scum." It was quite hysterical to watch (Torres is another football player... from some team).

If you're wondering about the picture to the left, it has nothing to do with this but I thought it was funny.

Things were moved into the living room after the match finished and GH3 was put on. We were playing co-op mode on medium as Ashley wanted to unlock some songs on it, I should point out now that we were using Gavin and Daisy's two Wiitars, since Ashley lent his out to a friend. Things were proceeding as they normally do. We play GH and chat around for a bit. This continues to about 8PM. Daisy and Matthew went out and got some kebabs while we kept on playing. Soon Gavin and I went out to the shops for some stuff to eat, I ended up spending £5 on sweets (many of which weren't eaten by me in the end...)! Daisy joined us some time later in the shop and since she was so slow, we considered leaving her there. But no, she made us wait. While we were waiting Gavin managed to state that all Snicker Bars should have Mr. T on and misread a label (he read "METAL ENERGY" instead of "MENTAL ENERGY" - oddly enough, he didn't see what he got wrong until I pointed it out to him).

When we did get back, we got tired of GH and switched to watching TV. This included, but was not limited to:

1) Britain's Got Talen

2) Family Guy

3) Some other crap...

We also saw the new Pepsi Ad (I'm too lazy to find a video). And Ashley liked it for one reason that he liked pointed out to me. Apparently during the commercial, one woman who narrates when Thierry Henry is on screen calls him a "she" which I can actually confirm. For some reason, we all found this extremely funny. Some more time was spent watching TV and finally I left at roughly 10PM. I got home and thought it was a good way to spend that night, but then BHAM! It hit me. Not a traffic cone, or a sign of any sort. But I just remembered that I left the delicious delicacies back at Ashley's house. Later on, through messenger, Ashley tells me they "finished up" the stuff I left behind. Damn... I spent £5 on cookies/fingers etc. and I hardly get to eat them... damn them all! I'm getting my fair share back next week though, I saw Matthew today and gave him a right grilling. His female friend thought it was hilarious, which I'm sure it was - especially since I was talking about him stealing my cookies.

===

I also received my exam timetable for the coming Summer, I have... wait for it... wait for it...

11 EXAMS SPANNING A WHOLE MONTH

(from 12th May to 12th June)

That's insane... I know a guy in my tutorial that only has like 2 exams. The exams break down like this:

3 Computing Exams
1 Media Studies Exam
3 General Studies Exams
4 Maths Exams

Yes, OMFG. Yet again, maths has to be the outstanding one with 4. Sure, one of them is a resit but that's not the point here. I'm talking about the principle of over-complication of the abundance of catechisms within our pedagogical societies, I mean come on! 11 exams!

I also retrieved a Mock Exam Week timetable (from SID - Student Information Desk). If I'm lucky, I may be able to get the whole Tuesday off (which is also, coincidentally) the day GTA IV comes out. SCORE. This is looking increasingly likely, as the class in the morning is for Tutorial, but who cares about Tutorial? Right?

If you're wondering about the picture again, it has no relevance whatsoever. Again, funny.

Mario Kart Wii: Review

2008-04-12T17:25:00.001+01:00

This review is totally my opinion. And no one elses.

If you have a different opinion, feel free to comment.

This is my first review in a while, the last one being Endless Ocean (Wii) back in November '07; which was a long time ago. So cut me some slack if I'm a bit rusty on some stuff.

===

Having played pretty much every Mario Kart before this (except the SNES one) I was quite hyped about MKWii. Not only would it feature 12 players online but also a selection of new (and old) tracks and more characters and vehicles than ever before! There's also the addition of tricks, which I'm not sure how it would affect gameplay - more on this later. And there are now 4 different methods to play! There's also the controversial removal of the ability to snake, which levels the playing field a lot. But the trick system is a good way to make sure the whole thing doesn't rely completely on luck.

As I've said, I've played most of the previous Mario Karts in existence. And I loved them (most of them anyway); and Mario Kart DS only made me love the series more. The DS game was literally one of the high-points of the whole series. And I'm glad to say that Mario Kart Wii improves upon the DS game and adds some interesting tracks to boot. One of the first things I did was jump in and play 4 player split-screen. Which, I'm proud to announce, is as amazing as ever. The lack of voice chat online (which may be a good thing, mind) means that local is generally more fun especially when it involves as much trash talk as my play session did. After some fun few hours of throwing shells at each other, and generally having a riot, I decided I better get down to unlocking some dudes and tracks. From the get go, you have access to half of the available tracks (4 cups out of the 8) and even then I found that these 4 cups (meaning 16 tracks) were enough to quench my first playing multiplayer.

Now, onto the tracks. There are obviously some inclusions of tracks of yore, harking as far back as the SNES games. It literally takes some tracks from every Mario Kart game before it and revamps it, and they do look spectacular. And the new tracks are equally as enjoyable, and sometimes more so I found. Especially "Bowser's castle" track where one part near the beginning wobbles like your inside Bowser's belly. Until you notice Bowser is right beside you, vying for first place with you. Then it just begins to get a bit disturbing. Nah, only joking. All the new tracks are fun to play, but on the first try some can be downright frustrating. I found Wario's Gold Mine to be one of the main culprits, maybe it was because I was playing with only a 1/4 of the screen's real estate available, but my first race there looked like I was purposefully jumping off the sides. After a few more attempts there (on singleplayer) I've gotten much better and enjoyable. You can easily tell new and old tracks apart because of the lack of jumps in the older ones. Occasionally the developers add some occasional half-pipe boost things that you can trick off in the old ones, but they remain largely unchanged. Whereas the newer tracks have quite a lot of jumps and mess around with those half-pipe boost things a lot more. One of my favourite tracks right now is "Coconut Mall" where there are so many ways to travel around the track. The map itself is misleading, as there are ways underneath and over parts, it's truly enjoyable. Sometimes you think you're way out in front with no one outside you, until you get back onto the singular track and everyone's beside you jostling for position! The track design is brilliant for these new tracks, and they provide more interactivity than ever. There are carts going along rail track's in Wario's Gold Mine, escalators in Coconut Mall (that affect your speed), giant press-stamps in Toad's factory etc. You'll also notice, quite early on, that the tracks are wider. At first, I didn't like the idea of wide tracks, but it grows on you. Especially if you play online against twelve other people, it's simple exhilarating when everyone is trying to get first place when your moments away from the finish line.

Moving on. Characters and vehicles are now rearranged into Light, Medium and Heavy classes. With pretty obvious results.

	Acceleration	Top Speed	Off-road
Light	*******	*	*******
Medium	**	**	**
Heavy	*	*******	*

That's what the booklet says anyway.

The character classes are quite obvious, Toad is light. Mario is medium, Bowser is Heavy. The character selection screen is set so that the light-weights are at the top and the heavies are at the bottom. With the medium-class in the middle, respectively. There's not much else to it, choose your kart (which each have their own specifications) and choose your track and off you go! There's also the option to choose whether or not to have AI opponents (in multiplayer) etc. As you progress in the game, you will eventually unlock the mode where you can use the Mii as a racer. I haven't unlocked that yet, but getting close.

Now, power-ups. Arguably one of the Mario Kart's most defining features. Everyone knows the mushroom that speeds you up, many DS power-ups also made the jump. The golden mushroom, bullet bill etc. Although Bullet Bill is computer-controlled, so you've got to be on your toes just in case it drops you close to a bend and you forget to turn. Some interesting ones added this time, like the POW block which "After a small shake and an on-screen warning, the screen will shudder violently and any vehicle in front of you that is travelling on the ground will be lifted into the air and spun around." You should remember the POW block from the Super Mario Bros series. Then there's the Mega mushroom that makes the recipient large and you go about owning everyone in your way. And one of my personal favourites now is the ThunderCloud which follows you, but will strike you with lightning after a while. Unless, of course, you can hit a opponent and pass on the cloud. Which makes for some hilarious situations where the person with the cloud tries desperately to hit someone but everyone swerves out of the way to avoid them. The power-ups all in all are really fun, and level the playing field a lot.

The battle mode in this is fun too. Well, it is online anyway. Which seems true for most modes. Offline battle mode is filled with other AI controlled players (even when you're playing with 4 people) simply because the sizes of the maps are so big. It would've been nice to have just some smaller 4 - 6 player maps in there somewhere. Offline singleplayer also gets a bit troublesome since when your first (which you usually are; especially for the 50cc and 100cc) there seems to be an unwavering amount of blue shells and other various power-ups aimed at you.

Control schemes now. And the thing everyone is talking about: The Wii Wheel. My input into the matter is that I don't mind it. In fact, it's the main thing I play with simply because I like to. Sure it may not be as precise as an analog stick (although it is actually fairly good) it provides a decent experience. And plus, you get this wheel icon to show that you're playing with it. And it's always awesome when you own someone with the wheel since it's meant to be one of the worst control schemes. I have yet to try the Wiimote/Nunchuk combo so I can't say much about that. I prefer the Classic controller to the Gamecube controller because of the d-pad which is used to pull tricks, but the Z buttons on the classic controller kinda suck. Oh and while we're talking about tricks, the easiest way to pull tricks is probably with the Wii Wheel since it only takes a flick while the other ones require you to hit the d-pad (the Wiimote/Nunchuk combo is flicking too I think). There's only one minor flaw with the Wii Wheel, it's about the flicking. I've found after a few hours of play, my triceps are killing me! They seriously hurt like hell. But there's no denying that gold Wii Wheel after playing for a while.

Finally, online. And I've got to admit, this game is a perfect fit for the online service Nintendo have created. 12 players online is a blessing, and is amazing. All the tracks are playable, but you can only use characters and vehicles that you've unlocked already which can mean some players who have unlocked better vehicles have an edge in online play. Which means it pays off to play through the singleplayer Grand Prix's to unlock stuff, it doesn't mean it's easy though. It'll take some time to unlock all the characters, I think I've got about 6 left to unlock and I've been playing quite a lot since I got it. Battle mode online is extremely fun as I said before and racing is also fun. And with the added option of going splitscreen online adds to the fun when you can take a guest online with you, it doesn't affect their record but it's still fun. Oh and the game allows four people to make licenses and it's pretty easy to see what they've done. There are records for how far you've virtually travelled, how many times you've placed first etc. which is kinda fun to know actually. There's also downloadable ghost data, so it's entirely possible to download the best lap in the world to see how you can improve your own driving line, it's a really good idea and you can also see where you stack up on each individual race against other people. Although there have been outcries of cheating where I've heard that some first place person only does two laps and stops, but I downloaded the fastest recorded time for Luigi Circuit today and it was fine. Well, better than fine! It was awesome! Showed me a lot of things that I could do to improve my time.

There's also the Mario Kart Channel, which you can boot up without the need of putting the game disc in which I find is a great idea. You can see if any friends are online or just check out your rankings and how your time trial times compare to others around the world. When you see that your friends are online, you can jump straight in to play with them (but you need to place the game disc in). There's also the option to send messages to your Wii friends telling you to add them so you can play together. Which is good.

All in all, the game looks good and plays even better. Definitely one of the best games on the Wii to play with friends, and probably the best online-equipped game on the Wii currently. If you buy this game, which I highly recommend you do, get it online. The 4 different ways to play should give everyone what they want with the Wii Wheel being a really simple and easy ways to get newer players into the game.

Feel free to test my skills online:

4382-2133-7495

Where do I start?

2008-04-06T18:59:00.001+01:00

Well well well, I'm back.

So many things have happened since my last post. Which turns out to be exactly two weeks ago, it's insane. Sorry about not posting but I've been unbelievably busy lately; exams are closing in at college, my social life has gone haywire and my foot is killing me (figuratively speaking). I can only type this because I have a little break in my hectic schedule because of the holidays. There's also the 360 and a little game called Oblivion. I've currently poured about 20 hours into it (a rough guesstimate - I don't have it on so I can't check); and I've hardly touched the main quest. I'm making my way up the various factions and I'm a grand champion of the arena - but still fighting mountain lions and the sort.

And I also picked up Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Which means the only 360 game I've completed is Assassin's Creed (and that's just the main story - I haven't done all the generic missions and I'm not even going to attempt the crappy flag collecting). So many games to play, so little time.

Oh and you may be wondering what the "foot is killing me" bit is about. Well I stood on a nail... with my bare foot. This happened two days ago. I played badminton today. You do the math. I can still see the point where it impaled my (fortunately) thick-skinned sole, it's mostly healed over but I can still make it out. I think that's enough about my nail-impaled foot - hey that rhymes.

===

While I was on hiatus due to *cough* problems; stated above. April Fools came and went. I had planned to do something but I just gave up after trying to think up something. My original idea was something along the lines of "shutting down the blog" etc. but that was way to generic. Although when used properly it can have a devastating effect just look at what happened when Little Kuriboh and his army of devious minions posted that Yu-gi-oh: TAS was ending. All hell broke loose as many people forgot that it was the day of fooling.

Talking about awesome April Fools jokes, IGN takes the proverbial cake this year. Oh and, just for the record, the cake is indeed a lie. You can check out IGN's April Fools here:

Think of the possibilities!

There's a Halo movie coming out soon and talks of a Gears Of War movie, why not a Zelda movie? Ok, sure Link not talking may be quite an obstacle but I'm sure those Hollywood writers can think something up. If not, they fail at their jobs. Hell, the portly plumber and his lanky brother had a movie! It may have sucked but that's not the point. I didn't think Mario would make a good movie anyway (we all know how it's going to turn out). But Link stars in ADVENTURE GAMES, namely games that are about the adventure. The story. The awesome journey. Mario games are about... well... destroying Bowser and jumping on Goomba's heads. They could throw in a twist or two into the film, something big which means it doesn't end with the whole: "fight Ganondorf and save princess. Done." thing. And think of the possibilities of cameos! Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a plumber in the movie that looks like Mario? Or maybe Link stops off at a town called Animal Crossing?

Enough talk about that though. Moving swiftly on.

===

Games for April that I'm hoping to get (in Chronological Order):

Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo Wii) - April 11th
Wii Fit (Nintendo Wii) - April 25th
GTA IV (Xbox 360) - April 29th

This isn't good. My exams are coming soon :(

It means I'll have 14 days to play Mario Kart (hopefully the online doesn't suck). Wii Fit wouldn't be too bad, since I'm thinking of sticking to a half an hour routine for as long as possible with Wii Fit. Then I'm bringing GTA IV home and playing for as long as humanly possible. Maybe I should arrange a gaming marathon for GTA IV...

Anyway, seems like I'll be busy for the foreseeable future. Don't keep your fingers cross for updates... cos, you know, eventually you'll stop the blood-flow to your fingers completely and they might drop off.

EDIT#1: Thought I'd share this little achievement with you lot. I played GH3 last night, the first time I've picked up the affectionately named "Wiitar" since, well, forever. If forever means "about a month". I played a few songs, messed around a bit. Then tried a little song called: 'Through the Fires and Flames' by a certain band called Dragonforce. You may have heard it before. I could never do it on hard difficulty, even though I can play half the songs on expert. I think the highest percentage I've ever got on hard was 6%. That changed last night.

First try: 6%

Second try: 7%

I was improving 1% at a time! At this rate, 93 more times and I'll be able to complete it!

Third try: Wait for it... 71%

SEVENTY-BLOODY-ONE PERCENT.

I aced the first section, got close to the red a few times, but held out. Then I lucked out at 71%. Damn, I was doing so well as well.

Many of you out there may be able to do this already (XD, all 5 of you) but it's sort of an achievement for me. Maybe next time I'll be able to actually play the full song. Who knows?

EDIT#2:

WTF?!*

*Yes, your eyes don't deceive you. Rock Band is coming out May 23rd for Europe. On the XBox 360 anyway. But not only that though! Oh no. EA decided to screw us Europeans over for the game. £180 for the whole bundle?! That's ludicrous!

Well, EA here's my response: You can take that price and stick it up your- <THE FOLLOWING IS CENSORED DUE TO CERTAIN LAWS THAT PERTAIN TO- BLAH BLAH BLARGH!>

Snow. Glorious Snow.

2008-03-23T21:40:00.001Z

Another pre-post explanation. Oh joy. Anyway, I've been busy lately yada yada yada yada *random babbling*. Enjoy the post.

===

It's funny how frozen water is so much fun. Despite being surrounded by water -and being made of 80% of water too- in Britain we find snow to be absolutely enthralling. Most of us anyway.

Maybe it's the the frequency of occurrences, which is roughly for one day every year where we get "real snow". Which stays on the ground and allows us to pelt unsuspecting family members and friends with large, densely-packed frozen blocks of destructive ice. Talk about fun.

This 'snow day' also seems to come no where near Christmas, might I add. It comes in January/February time; or in the case of this messed-up 2008 year: March. Even though we've passed the Spring Equinox already. Oh wait, it's also FRICKIN EASTER SUNDAY TODAY. Easter is generally not associated to snow, methinks. Nevertheless, snow is still fun and it's a rare occasion to be able to go out into the garden and build snowmen and generally have a good time.

I also played badminton today, and I'm surprised to say that despite not playing since... well, few months ago. I still got it! I won every single game I played today even though I was playing against my various uncles and friends. Who, I might add, play weekly. Things are funny this way, although my smashes have gotten slightly weaker -that may have been partly due to a slight injury to my right shoulder- my overall performance seems to be improved. And I have exercised in yonks! Haha. I rule.

===

In other more awesome, video-game related news. I picked up a XBox 360 after the price drop, and I've been playing on it quite a lot. Even though I only have three games for it (Assassin's Creed and Halo 3 came free with it, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion which I bought separately). My thoughts on the games:

Assassin's Creed: Free Running is AWESOME. It's amazing how I just need to push the analog stick forward and literally hold two buttons and I'm like totally parkouring like a pro. Missions are kinda generic though. Not enough proper assassinations. Frame rate dipped majorly once, hopefully was one-off. Altair sounds kinda... emotionless. The whole sci-fi element is ok... could've been better.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Good. Very good. Endless amount of things to do. You can practically do anything you want to do, be a thief and steal, become a warrior or whatever you goddamn want to do. Although things are a bit too patient for my liking... I prefer more fast-paced action and less questing. But I'm still enjoying it. Will probably pour a ton of time into this game.
Halo 3: Yea... about this. Well, I got my sister to pay for half of the 360 (yes, sly me) and apparently she doesn't want me to play Halo 3 until the other controller arrives. *sigh* Things are complicated. Should be able to play soon. Looking forward to it.

I'm also fearing the worse with the 360, hopefully no RRoD issues pop up. I'd be seriously pissed if it does happen. Well, I guess placing it on the carpet doesn't help. It's cos the Wii got here first and had first pick at where it's going, and it's looking awesome where it is, and the 360 is left out of the cold without a proper home. And I got think of anywhere to put it because of it's sheer size. It's FRICKIN HUGE compared to the Wii. Hell, the power brick itself is about the size of the Wii. Woah.

Exhibit A: The three consoles together.

Exhibit B: The 360 and it's -frickin huge- power brick.

Exhibit C: A funny comic highlighting the fact of the gigantic power brick. LOL

===

I also got a new mobile. For free. :D

I originally had a phone ages ago (one of those old gigantic brick of a phone Nokia) but that broke after much abuse. I never used it much anyway, and I couldn't be asked to get a new one during the last... um... 6/7, possibly 8, years. See, kids. This is procrastination at it's best. I put it off until recently, when my uncle asked if I wanted a new phone. I was like: 'Yea, sure. Why not?' Since I've found that having a mobile would be increasingly useful lately. I should explain how I got this phone for free:

Well, I have an uncle. Who just so happens to work as a electronics wholesaler for this giant Trans-national electric monolith (which I have no idea what it's called) and he gets, shall we say, stock (remember the laptop?). And this phone just so happened to have like some faults on the case (like some letters missing of the branding: Auto Focus is now just "to focus") and some of the keypad parts are scrapped off for some reason. Apparently it happened in delivery or something. And so, he can't sell it as new and decided to give it to me. Score. Works perfectly too... well, I think it does. I'm still lacking a SIM card for it and a charger, mind. He's getting the charger to me next week, the SIM card I'm getting tomorrow.

You're interested in what phone it is?

It's a Sony Ericsson K800i.

Ooooh, snazzy.

It's not exactly a new phone (came out in 2006 or something) but it works. For intrepid photographers out there, you may realise that "Cyber-shot" is a line of cameras manufactured by Sony. And you'd be correct to think that. The K800i was made to feel like a camera (which is certainly does) and boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera complete with a xenon flash, a protective lens cover, and a new "BestPic" bracketing feature, and were the first to be tagged with the Sony Cyber-shot branding. Part of that may have, or may not have, been taken directly from Wikipedia.

It's not exactly a small phone by today's standards (it's 106 x 47 x 20 mm and weighs 115g) but it fits snugly in the pocket easy enough. I also like the matte black. Very stylish.

So what have you learned?

Having an awesome uncle owns.

===

Now, I'd like to spare some time to talk about the blog for a second.

*ahem* *clears throat*

HOLY- <THE FOLLOWING IS CENSORED.> -WITH A SANDWICH ON TOP.

The blog has unwittingly passed the 10,000 hits mark (according to the hit counter on the sidebar, currently at 13194) and has lately been averaging 100 hits per day. That's one hit every 14.4 minutes or so; which is pretty awesome for a blog that started less than a year ago.

After looking at the Analytics data, funnily enough there seems to be a high percentage of referrals. Around the 70/80% mark according to Analytics. After a little detective work, I've found I'm getting a ton of hits from Google. "WTF Google?" I hear you ask. Yes, Google Images as a matter of fact. Just search "Chuck Norris" on Google Images right now. Don't worry, I'll wait for you.

...

Done? Well, let's see here. Yes, the second picture is indeed the one I put in my Chuck Norris post. And seeing as Chuck Norris is like an Internet cultural phenomenon I'm getting a ton of hits. It's certainly one unusual and unorthodox way to get hits, I'll give you that. But hey, whatever works.

As for the Media Project I posted in my previous post, it's garnered a measly 97 views as of press time. Even with 5 links linking to it, with mine being the highest with 8 clicks and the other 4 being bulletins from MySpace. Oh god.

It's not quite taking over the Internet yet, but we're getting there. 97 people at a time.

Here's the video again for anyone who hasn't yet seen it:

If you don't like this. There's something seriously wrong with you.

MEDIA PROJECT COMPLETE

2008-03-14T18:52:00.001Z

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

I'll keep it short and simple:

Prizes (not really) to anyone who can guess what the song is...

We poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this so I'm expecting appraisals only. ONLY.

Got that? Good. Now that's straightened out...

Originally, there was meant to be a post a few days ago showing the longer, not final version of the above video (which you can watch here). But my computer died on me, literally. I had to reformat it and revert it back to factory settings. Damn laptop. Now, I've lost all my documents/music etc. Oh well. Nothing there that was particularly important... I guess.

In celebration of the completion of our project we all went out to McDonalds today. Yum yum.

NOTE: We know about the poor dubbing and whatever. It adds to the comical effect... supposedly. For the record, I blame it on Kennie btw.

Poker Night

2008-03-10T19:52:00.001Z

Sorry for the late post and it took up a kick up the ass from Daisy to get this going. Btw, the "kick up the ass" was figuratively speaking not literal.

===

So, Poker Night... yes... that was last Friday... hm... let me just recollect my thoughts on that night.

Wait, before that I got my results for the various examinations I did in January. And the result was me having a AS Level in Maths with a Grade B! Which is not bad for one term's work. Normally, an AS Level takes one year to get but we did it in one term. Talk about speed. I was something like 9 marks off an A which means I'm retaking my C1 exam (since I got a lowly 65 marks on it: a grade C). If I get 74 marks or higher on my resit I get an A! w00t.

Even so, there are some monsters in our class. One guy managed to get 99%, 98%, 99% in his exams while one girl managed 100% on one of her exams. D:

It kinda puts things in perspective, A levels seems worlds apart from GCSE. It seemed like it was yesterday when I was doing my GCSEs. I recall lining up on the playground waiting to go in; everyone was holding a book doing some last minute revision, but I was mainly giving out answers to certain questions the others may have. Even with my lack of revision in GCSEs, I came out with some awesome grades. It's also true that I failed to revise for my AS level exams but that's not the point...

Oh and I also got my Media exam result, I got a: Q.

Wait, what? A Q?

Yes, a Q. No idea what that means? Neither did I until that day. It apparently means the loss of the actual exam...

THEY LOST MY FRICKIN EXAM PAPER.

It was seemingly lost in the post. WHY THE F*CKING HELL WAS IT IN THE POST IN THE FIRST PLACE?! WE'RE IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET, COMPUTERS AND EMAIL AND YET YOU SEND IT BY SNAIL-MAIL?! WTF?! HOW HARD WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO HAVE IT SCANNED INTO A COMPUTER SO YOU CAN HAVE SEVERAL BACK-UPS?! Stupid asses...

But oh well, nevermind. They're not calculating a guesstimate grade from my MED2 and MED3 modules. Which could be a good thing, especially if I was going to get a bad grade in my exam anyway. If I do my project well and MED3 good, then automatic A or B or whatever. Some people who got Us and Es and whatnot were actually like: 'Why couldn't they have lose my paper?!' T'was funny really.

===

*ahem*

Anyway, Poker Night. Yes. I seem to have collected my thoughts now.

I arrive at roughly the proposed time (6PM) to find the front door unlocked. So, I waltz in (like I always do) only to find Daisy's dog run straight down the stairs to greet me. Ok... Daisy's mom was on the phone to someone or other; I made it all the way into the dining room (I think that's what the room is used for) and decide it would be better for me to turn round, close the door behind me and knock. I do that.

I'm greeted in my Daisy's mom and make my way to her room. Ben's there -Daisy's boyfriend- a few awkward glances and several offline messages later (since Daisy thought I was still home because I was still logged onto messenger) it's noted that the rest are coming. We make our way downstairs to the dining/kitchen room and Ben has to leave for some reason that seems to be lost on me.

Anyway, people start arriving. I think Gavin arrives first, followed by Laura and Matthew and lastly Ashley. The lazy bugger.

We sit down, get comfortable and get ready for some awesome poker. Oh wait, and a lot of talking it seems. It takes a while for the chips to be set up and shared among six people, mainly the women did it -Daisy, Laura and Matthew...- while Gavin, Ashley and I mostly sat there whining about why Daisy didn't do this before hand. It was the classic: 'Oi, woman. Work faster!' situation. That never gets old. NEVER.

Finally things get going. Cards are dealt, Gavin being dealer first. I knew this before hand and used this to my advantage as I sat in one of the late positions. I had to explain this concept to the others later on as some of them were kinda like novices. XD

Things get under way and I soon amass quite a large stash of chips. This is helped by the fact that I was dealing quite a lot too (thus meaning I had the advantage over other players) - we weren't taking turns dealing so quite a lot of us actually had unfair advantages over the others but whatever, it's only a friendly game. I believe I was chip-leader for a while until Matthew decided to bet away most (if not all) of his hundreds away to Daisy even though he had nothing. Even if it was a bluff, it was an extremely bad one. Meanwhile, Ashley spent most of the time forgetting that we were playing on a glass table and showing us his cards under the table.

Some other things happen, but I forget so you can marvel at this awesomely funny GIF of Gavin while I try to think of other things that happened.

Meanwhile, I became the hulk:

And Gavin was "green" with envy:

HAHA! Marvel at my 1337 photoshop skills.

To be totally honest, I don't really remember much else about that night. Some stuff happened, like how Matthew lost all his chips and ended up being the dealer for the rest of the game.

Eventually Daisy won, because everyone decided to go all in (yes, me too - despite already folding before hand). Which basically meant that the last few hours of hard-work winning chips was all for nought as everyone gambled there chips away in one go. Not very clever but hey, it was for fun. I didn't even have anything going for me but I still did it.

All in all, Poker Night was fun. And it provided quite a lot of amusement from my otherwise dreary and monotonous working-life (nah, only joking, my life is never dreary and hardly monotonous). Unfortunately this night won't be on for the next few weeks due to some issues that I can't be asked to state (or try to remember) here.

So, in the mean-time while you're waiting for my next post:

Caution: PORTALS

The Science of Jinxes

2008-03-06T23:08:00.001Z

I'm sorry for not updating. I've been busy and have been putting off doing this everyday of the week. No seriously, it's been procrastination after procrastination. Just be glad that you got a post this week.

===

Before we start, I think it should be noted that the Jinx I'm talking about is not the superstitious folklore-y type Jinx where it basically means:

A sort of curse placed on a person that makes them prey to large numbers of minor misfortunes and other forms of bad luck;
A person afflicted with a similar curse, who, while not directly subject to a series of misfortunes, seems to attract them to anyone in his general area.
An object or animal that brings bad luck.
A common slang term used when two people say the same thing at the same time (said as a game amongst the young and young hearted which suggests some kind of spooky supernatural interference).

No. I'm talking about these sort of Jinxes.

Why the hell am I talking about Jinxes? It's a funny story really, and it all began in maths today (surprise surprise). For the story to make some sense we've got to rewind a bit to the part before the whole jinxing occurred.

*Fails at attempt of doing a rewinding sequence*

I believe the lesson started with talk about the bible. I'm not sure how or when it started but it just did. Emma, being a Christian, was defending the bible... from something... I can't remember that either. Hey, don't expect me to remember everything. It's not particularly important to the story anyway. I recall her saying that the bible was right, and I was kind enough to point out that the bible states that not only are women evil but also that the chicken came before the egg. The age-old riddle solved, perhaps? No. First of all there's a small problem with the bible, men wrote it. So, the chances that all the stuff that happens in the bible is true amounts to about 1%. Especially all that Genesis stuff, since you know, we weren't created then. But anyway, I'm not here to divulge into the whole religion controversy. I have a religion and I'll stick to that just fine: Consumerism.

You may be wondering what the bloody hell is the above paragraph got to do with the story I'm about to tell. Well, not really much. I just thought you'd like to know that. It serves a (slightly) deeper purpose too. It's my set-up for a sucker-punch later on. You'll see.

Anyway, the jinxing started when Sue (the teacher) asked us what to use in this formula - which I will not attempt to type out now. I'm no fool. Suhaib, Kiddle and Emma all said: "PRODUCT RULE!" at the same time. I should note that these were the other 3 people on my table, and I didn't say anything because I wasn't particularly listening and I cba. Suhaib then said: "JINX!" This being a long time since I had done/seen something like this I thought the other two would dismiss it as a child's game. Oddly enough, Kiddle doesn't. He clamps his trap shut (a rarity, believe me) and does a zipping motion across his lips. For the next half an hour or so, he doesn't speak at all. It was only 10 minutes in that he pointed out -by writing on his pad of paper- that Emma was also jinxed but had been and still is carrying on talking as normal. After a short discussion, Kiddle put this on his paper: "GOD WILL PUNISH YOU!" (ZING!) or something like that - which is the aforementioned sucker punch by the way. Which amassed much laughs, I assure you. The following few minutes consisted of how Emma was going to hell/purgatory or whatever. Which was hilarious, since everytime Kiddle wanted to make a comeback in the argument he'd have to write down on the paper; and I walked in and enforced the 6-second rule (where you can't comeback after 6 seconds). This made things even funnier, as Kiddle spent more time furiously scribbling on his pad at what can only be compared to "warp speed" than actually doing work. Eventually he did give up on the argument though.

The next 20 minutes or so consisted of us torturing Kiddle. I liked going with the: "Hey Kiddle. What'd you get for this question?" No reply, obviously. I would then follow that up with: "Wait, what? I didn't hear you. Can you speak louder?"

Yes, cruel. I know.

But not as bad as what others tortured him with, like they would say half his name then stop. Just stopping and starting at his name repeatedly. It was like giving a blind man sight and then round-house kicking a large horse-driven war-cart filled to the brim of large, pointy maces coated with poison ivy into his eyes. REPEATEDLY. Yes, ouch.

He was actually freed from his demonic curse by, ironically, Emma. Who pitied him and felt that it was time he got to speak again. And because she did it accidentally. To be honest, it'd had been so long since I heard Kiddle speak that I started to forget what his voice sounded like. He broke out of his jinxed cage with a holler. But that's not the end of the story.

Oh, no.

After about 5 minutes of Kiddle's release from his horrible and torturous affliction Sue (the teacher, remember?) told him to: "STFU!" in a more well-mannered way. But that was what she wanted to say really. Kiddle then goes on a rant to her about how she didn't notice that he had been jinxed for about half an hour before, even though she had come up to him and tried to speak to him but now that he can talk again he gets shouted out.

Life. Ironic, isn't it?

===

In other news -I use this term too much- our media project is finally picking up some steam. It's pretty much done now, which is good. Seeing as the final deadline is tomorrow. *gulp* Maybe if we spent less time messing about then it would be done by now. XD

I'll be sure to post it up here when I can. If I can, I'll give you a bloopers reel too. There are some piss-your-pants funny stuff in there. Especially the, now-infamous, car door scene. I'll see what I can do. ;)

===

Also, it's Poker Night tomorrow. 6 till 10.

This time I can actually go. So be sure to check in on Saturday (I probably couldn't be asked to do a post on Friday) for the hellish antics of that night. I heard the previous Poker Night went quite well, so hopefully this one doesn't disappoint.

In some less fortunate news, I won't be able to make Matthew's party. :(

He just so happens to have it on Saturday, 5pm. Which is the exact time I can't go. F*ck. If it was earlier, I could have gone for an hour or so, but damn. Oh well, I'm sure there will be many more parties in my lifetime... I'll just have to keep looking on the more optimistic side of life.

That about wraps up today posts. Wish me look with my module results tomorrow!

Site Performance/New Banner

2008-03-02T21:09:00.001Z

Ok, so I had some complaints at how much time it takes the blog to load. Mainly from one person, I'll leave you to guess who that is - it's pretty obvious. I was told I crashed her browser with my blog. PWNED.

She had a point though, I've tested it a few times and it does take quite a considerable time to load. Well, that was before. Hopefully I have dramatically improved the time in which it takes to load. It should be faster now, since I've got rid of many things I didn't need but couldn't be asked to get rid of before. Everything is simplified, somewhat.

The MP3 player is gone (how many of you used that anyway?), among a bunch of other things.

Hopefully, it'll provide a more streamlined experience - especially for you 56Kers since it seemed like it took forever for you guys.

The main problem with the blog, it seems, was my obsession of just wanting to "add more cowbell" as Rick (developer of PDN) would say. He touched upon the subject here and it makes a lot of sense. Adding more features and other crap doesn't necessarily make it better, sometimes you just destroy the experience for some people.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupry

Believe it or not. I learned the above quote through Civilsation. XD

I'll try to simplify things more now too. If you're interested here are some load time figures for the current format of the blog:

Connection Rate Download Time

14.4K 387.41 seconds

28.8K 197.80 seconds

33.6K 170.72 seconds

56K 105.71 seconds

ISDN 128K 38.06 seconds

T1 1.44Mbps 10.79 seconds

As you can see, it's still not terribly good but before I think it took T1 about 16/17 seconds to load the page. That's a pretty significant improvement.

===

I've also got a new banner. No trippy moving GIFs now. Just pure and simple JPEG.

Here's a picture, if you are too lazy to scroll up:

Ashley's Gamer Night

2008-02-29T22:27:00.001Z

It's funny how life screws with you. At first, I was going to Daisy's proposed Poker Night but I couldn't go. But then I went to Ashley's small gathering yesterday (Thursday). So you wanna know how things went? Of course you do.

I want to say it went spectacularly. Unfortunately, I can't really say that. It was still awesome though!

I arrived there at roughly 9pm. I'm the latest there, figures, and they already broke out the PS1 (yes you read correctly: PLAYSTATION ONE) and were playing Tekken. Sweet. Time for some sweet retro gaming love. And that pretty much set the tone for the whole night, retro games from dusk till dawn (well not really dawn, most people were asleep by 1AM).

They also apparently played GH3 earlier but stopped, maybe they knew I was coming and wanted to avoid being schooled by me. Especially since quite a few had never played Guitar Hero before that day, so I would basically playing Expert against people still playing Easy. If you want an analogy it'd go something like this: They'd be messing around a small splash pool, while I attempt to swim across the FRICKIN PACIFIC. And that's no lie either, Expert difficulty and Easy difficulty is world's apart. WORLDS. Ask anyone who plays expert (or has attempted to play expert). Actually, just a moment ago I owned my sister (who is playing medium rather comfortably) on Helicopters by Bloc Party. We both played on medium. Did I full combo the song? No. But I got 5 stars if that's some consolation to your aching heart that thinks I'm the world's most awesome Guitar Hero player EVA. Which I'm obviously not.

Oh and one minor detail you may want to know: I WAS PLAYING IT BEHIND MY HEAD.

Yes, I 5-stared Helicopter on medium, with the Guitar behind me head. It hurts my arms like a bitch, but hey, all in the name of ass-whooping. It's all in a day's work. Maybe, one day, I may record a video of me 5-staring with the Wiitar behind my head. One day...

I could probably full-combo (hit every note) most songs -if not all- songs on Easy now. I've even full-comboed some songs on medium.

Anyway, let's move away from my awesome Guitar Hero skills and focus back onto what happened on the night. I started the night sat on one of those... er... I'm actually unsure what they're called. It was basically a piece of the sofa that comes out. But anyway, I owned a few fights on Tekken while sat on that -mainly because the sofa was already occupied by about 4/5 people. Eventually, I got to sit down on Ashley's surprisingly comfortable sofa.

Oh wait, remind a bit first. In about the first 20 minutes of me entering Ashley's amazing bungalow I downed this bottle of vodka (it was equivalent to 2 shots... or something). And lemme tell ya, that went straight to my head. I certainly felt that the following morning. It was funny too, Gavin took a small gulp out of another one of those bottles and decided that downing it would not be the best idea. Then I picked up the bottle and thought: 'Screw it.' And the others watched in awe as I chugged the whole bottle down. LOL

I recall someone exclaiming afterwards that they should have filmed me doing it. I also recall Ashley checking the alcoholic percentage (?) and it checked in at 40%.

I don't remember much after that.

...

Not really.

That was just a homage to a "How I Met Your Mother" Episode. Which... strangely is quite close to what actually happened to the time.

Not really.

Here's the clip I'm talking about:

THIS, MERE MORTALS, IS NO ORDINARY BRAIN. THIS IS A SUPERBRAIN.

By the way, "How I Met Your Mother" is an awesome show. And Barney is easily the most awesome person alive. LEGEN -wait for it- DARY.

LEGEN -wait for it, and I hope you're not lactose intollerant cos the second half of that word is- DARY.

Ok ok, enough with the clips now. But I just had to do that one.

Anywayz, back to the story. Now where was I?

Oh yea, I just forcefully busted into the maximum security area of Area 51 and was in the process of hacking into the main computer mainframe when-

Wait. That's not the right one, is it? Damn that vodka. By the way, just forget what I wrote above. It never happened, capiche? NEVER. HAPPENED.

Ok, so I has landed me a sweet seat on Ashley's sofa. I think it was about this time that we started playing MK (Mortal Kombat) on the PS1. That sure brought good times... ok, maybe not good times but certainly a lot of: "TOASTY!"s. The whole ~~house~~ -sorry, my bad- bungalow with forbidden battle cries of yore. Times sure were simple back in the PS1 days. *sigh*

After some time, we gave up on trying to mess with the codes on MK and switched to "Hogs Of War" which, may I add, was my first time playing it. I had heard about it and a friend had recommended it to me saying that the game was good but I had never played it before. Ok, so first match in:

I PWN EVERYONE.

I had both my ~~guys~~ -sorry my bad- hogs (or pigs) left while I decimated everyone else. Especially with an intricately placed bazooka shot to the head of Ashley's hog's head. Which aroused battle cries of "BOOM! HEAD-SHOT!"... I think.

We played winner and loser stays on, so I was soon thrust into the second game. I didn't do so well in this one, simply because everyone decided that I was the major threat (despite excuses of: 'But you're the only guy I can see in range... except for that guy... and that guy...') and so thought it was best to be rid of me as soon as possible. And so I was the first out. But no matter, that meant I also played in the next game. Which, I won btw. Again.

Something else happened, I'm not sure what. But it soon reached 11:20, I had planned to go home at about 11:30~ish since I had an early start tomorrow but after some thought that I may as well stay the night and rung my mum up to tell her. She kind of disagreed at first (yea, she has a tendency to do that) I managed to get my dad on the phone and I explained it to him and his reply went something like this: 'Meh. Fine.' I presume at this point my mum was glaring at him pretty badly and he hurriedly added: 'But only this time.'

And so we settled down for a quiet night and ended up watching a movie: SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

Yes the classic British film, part of the "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy", the winner of 6 awards and 14 nominations (yes, I used IMDB). It was the perfect end to the night.

The film finished at about 1:15AM, and only a few of us were still awake. Gavin, who was previously slept beside me, decided to move his business to Ashley's bedroom so I moved over and had about a half of the sofa to myself. Just as everyone settled in for the night, there was a: KNOCK! KNOCK! at the door. "Who the hell could that be?" I thought. I couldn't be asked to get the door (even though I was presumably the closest) so I waited until someone opened it. Turns out it was my mum. She had defied my dad's initial intentions and came to pick me up. Ah well, it didn't make much difference to me. It was probably a better idea since I had more time to catch up with my sleep the following morning (Ashley's house is no where near college - it's practically in another town). So I went home and slept on my own bed. I had never knew my bed was so comfortable, LOL. The last time I felt like this was the night of Kate's party - which I passed out in among other things...

The following morning, my head hurt like hell. I had trouble thinking like I was in some weird severed state of inebriation, it didn't stop me from editing our media advert though. Media was soon over, and I got my staggering self home presumably for some sleep. Which I didn't do.

That's pretty wraps up what happened. I'm not sure if I missed anything, but hey - my memory ain't perfect. So, deal.

===

Have any of you guys heard of a certain movie that's slated to come out this year (2008)? I believe it was called...

IRON MAN

I can hear the collective groan of millions of people worldwide when I said that. Another comic book-movie. I hear you say. Well, if the trailer's anything to go by the movie's gonna be FRICKIN EPIC. Take a look yourselves.

I think you'd have to agree that it is pretty frickin awesome.

Remember though, take this with a pinch of salt. Since all movie trailers depict the movie in a good light, it's the whole purpose of a trailer.

Although this is another movie on my movie-radar this year. Keep an eye out for this beast that will hit cinemas May 2nd this year.

===

EDIT#1: I was browsing around the internet and found this, I think you'd enjoy it:

Contrary to popular belief, MJ had no part in choreographing this.

Before you "WTF?!" me, it's Zelda dude. And yes, the guy playing Link is actually a woman. I guess times were confusing back then, and sexual orientation was more open... or something. Oh and no, this is not an advert for Zelda DDR, no matter what the ad looks like (although that would be frickin awesome) it's actually for the one on the Famicon (or SNES, for us).

By the way, Nintendo, if you're reading this I expect at least 30% of the profits if Zelda DDR comes into production. It's negotiable, but about 30% would be nice.

Well, that's about all I wanted to show you. Now, where the hell can I get that song...

Earthquake

2008-02-27T19:47:00.001Z

So, get this. If you haven't heard about it already, there was an earthquake last night (at roughly 1AM). Loads of people missed it since they were sleeping, but I was awake at the time (surprise) and stood in my corridor.

And for my first time experiencing an earthquake, I gotta say, I'm impressed.

At first there was a sort of low rumbling sound, then it got louder pretty quickly and pretty soon the whole house shook. This lasted only just a few seconds, but it was still awesome. I'm glad I didn't miss that. Sure, if it was higher up on the Richter Scale (it was reportedly a 5.2) then there would undoubtedly be trouble. Since the UK seems as prepared for natural disasters/conditions as a crab is prepared to break the fall of a large boulder.

Seriously, I recall there been about a half foot of snow a few years back. That half foot of snow stopped ALL THE TRAINS IN ENGLAND. I mean, WTF? Ok, sure maybe not ALL the trains. But you get my point. Countries like Russia and whatever receive, annually, several feet of snow and there like: 'Meh. 'Tis only snow.' And carry on with normal life. Over here we scream and run around in circles exclaiming: 'SNOW SNOW GLORIOUS SNOW!' Then it all melts away into slush.

Ok, I seem to have gone off-topic again. Basically, we had an earthquake here. I was awake and got to experience the awesomeness of it. The end.

(NOTE: I'm not saying Earthquakes are "good" since they kill lots of people every year - I think - I'm just saying that I enjoyed my experience with it and it wasn't that bad.)

===

In other news, some stuff popped up. So I won't be able to go to the proposed Poker Night on Saturday. :(

It sucks. Although, if it's any consolation to myself, Ashley's having a small gathering Thursday night - which I can go to. It's a real pain about this Saturday thing, since it's weekly. So I'm booked up every Saturday after 5PM! *sigh*

I guess they'll have to deal without my awesome guidance. And yes, it means no coverage of the comical antics that will no doubt take place - unless Gavin decides to do it (yes, he is still an author... like Kate...). If only they change the day to Friday or something. Nevermind though, I guess they can look on the bright-side. It means less beat-downs for them at Poker.

The others, that I'm aware of, seemed to be practicing quite hard for the night as well. I was told that they were scared to play me, since I'm apparently "good at everything". Now, I don't exactly deny that but it's a slight overstatement. I can think of plenty of things that I'm not good at like... er... hm... brain surgery. Yea, I suck at that. Even though I've never done it before, but that's besides the point, even if I did do it I think I would suck.

===

Oh and just something funny I found messing around in Google. Type in "the answer to life, the universe and everything" and press search.

LOL

(NOTE: You will only get it if you have watched/read Hitchhikers guide the galaxy)

===

Videos time!

You think you're good at Guitar Hero? Think again!

Woah. Just... woah.

Next up is actually a flash animation!

METAL GEAR AWESOME 2

It's kinda recommended that you watch the first one here.

Here's the second one:

ENJOY!

Poker Night/Fancy-Dress B-day

2008-02-23T20:27:00.001Z

Well, after not hearing from Daisy for over a month, she returns to haunt me again. This time with news!

First of the news, is a "Poker Night" that's apparently being put on next Saturday. I'm unsure who's actually going but whatever, should be fun. Despite the fact that only a few of us genuinely know how to play Poker. I doubt that we'd end up playing Poker for the whole night, since Poker isn't much fun without betting something. Like money or chips, for example, I hear people tend to use these two a lot.

But wait! This is the small news.

*GASP*

Yes, gasp indeed. You thought it couldn't get any better, could it?

Well, you were wrong.

Apparently Daisy's birthday is in, and I quote: "about two months". I'm unsure on the actual date... but with my all-knowing, all-powerful, all-omnipresent brain (I have no idea how that works btw) I predict it's about *uses fingers to count 2 months* April time. There's no guarantee that it is though, even Super-Brains like mine have a minor lapse of incorrectness sometimes.

BUT WAIT! That's not all!

*GASP*

Yes, gasp indeed. You thought it couldn't get any better, right?

Well, you were wrong. DEADLY WRONG. ~~MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~~ << Got carried away

Turns out her and Laura had an idea. Oh boy. That's a bad sign. Very bad sign. I'm currently nervously checking the window waiting for

four horsemen riding out of the sky casting a wave of destruction everything, but it looks like it's not happening.

Click for full resolution. Image provided by Wikipedia.

I should also check if hell has frozen over, while I'm there: Anyone want an Ice Cream?

Anyway, all joking aside. There idea was having fancy-dress, not just any kind of fancy-dress though! You have to come as something from the 90s. Daisy proposed the idea of coming as Ash Ketchum (appropriately named... I guess).

Yes, this guy.

It would be pretty easy to, and henceforth save me all the effort. But I soon thought up something better:

POWER RANGERS.

How cool would turning up the party dressed up as a Power Ranger be? On second thoughts, don't answer that. Point is, it would be pretty frickin' awesome. We're talking about season 1 here, the original power rangers not the crappy later spin-offs that suck. The ones from the first show: Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. Pft, who needs "Power Rangers: Jungle Fury" and "Power Rangers: Wild Force" when you're:

MIGHTY MORPHING.

Sure, Ninja Storm has ninjas in and "Powers Rangers in Space" was theoretically 'in space' (in other words, they weren't really). But nothing beats the original power rangers. Especially since Gavin and Ashley so happily pointed out earlier on that the original red ranger now does porn. Yes, according to them - who have verified it - RED RANGER DOES PORN.

Still don't believe that the original was the best?

IT HAD A GIANT TALKING HEAD.

Nuff said.

You want more? How about a talking robot that serves the giant talking head and says: 'AIE AIE AI-E!' repeatedly in every frickin' episode? And for the proverbial cherry on top of the proverbial power ranger it's called: Alpha 5.

I am not kidding you. Anyone who has watched cannot forget Alpha 5, sure the giant talking head (called Zordon btw) was big and talked. But c'mom! It's a talking robot that says: "AIE AIE AI-E!" It was like every little boys dream way back when.

AIE AIE AI-E! Indeed, old friend. AIE AIE AI-E, indeed...

Sure, there were some obvious flaws in the power rangers formula. Like how the monsters looked pretty fake, and the most obvious one: Why the hell didn't the power rangers just bring out the frickin Zords whenever a monster appears and squash them into oblivion, instead of doing the thing they normally do:

Suit up! - As I like to call it. It's when they put on the... er... powersuits (?).
Back-flip time! - This is where they backflip to the scene of the disturbance. It doesn't matter if it's 500 miles away! One power rangers back-flip takes you there instantly!
Engage in combat. - Self explanatory.
Start losing. - Take a guess. No, really. Take one.
Join weapons to make some sort of crude-but-still-pretty-awesome cannon. - I'm not even going to try being funny.
Destroy the monster. - ...
Monster is revived but is now 1000x larger. - Oh noes! But never fear, for the Zords are here!
They bring out the zords. - Obvious.
The fight follows same pattern. Except it's larger and more epic. - It follows pretty much exactly the same pattern when they were human size.

If they squash the thing it would be extremely easy and when that evil woman (forgot her name) uses the revival potion or whatever she'll just be reviving a pile of goo. Power Rangers: 1. Monsters: 0.

But alas, they pay no heed to me. No matter. I don't care much for the current Power Rangers anyway.

I digress, I seem to have been side-tracked fairly easily. Back to the original thought... which was... erm...

The fancy-dress party, yes. That was it.

After some more talks with Gavin and some research online. We figured that Power Rangers outfits suck, and so I decided that this would be a good excuse for me to buy a katana/sword. So, hey why not? Bringing a large pointy object into a party full of alcohol and drunk people. What could possibly go wrong?!

Then I figured it would be much easier to dress in all-black and go as a ninja. And then we can also attempt to "ninja-in" into Daisy's house again.

That's about all I can think about on this subject since I seem to have lost my train of thought when I was derailed by the whole Power Rangers thing. I'll be sure to keep you updated on the costume situation.

Media Project Status

2008-02-20T17:36:00.001Z

Our media group (consisting of Kennie, Matt and I - Jamie too; although technically he isn't in the group) went out to film our media project today and I'm kinda pleased at how it went. Well, key word there is "kinda". We ran into some bumps along the way - as you'd expect - but overall everything went fine. I'm kinda disturbed that we probably spent more time messing around than doing actually "work"; if you could call it that. And yet, we still managed to do most of what we had to do. Just some final creases that need to be ironed out (it was beyond our control anyway for these final "creases").

Things started out on the wrong foot at the time we chose to meet (11AM, if you're wondering). Funnily enough, despite being the latest to wake up (10:45AM) I managed to get there before anyone else. Not long after my arrival, Kennie shows up. This is when things start to spiral out of control... Ok, maybe "spiral out of control" is a little melodramatic. But basically, no-one turns up. I look at my watch: "11:05" it reads. We ended up ringing Jamie who apparently, and I quote: 'Miss the bus but I'm 10 minutes away. Max.' So, Jamie's fine. That's good. Just for a minute there we thought he got himself into some sort of trouble, and that would've been bad since there weren't too many days where all four of us could be together to film.

Then there was the matter of Matt. We call him. No answer. That's bad, by the way. Very bad... I thought to myself. Nothing happens for the next five minutes or so. Kennie and I spend this quality time talking about important project stuff; example conversation topics include:

Where we gonna have lunch?
When we gonna have lunch?
Can we have lunch now?
What'd you have for breakfast?
I'm tired. Let's go home.
The script for future of our projects - which strangely (or not so strangely for people who know us) kind of went like Patrick Stewart's "script" for his next project:

That, good sir, is the best script ever.

etc.

After what felt like an eternity, Matt appears in his black Toyota. I run to the side of his window to give him a heartfelt slap across his cheek, I was stopped in my tracks. Well, not really stopped since I couldn't be asked to start walking anyway. I just bided my time and waited for Matt to get out of his car and walk closer... and closer... ever closer... then I forgot what I was doing and resumed my conversation with Kennie. More time passes and it's now about 11:15 according to my watch. Eventually, we get tired of waiting and we part ways to look for Jamie and meet up outside college again at 11:30. When I say "look" I meant that Matt and I (in his car) went to McDonalds to get some food. I just got some large fries to tide me by until lunch (I thought of it as quick brunch) and Matt ordered some coffee. Small problem with that though.

THEY WERE OUT OF COFFEE.

Let me remind you that it was in the morning too, namely the main time people want coffee. Ok, fine. Matt then orders some tea.

NOPE. OUT OF THAT TOO.

Wait, what? Are we at the right place? Matt grits his teeth and asks: 'Ok, so what do you have?'

Er... WE DON'T HAVE ANY HOT DRINKS.

W-T-F. Why the hell didn't you tell us in the first place?! And, more importantly, it's the middle of winter and you don't have any hot drinks?! Heresy! Blasphemy! It ended up with me just having large fries (£1.39), at least it was fast. And I mean: fast. I know there was hardly anyone there but seriously. You order at Window 1. Pay. Move to Window 3 (what happened to Window 2, you ask? I have no idea. They don't use it that much.). And boom! It magically appears in your hand as they hand it to you. We literally pulled up to the window and the woman gave us the fries.

We get back at exactly 11:30, according to Matt's in-car clock, and we see Kennie's car there already (a dark blue VW Polo, if you were wondering) with Jamie sat in the passenger seat. After a few words here and there we drive into Franklin College car-park; which despite being the half-term is still open and half-full. It seems staff and other workers seem to be at college doing... er... work, I guess.

We film for a bit, doing what we have to do. Freezing our butts off in the cold morning air. So, normal things I'd say. Things don't really pick up until round about 12 where we decide it would be a good idea to have lunch. I agreed that it was a good idea. There's never a bad time for food (unless in an unfortunate and horribly clichéd turn of events, the food ends up to be you). Matt wanted to go to anywhere but KFC -how can you not like chicken?!- while the rest of us insisted on eating some sweet sweet chicken. We do what was deemed most convenient at the time: part ways.

Somehow Kennie ended up taking some extremely long route to KFC, so we get there late. No matter. As food was swift and enjoyable. We shared a boneless box between the three of us. We spend the next 40 odd minutes eating, drinking and talking. Matt was, I hate to say it, forgotten about until I looked out the window and say a black Toyota drive off away from KFC. I turn back to the other two and ask: 'Hey... that car. There *points to car* doesn't that look exactly like Matt's car.' Kennie replies half-heartedly: 'It does and all. And the driver! Ha! It's a splitting image of Matty!' Jamie then interrupts: 'Guys... that was Matty.'

Damn.

Well that's not good. Kennie pulls out his phone to call him, only to find that Matt had actually been calling him. Opps. He attempts to call him now, no answer. Probably because he's driving. Now, this just keeps getting worse and worse, dunnit? What do we do to rectify this situation? I'll tell you what we did: Nothing. We figured he'd figure out sometime that we were here and so we carried on eating. We spend some more time and finish off most things (which is not bad for three people) but there was still some Pepsi left. Oh well. Drink for Matt, I guess. Meanwhile, Matt reaches Franklin College again and finally decided to call Kennie back. Turns out he used the drive-thru at Burger King and ended up parking and eating next to Kennie's car. Yes, he parked next to Kennie's car and didn't notice.

We finally returned to work and did some filming. The details I won't bore you with. There were plenty of moments, like when I save Matt's door from certain destruction when he decided to go before I closed the door. The door was inches away from being smashed to pieces before I pulled it back. Now, that's skill. There was also when Kennie was driving along with his passenger window open, I figured: 'Hell. Might as well.' And leaped in, all movie-style. On more then on occasion, we thought that the inclusion of walkie-talkies or some sort of cheap and fast communication device (the lag time between calling the mobile and when it actually rings is quite large) so we could do cues better. But nevermind, we worked it out eventually.

At roughly 2AM we found that the camera was running out of battery, so we did another few takes and ended up at "The Trawl" a pub near where we were filming. Seeing as we were going to be there for a while, we started to play pool. That's when problems arose. First, and get this, we had to show some sort of ID to play pool. I mean, WTF?! The woman's excuse was that she "wasn't running a Youth Club." I looked over to the other pool table and a bunch of little kids were messing around with the cues and everything, while their parents sat behind them drinking and generally ignoring them...

Ok then... we handed some ID in. So, all was fine. We played some pool. Turns out Matt is good, real good. Jamie and I ended up teaming up with him, and only won the first game because he accidentally potted the black ball. We carried on potting afterwards and he managed to pot all the yellow while we had about 5 reds on the table. Well, at least I managed to pot most (or was it all? I forget) of the reds. We play another round of pool, Kennie comes along and joins in. We were playing doubles now, he said that he 'couldn't play' but still managed to get them down to the black ball by potting 3 yellow balls in a row. Couldn't play, my ass.

This carried on until the fifth game when we were about to finish. The woman (same woman from before) asks this to be our last game. Sure, seeing as it was our last game. But she seemed pretty rude about it, nevermind though we had more important things to think about. When we did eventually finish, as we were walking out the woman (who does indeed work there) has the nerve to shout: 'Don't come back!'

WTF. If I'm not mistaken that's bad customer practice. We carried on leaving anyway and did some more takes. Eventually we did all we could and so went home. I got home at about 4PM and just slumped down on the sofa, exhausted. We still haven't completely finished our filming either, so we decided to leave it until the next media lesson. It's only a small part anyway.

And so ends the story of what happened yesterday (I started this post yesterday and only finished it today. That's an indication at how much I wrote and how much happened).

When the ad is done, I'll be sure to post it up on YT for your viewing pleasure.

(And yea, I know there's few pictures in this post but I'm not sure what pictures I can actually put up. So deal.)

This deserves it's own post...

2008-02-14T20:42:00.001Z

Originally I was going to slap this onto the end of the previous post. But it felt out of place there. So here it is!

What?

You expected more?! That's very selfish. But no matter, watch as I GIVETH:

ROFL.

Original picture provided by: Ashley.

Everything after that: ME.

SPORE release date announced!

2008-02-13T17:12:00.001Z

Things are looking good this year, as one of the biggest titles of this century is going to hit store shelves THIS SEPTEMBER.

It's official! Just watch this video:

Watch out for Spore in September!

As the proverbial cherry atop the cherry atop the cherry of the announcement, EUROPE GETS IT 2 DAYS EARLIER.

The European release date is September 5th while NA will have to deal with the long wait of the weekend until September 7th. Can I get a high-five from my European bros? No? Well, screw you.

The release date is set for 4 versions of the game: PC, MAC, DS and mobile.

There's also a Wii version coming but that's to be released at a later date.

If you don't know what Spore is then I suggest you find out. You will be missing on something amazing if you don't.

Now, how about that SSBB release date for Europe now?

Being a Hero(es 2)

2008-02-09T22:40:00.001Z

I got Medal Of Honor: Heroes 2 last Thursday and I've made it through roughly 80% of the of the single-player campaign and a tiny portion of the arcade campaign (which is basically on-rails shooting). Some gripes I've had about the game:

AI SUCKS (and I mean SUCKS) - Seriously, I could run right into the face of one of the enemies and they'd be like: 'WTF? Where is that guy...' Normally, at this point, I would have pistol-whipped him for his stupidity.
Campaign is nothing special. - It's typical WWII oh-my-god-we-must-shoot-Nazis-in-the-face-to-win action. In this respect, it brings practically nothing new to the table.
No local multiplayer. - Seriously, WTF. Why is local multiplayer/co-op being left out of games now?! It makes no sense to me. Do developers think that gamers have no real friends that come round to their house anymore? That's absurd! Not even the Arcade mode has any sort of co-op play. Even though it wouldn't have been terribly hard to implement. I'm very disappointed, to say the least.
Arcade is fun distraction, but not that good. - Compared to the likes of RE: UC the arcade mode just seems to fall short. Sure, it's only part of the game but it just lacks a certain polish, oh and btw: The AI still kinda sucks in this mode.
No VoIP. - This isn't really EA's fault but Nintendo really has got to get it's act together and get some sort of voice chat to it's online service. We're left with this crappy, pre-set messages that consist of the following: Need back-up, Affirmative, Negative, Enemy Spotted, Move out, Retreat, Hold Position; and maybe a few more. Basically, it's seriously limited communication and it's a pain to pull up these messages in the first place! Frankly, the entertainment value of an online game like Heroes 2 is multiplied exponentially when you can trash-talk at your foes while you throw the beat-down on them. Nothing beats that.

Now for the things I felt were good:

Online play is genuinely fun. - Even without the voice chat there is a lot of fun to be had online. I guess no voice chat means no 12-year-old kids randomly shouting into your ear.
No lag. - In my whole time playing online I've encountered no lag at all. None at all! Even when there are about 25 people running about (I've yet to be in a match that has 32 people in). That's pretty amazing. Kudos to EA on this. And connecting to servers and games is quick and easy. I timed how long it took for me to get into the lobby from clicking multiplayer on the main menu, it clocked in at 15 seconds. That's pretty damn fast.
Arcade mode. - Wait, how can arcade mode be in what I think is both good and bad? Well, the fact that Arcade mode doesn't need to be in the game but is anyway. At least EA are trying to attract some casual players.
Controls. - The controls are impressive. I found my mind wrestling the fact that the controls were better than MP3:C and with the inclusion of changing the size of the "dead zone" the controls are superior. Motion control is also implemented very well, it's not over-used and is very satisfying when it's in the game. Pumping the shotgun makes me feel awesome everytime.
Fast and fun gameplay. - The fact that you're able to jump into games very quickly means that gameplay never seems slow. Sure, for some people if you want to take it slow you can. Like perch atop one of the towers in the monastery map and just snipe dudes slowly (watch out for someone coming up the stairs with a bazooka though). But for me, there's only one way to go. SHOTGUN. I just run in blindly and blast those dudes in the face like there's no tomorrow.

That's my pros and cons list for this game. And I'm rather pleased. Don't be mistaken, it is a fun game. But there's plenty of room for improvement.

===

In other news, we decided to have a reshuffling of seats in our Maths class. Our table now has a grand total of 5 people (which fluctuates slightly because people occasional move about) compared to the 3 before. Talking has sped up this way too. There's a no-end to the chatter nowdays it seems. Especially since Kiddle (not a nickname btw, it's actually his last name) got his Tamogotchi VERSION 5. *gasp*

===

I recently managed to get VB6 on my computer (finally) through some dodge dealing about this website... but nevermind about that. I've been messing about with some stuff and I thought I'd share with you what I've made so far. I've made a Stop-watch which functions just like a stop-watch so you won't need any sort of demo. The following two however I thought you'd be interested in a video:

This actually started from something we did at college.

Yes, my media player is quite crude... I'll like to see you do better.

That's about the gist of projects I've done. I'm starting to touch on some pretty advance coding now and I'm actually quite enjoying programming.

Oh and by the way, the media player thing was not something I learned at college. It was all self-taught... with a little help from the internet.

Two Movies in One Day!

2008-02-05T23:42:00.001Z

I ended up watching two movies today. One of which was supposed to be my sister's birthday present but we ended up "testing" it for faults by watching it.

The first movie I watched today (which was incidentally my sister's birthday present) was: TALES FROM EARTHSEA. I was randomly browsing around Tesco and noticed it and my immediate reaction was: 'Hey... I've never heard of this film before. Buy.' And so that is what happened.

Enjoy this trailer (Japanese with subs):

Ghibli can still work that magic.

Yes, there are dragons in the movie. BIG-ASS DRAGONS. FIGHTING.

Yup, Ghibli have still got it. And by the looks of things they'll have it for a long time still.

Although I'm unsure what "it" stands for in this context... maybe it's like the special ingredient that pushes a film from mediocre to awesome. I guess we'll never know.

Oh, and for those of you who haven't heard of Ghibli (shame on you) I wouldn't be surprised if you've watched one of their animated films already. Ghibli's art style is unique and even if the front of the DVD box-art didn't say: "MADE BY GHIBLI STUDIOS" and "FROM THE CREATORS OF SPIRITED AWAY" I would still know that Ghibli made it. The amount of in-jokes and cameos by other people rival even those found in Pixar films!

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, it has this nice adventure storyline that while may sound slightly generic plays out majestically. And for older and more mature users, there is a dark undertone meaning to the whole thing which really puts things in retrospect. Since I'm too lazy to do anything like a review here's oneI found on the IMDB.

After watching this film I was pleased with the overall feel and look the production. Most notably I was impressed with the studio's visual creation of Earthsea. While the artistry and animation quality does not entirely measure up to other recent Ghibli studio films, I felt it did create a rich and colorful setting in which the story unfolds. A solid score also helps to shape the vibrant world that the movie conveys. However, I wouldn't consider all this to be a faithful representation of Ursula k. Le Guin's literary Earthsea, but rather something unique on to itself. One thing in particular that I think separates the film setting from that of the books' is the absence of the sea. I'm not saying its not there, just that it seems to mostly be in the background.
As for the story I don't think it stands out as anything great. It was limited from the start. The movie like the book is a single episode in a much larger tale. In no way could it possibly encompass the magnitude of the Earthsea series, let alone the main events in The Farthest Shore. It would simply be too much to present in a canvass of its length. As a result It lacks the epic feel of Princess Mononoke or the closure that comes at the end of Spirited Away. In other respects though, the film borrows heavily from Ghibli's previous works, mainly with the characters. They are shadows of former Ghibli creations, but due to their interaction and set of circumstances they retain some originality. I might also add that they come off as serious, and are far removed from the playful personalities that give other Ghibli films their charm. This said they still manage to play out their given roles and drive the story forward. From beginning to end the film holds up in large part because the setting never loses its feel.
I enjoyed this picture in spite of its flaws, again because of it's look and feel. For once I could see winged dragons clash and wizards face off in a Ghibli film. In my opinion Goro Miyazaki did a decent job bringing it all to life. At the same time, I hope he will learn from this experience and strive to do better next time. After my seeing Gedo Senki he has my support.

Obviously, seeing as the film was the debut of a new director it lacked the general sheen and polish applied to previous films. But it's still pretty awesome in my book. Watching it really brought me back to reminiscing about the old Ghibli films and how enjoyable they were. I recommend this a watch if you liked previous Ghibli films.

Next movie I saw turned out to be the Animal Crossing movie. LOL

No, seriously it was. I didn't know they made an AC movie until a few months ago and from what I heard it was pretty good. And since a friendly forum member pointed me towards this YT account with the whole film subbed I thought: "What the heck. It's not like I have anything better to do... except my college work... but that doesn't count."

I won't spoil too much for you, but I quite enjoyed it. It's based on the DS game (I think) and people who have played the games will enjoy the music that is put in and the amount of references to the game is staggering! I won't say anymore but if you want to watch it, I'll make it more convenient for you (aren't I nice?) and post all the videos in a list below:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8 [FINAL]

ENDING CREDITS (For those who like to look at pretty pictures)

Hope you've enjoyed that. :D

Until next time!

The Good Times

2008-02-03T19:37:00.001Z

I picked up the Wiitar yesternight, the first time I played it in quite a while. And what a come-back it was.

I ploughed through about half of the expert career mode. Yes, you read correctly: EXPERT. Ownage.

===

Ok, not much to say today. So I'll just keep things short and simple.

Video. Watch now.

AWESOME. Nuff said.

Some of you may recall me saying something about the above... for the record there was no alcohol or drugs involved... just a lot of boredom. I'm not going to point out whose who in the video... just know that some people you may know (from this blog) may be there... Actually, at the very end you can hear the start of someone laughing. If only the aftermath was filmed, it was legendary.

EDIT#1: Just for laughs. Here's a video of Gavin's cartwheel-to-backflip attempt. Keyword there is: "attempt".

WIPE OUT!

If you had a sense of humour like me. You would have ROFLed to death. Like I did.

If you watch very very closely, about 7/8 seconds in Gavin gets PWN3D by the beach. Oh yes he does.

The day I climbed my own Everest

2008-01-28T18:00:00.001Z

Just before I start the post I would like to say:

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY LEGO!

Woah, that made me feel old. And I'm not even old...

===

Anyway, originally this post was suppose to happen yesterday but you know what they say about intended plans. I had a really bad headache yesterday which prevented me from doing anything remotely productive. It was like the pinnacle of bad. Just imagine a builder jumping into your head through your ear with his big boots tromping all the way into your brain, then imaging said builder had 4 arms: one carrying a chainsaw, one carrying a large pneumatic drill, one carrying a JCB digger and the last hand carrying the most talkative and dreary woman you have ever had the pleasure to met.

Ok, now imagine TWO of the said builder.

Now imagine that it got stuck inside your head and was trying furiously to get out via your temple.

Now you have only just begun to understand my pain.

===

Ok, moving onto some more joyous things. Let's talk about last Saturday. If you recall in my last post, I said that there were plans of going to Pizza Hut and then the cinema.

And things went well... figuratively speaking.

I sent out from my house at the intended time and all was well. I met up with Gavin & Ashley (Lewis was there too on his bike, but he had to go wash off his funky fish smell). And we decided to walk the long way to town, ok sure, we've got like 30 mins. We ended up being late by about 15 minutes.

But no matter, since only 40% of the invited people were here and they didn't order anything. The next half an hour or so was people catching up on what's been happening to everyone else etc. The usual, basically.

Eventually we saw the final five walk into WoolWorths (which is opposite Pizza Hut) and most of us were like: 'WTF?' someone thought they had to top-up on their mobile or something. But I liked to think that, despite living here for the whole of their lives, they were lost.

When everyone was finally there talking started again. Eventually we did get round to ordering food, Ashley and I ended up sharing a meal for 2. Since I didn't particularly mind what I was eating. Gavin got a meal all for his lonesome XD.

Other people ordered different things, yada yada not much happened except eating. Due to previous escapades into food earlier that day (A BUCKET-LOAD OF SOUP) I wasn't particularly hungry. But it was a giant Pizza and sides in front of me so I couldn't resist, I ended up eating: one piece of garlic-bread, several pieces of wedges, a slice of Pizza and several glasses of Pepsi.

BUT WAIT!

That's not all! With our meal (Meal for 2) came free desert. Ashley opted for Chocolate Fudge cake (despite saying that he was stuffed to the brim and ready to burst) and I, meanwhile, went with good 'ol Ice Cream.

And what a good choice it was.

From what I heard the Choc Fudge Cake wasn't distinctly good, after a few bites Ashley gave it away to the ravenous bunch.

But the Ice Cream was amazing, just because it was free Ice Cream and I had to get my money's worth I filled that tiny bowl as much as I can. Literally creating an Ice Cream mountain. Then for the next 15/20 minutes attempt to finish it.

I swore on the River Styx (ok, not really) that I was going to finish it!

AND I DID.

I compared it to climbing my own Everest, since I finished it just in time. Small problem though: For the next hour or so I was so dosed up on sugar that I couldn't stop shaking then after that sugar-rush period I had 'sugar withdrawal' where I felt really tired.

Throughout the time at Pizza Hut there was also an issue with Daisy's card and picture. Let's just say at the very end of our meal, the picture was on the floor. And the card... well, the card was stuck to the mirror in the Male toilets with some white, sticky stuff: SOAP.

I'd also like to make note of something, there were 16 of us. And we ended up spending: £96.23. That's approx. £6 each. Think what you well about that.

===

Next came the cinema, not all of us went as some went home but it was still a hefty number of people. Another problem arose, the film we wanted to catch (which ended up to be St. Trinians) started at 6:20 and we arrived at... take a guess... 6:20. So after lining up for quite some time we rushed inside to find ourselves JUST in time to catch the start of the film. Not only did we miss the adverts and whatnot be we didn't miss a bit of the film. Sweet.

After the film we ended up waiting outside McDonalds for some reason where Gavin stood on a bench and felt like a Pirate. And then I promptly joined him and felt much akin to a Pirate myself. We had to goad Ashley up so we could be a Pirate trio. The night ended with me being asked to say "naughty words" in Cantonese. And me jumping over a fence to reach my mom's car. Nice.

===

Some small things from today:

I got my brief back for Media today and guess what was the major issue that was written on it? Everyone else's work was full of scribbles 'add this', 'evidence that' etc. Mine? I'm truly not kidding you: 'WORD COUNT.'

Since the brief is only meant to be around the area of 750 words, but I ended up with about 1,100 words. But the teacher doesn't know since it was a piece of paper and she wouldn't exactly go and count it. The lesson today was spent thinking off awesome names for our product, we ended up with these three names:

MetaLate
Zoonse
GET

No joke. That's how much work we get done in 1 hour 15 mins.

Then there was Computing. We spent most of that lesson messing with the messaging service that Windows provides (not in Vista, unfortunately).

===

That about sums up the last few days. Nothing particularly big... OH WAIT.

I CLIMBED MY OWN EVEREST ON SATURDAY.

Saturday will be remembered for many things, but for me: It was the day that I ate a gargantuan amount of Ice Cream.

It's been a while...

2008-01-24T17:24:00.001Z

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while. Bite me.

===

Things have been pretty hectic lately and I haven't had time to post. The exam time 'No homework grace-period' has ended and now I'm being shoved homework left, right and center.

Then there's our practical in media. Which is getting confusing. I have to finish my 750 word draft by tomorrow and I haven't even started... ¬¬

We had a brainstorming session on what our ad should be about and after 3 hours we finally thought of it, an energy drink. A name is still in the works currently but the advert is basically a guy saying: 'Oh noes! I'm late!' Taking an energy drink (to get more energy, duh) and then time slows. Why? Because it's moving so frickin fast that it seems like everyone is moving slowly! How awesome does that sound?! Guess who thought of the idea? That's right, me. It was the best idea we had.

There are other problems though, like the unknown quantity that is Jamie. At first he said he was going to do his own poster, then joined our group to do the ad, now apparently he's left again! So, tomorrow I'll have to see how things are and think then.

===

There is also news of a gathering/reunion type thing this Saturday. More on that on Saturday... I guess. I'm not even sure what the hell we're doing.

===

Having said that things have been quite hectic I don't really have any especially good stories to tell. I guess I could rant and moan about the difficulty of Further Maths again but I guess you've had enough of that. I also have a 750-word brief that needs to be handed in tomorrow and I haven't even started.

Oh and it's also my mom's birthday tomorrow and I still need to get her a present. I didn't forget and only just remembered a few hours ago, honest.

===

Don't worry, posts should be slightly more frequent than they have been. I can't really promise anything though.

But my unwavering devotion to this blog rivals even this guy.

...

Ok, maybe not quite. Though you get what I'm saying. I would carved 6000 steps up a mountain for you guys. Hell! I'd carve 6000 steps up a frickin Volcano if I have to.*

*I should say now that you can't hold me to that. I'm a busy guy, you know.

EDIT#1: Btw, I watched Cloverfield. :D T'was amazing.

Oh and since I was talking to Ashley I remembered that he apparently had a "bad chest" last week. Now, you may not think this is anything big. And you'd be right.

But this is coming from the guy who hurt his hand bowling, hit his head on the refrigerator door and got concussion and stood on a nail that made him miss school for a week (we saw the "hole" it made and it was virtually non-existent). XD

That's Ashley for you. I think that's enough of a dose of funny stories.

Awesomeness after awesomeness

2008-01-17T17:53:00.001Z

First of all, I would like to recommend Fancy Pants Adventure to anyone who has yet to play it since it is such a frickin' awesome game. Definitely the best flash game out this year.

Secondly I'd like to point out something in the game; if you go to the credits door...

Oh yea, you better believe it. Since version 1.2 (or 1.1?) my name has been in the credits. Why? BECAUSE I RULEZ, DATS WHY.

Nah, it's because I helped Brad (the guy who made the game) BETA test and was generally a nuisance over at his blog.

My name will forever be remembered in an awesome flash game, awesome.

Oh and the game has music in now too. And a bunch of bug fixes, it also loads MUCH faster now due to some optimising fixes. So kudos to Brad!

How do I celebrate the fact that I'm in the credits of such an awesome game? FANART!

PUNISH!

Took me some time but I did it!

Oh yea, that's how awesome I am. Remember go check out Brad's blog.

===

Now moving onto something that didn't happen on the interwebz. I was in computing today... er... computing, right. And we were messing with how to get information from .txt files and such. But there was one thing even the teacher (and the remarkably smart kid) was bamboozled on. I rode in on my white stallion shouting: 'HI-HO! SILVER!'

...

Ok, maybe I exaggerated a tiny bit. I after a few trial-and-error and a healthy dose of common sense (yes, I have common sense too - and yes, I am near perfect in every way) I figured it out. It's all things to do about arrays and procedures and variables and stuff, so you wouldn't understand.

Then in maths, Suhaib broke his bag. Which was the funniest thing ever. And I just stood there laughing at him, while every -sneakily and stealthily- left the room. I was left in the room with him and ended up having to carry one of his folders in my bag. :(

Outrage! Even though the folder weighed close to nothing, it's blasphemous! It's the principle that counts!

I gave it back to him though at last lesson (which was also maths).

Oh and btw, in maths we've moved onto C3 stuff. Which is basically the stuff that the normal A-level maths students will be doing... NEXT YEAR. That's how horribly-frightening the pace is at further maths. Truly frightening.

And one last thing, we almost convinced someone there was a dragon upstairs in the maths room. XD

UPDATE#1: Another picture for you to marvel at. I know you love em.

UPDATE#2: Gavin pointed me towards this interesting video that I just had to share with everyone.

PWN3D by Mario.

Watch as this dude goes through various "stages":

1) Chatty

2) Kinda obnoxious

3) Cursing

4) Hating the world

5) Going emo

6) Loving the world

7) Loss for words

8) Crying

9) Ultimate frustration

10) Giving up

It's really funny.

Oh and here's another picture for you to admire.

Exam Pain (Yet again)

2008-01-14T18:28:00.001Z

As the above title shows I have exams - yet again. I'm starting to see a trend here:

I get exams
I bitch about getting exams

And I'm not liking it. Especially how it starts.

Anyway, I guess life doesn't really give a damn on how I feel so I have to continue trudging through the dark, virus-ridden, shark-infested cesspool of exams. I think the governing bodies of our country should start doing some research: 'NOONE, I REPEAT NOONE, likes doing exams.' *sigh*

So, moving onto some less distressing news.

I can't remember what this post was really going to be about so I'll just go over some news of the last few days.

For those behind the times, I doubt you'd have seen this:

All Star Wars fanboys have just pissed themselves...

The force is strong in this one. Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose. Talking weird, I am.

Ok, sorry about that. I just couldn't resist a crack at the old Yoda-talks-weird thing.

But seriously though, this is awesome. But they couldn't have done it in a more stereotypical way. Screen cuts to black and music stops. Then all you hear is heavy breathing... hell, I bet a three year old kid could probably have guessed who it was. And then there's the problem of Darth Vader being exclusive to the PS3 one and Yoda being exclusive to the Xbox 360. I mean, what's up with that?!

I'm sure everyone would agree that duking it out Darth Vader vs Yoda style would be so much more awesome.

Oh and then there's the whole lightsaber > sword thing. You'd think that the lightsaber would slice through the sword like there's no tomorrow. Ok, maybe the Soul Edge would be an exception in this case.

By the way, this was shown as CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. I know someone who was actually there when this was shown. According to him, everyone in the room was like *gasp* and 'O...M...F...G...' when the heavy breathing started. Then a few minutes after the trailer finished they all walked out, thought about it a bit more and were like: 'Wait, what?' XD

Seeing as I seem to have delved into this subject area way too much already, I'll leave the rest to figure it out for yourselves. I'm not saying this was a bad thing but I think they should have cut out the black part and should have just shown Darth Vader and Yoda fighting. And see if anyone notices at the time, if noone in the room notices just carry on. Seeing as the video will be distributed far and wide across the interwebz, someone will eventually notice it. And then just make it out as a blooper and say 'No Comment' a lot. Talk about viral marketing...

===

Another thing you might enjoy, I stumbled across this when we were discussing about the 500-foot fall that guy did not long ago and survived.

PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES - It sounds slightly more awesome than it should.

This is why this guy should teach Physics to me.

More of those vids here: PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES.

See? Learning can be fun too. Too bad this is an isolated case.

===

Last but far from least is FPA2. Some of you may have played World 1, and I'm pretty sure most people would have played World 2 by now but I forgot to post this up last time. I helped Brad (the creator) BETA test this game so be nice to it. It's still a sorta open BETA as of now since there are a lot of bugs yet to be ironed out. But for now, enjoy.

Fancy Pants Adventure World 2

/post

Why Guitar Hero?

2008-01-10T17:44:00.001Z

The exams yesterday were ok. I managed to get through it with little to no problems. Except one major one.

BOREDOM.

Yes, after completing the first test in roughly 50 minutes, I spent the remaining time of the test (an uncanny 40 mins) rolling my bottle up the table only to watch it roll back down; then I push it up. It rolls back down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. You get the picture.

The second exam was harder, well through logical progression it should have been - it was C2 (1st exam was C1). But again, I managed to breeze through with no hitches at all until the last question.

It didn't seem to make much sense to me and I was kinda confused, I don't quite remember what it was now but the last part of that question really gave me some trouble. This was what my body was thinking:

Logical me: Ok, this isn't too tough. I just have to think through it logically.

Creative me: HOLY *BEEP* *BEEP *BEEP* IT'S MATHS! RUN! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!111one

My stomach: Dudez... I'm hungry...

My biceps: You're always hungry man! We should do some muscle flexs! Look at my muscles, RAR!

My butt: *muffle* *muffle* *muffle*

My biceps: I think he agreed with me.

Creative me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!111one

My fingers: Am I the only one with finesse around here?

My feet: I CAN'T SEE! I'M BLIND!

My elbows: Hey dudes! How's it hanging?

My Brain: SHUT THE *BEEP* UP! I'm trying to work here assholes!

My butt: *muffle* (hey!)

My Brain: Oh right sorry. Anyway, anyone who has nothing to do with the current maths test. LEAVE.

My biceps: I don't see what makes you in charge.

My Brain: Let's just say that if I cut this little nerve ending right here *points to it* see it? Yea; YOU'D BE DEAD.

My biceps: Ok geez, we're leaving.

*Lots of footsteps* *Door is slammed*

My Brain: Finally some peace and quiet.

Creative me: Hey, what you do- OH NOES! MATHS! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!1111111111one

My Brain: *BEEP*

That's about how it went. Oddly enough. Unfortunately, I have to wait a while to get the results. So, bear with me on that.

Now onto the actual article.

===

In maths we had a renaissance of uber-talking. Yes, not just regular talking but uber-talking. Have no idea what it means? I'll explain briefly. It's like regular talking but several times more awesome. And this generally only happens when I'm around (see the connection?).

Anywayz, we were talking about all manners of stuff. Upcoming games, movies etc.

Then talk moved onto Guitar Hero, what Rob and Richard (sounds like a comedy duo don't they?) didn't get was why anyone would want to play Guitar Hero? I had never thought much about it before.

Why do we play Guitar Hero when we could play a real guitar?

My answer was this: 'Because it's easier. Much easier. Yea, sure the harder difficulties require you to train your fingers with tiny weights everyday and require what Gavin calls: "The fingers of god." But it's still much easier to get into then real guitars.' They weren't so convinced. I explained further: 'It's like why people play DDR instead of learning to actually dance. And why there are post-apocalyptic war-games when it wouldn't be too hard to start a nuclear war and attempt to survive it's aftermath? Because of two simple things: Cost and effort. Playing DDR, war-games and Guitar Hero don't cost nearly as much as it would cost to learn to dance, have a nuclear war and learn to play (and buy) a real guitar. And it's easier. Just think of Guitar Hero as the cool guy's DDR. It's for people who look at people playing DDR well and think: "Hm... that looks fun but it also looks so uncool." And this was the solution to that problem.'

They agreed slightly with what I said. But still they argued that learning to play a real guitar would be much better in the long term, since you can play with friends or to friends.

Yea, but that's not the point. Guitar Hero is ultimately still a game, and you're not supposed to think of the long-term in games (well, in games like Guitar Hero anyway). You're supposed to enjoy the moment when you beat the hardest song, beat the final boss or whatever. That's what games were made for: ENTERTAINMENT.

So, my point is that people play Guitar Hero because it's fun.

And with that, they couldn't argue with me.

===

EDIT#1: NEW BANNER! YAY! Now continue to marvel at my newest banner. Here it is for people who may be reading in the future (where the banner would be non-existent ):

Enjoy.

-WJUK

Quick Post: OMFG! CHUCK NORRIS JOKES ARE EVERYWHERE!

2008-01-08T21:19:00.001Z

This is just a quick post, since I wanted to share with you this little delight:

Comment Section on Bornegames.com

What's so awesome about it? Scroll down and you'll notice something.

CHUCK. NORRIS.

Yes, there was a Chuck Norris joke contest and you weren't invited!

(It may have been started by me...)

Ouch!

2008-01-07T18:30:00.001Z

As you can tell, I can't be asked to think up a witty and intelligent title. Things are just too busy for me right now, it also explains the lack of posting.

Anywayz, the title suggests that someone managed to hurt themselves so much that I felt it was important enough to use it as a post title. And that'd be spot on. And unfortunately for me, that "someone" was me.

I'll explain briefly the events that led up to the to the horrific accident.

I'm playing badminton with a few people, innocent enough right? All is going well, we're trouncing them by quite a considerable margin and I felt that we were ahead enough for me to get complacent. All is still well, the score gets to 13 - 5 (15 to win) and now I get downright cocky. As in swinging the racket under my leg and behind my back, I even served with my eyes closed.

Then I decided to smash with my eyes closed. That was my downfall.

The ball enters my field of vision, and I line up my shot. I close my eyes (I had told the others before, so my partner knows to avoid me and my "racket of death"). I swing. My racket pretty reaches 90 degrees up. Nothing. Hm... strange. I should note that this was in a really short space of time, milliseconds even. My racket reaches critical mass (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool) and I should have hit the ball right now. I readjust my racket to where I think the ball is, that was my Waterloo (if I was Napoleon). I follow-through, right-through.

This is where it hits me, literally.

Yes, it hits me in the family jewels. Compare it to the giant throbbing internal organs of General Grievous being shot. That is, to say: IT HURT LIKE F***. I only just managed to keep my footing, if it was anyone else I'm sure they would have been floored.

I don't feel like commenting on this painful "situation" anymore, just thinking about it hurts.

===

My dear friend, Psycho Duck who owns One Duck's Opinion. Just opened up a forum, and since it's like a new start-up forum; I figured it wouldn't hurt to help him gain some members via this method. Oh and if you do sign up, be aware of Duck. Some would say he's... he's... slightly... psycho. lol

Oh and Ryan, the mod. Watch out for him. He's infamous for his notorious antics.

===

Before I finish this relatively short post, I think I should note that last night I went on GH3 (it was the first time I've been on since the gathering on New Year's Day) and I actually made it through "3s & 7s" by Queens of the Stone Age on HARD. Which is a feat in itself for me. I can pretty much get through Knights of Cydonia too but I always seem to fail at the very end.

But that's not really what this is about. It's because I had a go at some expert song. And compared to Hard it's worlds apart. Faster, more notes that are more difficult. I can get through the 1st tier with not much problem (except on the encore) but after that it all just goes downhill. I may try again after the exams, but until then it seems like their's just an unsurpassed amount of work for me to do...

===

EDIT#1: Oh and I also weighed my college bag not long ago. Guess how heavy it was?

1.2 Stones

Which is roughly equivalent to 7.62035182 kilograms (thank you Google). That's equivalent to carrying around 7.62035182 bags of 1KG sugar bags around every frickin' day. But I guess it's my own fault for being too lazy to take books out.

Did you know that there are 3 155 692 597 470 seconds in a century? Got that from Google too.

BEST/WORST of 2007

2008-01-03T21:02:00.001Z

A quick word before the actual post:

The snow doth cometh.

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds menacing and ominous. But in reality it's not (quite) like that... basically it's been snowing for the majority of the day - that I've been outside anyway. And seeing as seeing snow is a rare occasion for me; and likewise many others. I thought I should say something about it. Even if the "snow" is more like "hail snow" as my sister put it (WTF?).

Picture? Nope, sorry. Unfortunately, I have still failed to get my hands on an appropriately priced and-yet-awesome camera. But no worries ~~I will catch that rapscallion rabbit someday!~~ I will get one sooner or later (probably later).

That ends this... er... before-post.

Now that 2007 has been and gone (by a few days) I'm going to make a list! Why? Because I want to... and all the cool kids are doing it and I'm cool, right?

... right?

Anywayz, I thought it would be a good way to see 2007 in perspective... or something. In any case, you can see the up/downs of my past year:

Note: All the below are my personal opinions and there may be things that you feel that I have gotten wrong, but... STFU. I really can't be asked to care. And it should also be noted that I can express my opinion on something that I haven't done/watched/played.

Note#2: I was meaning to post this on my New Year's Day post. But never got round to due to some other more pressing issues I had to attend to. But now you can enjoy!

Best thing to happen to me in 2007:

The summer holidays

>>Runner-ups: The numerous parties, Getting my laptop...

I agree that it's a bit... general. But what can I do? I had a smashing summer holiday that could only ever be transcended by being able to take a whole year off! Every part of it just shouts: 'w00t' into my mind when I look back at it. From the parts where I didn't have to attend school to the holiday cruise to Amsterdam. If you were in my position and didn't enjoy it, there's something deeply deeply wrong with you.

Worst thing to happen to me in 2007:

My early college timetable

>>Runner-ups: GCSE Exams

There's one simple reason why GCSE Exams weren't the worst thing to happen to me all year. It was a simple trade-off. Sit an exam, get study leave. Even though my study leave consisted of anything but studying...

What's bad about my college timetable is that I have to get to college at 9AM, which is a real bummer. I thought I could have some extra lie-ins this year, but once again fate f***s me up again. Technically, I could have changed it. But I didn't want to. Simple because of Friday, I had one lesson (in the morning) on Friday and after that it was plain sailing until next Monday. Which means, essentially, that I get a 2¾ day weekend. And add the fact that Further Maths only has one class which means I can't change that; it severely limited my options. So, in the end, I decided to just leave it be. If fate has decided that I must wake up early every day to have an education. So be it.

Another irritating thing about my timetable is that I had no other lessons with friends from my previous school. Hell, I didn't have anyone I knew in any of my lessons! Granted, one of the things college is about is making new friends but that doesn't mean I should neglect my old friends so much (due to my timetable, this is kind of happening. Although I do frequently some familiar faces). Making new friends didn't pose too much of a problem to me; in media friendships were made quickly and it seems everyone has already separated into their own little groups (me included). But yet there is a lot of outward-conversing within the whole group which makes media a very social lesson. Maths too, our table alone was so talkative that we had to be split up. Things seem to have died down a little now, but much talking still happens. Computing and tutorial/General Studies were a different matter. Due to the fact that the teacher talks most of the time in Computing, chatting is almost kept to a minimum (it's still there though), even so everyone does get along and we do speak to each other when out of lessons. Tutorial/General-studies was very slow-going (and at times, absolutely agonizing), not to mention my complete disdain for it -I wouldn't go if I didn't need my EMA- things were progressing at the speed of evolution. Things seem much better now, not as good as it could be but I guess it's better than nothing.

Best Console Game I've played in 2007:

Super Mario Galaxy

>>Runner-ups: Halo 3, GH3 (Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of trying COD4 or Rock Band)

What else could it have been? Ok, granted many could argue Halo 3. But there are quite a few reasons why I chose SMG over H3. Listed below.

Everyone thought the platforming genre was dead. It seems nowadays that most of the big-hitters are FPS' (and the occasional MMORPG) and the platforming genre which was so prolific during the NES days have died out. Until SMG came along that is. It revitalised the platforming genre and injected some much needed awesomeness into it.
Online. To truly get the full Halo 3 experience you needed to try online in all it's glory. But for Super Mario Galaxy all you need is the game, a Wii, Wiimote, Nunchuk and a TV and you're ready to rock.
Super Mario Galaxy will be remembered as a classic. Just like Mario 64 is. Whereas all the FPS (Halo 3 included) will be superseeded by better, graphically superior games. Don't believe me? Just wait and see.
It's goddamn Mario. Need I say more.

Best Portable Game of 2007:

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

>>Runners-up: Pokemon Diamond, Elite Beat Agents

What more do I need to say? Another staple Nintendo franchise to hit this list. What was so unique about this Zelda game is that it was completely touch-screen controlled. All the buttons did were bring up some menus. Sure, a lot of people whined about it but you can't really see the magic behind it until you actually get your hands on the game. And this is proper completely touch-screen not like the way that Animal Crossing wussed out. For the first 20/30 minutes of playing the game I actually wanted to use the d-pad (that's what happened to me in AC) but seeing as there was no alternative I had to make do. Eventually it becomes second nature, although rolling can still be a pain in the ass sometimes. But in ditching the d-pad and buttons, it bought so much more to this game. The way that you draw the path for the boomerang, or aim at where to shoot Link's arrows. It all fits in amazingly, and in utilizing all of the DS' features in appropriate ways. Nintendo have truly created a masterpiece.

Best Game that most people didn't buy in 2007:

Metroid Prime 3:Corruption

>>Runners-up: Endless Ocean

I really think Metroid didn't garner enough attention or hype. I have only seen about one or two MP3 TV ads compared to the considerable amount of SMG ads. It was the first game to show that the Wii could play FPS' and paved the way for other great games. It's amazing graphics and frequent awesome boss-fights meant that this game was the best in the trilogy. Granted, it's boxart doesn't help it much and I thought could have been much better. At first, the thought of back-tracking did put me off a little but it actually made sense to back-track most of the time. And the way the world is put together makes it one of the most immersive games I've come across in a while. Let me put into perspective how many people bought it. More people bought Carnival Games than MP3:C. Wait, wait. To be honest, Carnival Games outsold most games on the Wii (according to PLAY.com). Ok, here's a better comparison:

Currently, also according to PLAY.com. MP3 is being outsold by this game and this game the latter game I haven't even heard of before! I mean, COME ON. So, my point is if you're out there looking for an awesome adventure game that also allows you to blast dudes into the face then get MP3.

Samus finally gets what she wants. :)

Weirdest Situation I've been in, in 2007:

In bed with Ashley...

>>Runner-ups: I don't remember anything that can remotely touch the above

I've probably been in some other weird situation in 2007, but the situation that wins is the one that is most clear in my mind. And to think that happened just wee hours before 2007 ended. If you want the full gist of that epic tale (told in a somewhat short post) read the New Year's Day Post.

Best Anime of 2007:

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

>>Runner-ups: Claymore

Ok, let me first set the scene for which this astronomical, unmatchable and monumental game takes place...

Simon (they say 'Shimon' since they're like... all Japanese and stuff) is a shy, timid boy who lives in an underground village; all humans live underground due to this the "Spiral King" who keeps them there. His parents had died a few years back by a freak earthquake. The only person who treats him like family is the OTT (and sometimes nonsensical) Kamina. Having been allegedly brought to the surface as a child before, Kamina strives repeatedly to reach the surface and reunite with his father. Despite the village chief calling him stupid and insane for trying such a stunt; he perceives regardless and ends up in jail for his efforts. Then something totally unexpected happens -which I won't spoil for you- and Simon has to use this robot-face mecha thing to fight back and they manage to break through to the surface. What awaits them there is a great adventure of biblical proportions spanning universes...

Seriously, if you don't watch this you're losing out. It is one of the best animes I've seen. Period. Even with it's phallic imagery (that arguably makes it better) and the odd "emo" episodes that happen 15/16 episode in. This 27-episode anime is still the best you'll see around. And the ending itself is 20 different kinds of awesome. Nothing short of an breath-taking battle encompassing whole universes.

You can't argue with the Gainax Bounce.

Note: For all of you asking about Naruto and Bleach etc. I'll present you with one word: FILLER. Oh and this phrase: PACE OF A DECREPID DEAD TURLE.

Best Manga of 2007:

Mx0

>>Runner-ups: 666 Satan, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece

There's a reason why I deliberately didn't let Naruto/Bleach/OP win. That's because they didn't start in 2007! That's also slightly true for the above category. It would be a bit unfair to stack up the newer titles with the well-established and large fan-based ones. It'd be like dropping asking which is better: A ninja or a carrot.

If you didn't answer: Ninja... GET OUT! GET AWAY FROM ME YOU DWEEB! For everyone else: Carry on.

What's so good about Mx0? Well, let me put it to you this way. Kazumi (the main character) -yes, it's Japanese gain, but aren't most mangas?- fails to get into Seinagi High apparently because he was "laughed at" during the interview to get in. Well, it was his fault really for saying that he wants to 'conquer the world' but after being kicked out of the school he got into he wants to get back to Seinagi. He gets pulled through this barrier by this weird person and unwittingly gets pulled into the world of magic. Due to some unforeseen and down-right unfortunate circumstances he has to stay as a student there with no magical powers. While everyone is prancing around showing off their magic, he can do nothing else but pretend that he can do. Oh and there's one more catch. Everyone seems to be convinced he's some master of the arcane and possess Gandalf-like magical powers. Obviously this is untrue, and it's all a misunderstanding but due to those "circumstances" others mustn't know. So, during duels and such he only has his wit and intellect left to help him out.

Trust me this is funny. But I should also make note that it can be quite disturbing. On one of his "adventures" he meets this mandrake which somehow turns powerful and takes on the look of a naked woman. Oh and she floats. Granted you don't actually get to see anything (since her/it's hair covers practically 80% of it's/her tiny body), but I thought I should alert you to it.

Best New Website I've found (in 2007):

Cracked

>>Runner-ups: Explosm, DeathByPixel, GaijinSmash (ok, that last one Gavin may have introduced me to)

Why is Cracked so awesome? I only really go there to do one thing, and that's to read it's "Today on Cracked" article (which is currently: Third Reich to Fortune 500: Five Popular Brands the Nazis Gave Us). And it's a barrel of laughs to read, and is like a breath of fresh air if my day's not going to well -it happens to the best of us, even me. But there isn't just that. That's like the "craption contest" which is basically a caption contest but the aim of the game is to be funny and humorous while others can vote which wins. It's definitely worth a browse around.

Explosm and DBP are both web-comic sites. Explosm provides daily comics (in the form of stick figures) in interesting, funny and blatantly insane situations that only provides laughter, laughter and more laughter. DBP is like the same, but it's production values are somewhat higher by applying actual people without sticks for arms (*gasp*) but is therefore limited to only a weekly release unfortunately.

And finally GaijinSmash is a blog that I'm sure I've mentioned before that also provides a laugh or two. It's about this black guy living in Japan and he chronicles his many adventures there. He is one of the main reasons the previously practically unheard of Japanese practice of "kancho" was released onto the internet, you've got to give him kudos for that if nothing.

Worst Trend of 2007:

Bad Sequels

>>Runner-ups: The masses queuing up for products, "Higher-class citizens" accepting the power of the internet and exploiting it

Ok, I can't exactly say that what I'm going to be talking about is "bad-sequels" but they're really "worse sequels."

Everyone knows (you included) that generally the original version is always better - that's why sequels were spawned in the first place to milk that franchise until the industry bigwigs could milk no more! Here's a list of sequels that I think are worse than there predecessors:

Spiderman 3 - Venom joins the fray and this movie should have been the best with him in. But alas he seems somewhat like an afterthought as he only comes in about... um... two-thirds into the movie. I don't care about the Sandman, just give me the Alien-Symbiote vs Spider! Oh man... that would sound wrong in any other context. Even the video game versions of Spiderman 3 were worse than the previous two!
Shrek the 3rd - First of all. WTF is with the name?! What's wrong with "Shrek 3" I understand that it's meant to show that Shrek is going to be king, yada yada. But it should just have kept with the original trend of naming. Don't get me wrong here, I enjoyed the first film and the second film (maybe not as the first) and I think the third one is better than the second one but not as good as the first one. Here's a formula to show what I mean:
- Shrek >> Shrek the Third >> Shrek 2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> All the Shrek video games EVER made.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - I'm gonna keep this short and simple: The previous films were better.
Alien Vs Predator: Requiem - Ok, I've got to admit that I haven't watched this film personally but from the reviews I've seen from multiple sources... it's not exactly scored high.

I think you've got the idea by now. I'm not saying that all sequels that came out in 2007 were bad, I'm just saying that it was a pretty bad trend.

Biggest Delay of 2007:

Spore

>>Runner-ups: SSBB, GTA4

Ok, there is a reason why I'm saying Spore is the biggest delay of 2007 instead of SSBB. It's mainly because for Europe the probability that SSBB would have been released in 2007 (even if it was released in NA and JP) is very slim. And something that didn't have a release date for us anyway can't really be delayed anyway! But still, having it be delayed for NA means that it'll take even longer to get here. And also I'm pretty miffed about the whole "still no release date for Europe" thing.

Spore on the other hand, had a vague~ish release date but wasn't really confirmed. I'm really anticipating Spore and I really think it will be the best thing since The original Sims. I use to play Sims/Sims 2 a millennia ago (subject to over-exaggeration) but have since stopped playing, but Spore looks really promising. Through natural progression, it's proven that Spore will indefinitely be better than the Sims (since Will Wright is working on Spore and not Sims anymore - that's what happened with GH ¬ Rockband; Harmonix jumped ~~ship~~ band/instrument!).

Best Move of 2007:

300

>>Runner-ups: Superbad, Rush Hour 3, Ratatouille, I am Legend

Ok, you probably say this coming. Definitely one of the best film I've seen from the fighting, graphics, aggressive shouting and story - ok, maybe not so much story. I don't care if Gerard Butler's body has been "graphically enhanced"... you may be saying that this is madness but I don't care. Why? Because...

THIS IS SPARTAN! *Ferocious shouting*

And so ends my awesome list of awesome (and not so awesome) things of 2007. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.

EDIT#1: Added "Best Movie of 2007"

2008 is upon us

2008-01-01T17:52:00.001Z

As promised, I'm back.

I could bring you up to speed... or... I could attempt to speed through everything so that I don't have to do as much...

Yea, the latter sounds better to the tired, procrastinating me.

Ok, so Christmas Day was spent at my Grandmas and was strictly a family affair. And since there was almost as many children there as there was adults, alcoholic beverages were absent. Which was probably also a good idea, considering what happened two years ago but let's not talk about that. I also brought the Wii because my uncle convinced me with this line: 'I'll bring a Wii game and you bring the Wii.' I was going to reply: 'I'll bring a 360 game and you bring a 360.' but he hung up! The nerve.

He ended up bringing "Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games" which seems like the game everyone is getting for Christmas; it can be quite fun in a group, especially the 100m. It's hilarious to see adults (and even some seniors) flapping their arms like they are really running. It seems the Wii does close the gap between the casual and the hardcore.

Anyway, we ended up spending the night at my grandmas and on the following day (boxing day) someone decided it would be a good idea to have a shopping spree in town. And it was packed!

===

Let's move quickly on to New Years...

I decided to spend New Years at Daisy's (and so did many others, before you start); which seems like a growing trend for me for no apparently obvious reason. I got there for about 6 and after multiple attempt of trying to get into the house (which all failed), until Laura came along and pointed out that the front door was open. It wasn't my fault, it's the stupid door's fault. I had tried to open it before, but you have to give it a good 'ol heave ho and even Laura said she could never open it.

Anyway, things moved on at it's own pace. Ashley was late, I failed to keep my promise to Gavin (which was Daisy's fault anyway). We ate pizza and chips. Then spent the next 2 hours on GH3 -I should note that I can make it through TTFAF on medium with no problem now; although I'm still struggling on 'Before I forget' on hard- with many of the others actually trying medium.

During that time, Ashley and I felt tired so we fell asleep... on Daisy's bed. Somehow, I got the feeling -in between her pulling the quilt of us and stealing the pillow- that she didn't like that very much. But we carried on regardless, after a while a boozed up Matthew decided it would be fun to try and flatten us, we erected our own defences in the form of our knees. And he got the point eventually.

Then GH3 was shut down and we spent the next few hours listening to music. Then as Ashley and I were just getting comfortable, everyone and I mean: everyone piled into the bed. For some reason, I was kicked out (flying). I made my way back in though between Ashley and Matthew, then Ashley somehow manoeuvred me so I ended up between him and Daisy. With almost no room, I decided to make my own... at Daisy's expense. She ended up between the bed and wall; unable to breath and yet still able to text someone. Typical.

Some time during that time I was attacked by the dog, while I was wrapped up in the quilt.

When midnight drew close we went downstairs to watch the fireworks. Got outside and played some football with the dog. Then Ashley noted that it was 11:40; and deciding that staying outside for 20 minutes isn't a good idea we went back in. We watched the small kitchen TV for the countdown to midnight. There was also obviously a countdown in the kitchen which ended up multiple: 'huzzahs' and 'hoorays.' We made our way back outside again to gaze upon the fireworks and they just kept going. We made our way round the house to the front and were greeted by a 'HAPPY NEW YEAR!' by some people we didn't even know a few houses down. Just as Matthew and Laura went to see someone, the most awesomenest fireworks went off.

They happened only a few blocks away and so we got the full grunt of it. They were the brightest, loudest, down-right awesome fireworks. I swear I was temporarily blinded for a few seconds by looking into them. What made it better was that there were a lot of them. I still think they should have lit them all in one go so New Year went out with a bang.

===

And so the story ends here. I'm sat in my living room typing up this post (it's currently 17:47). And feeling slightly down, since college starts again tomorrow. Damn, what a downer. Thankfully, I had the sense to finish most of the work before yesterday. If only tomorrow was Friday... that would mean I only had one lesson; but no it's just not to be. To add injury to insult, I have TWO MATHS EXAMS on the 7th January. Next MONDAY. And what I can remember of maths consists of: 1+1 = 2 (which Richard had failed to understand.)

To make up for the little break enjoy this little video I found:

OH NO! He's cocking the gun! HAHAHAHA!

Cya soon.

9 year old kid aces 'Through the Fires and Flames' ON EXPERT

2007-12-23T21:38:00.001Z

It speaks for itself.

... For the first time in my whole life, I am truly speechless... :O x Infinity.

I found the link on Digg and my immediate thought was: 'This has got to be a elaborate hoax...' And I'll walk you through my thoughts during the video:

'Ok... yea, he's holding the guitar... ok, that's not bad... HOLY *beep* on a *beep* *beep* on a sandwich with *beep* on top... *the sound of my mind melting*'

I just got a line from Gavin who pretty much sums up this whole video:

"Gav™ says (21:28):
that kid has the fingers of god :P"

Seriously, watch as your jaw drops to the floor and you start weeping at your own insignificant incompetence at GH3 compared to this kid. Beating TTFAF on expert is a feat in itself but being a 9 year-old kid at the same time?! That's insane! No, wait. That's more than insane! It's <add more insane word than "insane" here>. The guitar is almost as big as he is!

It's like the gods themselves have came down from the heavens and bestowed those fingers to him (glorified Gavin's words).

That's all I wanted to share.

EDIT#1: Changed video embedded from Break to YT. May be easier for people.

Oh and after having a little browse around this kid has been around for ages. There are some videos of him at 8 doing crazy stuff like this!

Watch here.

Quick round-up ¬ UPDATE

2007-12-22T02:11:00.001Z

As you know, a few guys (and gals) headed round to Daisy's house today - mainly because Gavin wanted to play GH3. But anyway; Gavin, Ashley and I decided to hit town before hand which wasn't a very pleasant experience.

You see, there's this craze thing going around that's sending people mad around town just buying stuff... it's called: Christmas. And this "Christmas" thing not only meant that for us we could only travel in one direction and our personal space was constantly invaded (zing!). Despite that though, Christmas is awesome.

Some funny things happened. But it was basically just a last meet-up before Christmas and was really to pass the time; I probably would have done ok to sleep a bit later but whatever. We walked around for a bit and went into Somerfield which provided a very hilarious scene where I was just about to pay and the fire alarm goes off. Everyone seemed to instinctively know to head towards the exit, and the managerial staff were also shouting: 'Get out!' at the top of the lungs, the three of us however were just stood there like: 'WTF?'

Gavin, finally deciphering what the large BLOOR BLOOR sound was, shouts - and I swear to god, I'm not making this up: 'EVERYONE! GET DOWN!'

LMFAO! When the alarm went off, Gavin's mind clicked and automatically thought it was a robbery and seeing as we are teenagers that watch way too many movies he shouted that phrase. Which, I can't really blame him for because I was practically thinking the same thing... but cooler. It ended up with this dude shooing us outside and I had to drop the produce I picked up. Damn, I thought I could have just walked out with it. Some thing's are just meant to be, he was staring at me with the: "I hope your not going to attempt to steal those products. Cos if you do... I'm going to have to beat-down yo ass!"

So, not wanting my ass handed to me by someone working to Somerfield I decided that dropping the crisps and whatnot in my hands was probably a good idea. After we got outside, we were unsure on how long this "emergency" would last, so we left. We just went to Iceland and I bought two gigantic (unfrozen) bags of Hula Hoops and Mini Cheddars (which, now that I think about it... are still at Daisy's house). After that we still had plenty of time to kill and we ended up in CueWorld (for anyone that doesn't know it's a place to play pool/snooker/throw snooker balls at people's heads etc.).

During our time at CueWorld I got to see the extremely crap side of Gavin and Ashley's ball handling skills. Which is virtually non-existent. I saw them play last time at the media party, but I thought they were slightly pissed which messed up there game. But here, they were totally sober and still manage to f*ck up missing some blatantly obvious, ball-to-hole shots. More specifically, Gavin. They did seem to improve in the last game where Gavin managed to pull off a 3-ball streak and snooker Ashley (in a game of pool). But Ashley, totally unfazed, bounces the white ball off the side cushion and into the red ball. The red ball travels... and travels... almost in slow-motion towards the pocket... Gavin was shouting: 'NNNNOOOOOO!!!' at this point and Ashley just looks ever-so-slightly smug. It lands in the pocket and Ashley promptly announces: 'No luck. All skill.' Or something like that.

I've got to hand it to him, as it was a good shot.

What was I doing during this? Watching them mainly, and eating that gargantuan pack of Hula Hoops and generally making fun of any advert that came up on the TV screen. Fun.

===

Since we were all out of change - and as far as we knew the pool tables didn't accept notes - we headed towards Daisy's house. It was earlier than the proposed time... but we didn't care since we had nothing better to do. We got there, was greeted by an ever-so-slightly-but-not-really-surprised Daisy and were left to our own devices in the kitchen. We couldn't go up yet because she hasn't finished "tidying her room" which is a lame excuse. So, seeing as we were in a kitchen... we became Vikings and raided it for all it's worth. Gavin discovered the awesomeness of the 4-bread-toasting toaster that would fit right in a Star Trek episode. Ashley found that the cupboard doors weren't magnetized and was mesmerised by the fact that when he closed this cupboard door the one next to it would open; and when he tried to close that it wouldn't stay closed! It wasn't until a few agonizingly long minutes of BLAK! after BLAK! (yes, I know I suck at onomatopoeia put what are you going to do?) that Daisy gritted her teeth ~~floored Ashley and~~ practically attacked the cupboard door and threatened it's family to an eternity in hell if it didn't stay closed. Smooth.

Eventually we were let upstairs to actually use the Wii and connect up the Wiitars (to find that the room was as messy as before, if not messier). After quite some time of moaning about the obnoxiously tiny TV compared to the TV downstairs we gave up and decided to shred some frets! ... Or something else that sounds cool and is related to guitars and music. Laura and Matthew joined us not long afterwards and everyone got some GH3 love, but not everyone was good at it...

Obviously, everyone who had never played it before pretty much sucked at it and Ashley and I had to be the lighthouse to their lost ship, the Jesus to the people, the jockey to the horse, the Bender to everyone else in Futurama... you get the idea. We had thought about just showing how to play and throwing them into medium to see if they could adjust to pressing four buttons, but it didn't work. The learning curve was simply too steep, so we dialled it down a notch and allowed them to play on easy. Most people eventually got the hang of it and were playing rather good. Laura seemed to have a special knack for it and was able to play some good tunes. Gavin, ever the adventurous type would opt to play medium guitar/lead and would actually make through some songs. Daisy and Matthew were a completely different story however, Daisy seemed extremely slow on the uptake. Let's just keep it as at one point when she was facing-off against Gavin she decided to play the Wiitar like a demented offspring of an accordion and piano. Eventually, we got her to knuckle down and after some more tutoring she managed to beat Gavin on one of the songs. I believe it was 'When I was Young' by the Killers; which Gavin was adamant on thinking it was "Mr Brightside." Common mistake. Not.

Note: This post may view Gavin in a bad light, but he's not as bad as he seems. It's just that he's... er... having a bad day. :)

The next few hours were churning throw songs, locking the dog outside, suffocating from the extreme heat in the room etc. The usual.

It wasn't until the last 45 minutes or so that things started heating up. Laura had just left and we thought: 'Why don't we go a bit insane?' And insane we did go. We looked up the cheat to unlock everything on GH3 which is f*ck-ass long it's like 4-button chords 13 times! After spending about five minutes entering that cheat in we picked the legendary song in GH3... yes... we did...

'THROUGH THE FIRES AND FLAMES' - DRAGONFORCE

Note: We hadn't unlocked TTFAF yet because we went through Co-Op career only and not single-player career. Which meant we couldn't have unlocked it.

It was insane. Coupled with the fact that I decided to go through on medium, and Ashley easy (the pussy) he ripped me to shreds. I just missed so many notes, especially on the ridiculously long solos... but nothing could compare to what happened next. I thought: 'To hell with it! We're here to have fun! I'M DOING THIS SONG ON HARD.' Bad idea. I managed to coax Ashley into doing medium and he sucked at that. I, however, sucked even more on hard difficulty! There wasn't too much in it, but Ashley won.

This was the point where all the heat got to my head and the situation got out of hand.

I decided to play it on EXPERT for the hell of it.

EVEN WORSE IDEA. But hey, it was funny. In the next 7/8 minutes my hands were just a blur. As fast as lightning and everyone else had to give me kudos and admire my remarkably large balls to attempt such a stunt. I'm sure I posted a video up of someone doing expert on this song, but it's nothing like playing in real life. That song is insane.

Let's just keep it at: If I had to choose on which I would actually succeed in, in the least amount of tries:

Actually managing over 90% on 'Through the Fires and Flames' on Expert
Saving the world from a gigantic comet by physically strapping myself to a nuclear warhead which I have to manually control despite the lack of breathable oxygen at the speeds I would be travelling at and managing to manoeuvre the nuke at a certain angle so it would explode the comet into the tiniest pieces scientifically possible while doing this all in record time before it hits this supposed "wall" thing where it's fragments will still hit the earth (just like in the movie) and managing to return alive through the use of a super-hero cape...

I think I would choose number 2. That's how hard it is.*

===

The experience earlier today showed me that I actually had a chance of playing hard difficulty. So I sucked it up, grew a beard, flexed my outrageously large muscles and played career mode on hard.

That was the best idea I've ever had (which is an understatement).

I had played Slow Ride before on Hard just to prove to my sister I could get through it but never really attempted the career mode. After cocking up a few times I finally got the hand of using that last annoying Orange button by moving my whole hand (or at times: just my pinky) up and down like a teenager jerking off to a rock song... maybe that was too graphic. Anywayz, I have actually managed to get through career mode on hard with relatively few hiccups. I've beaten Tommy Morello in the first guitar battle, rather easily may I add. And now onto some of the much harder songs and I've just got to say that they're in a totally different league. This is the first time I've actually had to utilize "practice mode" simply because I sucked so much at some of the sequences.

No worries though. I'll continue to make my way through it until:

A) I finish it.

B) I die from the excruciating pain that is cramp.

C) My fingers drop off.

D) I find something better to do.

Since it's almost Christmas (Inner child: YAY!) I may cut back on the posting schedule. See it as a present to myself. So, this might possibly be the last post this year. Hey, give a guy a break. I've pretty much been posting non-stop since this blog first started, I think I deserve a little something from that. Don't you?

Anyway, it all depends on my mood and the type of content I have and also the time I actually have to spare. Since, as you know, Xmas is not exactly a laid-back time of year...

So, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! Enjoy!

If you can't wait that long and need something to do. Try the: Best of "Best of" list of 2007.

Until next year then (probably), goodbye.

*Maybe be slightly exageratted.

UPDATE#1 (23/12/07): Just fixed some mistakes I made in the article and to tell you of the bet that's been going on between Ashley and Daisy (which I forgot about it until Daisy IMed me telling of her imminent victory).
I'll keep it short and simple: Ashley betted Daisy that she and Ben would break up before they could hit 4 weeks (or something like that) and the deadline is tomorrow. Seeing as the chance of this happening is rapidly approaching no-f*cking-way it looks like Ashley is going to have to dye his hair blonde. Yes, you heard that right: BLONDE.
What was the penalty if Daisy lost? She had to dye her hair some absurd colour like purple.
'But never give up hope!' I recall saying to Ashley.** As there is also reprieval day where if she breaks up that day, it practically voids the bet. So, all is not lost.

That concludes the extremely short update (of sorts).

WJUK out.

I AM LEGEND! Rawr...

2007-12-20T18:08:00.001Z

Another crazy title.

By the way, I'm writing the the majority of this post using Windows Vista's voice recognition. Just for the hell of it. It's actually pretty hard; since voice recognition seems to be pretty messed up, just trying to do the previous few sentences were a real pain in the ass. Now on to the meat of this article.

I saw "I am legend" the other day. I didn't go in with high expectations but I actually quite enjoyed it, I am not going to write a full review up about this film but I just like to point out few points:

Will Smith does a good job of acting in the movie. And his trademark humour blends in perfectly at times which adds to the overall feel of the film.
The film gives a real sense of Will Smith being the last person on earth and seeing the whole devastated NYC thing really puts things into perspective.
Will Smith talking to a mannequin looks more natural than it should do.
If you've seen the trailers then you may have seen Will Smith doing some bad-ass Mr. T training but in the movie it's almost at the most opposite side of the spectrum. He's a doctor.
The movie title doesn't really make sense until the end, and even then it's slightly cheesy. They should have went with the book's ending, with a beheading!

Note: I have officially abandoned Voice Recognition at this point since it actually made things harder than it need be. I still agree that Voice Recognition is the future, but right now it's not really anything but a pain in the proverbial ass.

Oh and by the way, the dog dies. It gets strangled by Will Smith. Damn... poor dog...

===

While Gavin and I were talking about said movie he linked me to an interesting trailer. Another Will Smith film! This dude just never stops working!

And I've got to say, the trailer you're about to see owns the whole 'I am Legend' movie in turns of comedy anyway...

One word: Awesome.

The last few moments of the trailer is amazing. With the whale and the flinging and the boat and the hitting and the awesomeness and KABOOM! Mind explosion.

'I don't even remember that.'

'Greenpeace does.'

Pure scripting genius. If the whole movie is like that then it will be amazing.

High hopes for this one.

===

The other day I also picked up Civilization IV the game. Before you go: WTF? What happened to the list?!

Well, I thought it through and it made a lot more sense to pick up Civ IV. Why? Well, it's simple. My list mainly consisted of FPS and fast-twitch, fast-reaction games. But now that I think about it most of the time on my laptop I won't have a mouse, and playing on the touchpad is nearly impossible! Seriously, FPS + touchpad = 0 kills for you.

So, Civilization IV was a good choice. Slow-paced and actually suitable for a laptop. For the record, I tried to play Civilization IV using the voice recognition thing... my advice: Don't do it.

At the same time I also picked up Lego Stars: The Complete Saga for the Wii. I've played the second game before but never really played the first, so I thought whatever and went ahead to pick it up. And it's more of the same wacky insane humour of the lego series with more stuff added in. There are even trailers in it, Lego Indiana Jones looks good.

As I'm typing, my sister is playing and it's hard to concentrate on both at the same time so don't blame me if none of this makes any sense.

===

I should really be doing my homework (which consists of several exams!) but I really can't be asked. I've fallen into my holiday schedule against my own will, it sucks cos now it's going to be doubly hard to get up early in the morning. My current waking up and sleeping times are this:

Wake up: 2/3PM

Sleep at: 4/5AM

I know I really shouldn't but I just can't help it, it happens every holiday... and I have to wake up at like 10 tomorrow as well to meet Gavin and Ashley to go to town. Then afterwards we're stopping off at Daisy's house for some GH3 action (even though me and Ashley are supplying the wiitars and game).

So, get ready for that. I think it's going to be no competition again for me, seeing as the next most experienced person at the game is Ashley and he can't play medium. Basically, it's going to be total PWNAGE to me. Sweet.

But now it's off to doing homework... even though I probably won't.

Actually there's just one more thing I'd like to rant about. The exams. Ahem... clear my throat...

WHY THE HELL ARE THEY IN JANUARY?! WHY CAN'T THEY BE BEFORE THE XMAS HOLIDAYS?! THAT WAY IT MEANS NO HOMEWORK OVER XMAS!!!

/rant

Catch ya later (alligator... mental note: Alligator jokes = not funny).

EDIT#1: I just thought this was funny so I might as well post it up. Just a few moments ago I got ~~attacked~~ messaged by a bunch of people via the IM messaging tool at the bottom of this page. What was funny about it was the fact that they were all claiming to be different people. Some were obvious that they were not who they say they were like the person imitating Daisy was calling me 'john' but I know that she calls me 'wai june' all the time. It was pretty messed up.

Eventually most people revealed who they were, or at least I think they did as I had no real method to check. Apparently one was Lewis and another was Kate etc. The only mystery left now was who was 'leeman' I'm kinda torn by the fact that some of the stuff that he/she said could have actually been Leeman but I don't think it was.

Despite some of the vulgar stuff said, I found this experience quite funny. Well, I would have done if I wasn't so bloody tired. So, haha guys well done. Jokes on me.

I knew a day like this would come if place the IM window at the bottom, but at least it's useful for something: Play pranks on me.

But still I'm kinda intrigued on who that last person was... damn, now I really wanna know. Ah well. Another funny part was when I interrogated some of them and they tried to avoid the question. Take for example this one (from the top of my head):

Me: Right, so if you're Ashley. What was the team name that you gave your team for that gamer's day thing

Imposter: Er... why would you ask that? You already know...

lmfao, to be honest I had no idea what Ashley's team name was it was just a bluff! Lol, good times.

The final question I would like to pose is: Who the f*ck masterminded all this?

It seems ever so slightly convenient that all of these started in the space of an hour or so. That's no coincidence. And also I received word from one of them that someone told him to just randomly message me.

I'm actually surprised that this didn't happen earlier! It certainly added some much-needed humour to my before-sleep time. Ah crap, it's not 1:21AM I was going to sleep earlier tonight... ah well...

Good night. *yawn*

It's that time of year again...

2007-12-18T12:23:00.001Z

It's that time of year again where your life is supposed to be full of festive cheer. And on this blog, it's no different!

It's the blog's first Christmas and I'll be the first to say: 'Merry Christmas' with a cherry on top.

Ah... I can't believe it's Xmas already. How long has it been since I started this blog? Lemme check my records...

Holy mc*beep* on a *beep* with a sandwich on top.

According to blogger my first blog post was on 01/05/07 (1st May 2007). That's a whole... *brain working* 7 months 16 days ago! w00t! So, let's see the all important 1st post:

Ok, so after being encouraged by my friends to start a blog - names not included, you know who you are *cough* Gavin & Ashley *end cough* - heres the blog...
Ok, so it needs a little work but geez give me a break; I've only just started blogging.
Right, firstly... erm.... *attempts to think of something funny* heres one - A rabbi, a priest and a monk... ok, actually thats not that funny. Hm... dammit Gavin & Ashley, what was the point of this blog?
Anyway, a little about me:

I'm currently 15, birthday soon (mental note - yea!)

GCSEs are around the corner (mental note - boo)

Drama exam is in two days time (damn... we haven't even finished yet - I blame this on Daisy with her holiday; don't worry if you don't know who she is. Just count yourself lucky)

Well, I have a Wii (yea, Wii FTWZOMGMOO - thats for you Ashley) and if yours is connected online then you can add me:

8879 6062 9250 0429

Currently I have one added Wii (Lewis ☺) but should be getting two more online soon. It's also funny because I originally had two people in the Mii Plaza - Lewis & Gavin - but I... kinda... accidentally deleted Gavin... so Lewis is walking all alone in the Mii Plaza, almost makes me pity him, almost.
So, anyway, thats about it for my first blog. Not much to say, send in your comments and ideas of what I should talk about in my next one and I'll try to oblige.

...

For a first post I didn't have much to say did I? Granted I had a lot on my mind back then (but nowhere as much as I do now) especially with the Drama exam coming up which someone almost (well... practically did) f*cked us up for by prancing off on a holiday break. *e-glare*

Anyway, enough dwelling on the past. And reviving old hated things.

All you need to know is that I've been keeping things chugging along here for over 7 months! This is the first non-compulsory thing I have properly committed to for over quite a long span of time. Hooray for that!

And during those few agonizingly crazy months I have managed to post... what for it... what for it...

277 POSTS

That's a helluva lot of posts. Including this current post, I've done 278 posts! Just wait a few seconds while I pride myself over this ridiculously large amount...

Ok. Done.

Anyway, enough talking about my unrivaled awesomeness (if we didn't stop I could keep on talking to the end of time). And talk about more recent events.

===

For the last two consecutive days in a row I played badminton. Which, in hindsight, wasn't a very good idea. Firstly, on Sunday: I sucked at it. It's been months since I last played and my fitness level's had dropped considerably. I did much better today though and I'm getting back to grips with the whole: 'swing racket. Hit shuttle.' thing. I can still smash pretty well that's probably because of my triceps being in pretty good shape.

During the two different days I played with different groups of people and two very distinct play-styles. On Sunday, I played against my uncle and friends who rely on technique more than anything. And for someone who hasn't played in a while this was a major pain in the ass. Today, however we played some friends who focused more on power and smashing rather than hitting the sweet spot on the court. I fit in rather nicely here, since I can smash pretty damn good. No, seriously ask anyone whose played a racket-type sport with me. I recall a tennis game where I thought it'd be funny to try and see how many times I could hit my opponent with the ball. I think, in the end, I managed to hit him about 5 times. What I do remember for a fact though is that I hit him smack bang in the balls. Ouch. Anyway, I digress. Today's group also happened to include Chun who also goes to the same college as me. I'm sure he's already finished Uni but going back to college to get some extra qualifications (hey, don't ask me.).

Anyhow, my whole body is killing me now. And before I collapse to exhaustion just thinking about badminton again I think I should move on.

===

In the last few days I've watched a few films as well. Well, one of them wasn't really a film. The first one is 'Shrek the Halls.' Which as you can guess is based around the fictional world of Shrek, Puss and donkey (Eddie Murphy = awesome). It's a entertaining film/episode; whatever you want to call it.

Shrek the halls with puss and donkey, fa la la la la ~ la-la-la-la.

The next film on the agenda is: 'Superbad' my friends had already urged me to watch this but I previously didn't have the time of (and didn't think of) watching it until I had nothing much to do today. And I gotta say it's frickin' hilarious! If you enjoyed American Pie, chances are you'd enjoy this film. And I seriously think it's in contention to be Best Comedy of 2007. Sure, it's not exactly a family film what with all the cursing and the repeated references to heterosexual fornication (despite the severe lack of any in the film. Hell, the nudity dial was dialled right down too). But it was entertaining, I especially enjoyed the supplementary arc that subtends to main one with Fogle (aka Mclovin) and the two cops. It produced some priceless moments.

This film, my friends, is another reason I totally want to make a movie.

One word: Tampon.

===

Also, I finally got my hair cut. *gasp* Shock! Horror! Shock! Horror! Repeat.

Anyway, for some inexplicable reason my mom doesn't like my hair long. I have no idea why, but hey whatever. Anyway, she had been nagging me for a quite a while now to get my hair cut; but I had put it off repeatedly because I just generally couldn't be asked at the time. That is, until she cornered me the other day...

So, now my hairstyle has turned out like this:

Looks, kinda average doesn't it?

Definitely a far-cry from what I had a certain night... but nevermind. I've never really been into trivial stuff like hair. I've never really had the patience or time to do anything with mine. When I wake up it pretty much stays like that for the rest of the day.

Procrastination FTW!

Spendage and Router

2007-12-15T01:00:00.001Z

The last two days for me have been jam-packed with stuff, and I'm only know catching a breather and can sit down and type this.

First, let's start off with yesterday. I'll keep it short and simple. Biscuits, loadsa biscuits. As with the usual routine, maths (with Yvonne) gave out biscuits to us since it was our last lesson before xmas. Yay! Chocolate chip cookies, if you wanted to know and they were delicious. The only way the cookies could have been better was if they were bigger! And they were already pretty large mother-f*cking cookies to begin with!

The following maths lesson (with Sue) was also more of a "fun" orientated lesson. It consisted off a large box of tasty tasty celebrations (sweets) and a game which we own3d at. We were split into two teams and had to make up 25 questions to ask the other team. Unfortunately though, you also have to know the answer so it pretty much ruled out everything I had. Just for the record these were some of the questions I thought of:

Give infinity to 3 significant figures.
99^99999999999999999999999 (^ = to the power of)
If one train leaves King's cross at 16:54 and another train leaves Manchester Railway Station at exactly the same time; at what time would they crash?
A lorry driver is driving at a speed of 57mph on the A1. What is the colour of his eyes?
A Yr 9 student decides to run 100m. What is the probability of him standing on some dog sh*t?
Calculate the amount of times that the average person gets f*cked up by life.
A mad hunter likes to shoot elephants. On a normal day the chance that he kills an elephant is 0.21 on a bad day the probability decreases to 0.13. If after twenty shots and he still does not kill an elephant, the chance of him killing one in the remaining shots decreases by 0.05. Calculate how late he would have to arrive home for his wife to get angry at him.
Find the gradient of a chair.
Calculate how much oxygen is being sucked into my body right now.

And that's just a small sample, I had many many more. Alas, I was not allowed to ask them. Nevermind. We still won anyway, despite me doing an infinitesimal amount of work. Score.

That was in short what happened mainly yesterday.

===

Now onto today's events. Which, I assure you, are much funnier.

First, I had media which consisted of a INSANELY HARD QUIZ (at times). Seriously, it started of relatively easily then it was just taken the piss. It started with guessing films from screen-shots; nothing wrong with that. Well, normally anyway. The quiz was made by one of the techies that enjoyed films that we totally seemed to be out-of-touch with. Which meant we totally bombed that.

Next it was guessing the film from THE MUSIC. Yes, you heard that right. We couldn't even get the screenshots part right, how the hell did they expect us to be able to guess from the music?! Sure, there were some staples in there. ET, Superman etc. but they were few and far between. Basically, we bombed this one to.

Things didn't get better at this point, as you'd come to expect. The next round consisted of guessing the film from THE TAGLINE.

A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product (like a film), or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product. Some taglines are successful enough to warrant inclusion in popular culture, often becoming snowclones. - Source: Wiki

This surprisingly churned out our best score so far: 18/22. The only reason for this though is that Kenny managed to text his friend about the "super-hard" one that no one has been able to guess so far. Turns out it was 'The Fly.' asked if we could have 10 points for that and low and behold, she gave us 10 points.

Out very best round came last where it was just guessing the logos. 20/20 baby. See, corporate branding is good for something.

===

Right afterwards I met up with Ashley, Gavin and Lewis. Well, when I say: 'met up' I mean chase a bus, which Lewis was on, down the street. Ah... good times. The following few hours consisted of insane things where I'm not quite sure what happened since I didn't buy anything... strange.

We ended up in Subway eating some subs and Al managed to find us. Turns out he came to town with Leeman and Belcher, who were in GameStation. So after we finished eating we headed towards GS. We found the two at the counter with Belcher trading in his DS for Oblivion on the PS3. The following few hours also play through my mind like a blur now. And we fast forward to about 12:40 where Gavin has to leave for class. We're standing near ~~Virgin~~ I'm sorry: Zavvi when Gavin pronounced rather proficiently that he wanted to leave. As we had just met some dudes from college people were talking to other people and didn't hear this. It was not until about 5/10 minutes later that many people (me included) looked around and quizzed the next person along: 'Where the f*ck is Gavin?' That was answered by Ashley who said that he had left already.

After a while, our large group which consisted of people from both Franklin and Grimsby dispersed. As our little troupe (of Ash, Lew, Al and I) set off for Lewis' house to rock out on GH3. Oh, and did I mention Lewis and Ashley managed to pick up GH3 while we were at town. Anyway, before that Lewis decided that he may go to JD (not the pictured JD from Scrubs) to pick up a new coat. Bad idea. For the next 15 minutes we stood at the same spot, looking at the same clothes, trying not to act not interested towards Lewis. Through most of that time, I was messing around with a creaky coat rack that was like a see-saw as I leaned on it. Anyway, Lewis was very indecisive towards his shopping escapade. I recall remarking that he was like a woman, and I think everyone agreed. Including Lewis.

He finally narrowed down his selection to two jackets that he liked but was still unsure on which to get. In the end, I took the initiative and decided to decide for Lewis. I took out a 10p coined and dubbed the first coat heads and the second coat tails. Flipped and it was tails, job done.

Not quite.

Lewis commented how it was too expensive it was or something and we were back to square 1. Pfft. Since Lewis was unsure on whether or not he actually had enough money to get the damn thing and he was afraid of being overdrawn he decided to go leg it through WHSmith and check. Sure, whatever. Ashley decided to wait at the bench outside WHSmith and just rest for a bit. I, meanwhile, went into WHSmith to get something to drink and right in the middle I ran smack-bang into Lewis and Al and it hadn't even been that long.

'Back so soon?' I inquired. And here was Lewis' reply: 'I just remembered. I can't spend that money, I need it for tomorrow's taxi to work.'

...

D: x 1000

So we just WASTED 15 MINUTES OF OUR BLOODY TIME FOR NOTHING.

Yes.

That's time I'll never get back. *sob*

===

Another fast forward, now onto the bus where we're going to Lewis' house. The only reason I am including this is because of the following scene:

Lewis: Says something I don't recall what it was. If you were there and remember, drop me a line.

Me: Well, you do work at a fish factory. PACKAGING FISH.

<Lewis puts on a D: face>

Al: Ouch! That was harsh!

Me: Well, life is harsh.

<Laughter by everyone except Lewis. Who pouts.>

Al: Omfg. You're on a roll today! Lemme see if I can set you up for another.

***

No he couldn't. Anyway, point is. I said something funny AND insulted Lewis at the same time. My work here is done.

===

Skip to Lewis' house and his Little Lilac Attic Room. We set up Guitar Hero 3, which somehow posed a challenge for the people there and required my assistance to set up. Lewis struggled on actually getting the Wiimote inside the Guitar and then also struggled to find out how to adjust the size of the strap to an appropriate size. He didn't even mention it until a few songs in, and I took it and found that the size it was currently at was only suitable for mentally challenged dwarf of tiny stature. Seriously, it was as small as can be.

Anyway, less talk of strap-adjusting and more strumming and mashing fret buttons! Unsurprisingly, I was the best out of the 4, seeing as I have been playing the game excessively for the last 2/3 weeks or so. But the others seemed to pick it up quite well, especially Ashley who had no prior experience at all. We went through co-op career with almost no hitches at all, we took turns by two doing one song and the next two doing the following song. We had reached the end of the career mode when we discovered we didn't get any credits! So playing 'Through the Fire and Flames' by Dragonforce was out of the question. Unlucky. Ah well.

Phil, Hogger and Danny Mudd appeared now and proceeded in taking over the game. Well, not really. Phil had a go when I was there and he sucked ass, major ass. No, I mean that full-heartedly. Unfortunately though, at this point I had to leave as it was either have a lift now or walk later. And seeing as I was too tired and lazy to walk, I decided to get a lift now. I hate life's choices like that. Life just seems to be full of them. But no matter, I have Lewis' friend code so I could kick his ass any day across Nintendo Wi-Fi (which Mike wasn't very happy about since he had the 360 version).

===

I finally got the router today. But installing it was a bitch. I think I had to repeat the installation process about 3 times just because I forgot to turn something off the first 2 times. Then when it did work, the internet on the host computer messed up!

WTF?!

That makes no sense at all. If anything the client computer's (in this case, the laptop) internet would mess up, not the host computer's internet. It's not suppose to work like that. But anyway, after toiling away for ages I managed to fix the problem. All it took was a simple ping to google through Command Prompt and I was done. Everything fell into place and that is why I can type this up now from the laptop. Awesome.

Anyway, that about sums up my hectic two days. I'm now really tired and it's getting close to 1AM. *yawn* Cya soon.

Doomed to Oblivion ¬ EDIT

2007-12-12T19:53:00.001Z

Not much news the past few days.

The only real news is that I got 'The Elder Scrolls VI: Oblivion' for my laptop... albeit there is a small problem. First, it installed fine and everything then IT WOULDN'T WORK. I started it and tried everything but still it wouldn't work, I consulted some people and found that this also happened for some people. Eventually, I gave up.

The following day though I came across an interesting post that explained that it was happened due to the video card and something about shaders or something. Seeing as mine was a laptop and it wouldn't be a very good idea to change the video card, I opted for the software method. Using this application called 'Old Oblivion' it artificiated some shaders for me and I was able to run the game! Hooray!

The game looks frickin amazing - and people who have played the game (pretty much all of you by now :P) will agree with me. For all those who haven't seen/heard/played the game (all 4 of you) before here are some screenshots:

(Actual in-game footage)

(Click to see full-size)

Unfortunately for me though... the game still messed up on Vista. I think I managed to play the first part - basically the tutorial level - before it konked out on me. It was just getting good as well... I had a look around the official site to see if this was a known bug or not and turns out Bethesda Softworks don't officially support Vista in Oblivion.

Damn.

So that means I end up having to take the game back on Friday... *sigh*

Oh well. What PC game should I get in it's place though? I've been racking my brain trying to think of another PC game that I would like to play on my laptop and so far I have:

COD4
The Orange Box (HL2/Portal/TF2)
(Possibility) Medieval II: Total War
Bioshock
Halo 2
(Probably not) ShadowRun
Company of Heroes
The new Civ game (don't recall what number it was)
Spore (when it hits... which will be probably be next year...)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Gears Of War

There were some more I was thinking about but I don't/can't remember. Ah well, I guess I'll just walk in and see what's available, maybe make a spontaneous decision. I seem to be able to do that well.

===

Oh and when I went to town, I entered GAME. Where I was going to buy Oblivion. And guess who I saw?

No, not Santa Claus you dope.

Smithy!

Just in case you have no idea who Smithy is, here's a brief explanation:

Use to go to the same school as me, a year older. Been working at GAME for about 6 weeks and does magic tricks. He is also awesome.

That pretty much explains it. Weird, funny experiences like this seem to happen all the time in GAME. Just last time I saw Fred (or George... basically the one that didn't die) from the HP books in Game. It was a splitting image!

Pretty much sums up my last two days. Nothing special and I'm not feeling in an especially good mood, even though holidays are around the corner. 4 more lessons... just 4 more...

EDIT#1: I'd just thought I'd mention that I'm now fully caught in the series: Heroes. Yeah! And I gotta say it's amazing. It's so amazing that I'm fully prepared to make this statement:

The day I stop watching Heroes will be the day that I swallow barbed wire, pull it out my ass and floss myself to death.

Kudos to anyone who knows where that reference came from.*

I've actually been watching for a while (about 5 days now) and I haven't said anything yet because I was afraid someone might decided to "accidentally" spoil it for me. Yes Gavin, I am looking at you. *glare*

*If you really wanna know where it is from, here it is: Zero punctuation's review of GH3. Dead funny.

I should have mentioned this earlier... NSFW

Last College Monday of the Year (YAY!)

2007-12-10T19:51:00.001Z

As you may, or may not, know (I use that line way too much... but hey, it works so... whatever) I had an two maths exams last week - I can't remember the exact date but it was last week.

Well, the results are in folks! And I've got to say I'm rather pleased with the results despite the revision (or lack thereof) I did. The teacher actually asked me if I did any revision, this is how it went down:

Teacher: Did you do any revision?

Me: Well... er... you see. Long story. There was this dog, right. And the dog had giant claws and everything and I happened to have "accidentally" kicked it up the ass as I was messing round with some friends and then-

Teacher: So, basically. You didn't do any?

Me: Er... well... er... yea.

Teacher: That's all you needed to say.

Me: *under-my-breath* Kinda...

Typical, isn't it? The very same people who teach us come outfitted with BS detectors. Great. Just what we need. Hey, wait a moment... maybe they don't have BS detectors... maybe it's a skill. Yea, that sounds better.

Sensei (teacher): Finally, my child. You have graduated from Uber-Teacher-Training-Awesome-Kick-Flipping-Ass-Kicking-Going-To-Eat-Your-Soul Academy. Or UBTTAKFAKGTEYSA for short. You are now a fully licensed teacher, trained in the arts of beating children and generally being the king (or queen) of the classroom.

Random Teacher Guy: Thank you master. I shall treasure this moment for the rest of my child-screaming filled life.

Sensei: Before you go, I must teach you the final skill to obtain the ultimate "Teacher Nirvana."

RTG: Surely, you don't mean...

Sensei: Yes, it is the BS detector. A necessary skill for all teachers.

RTG: I am honoured.

Sensei: Now we begin...

Obviously, I cannot reveal the secret to learning true BS detector mastery (psst, it includes a whole load of ninja turtles that squirt water...). It is a valuable skill among the teaching world and only a selected few have the right to fully teach this to others... or something.

Reality check. Check.

Anyway, the exam scores. Before I start dawdling on about something else... hey, you know that Xmas is around the corner-

Ah damn, I'm doing it again. Anyway, exam scores is as follows:

S1: 79% (I think, can't exactly remember, was in that region)

C2: 81%

Nice, right. 80% is roughly an A, so I'm pretty close. It's a lot better than I expected since I didn't revise and failed to concentrate. Even when I did (attempt to) revise I revised for the wrong subject anyway. Here's a little formula to show you what I mean:

Me + Revision ≠ High test scores

Trust me, it's correct. Just like how this one works out:

Gavin + Me + Ashley + Woodburner + a whole load of alcohol = Insanity

Btw, I should note now that ≠ means 'not equal to.' But I'm sure you knew that, right?

===

In other maths-related news: Steve has also transferred from our maths class and now only does "normal AS maths" he still comes to the S1 lessons but not C2. Traitor. I should have his head for that!

That's the 2nd person that's dropped out already and it hasn't even reached Xmas yet?! Just goes to show how tough it actually is. Insanely tough.

I could pull any question out of the exams we took and unless your a mathematician, a student taking mathematician at Uni level or just goddamn talented with number/maths/algebra; then you could wrack your mind for countless hours and you probably wouldn't even be close!

Don't believe me?

I hear a challenge. Well, I actually hear some random dance music right now but meh... it's close enough. Here's a question for you, it's the first question (and usually the easiest) from the S1 test for this year, check it out:

If you can somehow, through a twist of fate in biblical proportions resulting in a paradox of unfathomable proportions sucking out life into utter meaninglessness, get it right (and are not one of those people stated above) then you are either:

Very lucky
Lying
Cheating
An ass

And that's the FIRST QUESTION. Check out the PAIN that is the last question:

Ouch. Nuff said (or read).

Now, you know a teeny weeny bit of my pain (and utter disdain and contempt for exams of such types).

===

Funny story. I know you always like them.

This morning, during media, Jamie pointed out something very interesting to me.

I'm a word-glorifier.

If that makes any sense whatsoever. Since you simple-minded nincompoops probably won't understand it if I explain using words, here's a picture that explains it... using words...

If you still don't get it I'll put it as simply as I can: I MAKE STUFF SOUND BETTER THAN IT DOES.

The example in the above picture doesn't give it justice, I regularly churn out better words in media from what Jamie tells me. Here are a few more examples:

The text gives meaning to the picture. >AFTER MY INTERVENTION> The ensuing text anchors meaning to the image.

It's a video game advert. >AFTER MY INTERVENTION> The text we are analysing is based on a video game and was made to promote and subsequently sell the product it is advertising.

You get the idea. But it was funny that I didn't notice until Jamie pointed it out to me. I believe his exact words were: 'Why are the words I'm saying crappy, yet you type down some awesome stuff?' I think it's a gift - even if I would have preferred pretty much any other gift (musical talent, being able to do large sums in my head in a split second, flight, teleportation ¬ you know, the usual kind).

===

Tis' bout it for this post. And I have one lesson tomorrow since General Studies is cancelled: YAY! and Xmas is coming up: YAY!

(Early) Merry Xmas everyone.

Free Wii Points

2007-12-09T00:14:00.000Z

... er... technically.

I'll explain what Wii points are first, just in case some people have no idea what it is. Wii Points are the Wii's virtual currency, if you will. They are spent in it's 'Wii Shop Channel' currently you can only buy retro (old) games from previous generation consoles. And it's an amazing service with awesome emulation; even so Nintendo are going to add a 'WiiWare' section, come 2008 where original titles from all sorts of developers (including indie) can release their titles easier and cheaper.

Anyway, on to the meat of this post.

For 1337 people in the know, Nintendo of Europe recently updated their website - and took their f*cking time too. I wasn't expecting too much off it and generally couldn't care less. Until I heard about the: 'Stars to Wii-points scheme.' I should explain that you get stars by doing certain stuff; mainly inputting PIN codes from a piece of paper that comes with the game. So, anyway. Normally, for me anyway, these stars just sit there on the website unused because before this the store ~~generally~~ totally SUCKED. Before it was all wallpapers and ringtones that were real crappy, and you could probably find on the internet for free. Until now. These idea is a great one and is actually worth me typing in a 14 letter long PIN code and filling out a crappy questionnaire to obtain these stars.

And that's exactly what I did.

I went round the house, scrounging for every Nintendo product I could get my rascallian hands on. At this point, I noticed I do have a rather large pile of games sitting round and should really trade some in some time. Perhaps next Friday. So, by the time I got back to my laptop with a bunch of games it was about 11PM, and I set about inputting every code and doing pretty much the SAME FRICKIN QUESTIONNAIRE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Argh, it was pain. That reminded me on why I didn't do a mass input of PIN codes before... but I remembered my goal. And I was going to reach it.

It took about an hour but I finally did it. I put down the final piece of paper (which was actually the PIN code for the Wii - 1000 stars [YAY!]) and sat back relieved. And I racked up about 4600 odd stars, not bad. Then I saw the exchange rate... it wasn't a 1 - 1 conversion, but I didn't expect that anyway. I was thinking along the lines of: 2 stars - 1 Wii Point. But no. Nintendo decided that 4 - 1 was a good idea... which it isn't. So I only managed to get a 1000 Wii Points (I didn't bother with the remaining 600 odd stars - maybe some other day). I received the voucher code and I'm pleased to say it does indeed work.

But still the conversion rate is very steep.

But hey, what am I to look a gift horse in the mouth (wait, what?). It's better than nothing, right?

My primary candidate for VC game to buy is: 'Pokemon Snap.' Here's the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article (because I'm too lazy to explain myself and I've already explained one thing already today [look above]):

Pokémon Snap (ポケモンスナップ, Pokemon Sunappu) is a video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It is part of the Pokémon series, and was first released in North America on June 30, 1999.

It is set for release on the Wii's Virtual Console in Japan on December 4, 2007 and December 10, 2007 in North America with the added feature of being able to send pictures taken in the game to the Wii Message Board and sending them to friends.

Pokémon Snap was originally revealed as a Nintendo 64DD game.

Didn't explain much, did it?

Well, here's the basic premise that you may, or may not, have gathered from the name: You are taken along a predetermined route (on-rails, so to say) and you have to take pictures of Pokemon.

Yes, you heard that correctly. Take pictures of Pokemon. Doesn't sound very fun, does it?

I'll actually use my friend Duck (not his real name) to explain it's fun factor:

'Whenever I describe this game to someone who's never played it, it sounds incredibly boring. Seriously, the thought of taking pictures of Pokemon while moving along a fixed path with almost no freedom at all? Comes across as somewhat boring, huh?
But, despite this seemingly snore-worthy concept, Pokemon Snap was a great amount of fun. Moving throughout each level and finding new and creative ways of taking pictures was an amazing adventure. It wasn't enough to merely snap a pic of a Magmar! No, you had to catch it when it's breathing fire on another Magmar! This is a great action shot, and it earns you a whole lot of points!
Further more, getting the Pokémon to fill as much of the frame as possible is important, too. If it's really far away or much too close it just won't do! You have to make it so it's as close as can be without surpassing the borders of the picture. Keep it all in-frame, and it can really be worth quite a bit. Also, make sure the Pokémon's facing you, too. A picture of a Kangaskhan's butt isn't exactly gonna cut it.
You could also interact with the environment and the Pokemon themselves! Throwing apples to tempt a Bulbasaur out of a tree stump or chucking Pester Balls (Sleeping gas-filled Pokéballs) at a switch is often key to getting the best pics of a Pokémon, and sometimes even makes new creatures appear.
Sure, Pokémon Snap may not sound like the greatest idea for a game at first, but behind it's boring concept lies a great little puzzle/adventure game waiting to be discovered. Snap is probably my favourite Pokémon spin-off yet, and I can't wait to download this once it hits the Virtual Console.'

So there you have it. Straight from the duck's mouth (geddit?). Duck is also one of the driving forces behind me getting this game, as he seemed to have issued a death threat to me in the process when I last talked to him: "Buy Snap next week, or your DEAD TO ME." Ok, less of a death threat more of a hard-hitting statement.

Anyway, enough of that.

Another factor in my choice is that this is also the first (and probably not the last) game to receive some added features to. Nintendo are adding a feature to send pictures to the Wii Messageboard so you can send it to friends. I bet Gavin and Lewis (my only two Wii contacts on my Wii - I was suppose to have Daisy's but I forgot to ask her for her Wii number. Oh well.) will be jealous when I start bombarding their Wiis with photos... muhahaha

Awesome.

That pretty much wraps up this post, I've probably forgotten a bunch of things but it's starting to get late now and I can't be missing my beauty sleep can I? Even though tomorrow is Sunday and all I'm going to do is lie in until I suffocate from my own procrastination.

Oh and before I forget. Here are links to the new Nintendo website and the Wii Points change service thing:

NINTENDO UK

Stars to Wii Points

Oh and just for the record, here were the other titles I was thinking of buying on the VC. Obviously my choice isn't final behind Pokemon Snap.

Ocarina of Time
Super Mario 64
Link to the past
Sonic 1,2 or 3
Any of the SMB games
Super Mario World
Gunstar Heroes

There were some more, but I forget.

To ease any hatred towards me if you don't live in Europe and can't exchange stars for Wii Points, here's a video of Wii Fit (that's already released in Japan):

Hm... that may not have helped. But the game looks awesome, I'm highly considering buying this when it comes out. Although much depends on it's price tag...

Exams = HATE

2007-12-06T22:50:00.000Z

I'm sure I've expressed my hatred for exams already. Especially in the period of GCSE exams. But today I entered an entirely new plane of spite for exams such as these.

Sure, today was only mock exams. But it was TWO MOCK EXAMS. Neither of them very forgiving either.

Coupled with the fact that I messed up my revision (trust me too), it made it doubly harder. How did I mess up? Well, the previous night I was revising for S1. Because I thought that was the exam that was going to be first. Then at lunch I would revise C2.

Then to my surprise, and my utter contempt, I was told just before the test that it was C2. GODDAMMIT. I even physically smacked my fist on the table to show my frustration. Oh well.

So, I did the test wholly unprepared. I actually did quite well, I reckon. Probably not as well as I could have, but still quite good. The following test (S1) was more of the same. Although I found S1 harder, since it is statistics.

[S1 = Statistics 1; C2 = Core (or Pure) Mathematics 2]

I did find something out today though. I seemed to be better at doing harder questions. No joke. I noticed today that I missed some questions out at the beginning of the exam (the easier parts) but near the end it was a breeze (the harder parts). WTF is up with that?

The whole concept of 'harder' is for it to be more difficult and so potential students will struggle more. But I seem to be doing the reverse, stumbling at the beginning but at the home straight I glide home effortlessly. Obviously, I'm not complaining. Since the end questions yield more marks. Which means win-win for me!

===

Moving on to more internet-related news.

If you've been round this blog a few times, you may have heard of one game I've been eagerly anticipating. That game is: SSBB.

Today my dreams were shattered as Nintendo released a list of games coming out Q1 and Q2. And SSBB was NOT ON THE LIST. Which means I have to wait until JUNE, AT THE VERY LEAST to play the game! WTF?!

That's the one thing I hate about Nintendo. PAL countries always come last and they never seem to be able to pull off simultaneous launches, despite pretty much every other large video game company being able to. It just makes no sense to me, why is there such a big delay for games in PAL countries. SPM, MP3:C to name a few.

I've already wrote to Nintendo Of Europe (NoE) at info@nintendo.de but the only reply I've got is automated. But it's still early days. Too bad it's located in Germany or I would trudge down to NoE HQ myself and do some serious question-asking. I think it would go something like this:

NoE Employee 1: So, whassup today?

NoE Employee 2: Not much, screwing over the Europeans again with our release dates.

1: Oh, ok. So nothing new.

2: Yea, relatively normal day-

KABOOM! Door breaks down. A ton of mist and dust is kicked up... somehow. Silhouette appears. It's me.

Me: Ok, Nintendo of Europe. I'm hearing to kick ass and play games... and I don't see any games!

Shoots laser beams out of eyes.

1: Ah! We're all gonna die!

2: Think of the children! Why won't anyone think of the children?!

Random German Guy: Ach nein! Ich bin tot!

Me: I don't hear no begging to spare your lives!

A voice from far away: That's because they're ALL DEAD.

Me: Opps. My bad. I knew I should have gone with delegation rather than the 'all guns blazing' plan. Oh well, sh*t happens.

Picks up telephone.

Me: *Puts on deeper voice* Er... is this NoJ?

Japanese Guy: はい。本当にそうです。

Me: Er... ok. Now let's put those Japanese lessons to the test.

Me: I'm calling to say that we're bumping up the release date of SSBB in Europe.

JG: Oh ok. To when?

Me: Now.

JG: Now? That's impossible. The game isn't even finished y-

Me: SHOOSH! I don't care. What I say, goes.

JG: B-but this is absurd!

Me: NOT AS ABSURD AS YOUR FACE!

Slams phone down. Straightens jacket, and pats dust of myself casually.

Me: Well, I think I handled that quite well.

Walks off towards the sunset. Leaving the scene of the crime, strangely the police have yet to arrive. Meh, whatever. They're German anyway.

***

And that my friend, concludes on what would happen if I actually went to the HQ. Pretty bad-ass, right?

Oh and Ashley if you're reading I expect souvenirs from your trip to Orlando.

;)