This webpage is boring. Go look at naked ladies.

Friday, February 29, 2008

New game time

My copy of Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360 arrived today. I shouldn't really buy JRPGs. They only piss me off. This one so far has been about an hour of cut scenes and running around to about 15 minutes of actual combat so far. It's nice though. I never finish them but I have to admit that I do enjoy the time I put into them. Only up to a point though. Then the autistic accountant syndrome I mentioned previously kicks in. They try so hard to be "epic" and the end result (Including FFVII you fanboys) always reads like bad emo fantasy fanfic. Also who's bright idea was it that your hero and his team needs to spend hours running in circles in the same area to grind levels before you can continue? Doesn't really fit in with the whole epic and heroic feel at all.

I'm hoping Asda have a copy of the new Katamari game when I go shopping tomorrow. I wouldn't mind playing that.

Still nothing I want to buy for the PS3 though. It's getting depressing.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Today's rubbish

My new TV is settling in well. Colours are much more vivid than my old set. It all fits into the room much nicer and I finally have the gaming layout I wanted from the start.

Gamewise I've been playing some Everyday Shooter on the PS3 and I'm hoping my copy of Lost Odyssey for the 360 arrives tomorrow from Amazon. I'm sure I'll enjoy it for the short time I play it but JRPGs tend to piss me off once they reach the point where it expects you to dive into the stats and combat system like an obsessive and autistic accountant.

I upgraded my hacked PSP last night to 3.90 m33-2 from 3.80 m33-something or other. It's a piece of cake since Dark Alex decided to start using the PSP's built in network updater :)

Saturday, February 23, 2008

I have a new TV

Today I replaced my old (And pretty average) 32 inch crappy brand HDTV with something more sorted to my small room. A nice 26 inch good quality Samsung HDTV.



The 32 inch was really far too big for the space I have so it's moved downstairs where it'll do a good job as the family TV (Kyle XY episode 1 looked ace on it earlier) and my new piece of sex can be arranged in a way I always wanted. One teething problem I had was certain Wii VC games refusing to display properly but a quick net search show that these titles had updates available. Downloading those fixed the problem quickly.

Monday, February 18, 2008

We have a winner folks!

Yup. It appears to be all over for poor HDDVD with Toshiba expected to throw in the towel sometime this week. I must say that I'm disappointed that blu-ray has prevailed. The lack of region coding in HDDVD made it an attractive proposition for the early adopter but I suspect that and the PS3 giving a false impression of userbase that sent HDDVD to an early grave.

However having said that it is good that the uncertainty looks to be over. The market did need to find a winner quickly and I'm happy they have. My PS3 is a really nice Blu-ray player with an utterly lovely media remote.

It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft eventually reacts to this

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Mp3 of the week

The utterly fantastic Geordie Sweet.

http://www.c64tomsk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/Geordie_Sweet.mp3

(Don't worry. It's free and legal)

Be sure to have a browse of the rest of Tomsk's site.

You hit the hoodie for 1d6+3 of low level sonic damage.

This article caused me to lol quite hard

Especially this part.

"What type of society uses a low-level sonic weapon on its children?"

The answer quite obviously is one that hasn't leveled up enough to equip high-level sonic weapons.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Wot am I reading?

I've just recently discovered that Iain M. Banks writes very, very good space opera. It's almost spaceship porn. Years ago I'd read Player of Games but I don't remember being that thrilled by it. I must have thought it good enough to buy other Iain Banks books over the years but for some reason I never read them.

That changed last week and under advice from a forum I started reading Excession. Wow. Just my cup of tea. A great plot and loads of spaceship porn. I most certainly have plans to read more now and have copies of the ones I own queued up on my Iliad.

I'm halfway through reading my Flashman books and I'm also halfway through reading Stephen King's rather excellent Dark Tower series.

Mindless jibber jabber

Today it's sunny. At least I assume it is. I'm sat at the PC surfing the net with the curtains closed. The Sun and I don't get along all that well. I stay out of his way and he stays out of mine.

I'm rapidly getting used to reading on the Iliad. I think she and I are going to work out just fine. Especially now that I can convert almost any PDF file into a much easier to handle Mobipocket book.

In other good news the Sci-Fi channel US announced it would be showing series 4 of Doctor Who in April. Considering the BBC haven't announced our start date yet that can only be good news since it means we'll get it before them. I can't wait. The trailers so far look excellent.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

It's the space age dammit! Stupid publishers

I started using my Iliad E-book reader again last night. I'd like to get into the habit before I travel to Canada later this year and despite being a bit slow and clunky it really does have an excellent e-ink screen and can hold quite a few books.

My problem however is the awful lack of decent legal e-books to put on it. I really do think the publishers need to start embracing digital print media. I have 5 Iain M. Banks books that I'm working my way through. I'd rather read them on my Iliad but I'd have two problems.

1. You don't seem to be able to buy them as electronic versions
2. DRM is a pain in the arse.

Perhaps the publishers could start creating ebook versions of every book they publish. They already have the text in electronic form so adding the rest of the stuff they need to create a fully featured ebook wouldn't add much expense to the procedure. What I'd suggest they do then is give purchasers of the dead tree edition a coupon to get a free ebook version. Or you could go online and buy just the ebook version. Of course then you get the problem that the publishers that do produce ebooks seem to think they can get away with charging exactly the same as for the paper edition.

I think the situation is similar to the music industry. They're locked into a state of fear about the new technology. Books do have one advantage over music or movies. They're definately non-trivial to pirate but when your book is still getting pirated what's the point of hiding in the corner and lashing out with lawyers? It hasn't done the music industry any good. Work with the IT industry to create good, cheap ebook readers. Start using drm free formats. Give people the option of downloading their purchase in the format they want. See Manybooks.net for a perfect example of how to do this.

Real books are good. I love real books but I also think we need to be seriously looking at digital books. With the right reader they offer a world of convenience (Full text searches, multiple bookmarks, notetaking without scrawling all over the paper, downloadable updates).

Friday, February 08, 2008

I hate the Middlesbrough Argos

I really do. I went in today to buy my cheap copy of Forza 2 and also have a viewing of the Primeval action figures. I gave up on the second one when I realised all the tills but one were down, two out of three quick pay kiosks weren't working and the staff were running around like headless chickens.

I did eventually get my copy of Forza 2 despite the two chavs jumping the queue for the remaining quick pay kiosk but I decided to leave Primeval for another day.

Update from the sick as shite trenches

Today is breakthrough day. I'm not right yet but I'm feeling much better and am typing this from my work PC where I'm sitting surfing the net and not doing a whole lot of work.

Today I shall be buying Forza 2 for the XBox 360 (£9.99 in Argos bargain fans), my weekly comics (Not very many this week for some reason) and if Woolworths has any a set of Primeval action figures so I can do dinosaur based crossovers with Doctor Who :)

I've hooked up my spare bluetooth dongle to this machine so I have permanent bluetooth access at work. Very handy with my new phone.

I'm currently about halfway through my second Iain M. Banks book - Excession and I'm loving it. A really nice blend of high tech hedonism and really big spaceships with names like "Attitude Adjustment". :) Once that's out of the way I'll be reading Consider Phelbas by the same author which should be arriving from Amazon today.

Does anyone actually read my drivel though? Call me a cunt in the comments if you do.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Cold update day bleh

Today is possibly the worst day yet. A constantly running nose coupled with a right nostril irritation that causes my right eye to water all the sodding time. It's like being on the verge of sneezing but not being able to.

In completely non-related news the sequel to Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes starts tonight on BBC1 at 9pm.

All bow to the Gene Genie.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Cold update day 3

I'm slowly progressing through the stages of feeling crap. Today my nose isn't as bunged up but constantly running. My sore throat is gone and my cough is almost gone but I feel much worse than I did yesterday. The paracetamols seem to be having little effect today.

In tech news Opera have announced a new version of Opera Mobile and it'll be in beta soon. I may have to hold off on that purchase of 8.65 for my phone.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

First official GR+++ screenshots

While videos and other screenshots have been available to old Neon PC beta testers for a while now (Looks smug) Jeff Minter has just released the first screenshots to the public.

Don't they look great :)




By dose is stuffed

My cold is officially worse and I hate each and every one of you that has an unclogged nose. Die horribly in car accidents.

I like being off work. I don't like being off work when I'm feeling too crappy to play Burnout Paradise or Hellgate:London.

On the plus side I have a really nice java irc client for my phone now :)

Monday, February 04, 2008

I feel awful

Total crap. Sore throat, cough, bunged up nose and I know it's only going to get worse. I hate colds.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Posting from

My new symbian based Nokia E61i. Best phone I've ever owned.
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