Chinger Blog

September 12 2006 - Not good enough!

2007-01-08T19:38:00.000+01:00

So that was the last date of my blog postings... rubbish! lets try to be more regular shall we Tone!!!

Well here goes...

Got promoted at work - rocks!
Bought a new car - rocked!
Crashed new car - Sucked!
Got little run about for £100 - Rocks!
Turned 30 - rocks and sucks!
Christmas - rocks!
New Year - hectic so far!

Because you never know that you've drank too much

2006-09-12T12:46:00.000+01:00

Endgadget, Ipod Breathaliser

Well in my experience driving under the influence rarely happens because you don't know you are over the limit. Its usually because you dont care or are that lashed to notice.

Ok hypothetical situation. You've been on the lash for 5 hours after work. You jump in the car but then have a moment of sensibility to grab the breathaliser and find out if you are over the limit. It beeps to say naughty boy. You exit car, lock it and take shanks pony home.

True situation. You've been on the lash for 5 hours after work. You jump in the car, turn the key after picking it up from the floor several times. Drive off home hopefully without hitting anything on the way.

My point is unless these breathalisers are fitted to the ignition of your vehicle they are pretty much pointless devices. You're either gonna drive or not. I do not condone drunk driving whatsoever in fact I will go out of my way to stop it. Its not just others that could get hurt, its me or my friend that could too and thats just something I don't want to happen.

Take the bus, take the train, take a taxi, take shanks pony (walk) instead guys.

Don't Do It!!!

2006-09-12T12:35:00.000+01:00

Buy Lego Star Wars II on the Nintendo DS that is. It was programmed by chimps on acid and playtested by an as yet undicovered species whose brains grow in its arse!!

Its crap.

Movement - impossible

Camera - worthless

Responses - poo

AI - should be renamed ARSE

Scrolling Star Wars text - you thought they might have sorted this out by now? think again!

Sound - like pebbles of rabbit poo rattling in a tin can

They are its good points!!!

I hear the PS2 version is sooooooo much better though so will trade mine in for that or the XBX, maybe 360 version. Lucky I bought my copy for £18 and looks like it has a £20 trade in value :)

I succumbed!

2006-09-08T13:27:00.000+01:00

Popped down GAME just now and used all my accumulated credit to buy DEAD RISING :)

Heard a load of good stuff from the US gamers about this. It seems to have about 2 weeks of play in it and a lot of replayability. I'm going to use it as a treat after I finish polishing my new motor :)

Can't wait to let the zombie killing commence!

LOL!

2006-09-08T08:52:00.000+01:00

First of all... I have to agree with 1up.com and say Ha haaa! to Sony. What the f*ck are you thinking delaying your launch in Europe until March 2007! You really think the fans will wait another christmas out for your console? Doubt it, I forsee XB360 sales aplenty come December. You suck! The price is going to be way to high anyway. $600 yeah right! ok so thats probably going to be £600 (you always seem to fleece us brits on the exchange rate!) no one is going to pay that to play games, short of the uber rich. It is not, as in no where near, a Personal Computer Sony!!

OK!

In other news me mate Rob, his lovely wife and their good friend Clayton popped over to jolly ol' England to visit the Queen, see London, goto the pub, eat pizza, eat fish and visit Cornwall's hotspots such as Penzance and Lands End :) Good to see you guys again, hope its not so long before the next time!

We all took a trip to Cornwall stopping off first at Stonehenge in the worst traffic I have ever been in!!! We then travelled to Langford Budville to visit Ian, Claire and ickly wickly Logan their brand new spanking baby boy! We gave him his pressies and took some photos and played some Guitar Hero before setting off to Penzance.

I also managed to clock Crossroads on medium difficulty in Guitar Hero while visiting Ian on the way to Cornwall, Noice!!!

We got to Penzance at 12am (midnight) and went pretty much straight to sleep. Awaking in the morning to a smashing brekkie! I had smoked mackerel which I hadn't had for a very long time! We then walked the 4 miles to St. Michaels Mount along the coast in Merizion. We caught a boat over the water to the castle and had lunch there which was for me a mixed seafood hobbler, very nice too! We decided to get the bus back to Penzance and from there we drove down to Lands End. Pretty cool to finally visit this place for me! On the way back we visited the Mako (sp?) theatre which is like 1/4 of an ampitheatre carved into the side of the cliff face! very cool thing. I also finally got my cream tea here which we all ate/drank in the carpark because the place was closing :)

Bloody done it!

2006-08-25T22:59:00.000+01:00

Finally got through No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age on Medium difficulty on Guitar Hero!!!!!

Been stuck on it for 2 nights now :) so now I have all the songs unlocked including the bonus gig cash bought ones :) I hear there are one or two that can be unlocked with an Action Replay device but I don't got one so...

I also got my shredder guitar through from play.com those guys rule! Took 1 day for delivery where just about everyone else is out of stock :) I of course attribute the new found ability to slay QOTSA to this new aquisition :) Next I may see about importing a V from *TAC in the States. They even make wireless versions :)

Anyway this kicks soo much arse because now I can let the game beat me on 5 new tracks!! well make that 4 because I just beat Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult ner ner! Included in this last 5 songs is Pantera's Cowboys from Hell and Ozzy's Bark at the Moon! both well hard because I just tried them and failed at around 20% complete each lol.

Another GH success is that I've now managed to get 4 stars or better on all the Easy mode songs :)

Right I'm off to celebrate with a whiskey and water and maybe a couple more attempts at making my fingers bleed!

2006-08-23T13:44:00.000+01:00

Guitar Hero (Ace of Spades by SArmstr0ng)

wow!

Rocking all night long

2006-08-23T13:27:00.000+01:00

I got Guitar Hero yesterday. I now feel like growing my hair long again, buying a bottle of Jack Daniels and a pack of Marlborough reds!

The game fucking rocks!

I've so far played through easy mode and done about 6 or so tracks on normal mode.

A couple of the tracks done me first time round on easy mode I think they were Queens of the Stone Age and the Cream track.

I may even have some of my own videos up here soon :)

Community Arcade

2006-08-19T17:04:00.000+01:00

Heard this the other day but just got to sharing it here:
M$ XNA

PS sorry about all the YouTube posts below I found their blog this button and went a little crazy. Those guys rock Guitar Hero though eh?!

Been working myself up to buying the game but I reckon it would be more fun with two players.

2006-08-18T08:41:00.000+01:00

Guitar Hero Unsung Expert not looking

2006-08-18T08:38:00.002+01:00

Cowboys From Hell on Expert, Blind (Guitar Hero)

Whoa!

2006-08-18T08:38:00.001+01:00

GH - Mr. S&G - Cowboys from Hell on Expert?

2006-08-18T08:38:00.000+01:00

Guitar Hero Mr.S&G - Bark at the Moon on Expert?

Anapod

2006-08-16T16:31:00.000+01:00

Not happy with Itunes I decided to look elsewhere for a good software package that was ipod compatible. I am so far very pleased to say that Anapod from http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featpw.php
fits the bill nicely.

I've not had a big chance to play with it but so far the windows shell integration is the best thing since sliced bread. More later when I've had a proper play at home.

Breaking the seemingly unbreakable

2006-08-16T11:58:00.000+01:00

A BLOGGER over at Wincustomise has discovered a way to break Windows Notepad.

It does not kill your machine or anything, but is light hearted entertainment for a Thursday morning.

What you do is open up Notepad, type in "this app can break" and save it to your hard drive.

Close Notepad and, when you open the saved file by double clicking it, Notepad will be unable to translate the file and spits out a random collection of characters.

According to another blog here, it is all to do with a limitation in Windows.

Text files containing Unicode UTF-16-encoded Unicode are supposed to start with a "Byte-Order Mark" (BOM), which is a two-byte flag that tells a reader how the following UTF-16 data is encoded.

If it isn't there then the file cannot play properly

Not a week later...

2006-08-16T08:29:00.000+01:00

I had to restore my ipod again last night!
All was well, just another update session, went to disconnect and before i had a chance to fully disconnect the PC picked it up as a device again! This caused corruption as the dock connector was not fully in :(

Pants!

Luckily a full restore and full synchronisation with itunes sorted it out but for a moment there I thought it was another housebrick.

Anyway I now have some kickin' 80's tunes on there to get me to work in better spirits :) I also got my black Griffin car charger through from Advanced MP3 Players. Its pretty sweet as it comes with a mini usb plug and a dock connector. This means I can charge with the itrip connected. Yay! no more battery eating itrip :)

2006-08-15T08:44:00.000+01:00

RIP the old pod, Long live the new one!

2006-08-11T12:32:00.000+01:00

Apple sent me a replacement ipod yeterday. Very quick turn around on this by the way so kudos to Applecare, your reputation is well talked about and I'd recommend it. Maybe if the products didn't fall over so easily though... :) The whole process was trackable online from both Apple and UPS websites so I knew where my product was at any given time.

Finally finished loading all my songs and creating a couple of playlists at about 21:30 last night!

I just watched the new 1up show podcast. They told us some stuff about Dead Rising on there. They've played it through so had a lot of interesting facts about gameplay. I fear the game is too structured for my liking as you HAVE to get to the objectives at a certain time in the game to carry on or it forces you to reload the save point. Yes THE save point, one only as in singular. I think thier tagline was The best shitty game you will play. The replay value is good apparently and the staff want to replay the game to find out what happens on different side missions. I'll get it but it might not be a rush to the shops game.

Probably the best music video ever made

2006-08-08T09:58:00.000+01:00

Bright Sparks!

2006-08-07T22:03:00.000+01:00

Techeblog has a top5 PSP and DS inventions see link below :)

Techeblog

Zombies, Death and Cuteness

2006-08-06T16:05:00.000+01:00

My weekend of relaxation and gaming continued today. The following games and demos have been played so far since Friday evening. I'll grade them in stars according to how much playtime I gave them and enjoyment they gave me:

Dead Rising Demo XB360 ***
Loco Roco PSP ****
Brain Training DS ****
Wario Ware Touched! DS ****
Saints Row Demo XB360 **
Ninety Nine Nights (N3) XB360 ***
World of Warcraft PC *****
Street Fighter II XB360 Arcade *

I'm downloading the Chromehounds and Prey demos on XBLive as I type so that should sort out the evenings entertainment :)

Gamage

2006-08-04T14:44:00.000+01:00

Just traded a couple of PSP games that I don't play anymore. Got two DS games with the credit :)

I now have Wario Ware Touched! and Animal Crossing.

Just fired up Wario Ware as it was 2nd hand (only copy in Stevenage!) and it works fine. Its a crazy game! Really enjoyable and not too simple, although the idea is!

Animal Crossing will have to wait as I'm about to climb into a false ceiling to rip out a multi media suite :) I've not played AC before so it will be completely new. It comes with good feedback from our girly gamer at Hitchin! :)

That lot should keep me busy!

Oh and Mario is getting frustrating ;) gotta love him eh? There are 8 worlds to clear and I'm still battling through the first one lol!

Owee Owee Owee it hurts!

2006-08-04T12:16:00.000+01:00

Brainage
Damn my brain age has gone down to 64!! :(

However there were three tests today and one was a new one that I hadn't practiced before so not entirely my fault lol.

I've opened up Syllable Count training now too :) got flying speed which I reckon is the fastest or nearly! Four more to open up. The unlockables seem to open up according to how many stamps you have. You get a stamp each day you test your brain age (allowed once a day only).

Mac
£69 to plug in a monitor on a new G5 factory fitted with a Geforce 6600 card!! lol... Thats how much it costs to convert Apples "Revoutionary" ADC connection to standard DVI lol. Way to go Apple, sell your stuff then stop supporting it properly ;) I really have my fingers crossed about all the good stuff I hear regarding your ipod service team.

Off to play some Mario in the bog.... might cya all later ;)

継続

2006-08-03T18:32:00.000+01:00

If that went well the title reads In Continuation in Japanese :)

Nintendo
Mario DS
Mario rules. Its the same idea as previous Super Mario's i.e. side scrolling platform romp. However its now been DS'd in that the bottom screen is used for either progress indicators and when you go down a pipe you play on the bottom screen instead of the top one :)

Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training
This is a good, addictive learning game. It challenges you to produce more brain, not brian, power. I went from 80 to 52 already :) There are 3 quick games including:

Brain Age where you say aloud the colour of the words on the screen (i.e. the word RED in blue colour = shout "BLUE!" into the mic)

Sudoku which is a 3x3 Sudoku puzzle for you to solve giving 5 lives before GAME OVER :) I actually managed to solve one earlier with my manager. That was the first ever Sudoku I completed :)

Arithmetic where you scribble the answer to the sum.

The main idea of it is a Daily challenge that has you doing lots of different tests and plots your results on a graph to track you progress :)

Very cool stuff and my brain hurts a lot now lol.

Sony
So, I finally got Loco Roco on the PSP. I spent a lot of time yesterday viewing the 1up Show archived podcasts that included LR stuff. I was suitably impressed and learnt a lot about what went into the production of this game.
I've played through World 1 and have no idea how many worlds there are. Suffice to say I MUST go through these ones again and do a lot better :) I barely found half of the stuff in each level!
The level design is amazing but if you are unhappy or bored with them there is a level editor incuded and these can be saved off to memory stick and shared online!
The characters are amazing and very well animated. Everything is based on spring physics after the designer was shown an online engine for springs and decided to include the concept in the game.
The music and sound are very addictive and at times hilarious. The words are part Japanese, mainly Maui but mostly ridiculous :) They dont really mean anything but you find yourself making stuff up in your head lol.

Thats probably really it from me today, have fun and look after one another!

RIP ipod Long Live DSlite!

2006-08-03T17:40:00.000+01:00

Apple
Turned my ipod into a house brick last night. Plugged into USB and poof! my PC turns off and the ipod goes all wobbly. PC starts up fine again but ipod is very ill (unhappy ipod icon) so I spend 4 hours trying to get it on again and the PC to recognise it. After finding some secret menus (ooooo secrets!) I manage to get the PC to recognise it. By now I've followed all the instructions on every support page so last resort is to restore the ipod to factory settings. I am now allowed to do this and it all goes through lovely. At the end it says ipod will now restart and boot back to menu. Well it turned off but that was the end of it all. Nothing at all came back :( I charged it for a few hours and still nothing so resorted to filling out a support form on apple.com and am now waiting for the shipping box to arrive :(

I hear apple service is excellent but I may receive a refurbished ipod not the one I bought. Hmmm interesting but it will speed the process up I guess. I've heard miracle stories of 2 day turn arounds, the website says 10 days I think.

Nintendo
I went out and bought a DSlite black from Game this afternoon. Lovely jubbly! Was going to get one in the US but they don't have black ones over there :) Bought Mario with it and got Brain Training in the package deal. I have a brain of a 52 year old! the best is 20 :) I started at an age of 80 though lol!

tbc

Back once again with the renegade master!

2006-08-02T13:06:00.000+01:00

Hi all!
Long time no blog... so whats been going on in the world of Tone? Let me share with you...

America
Went back to the US last week to see me mate Rob and his lovely wife Jenny. Thanks matey for having me stay with ya!
Spent two days in Manhatten which is just like London but about 3 times as high. Its also a helluva lot easier to navigate thanks to the Avenue/Street system. Used the Subway with no problems either.
I visited the Rockerfeller Tower which is where my mate works and did the "Top of the Rock" tour. Well more like an elevator ride to the top which gives an amazing view of the city.
I visited Nintendo World store which is cool and full of merchansise. Otherwise nothing spectacular but it makes a great place to hang out at lunch! Business men playing 4 way mario kart with 10 year olds is an amazing sight :) Nothing about the Wii in there which nearly upset me lol.
I also bought loads of clothing and ate loads of resturant food!

Ipod
I finally bit the bullet and bought my ipod while in the states. I bought it in the new Apple store on 5th Avenue which is a really nice shop! Picked up an itrip dongle and the remote headset for it too. Im in the process of slowley getting my CD collection ripped to itunes now and enjoying the various podcasts such as French Maid TV and 1up show :)

Orange County Choppers
Jen drove us to Montgomery, NY last Saturday to have a look at the OCC retail shop/showroom. I had a brilliant time, bought loads of stuff and met Vinnie!!! Scoop news is that he and his wife are now expecting twins!

Game
Of course no week with me lacks game in some form or another! Jenny showed me Chrono Cross on the Playstation while I was in the states and she was taking a sick day. I am not a fan of Japanese RPGs but this one is different to what I've experienced in the past. There is more stuff for you to do rather than watch FMV all the time. I've been looking for it on ebay in the UK but it seems like I'll have to get it on import so an old US PS1 may have to be bought or something if I really want to play it.

Well its goodbye from me for now!

Gamingden.com

2006-07-14T12:44:00.000+01:00

Some of you may know my homepage GAMINGDEN.COM already. Its just been redone for the umpteenth time and this time I've just bashed it up in HTML while at work using Frontpage. Its basic but functional and personal. I've decided against CMS this time due to all the hassles with losing databases, etc...
Have a look at it, mainly stuff to do with fishing as I needed a repository for my personal info if nothing else :) Hopefully some gaming stuff will go up soon too.

Coded message for the Tommies

2006-07-13T08:38:00.000+01:00

Allo mates,

Got up this morning with a mouth like Ghandi's flip flop. So after a cup of rosey lee I went down the apples and pears to have a butchers hook at the daily rag. Not much time left so I finished my brekkie and said cheerio to the old man. I got in my tin box and went to the daily grind.

When I got there it was a bit Pearl Harbour so I made a quick dash indoors. I've just earnt my first few bob fixing a people's problems.

The sun has got his hat on now so I might pop into town for a butchers shanks pony. If it starts raining cats and dogs I guess just stay here and have a gander at the fillies.

Right got to see a man about a dog so seeya later.

Even better than the real thing?

2006-06-30T20:22:00.000+01:00

Check this out!
http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html

As messey or as tidy as your own desktop on your errr desktop! :)

Really great news

2006-06-28T19:59:00.000+01:00

Oh how to make a headline sarcastic. The news is pretty shit really. My team at work all got the opportunity to take a redundancy package. The college needs to lose 2 out of 4 techies.

I'm going to sit quiet and carry on as normal. I'm not going to enquire about what I might get if I took redundancy and I'm not going to talk to managers about it either. My manager is definately going though so whoever is left will be under new management and I guess a new contract too.

I have no real desire to leave this job. I've been in it longer than any other, 4 years now. So its sit back and let other people decide my fate I guess. If I do go I'm not sure about pursuing a career in IT again.

Warcraft
36 hours!!! all I wanted to do this evening was go out and kill some things! They're moving the server I play on, Kor'gal, to a new hosting site. Hopefully this means the server will be better and all that jazz. But 36 bloody hours! and tonight of all nights! unhappy, gonna hope to see 36 free hours of gametime on my account when the server is back up and running.

Dogs Life

2006-06-26T13:25:00.000+01:00

I met up with a mate I've not seen in a good while. We watched the motorcycle racing and had a few beers. Later we watched the football and had a curry :)

I was watching another friends dogs so stayed round their house. On the Sunday morning just before I was going to leave them one slipped his lead and done a runner! I gave chase first at a sprint then brisk walk/jogging. It was about 1/2 a mile later that we got to a nearby field and I let him run ragged until he cornered himself and I managed to get the lead back on him. In the meantime I'd rung my friends dad and he got to the field about the same time as I recaptured the dog. By the time I'd walked back to the house and put him in the back garden my back was killing me! Later Sunday evening my back returned to the state it was 3 weeks ago :(

I decided to come to work today but really wish I had not. Every breath hurts like buggery as it pushes on the top of my back which is all freshly sprained. Arsebiscuits. The doctor isn't going to do anything is he? so not much point ringing them. If its still bad near the end of the week I will and that may mean getting an MRI scan which I don't look forward to.

Warcraft
I've respecced my Priest to Holy and have bought a fair amount of new gear to maximise my mana pool and mana regeneration rate. Now to get in those instances and find some better gear for him :)

Holiest of Holies

2006-06-23T13:25:00.000+01:00

So we've kind of decided to stop the wars as a guild and concentrate more on instances in WoW. The fact that to get further than rank 12 would mean giving up work and playing WoW for a living helped us decide this.

This is going to be a nice change I think and something good for the summer when the time spent playing WoW is inevitably going to be shorter. I spent some gold buying some new gear that makes me a better healer. I'll probably respec my talents into more of a healing role (Holy Priest) too rather than a damage dealer. The 35g price tag is a little excessive so I will wait till that comes down a bit first :)

No real life news (as usual) but hey thats all I got up to last night :)

=EVE=

2006-06-22T08:37:00.000+01:00

Fired this bad boy up again last night. I had forgotten how spectacular the graphics look. When I was browsing the homepage yesterday I took some time to look at some screenshots. Of course I reacted by thinking they were pre-rendered marketing junk. How wrong I was. If you are interested in this game take it as gospel that those screens are ingame. The same goes for the videos on the homepage too. Simply sublime.

I played for only a couple of hours as I watched the Argentina vs Holland game instead. In that time I skilled up my character a little (offline learning rules) and purchased the biggest mining ship I could :) I've doubled my profit margin now already lol... I can bring in about 12k each trip which is pretty small time but its progress nontheless. Now to upgrade my mining laser, weapons and shields so I can venture into far off solar systems to pinch their precious ore :) Then I'll think about building up my fighter muhahaha.

So we still can't beat them!

2006-06-21T09:01:00.000+01:00

World Cup

England 2 - 2 Sweden

We just can't do it! Its been a silly amount of years since we last beat Sweden in a game of football. Apparently its been 38 years since our last win over Sweden, an amazing amount of time! Added into that we lost our top international goalscorer, Michael Owen when his knee bucked underneath him :(

Not much else to report in my world at the moment. I'm back at work and in pain with the back still... I've got to go to Hitchin later to collect a printer thats going to be fun to do in my state. Still might take the opportunity to have a chat with my manager about stuff. I think if the pain hasn't gone by this time next week I'll ring the doctor to get checked out properly, which may mean an MRI scan eeeek! I've been like this before with my back and its healed but I think the damage may be worse this time. I hope I'm wrong.

Gaming News

So, there are rumours of World of Starcraft and World of Diablo floating around the net. Of course Blizzard have said eh? what? nah, etc... But Vivendi Universal, their publisher, might have different plans. I am in two minds about it. On one hand thankfully (as I understand it) Blizzard are seperate from Vivendi games and they keep their intelluctal property so Vivendi can't screw things up if they were to make these games. But on the other hand damn! Wouldn't those two games be cool as an Eskimo's manhood!! There are other rumours that there is a x amount of years plan and a $50m budget for a new game from this publisher. World of Warcraft had a similar time frame and a 50m euro budget when it was announced. I want to play a Zerg!!! how would that work though???

World of Warcraft

Personally I think World of Warcraft is one of the best games ever. However I am needing some variety in the game. Or something else to keep me going. I recently started a couple of new characters with a mission to levelling them to 60 in a shortest time possible. However the guide I am using is for new characters on a new server. I am on an old server with lots of kids, I am also on a PVP server with lots of ganking arseholes, i.e. kids. Although PVP is great fun when you are doing it, its also the bane of your life if you are low level and in a dodgey area when the kids are home from school. Its an endless corpse run from the graveyard. I decided to take my lvl 60 priest over to where my low levels are. I had a little fun getting killed and then logging on with the 60 to gank the gankers. However I can only keep that up for so long before it gets boring. Sure does shock the arseholes though, shame there are so many different ones :( So what is a girl to do... I've been entertaining the idea of a new game. I've tried many here is a list:

Lineage II - Sucks pretty much, I didn't really get on with the controls or the world.

Star Wars Galaxies - Controls were aweful, loved the atmosphere and I got to fly spaceships. They've since changed the whole control system and I think its more like WoW now but I have not seen that new version myself. Might be worth a throw to find out.

City of Hero's / City of Villians - I've now tried both and have a current account to play them. However there are certain interface glitches that just annoy me. Its not as nice to play as WoW is. WoW is my bar and its hard for other games to reach it. My account will probably be frozen again very soon.

Eve Online - Awesome space game. Think Elite online with added stuff and rock solid graphics. Shame more people I know won't play it I guess. Its a lovely game. I didn't play it enough. I also had a problem in that a few of the guys I wanted to play with from www.theoldergamers.com were divided on who I was. They thought I was one of their enemies masquerading as another character to infiltrate their corporation. lol!!!! its a game :) but thats kinda how serious some can get about it. Even as far as I had to change my screen name on their forum! Not been back there much since to be honest. Good group of players over 25 though, shame :( mainly Aussies that sure know how to play!

Dungeons and Dragons Online - I was on a couple of early server testing trials for this. The graphics were nice but the game is not really a solo one. I like to group up with people I know, Pick up groups are not really my cup of tea. So to play this game successfully I would need a regular gaming group to quest with, ooo funny that just like the pencil and paper version :) well done game designer but at the same time remember the internet is a place of strangers.

So I just don't know! MMORPGs are the way to go with PC gaming though.

Lapsing a bit...

2006-06-14T10:03:00.000+01:00

Sorry guys and gals, I've not posted for a few days.
I'be been signed off for a week by the doctor to see if my back can heal itself. Woke up this morning and its worse than before! I think I need to start doing activities to loosen it up. It's stiff and sore where I've been in bed or sitting up on the computer trying to rest it.

Other than that, I've been having mamoth sessions on WoW. I've set it up so that I can play either lying down or sitting up lol... Got my epic mount (+100% movement speed) and learnt enchanting to maximum 300 skill... Just got to get that to pay off now :) I also started a new character on the server, an Orc Warlock. They pretty much rock! I've now got to level 21 with her through following a quick level up guide I found. The guy did to level 60 in 4 days! I've done about a day total playing now so kinda on track I suppose.

Shaolin

2006-06-08T15:09:00.000+01:00

Wow! I just watched an old chinese documentary on the Shaolin monks. Bugger me if they don't do some crazy stuff! Of course I know about the monks and what they practise but some of this stuff shocked me!

One guy was attacked by a group of monks in a circle with spears, all around him and one to his throat. Well they spin in a circle and stopped because the one to his throat snapped! these spears were bending they were being pushed so hard into him! not a scratch on the guy though!

Saw the doctor today and he's signed me off for at least the weekend. About as useful as a catflap in an elephant house though really. Can't do alot about it as its muscular and its just gonna take its course :(

Book Review – D.N.Angel 1

2006-06-06T15:20:00.000+01:00

Romance/Action by Yukiru Sugisake/Tokyopop
By Tony Strongman

Introduction
This is a book about a boy (Daisuke) who has a secret identity. His identity shows itself only when he is around the girl (Risa) he loves. He will keep changing until his feelings either go away or she loves him back. Thing is Dark has a crush on Risa's twin sister, Riku! So when Dark see's Riku he changes back into Daisuke! Follow? Good :)

Artwork 8/10
The art is up to a pretty high standard throughout. The author uses a little “power up” bar every now and then to show how close Daisuke (the hero) is to transforming into Dark.

Story 8/10
I like the concept for this story. Basically the Niwa family has a heritage. That is the youngest member i..e the hero of D.N.Angel becomes The legendary theif “Dark”. Sometimes the story goes off track (like I am finding with a lot of Manga) and I start asking what's going on?... hold it a moment, re-read, aha right now I get it! Kinda like a Terry Pratchett book has occasion to do!

Also included in the book at the back (front) is a bonus manga. Its called N is for Nishiki and is the first manga produced by the author, it was a bonus for him to see it in print too! This story is also just as intriguing as the main one. Instead of thieves this family conjures entities that look like people!

Conclusion 8/10
This story kept me reading right through to the end! I guess thats a good sign that I enjoyed it. Still not won over by all the lovey dovey stuff but this story has enough other things going on that its more action than romance to be honest. There are a lot more books in the series and seeing as I quite enjoyed this one I will pick up some more.

What's a boy to do!

2006-06-06T12:37:00.000+01:00

SItting at home is sometimes relaxing, but at other times it can be a real bore!

So you can imagine my delight when a DHL van pulls up and there is a knock on my door! yahoo! My Play.com order has arrived, I now have 4 new manga to read :)

The second 2 .hack books, DN Angel 1 and Battle Royal 1 JOY JOY JOY!

Reviews are sure to follow soon so watch this space! But which one to read first??? ummmm...

My back has started clicking now which believe me is usually a good sign. So will try a little drive later if I can be arsed and don't feel so out of it on pills. I'm doing some stretches to try and loosen the muscles every now and then, usually inbetween game, drawing, eating and writing sessions lol... curse this boredom!

I watched Ninja Scroll last night before bed by the way. Cool movie! I did quite well for films last night really :) now to get hold of Appleseed, Ghost in the Machine, Macross, Gundam, Fist of the North Star and any other anime that I can remember from the past! Do they make any cool anime like they used to nowadays? I'm so out of touch its not funny!

Right reading to be done!

Sketchbook + X-men 3

2006-06-05T19:53:00.000+01:00

:) Sketchbook :)

I just finished watching X-men 3. Damn cool movie! Wouldn't mind seeing if they make a fourth movie. Got Ninja Scroll to watch now :)

Book Review - .hack//Legend of the Twilight

2006-06-04T20:21:00.000+01:00

Sci-Fi Comedy by Rei Izumi and Tatsuya Hamazaki/Tokyopop
By Tony Strongman

Introduction
This was the first book I read over the weekend. I've started a “new” collection of manga books. Well I've never really had a collection but I've dabbled in older manga titles in the past and a few western comics also. Put it this way, this title and Pita Ten are my first right-to-left books. This is a sci-fi in that it is set in the future (but not that far ahead) and a comedy as I found myself in tears of laughter at times! Yeah this book is probably gonna get a good score! And yes I will be buying (already ordered) the other books in the series!

Artwork 8/10
I've seen better artwork in manga than this. However its not bad at all, I'm just trying to set myself a bar of some sort and as this is the second book in my “new” collection them's the breaks!
The panels are laid out in a very easy to follow format. The art is clean and easy to take in whilst reading. Cute girls aplenty!

Story 9/10
I love it. I play World of Warcraft anyway and I can totally relate to the characters who are n00bs and also the guys they meet along their journey upon each login who usually are experienced players. The World that Hamazaki has created is pretty cool and the real life going ons i.e. The server room mainly are hugely interesting. I want to know more about this World, the people that run it and the people that play in it!

Conclusion 9/10
Its gonna take something good to beat this as my favourite manga at the moment. Maybe something with robot monkeys? Good art, great story, tears in my eyes!

Book Review - Pita Ten

2006-06-04T20:08:00.000+01:00

Romantic Kawaii Manga by Koge Donbo/Tokyopop
By Tony Strongman

Introduction
OK this was my first experience of kawaii manga. I bought it for the character inspiration as I have just started sketching manga characters myself. I've got to say that if this is the sort of thing to expect from kawaii manga then I doubt I will buy any more. The cute character's dialogue got me pretty fed up of reading it to be honest. That's a general comment on the genre I guess, I just don't want to risk buying another of this ilk. If you can recommend me a title please do so!

Artwork 7/10
Overall I like the artwork in this book. The characters can be super cute at times! I wish I knew what all the sweatspots mean. I'll be looking them up sometime for sure! At times though the panels go crazy and I got very confused. Thats probably my own inexperience in reading manga but art should show me whats happening and I found myself having to decipher the artwork at times whilst reading this book.

Story 8/10
The story, for me, is really interesting. There are plenty of characters introduced in this book which is the first in a series. Along with the discovery of the identity of a mystery character at the end the script kept me reading for long periods. I finished the book in three sittings which is superb for me! You get to know enough about the characters to care/wonder/root for them from the start.

Conclusion 7/10
A great storyline, some nice artwork with unfortunate crazy periods, super cute, I doubt if I will buy more though. Get rid of the waaaaay to cute dialogue from one of the characters and I would buy more.

Manga Time

2006-06-03T21:03:00.000+01:00

Today I popped into my local Borders to pick up some manga. They have a fairly good selection of books really. I wanted something with chibi characters in it so picked up Pita Ten by Koge-Donbo/Tokyopop. Not heard of it before so kinda a gamble, will let you know what its like after a read. Its a romance apparently but the artwork was super deformed kawaii (cute) so it was just what I was looking for!

I also picked up .hack //Legend of the Twilight by Rei Izumi and Tatsuya Hamazaki/Tokyopop. More because I had heard people talking about it and wanted to find out what it was for myself.

Its a manga about two teenagers playing a MMORPG! Excellent as I am a big player of World of Warcraft when I get the time to. Well I started reading it and fuck me if I haven't laughed so hard! It's so true its scarey. The part where they get their first rare items put tears in my eyes! lol. If you don't play MMORPG then maybe you might not get it, if you read it just know that everything in there happens in MMORPG both from ingame and outgame perspectives :)

I'm also working on my own illustration skills which are severely lacking by the way. I enjoy drawing though, and well, just watch this space lol...

Yesterday

2006-06-02T10:38:00.000+01:00

So now I can actually sit upright and move about I'll tell ya what yesterday's post was all about...

First thing in the morning at work I was walking up the stairs to the 2nd floor when my back gave in and fucked me up good an' proper. I couldn't breathe, could just about hobble along and just about speak. Luckily someone was at the bottom of the stairs when it happened and my boss was also, unusually, on site.

My back is prone to giving way on me but never like this. It felt like the top of my back between my shoulders had a knife in it and my ribcage felt about twice as big but also twice as small at the same time! This got me pretty worried because it was alien to me. I had some painkillers on me so quickly downed 2 of them and then my boss recommended I lie in the first aid room and try to relax. I did this for about an hour and my panic hadn't subsided. I decided to get up and try to have a hobble somewhere. Just as well becuase I was bursting for a piss. I managed to gingerly get up and to the loo and back. Oddly enough this seemed to calm me down a bit as I could breathe a lot easier when I lied down again. Thankfully!

My boss had arranged for him to drive my car home while I got a lift off another staff member. I'm so thankful to both of these people! So I get home and straight into bed with a couple of muscle relaxants inside me.

This morning I got up and could actually walk properly and although the pain is still there its nothing like yesterday! I guess overdosing on muscle relaxants 3 time in a row had a lot to do with it :)

To cease the boredom I tried to play game but that was hopeless! try playing anything when your brain is fucked up on pills lol. I turned to sketching and I found that I still need a lot of practise on how to draw characters :)

This morning I've completed PGR3 on medium mode though so what a difference no pills make lol.

Damn!

2006-06-01T11:42:00.000+01:00

and Blast!

:(

Nearly no blog wednesday!

2006-05-31T22:39:00.000+01:00

Cheeky!

Well although I'd commented on others blogs and responded to past posts I failed miserably to write about anything new today.

Just saw this over at IGN:
IGN Dreamcast
They are going to play and re-review every one of the 250 US release DC games. I just know there are ppl probably breaking out into a cold sweat and rushing to their nearest 2nd hand/retro games shop!

I never had a DC. Not sure why really. Probably cause I was broke at the time or getting drunk and playing soccer games or Mario on the N64. Yeah that was it.

So work was a chore today... was on my own for most of it too which sucked even more. There is a lot of talk about redundancies and also a lot of staff jumping ship. We have this yearly now and its always a crap time. Especially as while everyone is talking about it the latest staff development email comes round lol.

Got my Monkey Bike tax sorted out on the way home via the internet :)

I even decided to log into WoW this evening. Played enough for 3 battlegrounds and then logged though, couldn't be arsed. Got another few medals in PGR3 while waiting for the wars to start too. Failed to get another cup by about 15 seconds though :( that timed event is gonna be an arse to beat methinks. That or I decided to play like a total n00b in that event. Shutit!

Since then been watching the Cardinals win the baseball and currently watching The Bluejays game which is scoreless. Great.

So just about everyone in America is complaining about the heat. Tim Buckley at ctrlaltdel has even gone mad enough to write an email to summer@the-earth.com and cc'd thesun@the-solarsystem.com lol. Well here is kinda breezy, like a summer breeze though. I hope we get some real hot weather soon so I can join in the ranting :)

I finally caught up reading the entire archive of Penny Arcade too! Wow thats some funny stuff right there! I'm contemplating doing the same with User Friendly I tried once and failed so now its a challenge :)

Stay safe everyone!

XBL Upgrade!

2006-05-30T13:25:00.000+01:00

Found out about this over the weekend and watched the video with all the changes highlighted. There are some great ones in there! Not least of all the addition of multitasking to the interface. Thats my main bug with it right now. If you want to download a demo, trailer, etc... you basically turn your 360 into a brick for the duration of the download. They've now added not only download queuing but also made it so you can get on with gaming whilst the download carries on in the background. If you connect to LIVE for a multiplayer game the download engine detects this and pauses the download... nice!

Gamerscore Blog

Bank Holiday is over

2006-05-30T10:00:00.000+01:00

And I'm back at work...

Well I enjoyed my long weekend while it lasted. Got down and dirty with some Hitman: Blood Money on Sunday too. Its pretty hard! I'd only played the first one a little bit. Got through the tutorial mission and then got wasted at the first doorway in the second mission lol. Gonna take a bit of work I guess.

Monday I played a bit more PGR3 in the morning (after chores like dump visits and shops) Got about 3 trophies to go now and that will have completed the offline game at Silver level.

I got a bullworker in Argos to try to get myself some exercise indoors. I have very little space so was on the lookout for something I could use. Couldn't find anything better to fit the bill... Its hard work too! I can barely touch 80% of the power with a straight forward squeeze! Some of the exercises I can hardly get 20%!

Rest of the day was spent watching Ice Hockey and Baseball on NASN, eating and sleeping. I also checked out the demo of Tomb Raider Legend on the 360. It looks very nice but everything I hated about the game is still present and the last one I played was the 1st game on the PS1. So ho humm, where's my copy of Black got to? :)

Black mini review

2006-05-28T21:01:00.000+01:00

HOLY CRAP!

I said it was a damn nice looking game... after the first two levels I can now state the following...

BIG EXPLOSIONS, LOADS OF KILLING, MEATY WEAPONS, FUN, MORE BIG EXPLOSIONS!

Jolly nice cut scenes between missions, georgeous graphics, excellent sound effects, sweet special effects. A shooter that pretends to be nothing else at all. Bloody amazing!

Levels are pretty big too... 2nd one took me about 50mins to complete, maybe I just suck. Fortune favours the bold in this game.

Good start to the weekend

2006-05-28T12:11:00.000+01:00

Played WoW loads on Friday night in the wars, nice.

Got up Saturday morning and tinkered with Monkey Bikes for a few hours then I headed into London. Quite a few drinks later and I wake up round a mates in Bedfordshire lol.

Its now Sunday and I am tired, hungry and not sure why I am writing this blog entry lol... I've fired up the dinkey little PS2 with a copy of Black in it. Damn nice looking game!

I got the PS2 with Black and Hitman-Blood Money (released same day!), a 2nd controller and an official memory stick in GAME on Friday. I also picked up a second hand copy of Final Fantasy X in Gamestation.

Right I'm off for something to eat and drink then probably gonna try to lose myself in FF :)

England B 1 - 2 Belarus

2006-05-26T10:26:00.000+01:00

Watched the footy last night. Pants. Janus nicked a goal in the first half then it all went wrong in the 2nd :(

Our goalie was changed and then he pulled his groin eeew! so he was stretchered off and will miss the World Cup :( adding insult to injury Belarus took advantage of the goalie lying on the deck in agony and scored in an open goal :(

Then Belarus went down to 10 men after too many dirty tackles on our man Lennon. However they still managed to score again to make it 2-1 :(

Gutted to hear the radio slating England B this morning, its just not right to diss your own team weeks before a World Cup! I had to turn the radio off and put on some Damageplan instead... glad I did just what the doctor ordered for the drive to work on a rainy Friday morning :)

Now if I was to get a tattoo

2006-05-25T18:28:00.000+01:00

This might just be the lucky design

PGR3 Nights

2006-05-25T08:14:00.000+01:00

So I've been getting in after work and playing as much Project Gotham Racing 3 as my fingers can handle!

The game is awesome. Really. However...

Last night I pulled down the Lost Planet E3'06 demo from XBox LIVE Marketplace and now I see what Next Gen really means. Even on my standard CRT TV the graphics look like HD. I don't know what they've done but it just makes my other games look "grainy" They seem to have pulled out all the stops graphically with this title and I'm genuinely impressed. Can't wait for the retail release.

I also spent a bit of time watching the Train Wrecks on the Clerks II website... I recommend watching them if you have any interest in the soon to be released movie... 21st July release in the States as far as I know.

Laters taters!

Blogging...

2006-05-24T15:37:00.000+01:00

OK... seems like the done thing to do is start a blog these days. Robs decided to begin anew with his one over at irobin so I thought, hey why don't I add some stuff to my blog too. Only then did it dawn on me that I can't remember the name of it or the address, etc... so here it is my new blog. You didn't miss much on the last one by the way :)

Its a bloody good idea to get everyone blogging anyway I reckon. Now that most of us have moved on with our lives, promised for better or worse, been there and done that, etc... it's a good way to keep in touch with each other.

Email can do that to a certain extent but sometimes they get read and the intention to reply is there but before you know it 10 more have come in and that important one 10 minutes ago is long forgotten :( This way we can write our own journals to keep people informed of what we are doing or have done even if they didn't want to know in the first place!

So all you's who've moved to lands of gold get blogging if you too feel the urge... :)

Its a bank holiday weekend so what better opportunity if you have net access!