Go Karting. Awesome
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Sorry I've not posted for over a week now. It's annoying but I think I have some sort of excuse!
Went away at the weekend for Dan's birthday night out - the big day was on the 15th, when Stick was 22, the old fart - but this was the first weekend we could all make it. So off we went. Chris picked me up from near Reading on Friday night around 8 - thanks for driving me there and back, you're an absolute legend, and fit too - and got to Dan's at around 11.
We then proceeded to drink.
4 cans of cider and half a bottle of wine each later - Chris had some beer - Dan was busy being violently sick as me and the Blackborow tried to get to sleep. There'd been Pro Evo, Darts and some steak in between, which was awesome.
In the morning, we were all pretty hungover and, I'll admit, I felt pretty lousy. Bacon sandwiches soon made Chris bolt for the toilet, and then Float arrived. The afternoon consisted of a bit of football, helping Tom with his car and just bumming around and having a laugh, and was great. Then we marched onto Aberystwyth and together with Sarah, Cat, Kay, Rachel, Sue and Tom rampage over town.
Starting in 'Spoons for food and then Cambrian for cocktails - gotta love Tom Jones' - we then moved onto the immortal Castle for some Feather's Specials whipped up by the great man himself. Pier was our destination for the rest of the night, then: cue plenty of awful, awful dancing and some unwelcome attention for me, Rich and Chris from a local gay guy and his best friend. Oh dear.
Sunday, we went go-karting but, miraculously, none of us were hungover bar Rich - who was also sick - probably because of the several pints of water we forced down ourselves before sleep. It worked, and the karting was great - bar the three-car pile-up that's left me still in pain in the middle of the week - and hugely hugely rampant, as it always is. Fast and full of great racing, as it should be.
Mid afternoon we headed back, very tired, but so, so worth it.
Aberystwyth rocks!
Went away at the weekend for Dan's birthday night out - the big day was on the 15th, when Stick was 22, the old fart - but this was the first weekend we could all make it. So off we went. Chris picked me up from near Reading on Friday night around 8 - thanks for driving me there and back, you're an absolute legend, and fit too - and got to Dan's at around 11.
We then proceeded to drink.
4 cans of cider and half a bottle of wine each later - Chris had some beer - Dan was busy being violently sick as me and the Blackborow tried to get to sleep. There'd been Pro Evo, Darts and some steak in between, which was awesome.
In the morning, we were all pretty hungover and, I'll admit, I felt pretty lousy. Bacon sandwiches soon made Chris bolt for the toilet, and then Float arrived. The afternoon consisted of a bit of football, helping Tom with his car and just bumming around and having a laugh, and was great. Then we marched onto Aberystwyth and together with Sarah, Cat, Kay, Rachel, Sue and Tom rampage over town.
Starting in 'Spoons for food and then Cambrian for cocktails - gotta love Tom Jones' - we then moved onto the immortal Castle for some Feather's Specials whipped up by the great man himself. Pier was our destination for the rest of the night, then: cue plenty of awful, awful dancing and some unwelcome attention for me, Rich and Chris from a local gay guy and his best friend. Oh dear.
Sunday, we went go-karting but, miraculously, none of us were hungover bar Rich - who was also sick - probably because of the several pints of water we forced down ourselves before sleep. It worked, and the karting was great - bar the three-car pile-up that's left me still in pain in the middle of the week - and hugely hugely rampant, as it always is. Fast and full of great racing, as it should be.
Mid afternoon we headed back, very tired, but so, so worth it.
Aberystwyth rocks!
First Thoughts: Uncharted
Sunday, 20 January 2008
So, three days ago was the anniversary of my blog opening. Woo! etc.
Went into Chips yesterday and grabbed Assassin's Creed and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune off the shelf - I fancied some retail therapy, and PS3 games seemed to hit the spot - and then the salesperson decided to put a brand-new copy of Ratchet and Clank: Future Tools of Destruction on the shelf. So that got bought too.
Haven't cracked open the latter yet, and Assassin's Creed is interesting based on my hour of play, but Uncharted is absolutely, mind-blowingly stunning.
You play as the decendent of legendary explorer, pirate and pioneering goatee-owner Sir Frances Drake, Nathan, a decent treasure-hunter in his own right. After leading an exhibition with friend Sullivan and TV show host Elena Fischer to uncover the great man's grave, you stumble onto a cover up: he never died, and his coffin contained a mysterious map that should lead you to the riches of the so-called mythical city of El Dorado.
Except, as in all the best adventure films, there's some other folks on the trail.
This premise launches you into a huge adventure based around sunken cities, lush jungles and lost civilisations - and one of the best will-they won't-they love sub-plots ever seen in games, and one that would work just as well in a film, since that's what Uncharted seems to have been designed as - an interactive film - and it's actually succeeded, which is a rarity when compared with some of the FMV-laden mistakes of the past.
I should mention that the game is utterly, totally captivating, not just because of the Tomb Raider rip-off gameplay that's been refined to the point of perfection, but because of the graphics. It is one of the best looking, if not the best looking game on PS3. It's not entirely realistic, because it's better - taking the Crysis route of upping the ante on everything, so the characters are better looking, the flora and fauna is more colourful, bright and alive than normal and the explosions are a little bigger.
There's also water everywhere, and with good reason - Crash Bandicoot veterans Naughty Dog have made it pretty much perfect. Waterfalls cascade with genuine force, and puddles are splashed out of your way as you run through them. Ripples erupt as you plunge into a lake and swim around. Then, when Nathan hauls himself out of the pool - with gorgeous animation, as everything has been motion-captured to perfection - his clothes are wet. They crease, cling to his body, wrinkle realistically. Spend enough time out of the water and they will, naturally, dry. Get yourself into the sun and they'll dry quicker. Phenomenal.
Walk past brushes and through grass, and the plants will, naturally, be pushed out of your way. The environments themselves are spectacular, dripping atmosphere. It's hard to describe them, to be honest, because they're so full of rich detail that's totally incidental but does wonders for your immersion in the game. It's a linear title - which some people have, ridiculously, used as a criticism - but so was Call of Duty 4. And the Half-Life games. And they've turned out alright.
I'm about half way through now, and I'm spellbound, just wanting to play more. There's a section in the fourth chapter where you emerge from some dense jungle, after a fierce firefight - there's a rocket launcher involved - onto a plateau on a high cliff above the ocean. An angry shout from an enemy distracts you - handily yanking your vision towards a monolithic fortress that you'll shortly begin to journey towards - before being impaled on an ancient booby-trap. It's then that you're freed for a second to take stock of your surroundings. Jungle, cliff. Sky. My god, it's beautiful. Sunset is approaching, and it's casting a golden glow over the dappled movement of the quiet, restful sea below, and it looks utterly real. I could have been on a cliff-top just outside of Aberystwyth, with a little imagination.
And that's just on Standard Definition. I can't wait until I get an HDTV.
Went into Chips yesterday and grabbed Assassin's Creed and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune off the shelf - I fancied some retail therapy, and PS3 games seemed to hit the spot - and then the salesperson decided to put a brand-new copy of Ratchet and Clank: Future Tools of Destruction on the shelf. So that got bought too.
Haven't cracked open the latter yet, and Assassin's Creed is interesting based on my hour of play, but Uncharted is absolutely, mind-blowingly stunning.
You play as the decendent of legendary explorer, pirate and pioneering goatee-owner Sir Frances Drake, Nathan, a decent treasure-hunter in his own right. After leading an exhibition with friend Sullivan and TV show host Elena Fischer to uncover the great man's grave, you stumble onto a cover up: he never died, and his coffin contained a mysterious map that should lead you to the riches of the so-called mythical city of El Dorado.
Except, as in all the best adventure films, there's some other folks on the trail.
This premise launches you into a huge adventure based around sunken cities, lush jungles and lost civilisations - and one of the best will-they won't-they love sub-plots ever seen in games, and one that would work just as well in a film, since that's what Uncharted seems to have been designed as - an interactive film - and it's actually succeeded, which is a rarity when compared with some of the FMV-laden mistakes of the past.
I should mention that the game is utterly, totally captivating, not just because of the Tomb Raider rip-off gameplay that's been refined to the point of perfection, but because of the graphics. It is one of the best looking, if not the best looking game on PS3. It's not entirely realistic, because it's better - taking the Crysis route of upping the ante on everything, so the characters are better looking, the flora and fauna is more colourful, bright and alive than normal and the explosions are a little bigger.
There's also water everywhere, and with good reason - Crash Bandicoot veterans Naughty Dog have made it pretty much perfect. Waterfalls cascade with genuine force, and puddles are splashed out of your way as you run through them. Ripples erupt as you plunge into a lake and swim around. Then, when Nathan hauls himself out of the pool - with gorgeous animation, as everything has been motion-captured to perfection - his clothes are wet. They crease, cling to his body, wrinkle realistically. Spend enough time out of the water and they will, naturally, dry. Get yourself into the sun and they'll dry quicker. Phenomenal.
Walk past brushes and through grass, and the plants will, naturally, be pushed out of your way. The environments themselves are spectacular, dripping atmosphere. It's hard to describe them, to be honest, because they're so full of rich detail that's totally incidental but does wonders for your immersion in the game. It's a linear title - which some people have, ridiculously, used as a criticism - but so was Call of Duty 4. And the Half-Life games. And they've turned out alright.
I'm about half way through now, and I'm spellbound, just wanting to play more. There's a section in the fourth chapter where you emerge from some dense jungle, after a fierce firefight - there's a rocket launcher involved - onto a plateau on a high cliff above the ocean. An angry shout from an enemy distracts you - handily yanking your vision towards a monolithic fortress that you'll shortly begin to journey towards - before being impaled on an ancient booby-trap. It's then that you're freed for a second to take stock of your surroundings. Jungle, cliff. Sky. My god, it's beautiful. Sunset is approaching, and it's casting a golden glow over the dappled movement of the quiet, restful sea below, and it looks utterly real. I could have been on a cliff-top just outside of Aberystwyth, with a little imagination.
And that's just on Standard Definition. I can't wait until I get an HDTV.
Ben Elton - Then and Now
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
It's amazing what 16 years can do. Just ask Ben Elton, for example - as I've just finished reading two of his books, sixteen years apart in publication dates, and the difference is amazing.
Gridlock was Elton's first foray into novels, was written in 1991, and revolves around global warming and climate change. I may not agree with the way this issue is portrayed sometimes in the media today, but there's no denying the forward-thinking plot that Elton put forward - a world clogged by traffic with no end in sight, and a disabled main character who was utterly compelling. It's something you don't often see, and Elton, in some ways, was fifteen years ahead of his time with the issues he tackled, taking on subjects that just seem like they're tacked on for ratings or sales these days.
Despite this, I didn't really enjoy the book. The prose was formulaic, and there wasn't a huge amount of description - which is something that I crave in my books. Grammatically, it seemed to be all over the place, with sentence structure lacking and seemingly basic mistakes being made. I don't know who his editor was.
Leap forward the aforementioned 16 years, and I've finished Elton's latest book, Blind Faith. The plot concerns our society a few decades into the future, after a flood has wiped out most of what is now 'Lake' London, and society has crumbled into a vacuous pit of sex, gossip, blind subservience to a mysterious diety called 'Love' - the modern name for Jesus - and not much else. The story is subversive and follows a disenchanted man called Trafford Sewell as he searches for answers, truth and meaning to his life. It's fantastic, and not just because the grammar problems that seemed to plague Elton in his early career - Popcorn seemed to suffer like this as well - but because he's just developed a huge amount.
The plot is tighter, with more focus given to a smaller group of central characters to concentrate on rather than the constant jumping between peripheral groups of characters in short, sharp chapters. There's still not a huge amount of description, but the world is vivid and alive, full of allusions to things we know and asides that point ot things we recognise from our society that have been magnified by dozens of years of moral decay.
Speaking of pointing things out, Elton has calmed that down, too. I found that in Gridlock he'd step aside from the story when a brief mention of something sparked him off and spend a page or two ranting about a chosen topic. It wouldn't link back to the plot or the characters and felt hugely misplaced. While he still makes points about his moral standing in later books, like Blind Faith, it's with subtlety and is tied into the events of the story, so well sometimes that you don't even notice it happening, certainly not as something that felt so detached from the prose previously.
It's heartening that such an improvement has taken place - taking good books and making them into great ones. Hopefully it'll continue!
Gridlock was Elton's first foray into novels, was written in 1991, and revolves around global warming and climate change. I may not agree with the way this issue is portrayed sometimes in the media today, but there's no denying the forward-thinking plot that Elton put forward - a world clogged by traffic with no end in sight, and a disabled main character who was utterly compelling. It's something you don't often see, and Elton, in some ways, was fifteen years ahead of his time with the issues he tackled, taking on subjects that just seem like they're tacked on for ratings or sales these days.
Despite this, I didn't really enjoy the book. The prose was formulaic, and there wasn't a huge amount of description - which is something that I crave in my books. Grammatically, it seemed to be all over the place, with sentence structure lacking and seemingly basic mistakes being made. I don't know who his editor was.
Leap forward the aforementioned 16 years, and I've finished Elton's latest book, Blind Faith. The plot concerns our society a few decades into the future, after a flood has wiped out most of what is now 'Lake' London, and society has crumbled into a vacuous pit of sex, gossip, blind subservience to a mysterious diety called 'Love' - the modern name for Jesus - and not much else. The story is subversive and follows a disenchanted man called Trafford Sewell as he searches for answers, truth and meaning to his life. It's fantastic, and not just because the grammar problems that seemed to plague Elton in his early career - Popcorn seemed to suffer like this as well - but because he's just developed a huge amount.
The plot is tighter, with more focus given to a smaller group of central characters to concentrate on rather than the constant jumping between peripheral groups of characters in short, sharp chapters. There's still not a huge amount of description, but the world is vivid and alive, full of allusions to things we know and asides that point ot things we recognise from our society that have been magnified by dozens of years of moral decay.
Speaking of pointing things out, Elton has calmed that down, too. I found that in Gridlock he'd step aside from the story when a brief mention of something sparked him off and spend a page or two ranting about a chosen topic. It wouldn't link back to the plot or the characters and felt hugely misplaced. While he still makes points about his moral standing in later books, like Blind Faith, it's with subtlety and is tied into the events of the story, so well sometimes that you don't even notice it happening, certainly not as something that felt so detached from the prose previously.
It's heartening that such an improvement has taken place - taking good books and making them into great ones. Hopefully it'll continue!
First Great Western: A Joke
Sunday, 13 January 2008
'There is flooding between Cardiff and Swindon', said the anonymous announcer as crowds of people tumbled through Paddington Station, gawping aghast at banks of train cancellations. I was on the phone at the time, but stopped to listen to the message over the tannoy.
I don't really understand why flooding quite a way West of Reading meant that services between London and the area around Reading, Maidenhead and Oxford were cancelled or disrupted so badly.
Then again, they are the worst performing train operator in the country, and I'm not surprised.
The Paddington situation resulted in three train's worth of people cramming onto a single service: the stopping one that halted at, I think, every station in Southern England. People were left on the platform at Paddington because no more passengers could cram onto the train - I was on it, and we couldn't move more than an inch. It can't have been safe or legal. This is the train that runs on the same line as the previously cancelled service, so I don't know why that happened.
It was especially annoying, because that night my family and all the grandparents were going out for a meal to celebrate my brother getting an offer from Oxford University to study Biology. Obviously, we're all hugely proud of him, and I was very angry about almost being late because of a train cancelled for, seemingly, no reason.
Then again, I've come to expect it: their pledge to have more fast services at peak times into and out of Paddington is something of a joke; there's been no more services added in the evenings, and the punctual 8:44 train in the morning - that often made the journey in less than 30 minutes - has been replaced by an early train, at 8:25, that takes about 40 minutes, and an 8:55 service that takes at least that long - and often makes me late for work. So I take the early one, which gets me to work early - which I hugely prefer to being late - when the 8:44 was perfect. Useless company.
The meal was great, when I got there. Breaded Camembert to start, followed by Steak in a Peppercorn sauce with home-made chips. Amazing meal, lots of fun, but I was too full for a pudding, unfortunately. It's making me hungry just writing about it.
Had two laptops home this weekend as I'm reviewing them for Computer Buyer magazine - another published by Dennis. I won't say anything about them other than this: don't buy an Evesham. Oh well.
Back to work tomorrow - I'm moving upstairs along with Dave and Sasha, as we've been stuck in the labs while some re-organisation has been going on. Looking forward to it hugely, as I'll get my own desk and, perhaps, a computer, but also have some nerves.
Hopefully it'll be fine, like many of the things I get nervous about turn out to be.
I don't really understand why flooding quite a way West of Reading meant that services between London and the area around Reading, Maidenhead and Oxford were cancelled or disrupted so badly.
Then again, they are the worst performing train operator in the country, and I'm not surprised.
The Paddington situation resulted in three train's worth of people cramming onto a single service: the stopping one that halted at, I think, every station in Southern England. People were left on the platform at Paddington because no more passengers could cram onto the train - I was on it, and we couldn't move more than an inch. It can't have been safe or legal. This is the train that runs on the same line as the previously cancelled service, so I don't know why that happened.
It was especially annoying, because that night my family and all the grandparents were going out for a meal to celebrate my brother getting an offer from Oxford University to study Biology. Obviously, we're all hugely proud of him, and I was very angry about almost being late because of a train cancelled for, seemingly, no reason.
Then again, I've come to expect it: their pledge to have more fast services at peak times into and out of Paddington is something of a joke; there's been no more services added in the evenings, and the punctual 8:44 train in the morning - that often made the journey in less than 30 minutes - has been replaced by an early train, at 8:25, that takes about 40 minutes, and an 8:55 service that takes at least that long - and often makes me late for work. So I take the early one, which gets me to work early - which I hugely prefer to being late - when the 8:44 was perfect. Useless company.
The meal was great, when I got there. Breaded Camembert to start, followed by Steak in a Peppercorn sauce with home-made chips. Amazing meal, lots of fun, but I was too full for a pudding, unfortunately. It's making me hungry just writing about it.
Had two laptops home this weekend as I'm reviewing them for Computer Buyer magazine - another published by Dennis. I won't say anything about them other than this: don't buy an Evesham. Oh well.
Back to work tomorrow - I'm moving upstairs along with Dave and Sasha, as we've been stuck in the labs while some re-organisation has been going on. Looking forward to it hugely, as I'll get my own desk and, perhaps, a computer, but also have some nerves.
Hopefully it'll be fine, like many of the things I get nervous about turn out to be.
Maidenhead and other things...
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Drinking tea in bed and on the computer at the same time. Suddenly, I've become a fan of the laptop almost as much as I'm a fan of the desktop, with portability and comfort replacing the ability to tinker around inside your PC and upgrade it.
And, most likely, break things.
Finally got my computer working again. Tried a re-install with Windows XP Professional edition, which made my computer hideously slow. Then attempted to use the Mesh Recovery CD, which was equipped with XP Home Edition, and my computer was back to normal again. Then I tried to plug the graphics card back in, and the whole machine wouldn't turn on. That seemed to fix itself ten minutes later, and then everything seemed like it was ready to behave itself.
I also think I got all my files, which is good - all except the database to my epic Maidenhead United Football Manager 07 game that's got around 250 hours on it. I've yet to get around investigating what I rescued and what I didn't, but I really hope I haven't lost that game altogether. Saying that, I'm playing the beta of Football Manager Live at the moment and it really is addictive: it's much more fun beating the French when you know there's a garlic-toating surrender-monkey on the other end of the internet feeling the pain of every shot.
Talking of Maidenhead, we've just got back from there. They drew 0-0 with Weston-super-Mare, and it was a pretty good game despite the lack of goals: quick, end to end football with a few flashpoints surrounding bad tackles and horrificing officiating, with one of the linesmen particularly bad. Several times the ball went out for a throw, for both sides, and he just didn't give the throw.
They even had bacon for the Magpie Burgers this time around, so it was a definite result. Except for the score, anwyay.
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
So, 2008. Welcome, and I hope you're as good - or, at least as memorable, for plenty of reasons, as 2007. And I hope that everyone reading this (yes, I'm implying that people do read this, but I like to try and start the year with some optimism) had a great year, a great New Year, and will have a fantastic next 12 months.
I graduated, for instance, and got a fantastic job. And I've been learning how to drive. So it's all good.
As for the New Year period, it's not been so great. My computer has broken - thank you, Windows XP Service Pack 3 release candidate - and I'm searching around for potential fixes and solutions at the moment. There's a few symptoms matched by people, and a few potential solutions, too. Some people, though, say that the only way to fix the problem is to do a complete re-format and re-installation of Windows onto the hard drive, which would lose all my files. And since this is my computer with everything on it since I bought it when I started uni, that would be pretty bad.
Not so bad in a losing things vital to my job sense, as everything I've done work-related on there I've emailed to people so Google will have it. But there's photographs, music, writing, Uni coursework, music, saved games and plenty else on there. Some people are suggesting changing settings in the BIOS, others think that Windows Repair will do the trick, so I'll garnish opinion from people at work and Mesh technical support - there's a hugely helpful chap called Davey on the official forms who appears to know everything in the world.
If worse comes to worse, I'll take the hard drive out and glean important files onto my mp3 player or something. So hopefully that situation will work out eventually.
All I wanted was to play Team Fortress 2.
I graduated, for instance, and got a fantastic job. And I've been learning how to drive. So it's all good.
As for the New Year period, it's not been so great. My computer has broken - thank you, Windows XP Service Pack 3 release candidate - and I'm searching around for potential fixes and solutions at the moment. There's a few symptoms matched by people, and a few potential solutions, too. Some people, though, say that the only way to fix the problem is to do a complete re-format and re-installation of Windows onto the hard drive, which would lose all my files. And since this is my computer with everything on it since I bought it when I started uni, that would be pretty bad.
Not so bad in a losing things vital to my job sense, as everything I've done work-related on there I've emailed to people so Google will have it. But there's photographs, music, writing, Uni coursework, music, saved games and plenty else on there. Some people are suggesting changing settings in the BIOS, others think that Windows Repair will do the trick, so I'll garnish opinion from people at work and Mesh technical support - there's a hugely helpful chap called Davey on the official forms who appears to know everything in the world.
If worse comes to worse, I'll take the hard drive out and glean important files onto my mp3 player or something. So hopefully that situation will work out eventually.
All I wanted was to play Team Fortress 2.
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