Today's Time Waster

This isnt a post in itself, but i will try and keep all those bored people at work entertained with something as often as i can.

We all know that physics games are all the rage lately, creeping into the gaming scene with stuff like Little Big Planet on the ps3, and the Iphone has a ridiculous amount of applications too.

This is one we can all enjoy - or rather wreck our brains trying to get through.

Please enjoy Splitter!

farewell Free Radical

This whole economy crisis bullshit, is all due to the oil companies going a step too far with their manipulation of oil prices. And as much as i enjoy the fact that there are no more stupid loan or credit card adverts on British TV, there are also some downsides.

I learnt today that a game company called Free Radical, that gave us Timesplitters and Haze amongst other games, seems to have shut down :(

As a gamer, i was actually glad to see that since people arent going out as much to spend on booze, more money was spent on video games, which is great for the industry! But the smaller companies are still suffering, and its these independant companies that give a breath of fresh air to the games market (just before EA or Activision buy them out anyway).

Well, long live the memories of Timesplitters on the ps2, and good luck to all employees.

/salute

Good morning

I'm wet from the knees down, although my feet are dry. I dont mind the rain while riding the bike to work, its just the bloody huge puddles and rivers we end up getting on our shitty oh so shitty roads.

Slightly hungover, feeling stuffed from all of last night's food, but yet, feeling a bit hungry. Its thursday morning, and i really should go buy my secret santa this afternoon after work!

Outside the rain has started coming down harder, emails are accumulating in Outlook.... i should get to work

Of keyboard turners and not

I recently found out that i am getting a slight upgrade in my hardware for christmas!! wohoo!

WARNING: This article is full of gamer talk!

A darling sweet cuddly and slightly pink-ish female friend of mine, that also smells rather nice, and also plays MMO's, is buying me a brand spankin new Nostromo N52te! Wohoo!

Just to set the record straight about this bit of hardware. As i have been playing WoW for a while, and i am the one up front tanking with my face (feral FTW!), i kind of start noticing what experienced gamers call "keyboard turners".

These people are the ones that take a while to react. They stand still and stare for a couple of seconds, just wondering what the hell is happening around them, trying to figure out what they should do next and where they should be standing etc etc. (some of them would be playing PS3, picking their nose, or masturbating vigorously to the thought of epic lewt.. and other stuff. you get the picture, no?)

Now, i'd hate to be the one they call "keyboard turner", coz i take pride in fast and effective movements keeping everything tight and deadly. And this little device makes it all happen feckin fast! /flex

If you play an MMO or any pc game that requires you whacking a lot of buttons pretty quick, i really suggest you get one of these babies. I had the N50, and upgraded to the N52 a while ago. Both were great little devices, although the N50 just didnt have enough keys for my liking. I just cannot play without it now! 

Get one!

Rights, or no rights?

This is something i tend to be very vocal about. And i hate it even more, when i am the one being discriminated against.

I live on this tiny beautiful island in the Mediterranean. Well, it would have been a lot nicer if there was any planning involved... ever, but lets leave that for another day. As i was saying, tiny beautiful island in the Mediterranean. We recently became a member of the European Union, after a lengthy referendum / election process that was quite an important move for us.

Well, now we are European. We have the number plates on our cars saying we are, we have the little designs and symbols on our passports and ID's, and we even adopted the Euro (facepalm).

So, all in all, we should be able to move freely, buy anything freely and be treated as all other europeans.... right?

Wrong!  (BTW, this, sparked off from some comments people left me on skype after reading the iphone vs blackberry post)

 So lets take the Iphone & Itunes Store for example, along with the Playstation 3, and many many other websites/services that are fully available to other european countries, except ours. And i'm not even going to mention the ridiculous taxes on airports, car imports and all the other stuff, i'm just gonna stick to these simple things.

Why is it, that we can call ourselves Europeans, have the passport and number plates confirm it, but when it comes to actually being able to purchase or make use of specific services, we are still refused? Its funny how when you actually go ask Vodafone why we arent eligable to use the Itunes Store, in spite of the Iphone being sold here, they smile at us, and shrug, and walk away. Its like they are advertising this amazing car that can drive immaculately over any surface, and can make you coffee and massage your fat ass while you're being driven around on any said surface... but unfortunatley, no fuel for it can be found.

I mean seriously... WTF?

And same thing when you ask the offical Playstation importer here, they just cannot give a straight answer! Its just bloody ridiculous!

And what makes me burn and bubble inside... is when people who live here, who are native to this small tiny beautiful island... dont do anything about it. They take it for granted, laugh, pass some half witted comment about how everything here is never right, and yet, they refuse to do anything about it.

GET UP PEOPLE! Look around, and start frickin thinking!

Blackberry or Iphone?

So i just got a call from a friend, and he goes "Blackberry or Iphone?". Yes, unfortunately i am cursed with the technological savviness that most people in the world today seem to lack, thus, my friends, and sometimes people i dont like.... call me when they need advice with techy stuff... or what pretty phone to get.

I also, have a love-hate relationship with an Iphone. My place of work decided that it was a good idea to get the IT team an iphone each so that we can check our emails when we are not at the office..... (nothing a windows mobile phone cant do.. but anyway...)

So the Iphone, is, a nice phone. Its hard to sum up the full potential and screw ups of this little machine, but the my main thoughts are the following:

Its pretty (i chose the word "pretty" very carefully)

It promises a lot, but in reality, fails to deliver

It has an utterly crap battery - seriously

The multitouch screen... is amazing. I wish all my devices with a screen, had the iphone screen.

and something i really must point out, that if you want to do something on the iphone, you must check and see if Steve Jobbs will let you do it, and to see how he wants you to do it.

This list is endless, as everyday i find something else i love or hate about it. I'm stopping here for now.

As for the blackberry... unfortunately, i havent used it yet! So if anyone has any opinions about it... pls share! :)

A new dawn

Well, not really. But i think its a nice title for the first post of my blog.  I've been meaning to start this for a while, but as many other things took precedence in life, this project always got shelved.

Well here i am on the last couple of weeks of the year, wondering if next year will be better. Now, about this, i dont know if its just me being a pessimistic cynical bastard (as you will learn over time if i continue blogging), but how many times have you looked back and said "Wow! (no... not the game) this has been a bloody brilliant year!" and take a deep satisfying breath of warm content. 

So next year is on the horizon, and all is shit as usual. No plans have been fulfilled, delays cropped up everywhere, and i'm broke.. again. Dont get me wrong, there were some great individual moments throughout the year that made me smile....  but all in all, it was shit. I'm not being grumpy and moany about it either, its more of a "shrug and keep walking" type of emotion. You know.. nothing new.

But this blog.... THIS BLOG is going to save the world. This is going to be my wayt of releasing all the conspiracy theories on you unsuspecting public! *evil laugh in background*

This, is my salvation.