I died a little more inside today... a blog by Dave

Delmorpha.com live now!

2007-05-30T07:55:00.000Z

Delmorpha.com is officially live now! It will be the home of everything thanks to 250GB of data... if you need anything online (like your own Flickr style photo storage etc etc) just give me a shout.. i have plenty of bandwidth and you can even have your own sub domain!

I will be dual posting for the next few weeks until everything is designed nicely and all my content is over there but update your bookmarks as it will be my only blog soon.

Who the fuck are these douchebags?

2007-05-28T15:49:00.000Z

"Look at me.... I'm a giant cock!"

I fucking hate stock photographs. One thing guaranteed to make me close your website down and to then go to a competitor, even if they have higher prices, are stock photographs... especially when the models look like these fuck nuggets...

How do these people live with themselves... I mean, photos like this are like a permanent bad hair cut cast into cyberspace for everyone to see... take the guy on the left for example. This is what will happen when his friends see it.

"Isn't that Peter..??"
"Yeah... what the fuck is he doing?!"
"I don't actually know... it looks like he's sucking off a dog, or perhaps even a horse... its definitely a large mammal of some description..."
"Did you know he did animal porn?"
"No.."
"I bet you did... "
"...I didn't... honest.."
"Lets avoid him in any case.. what a fucking freak.."

Seriously... have some self respect... stock models unite and just say no to stupid fucking poses!

Moving to my own webserver soon... watch this space...

2007-05-28T13:48:00.000Z

I've been publishing online for over 10 years now and have been to and fro with my own websites and web servers, whether they were crappy 50mb web spaces, blog spaces or my own Linux ones, I've always been tinkling with online content. Having access to my own has usually been relative to my job/financial situation and once I move on, nothing ties me back to a definitive location. I feel now I need my own again.. I mean I have 2 blogs that need backing up ASAP, and a laundry list of domains I've registered that need content, and I also need to start work on a website for my aunts shop, so a $7 a month webserver with a few terabytes of bandwidth is definitely needed, and needed soon.

I will be posting at delmorpha.com once my domain registration goes through and double posting here until the new server is working correctly and looks good - this is more of a heads up that I will be moving onwards and upwards in the near future, and to keep your eyes peeled for an all new site... at least this way you'll have one less word to type when visiting me...

Winning Eleven X Achievement Translation - ヨーロッパチャンピオンシップ優勝

2007-05-28T12:49:00.000Z

There is one difference in the achievements to Winning Eleven X (Japanese/Asian) and Winning Eleven 2007 (US Version) on the 360. The American version has "The Puma Cup" whereas the Japanese version has ヨーロッパチャンピオンシップ優勝

A Google translation of ヨーロッパチャンピオンシップ優勝 is "European Championship Victory" and I assume you do this in the Master League. I am missing a few of the WEX achievements at the moment and this was the only one I didn't know what it was... once I get online at my new place I will be giving anyone who wants some a run for their money on XBL, and hopefully gaining some more achievement points!!

My Xbox profile is on the right, if you want a whooping, just add me to your friends list and I'll see you online!

A New Colour of Wiimote Strap - Now in Navy Blue!

2007-05-27T17:30:00.000Z

I recently saw someone who had used Rit Dye on their Wiimote strap on Kotaku and thought it looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a whirl myself today. I have to say it looks frigging awesome and got me to thinking about doing it on the actual joypad, both a Wiimote, and a Xbox 360 controller!

As you can see from my pictures, the dyeing works really well, and gets into the plastic brilliantly leaving no streaking or banding. It really could be an official Nintendo Navy Strap... you wouldn't be able to notice.

I have been told explicitly from the eBayer we bought the Rit dye from that you are best using US branded Rit dye as it is much stronger than the European equivalent, especially when it comes to fixing. As its plastic too, I would definitely recommend a US Rit dye (thats what I used) as the results are superb!

As it worked so well, I was intrigued as to what else would dye perfectly. My first thoughts are Amys Xbox 360 joypad.. which is going to look amazing in Rose Pink. Unfortuately Microsoft were kind enough to use pinned Torx 8 screws in the pad, so I need to send off for the screwdriver head before I can start on that. Next is the Wiimote itself, but again custom tri-directional screws stop short term tampering, until I get that screwdriver in the post too.

Both the Wiimote and the wireless 360 pad are going to look awesome in pink when I can get them apart, and both should be relatively easy to do. The joypads both lend themselves to a pastel pink given the things I wont be dyeing (i.e. the bumpers and grey dpad/analogue sticks on the 360 and the buttons on the Wiimote).

What this example is one of the cover bays cut in half with a hacksaw. I dyed one half in my boil bath and used the other half to stir and flip it. The results are astounding.

The dyed side is superbly rich in colour and the finish is consistence and streak free. The dye doesnt come off the plastic when i rub it with my finger, so long term use in gaming should be fine. Dying a full joypad with Rit dye is going to be the dogs bollocks! Watch this space for my how to guide on how to change the colour of your Wiimote or your Xbox 360 joypad coming soon!

"Advanced" Networking on the Wii - Fixing Error Code 52130, 52131 or 52132

2007-05-26T14:49:00.000Z

I've had my Wii since December 2006 and to be quite honest its had at most, 20 hours of on time. Considering in the time since Christmas I've spent 60 hours on Oblivion on the 360, the New Nintendo Super Console hasn't had much action at all from what you might call a hardened gamer.

Today I'm on "Leisure Support" from home, which gives me a chance to catch up with all those nerdy jobs I never get around to, like installing this new PCI SATA controller in my PC to boost me up to half a terabyte of storage, and sorting out the WiFi issues I was having with my Wii.

To be honest, the Wii online for me is a bit like having internet access on the phone. Its a bit of a gimmick every now and then, and more frustrating because of the crappy 480p screen on my 1080i capable TV. Whats even more frustrating is I can't even use the Wii as a Wireless Pandora box thanks to Opera not utilising the limited amount of memory on the ~~Gamecube~~ Wii well enough, but somehow it manages to play YouTube content.. oh and Last.FM seems to work too.

In any case,wireless on my Wii has never really worked properly, probably due to the advanced setup of my network, or so I assumed until today. I've updated once or twice but its been insanely slow when it has worked and rather than Google for the problem, I've left it as I was really that bothered in the first place. The Virtual Console being the CashCow/joke it is can fuck right off and everything else online-wise is just shit.

I run a Linksys WRT54G with the custom DD-WRT firmware on it.. and what an excellent piece of firmware it is too. My wireless network is setup with Mac filtering and encrypted with WPA and I assumed thats what the Wii was having trouble with... that or the fact I only have about 40% signal strength according to the DD-WRT for the Wii when I tried to fix by assigning an IP address with DHCP.

What I've found worked with the Wii was for me to switch the router to channel 1 and to change the DNS to an external range... *shrugs* .... god knows why it worked but it did... maybe the ~~Gamecube~~ Wii has issues with non-unique channels on a network and doesn't like to query an internal DNS..who knows..

If you are having problems with the ~~Gamecube~~ Wii online with the error codes 52130, 52131 or 52132, you will already know the Nintendo official explanation is practically useless telling you to "ensure your wireless interference is not causing the problem". How exactly could you do that without some advanced tools for detecting the signal strength or noise levels, things that most standard router firmwares don't actually have... and the fucking ~~Gamecube~~ Wii certainly doesn't have anything other than that shitty error code!

The real solution is to try and change you wireless channel to either 1 or 11. Either of those channels should solve any potential interfering external networks as they are solus wireless channels. For some reason my ~~Gamecube~~ Wii spits the dummy out on channel 6.

I also changed my DNS to an external DNS like 62.69.64.134/135 for example. As I did this at the same time as changing the wireless channel Im not 100% sure which solved it! :) (Im also too lazy to delete one and see it was the other that did it...)

Finally, from a network admin point of view, I would also recommend using static IP addresses, turning off DHCP on your router, setting up Mac filtering and limiting the amount of connections you can have at once to the amount of wireless applications your household needs.

This is just good advice for wireless networking security in general and is infinitely better advice than just turning on encryption and thinking you're secure.. and if you're only using WEP then god help you!

Consider this wireless networking analogy. You have a nightclub with protection to get in. WEP Encryption is like having bouncers on the door that will let you in by SHOUTING the password at them... the trouble is it makes it pretty easy for anyone listening to hear the password, say it to the bouncers and get in.

By turning off DHCP, setting up MAC filtering and limiting the amount of connections you can have, your bouncer has now boosted his IQ by 30 points, putting him just over the "retard" boundary! He now checks peoples membership to the club (MAC filtering), he won't just give out free membership to hot sluts who just asked for a membership card (DHCP) and even knows when the club is full!

You still might want to have a club password that can be either SHOUTED (WEP) or whispered (WPA, WPA2 or ideally WPA2 with RADIUS detection) for that added protection, but if we can limit who we actually let in too, rather than letting any old fool in with the right password, were going to have a much safer nightclub. Encryption will also black out the windows so no-one can see how bad your dancing is from the outside... you can hopefully now see why you might want to learn a bit more about wireless networking, and consider changing your password thats still set to "password"..

The MAC address of the ~~Gamecube~~ Wii can be found in Wii Settings -> Internet -> Console Information.

My blog looks great in Vista................ I'm such a whore... :(

2007-05-25T19:33:00.000Z

Thats right, I'm triple booting my laptop between XP Pro, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (which I'm still having issues with on this Aspire 1600) and now............ Vista Business Edition. The worst part; I actually kind of like Vista...

The first obvious point is its quite pretty as far as a Windows OS goes, and once you get most of the grubby things turned off and classic views up, it actually looks a lot nicer and is much easier on the eye that the "My First Operating System" that was XPs interface. I still use Classic View in XP to this day, but I can see me leaving Vista View on and actually missing it when I have to boot into XP.

My 4 year old laptop has no issues with its hardware either. Old XP driver worked for the SigmaTel soundcard and the Agere modem which weren't installed by Vista, but even the Mobility Radeon 9000 drivers were installed and working correctly.. something XP didn't even do.

The install wasn't without its hiccups however. I recently lost one of my RAM modules to Corruption and have been running the laptop with one 256mb DDR module. After installing my Corporate version of XP from my offices Action Pack, I grabbed the Vista upgrade DVD and stuck it in. It wouldn't even consider my machine as it had less than 512mb of RAM. This pissed me off given one of the better features Vista can do is to use a pen drive as a cheap alternative to RAM/accessing a slower HDD. Microsoft want people to upgrade their RAM as well as buy XP "Service Pack 3" apparently...

I mean what a fucking stupid test in the first place. My laptop has a 2.8Ghz processor and a Radeon 9000 graphics cards, which even by todays standards is a pretty good spec for a laptop. Its a bit short on memory because of the fault, but why should the base install of an Operating System give a shit that I don't have 512mb of RAM? I'm the one who chooses to run the programs in its environment and I'm happy for them to run from the page file albeit ~~a little~~ a lot slower. It quite literally wouldn't let me continue... I had to borrow a 512mb stick from works storage before I could upgrade to Vista! I then took that out and Vista still continued to run fine with 256mb.

The install took forever... almost 2 hours. If we have to continue forward with Vista in the future for clients, the first machine install before creating an image to build with is going to be like pulling teeth. Its not even interesting nor does it relay helpful information to let you know whats going on. There were two occasions I actually thought the machine had crashed, only for it to jump back to life again moments later to the screen it was previously on.

Another thing is its fucking huge... like 7 gigabytes huge. I can accept a good Linux distribution like Fedora Core being around the 4 or 5 gigabyte install range knowing that practically every application I will ever need are installed from the get go, including OpenOffice, programming suites, photo editing tools, movie and music players, games, hell.. even a 3D modelling package or two, but seriously... Vistas install is around the 6 gigabyte mark and is just an Operating System shell - it even commented on the partition I was using wasn't big enough - it recommended I used another partition as my 8000mb partition was 500mb too small for optimal performance, but unlike the start of the install, it didn't throw its rattle out of the pram and allowed me to continue.

Some people might turn around and say "big whoop, I have nearly a terabyte of HD space, 6 gig is nothing" but when a clean install really doesn't have that much in the way of extra software, it makes me paranoid about all the extra crap thats buried deep in this Titanic. I remember thinking that 200mb for Windows 98 was a bit big and was forever finding ways to get rid of unneeded files back in the day. Granted that PC only had a 2GB hard drive, but still.... 6 gigabytes is taking the piss...

We'll see how Vista goes with it for a little while... I haven't tried to do anything interesting with it yet, like run a DivX movie, MP3s I may or may not legitimately have acquired or come across any of the other DRM demons I know they've built into it... but I'm sure I will, and when I do I'll be straight back to dual booting!

Scum of the Earth - Harvesting Email Addresses for profit

2007-05-24T14:55:00.000Z

If you ever believed that some people are pure evil shat from the very depths of Hell then I had proof of it today.

Chain emails are a regular thing in my mailbox, and being a bit more IT savvy than most I just ignore them. I'll take the gypsy curses, the bad luck and risk not getting my millions from the widow of a Nigerian Queen to protect the email addresses of my nearest and dearest. Today I received one that turned even my own stomach to the levels of depravity some people will go to make money.

The email was entitled FW: Help find Madeleine McCann and entailed the following heart felt story :

PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE AND FORWARD IT TO EVERYBODY IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK...

Please read this message and pass it on!!!!!!!!!

As you are aware my niece, Madeleine, is still missing and I am asking everyone I know to send this as a chain letter i.e. you send it to everyone you know and ask them to do the same, as the story is only being covered in Britain, Eire and Portugal. We don't believe that she is in Portugal anymore and need to get her picture and the story across Europe as quickly as possible. Suggestions are welcome.

Phil McCann

Unfortunately this is not an attempt to find this poor little girl, it is a scam being ran by some very sick individuals, using other peoples pain and the face of something very much in the public eye to harvest email addresses. If there was ever a time to wake up and stop forwarding this kind of email, now was it..

Why is this a scam?

Well for one, if suggestions are welcome, why are there no contact details on the email. They spent the time to get a picture, but Phil McCann who is so desperate for suggestions according to this email forgot to add his own email address and telephone number. There isn't even any of the obvious places to start, including the obvious Portuguese Police/MET Office/Home Office/Child Protection Agencies. There is even an official Find Madeleine website at http://www.findmadeleine.com/ which these douche bags aren't even good enough to make reference to.

This is tried and trusted trick employed by 419 scammers who start most of the shite forwards everyone has seen. The email I received probably had 500 email addresses in it and although most email forwards stay between a "5 hop" social group, eventually someone unwittingly forwards it to a "friend" from MySpace/Yahoo/etc who is actually a 419 scammer in disguise. They then have a nice catch of how ever many hops it took to reach them with X^Y email addresses in and before you can say "No thank you", you are already wanting to buy viagra, inherit Brewsters Millions or you've won the Spanish Lottery and forgot to claim.

The sad truth is some scumfuck is going to make money out of that email, money that most definitely won't go to help find that little girl.

What can I do to stop this?

One thing - STOP FORWARDING EMAILS LIKE THIS! Use a bit of common sense when forwarding anything, including jokes, chain letters, etc. If you are going to forward emails, make sure you actually know every person on your mailing list.

In this case, yes, we all want to find this little girl alive and well (as well as reprimand the parents for their own idiocy, but lets find her before we lay into them..) but it only takes one person to forward that email to a 419 scammer and you've unwittingly exposed a huge quantity of people to potentially get ripped off.

Scam baiting is a technique where the person who was originally sent the email reverses the scam on the send and tries to goad the scammer into wasting their time and sometimes even their money with the false promise of a big return.. in exactly the same way the scam artist was trying it on with them. The law is a bit ropey when it comes to this and it is potentially dangerous so if you are thinking of "prison justice" for these scumbags, you didn't get the idea from me...

Further Reading

For more information about 419 scammers and scambaiting visit http://www.419eater.com and Shiver MeTimbers will give you the lowdown on how they work, and how you can get back at them. I will reiterate his warning that if you're thinking of going after these fuckers, be very, very careful. As my post shows, they really are the Scum of the Earth.

500 Words really isn't enough for me to moan in - BBC News Have Your Say Comments

2007-05-22T12:05:00.000Z

I still like to have my say so I thought I would share just in case you don't spot my comments on the BBC! 500 words really isn't enough for me and I had to reword what little I could fit in several times, but here it is!

Do you support road pricing trial plans?

Are pay-as-you-drive road charges the right way to tackle congestion?

It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is an attempt to generate more cash to plough into something that needs addressing at the source rather than at our pockets.

Tighter controls need to be placed on how Road Tax is used to maintain our roads and regulate the work being done thus saving time and money. Roadworks companies make a killing at the tax payers expense and we do nothing to address that. I can't remember the last time I drove through road works and saw some work being done.

As it currently stands at 5000 votes, 80% of which do not support the governments bid to introduce PAYG road pricing. There was a major petition recently regarding it on the official government website too that received ~~over 5 million~~ 1.8 Million registered votes, but the government continues to put its fingers in its ears and go "la la la la".

Seriously, when will they listen (never) - road tax goes up and up every year and the problems get worse and worse. As one commenter says "The proposal has nothing to do with tackling congestion - it's just another tax." and this is damn right.

That and the increasing Nanny State that is the UK - the government would have little black boxes in every car in the country tracking your every move. Cross reference that with the DVLA database, biometric data on your passport/driving licence and that seems like the perfect surveillance tool. All we need now is the cameras in every room telling us not to do that when were scratching ourselves...and even thats almost in place in some towns...

The Axis of Evil - North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Tesco...

2007-05-17T11:48:00.000Z

Having been downgraded from the Blackpool Tesco Mega Store to a local Tesco Express for my lunchbreak I was expecting to have a little less choice. What I wasn't expecting was a totalitarian choice of items...

I recall watching a documentary recently that stated Tescos market share as a supermarket was over 50% and fast approaching "monopoly" status due to their constant expansions and blocking of other retailers building on sites that might otherwise be good for a supermarket by buying land at overinflated prices and simply sitting on it.

As my more active blog readers will know, I'm not a fan of Tescos own brand Cup a Soup to say the least.. and what did I find was the only choice of cup form soup. Tescos. So this got me interested in product placement in these smaller "express" shops that are replacing the smaller outlets in towns and villages.

Tescos can obviously afford to run small losses in these shops in view of the bigger picture. I just worry were inadvertently becoming slaves to Tescos and what they deem it acceptable to buy. As a society though, we will only have ourselves to blame if it does happy.. no one cares about anything other than price when it comes to consumables, without a single thought to where its come from or how its been produced.

In any case, I had a shufftey round Tescos Express to see if there were any other totalitarian style buys and they do it with a lot of the little non-essentials that you might want and not be so disappointed they don't have your favourite brand. It probably would've gone under the radar if it hadn't have been that god awful soup...

This probably goes a big way to help control the losses they must be making in these smaller outlets.. Tescos own brand products (besides the Finest range) are hardly renown for their quality and they're usually only slightly cheaper than the products their attempting to clone.

So George, if you do happen to stumble across my blog when you're reading, do me a favour... next time you're referring to the "Axis of Evil", stick Tesco in there too when you're reaming off the nations you probably shouldn't be pissing off... when you're impeached/voted out/have to step down, it might be one of the only things you will be looked back upon to have got right...

Delving inside the Madness - A little insight... part 1 : Kimo and Diggs

2007-05-16T21:15:00.000Z

For those living room psychologists out there that might want to know where some of my anger/crazy comes from I just thought I'd start sharing some of my childhood memories with the world. I'm going to start with a couple of young boys known as "Kimo and Diggs".

High school was a bit of a mixed bag for me; I went from being Head Boy at my Primary School to losing all respect for those that strive for roles like that, seeing the secret handshakes, hidden winks and favours that are so true in Life and hated the fact they existed. Primary School was how things should be, best man for the job and all that, High School inadvertently introduced me to the fact that if Mummy or Daddy was on the PTA or some other bullshit extra curricular activities, you found it much easier to schmooze into roles of "power". It only takes a few of these instances to knock any energy out of an intelligent kid and jade their perspective on life forever...lol...

In any case, this relates to "Kimo and Diggs" how I hear you ask. Well, Kimo was my nickname from 13 to 16 due to when I shaved my head and I looked like a kid going through chemotherapy. So I've never been able to spell, sue me..

"Diggs" is my good buddy Phil, so names because of his Butthead style sideburns, or "diggers" as they we otherwise know. Phil is some of the reason I got through high school alive, and I'm sure he'd be happy for me say this was true vice-versa.

The answer to"why" is because when predators have the potential to surround little fish the best form is to stick together and deflect oncoming attacks onto others. I'm not necessarily proud of this, but it was a survival technique we felt we had to use.

Kimo and Diggs were the foundation of my first band called "The Stars Collection". We put on little skits in our Religious Education class "mocking the afflicted" (one of our motto's) and sung the songs we wrote to the music of cheesy pop music like Dancing Queen by Abba. We even had a miniature keyboard we used for a backing beat (we were poor kids after all and couldn't afford the luxuries of pianos or music lessons).

We had various "victims" we tortured with our humiliating songs have probably been scarred for life. Martin Kendrick, the poor guy, probably committed suicide long ago - a boy with perpetual bad luck and really did look like an extra from Space Precinct. His eyes were so far apart they may as well have been on the side of his head, and was nicknamed "Guppy" accordingly. He bought a brand new Manchester United football shirt with Mark Hughes 10 on the back, only for the very next day for him to announce he had been sold to another club. A boy we wrote a song called "Chernobyl Disaster" about his grotesque appearance.

Tim Smith was also another victim of our mental abuse. This boy told so many lies to make himself look cooler than he actually was, we didn't know where the truth began and the bullshit ended. We wrote "Homeless Queen" along to the aforementioned Abba track with the lyrics "Homeless Queen, busking and playing his tambourine - You will laugh, he will cry, spending the rest of his life..in a box... do do dooo... he is the Homeless Queen". I'm sure there was a track about him giving head for crack but time has hazed my memory a little... that and head butting Sonic Blastman one too many times and having the ability to roll "cigarettes" involving more than one rizla and cone....

Tims story is also funny as he was the school bitch and got picked on even by the nerds and geeks. I don't remember him ever getting a lunch at school.. he was involved in what can only be described as a human fox hunt and he was the fox. We had something called a "bag job" at school where you would fill you bag with the heaviest books you could find and then beat the shit out of someone with it. Tim and his daily fox hunt experience involved a field full of kids taking it in turns to chase him to the point of exhaustion, then upon his collapse, the whole field would pile in to "bag job" Tim. You think after a few times he would just give in straight away, take the beating and just get on with his lunch, but no, Tim ran.. well, hobbled... one of his nicknames was "Rickets" due to his comical inability to run.

Kids have it tough at high school and I was no different.. I just dealt with it in a slightly different way to most by making a show of things to deflect the bullying. The Stars Collection was Phil and my first accepted fan base and people actually liked what we did. We were funny and weird and in a time of Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy and all the other weird and funny things MTV were doing at the time and people liked it. We were still outsiders but people knew who were were and to leave us alone or feel the wrath of our songs that the rest of class would be singing about them...

So thats that... we were the original Tenacious D... *rock* :)

Site of the Week - Cuntscorner.com : A followup to "I Hate Natasha Bedingfield" tribute

2007-05-16T20:27:00.000Z

Knowing the time I spent letting the world know how much I hate Natasha Bedingfield, I felt I was obliged to add her to this site when I stumbled upon it this evening from a link on UKResistance.

Just in case your internet has some kind of filtering on it to block certain rude URLs, here is the rudeness I added to the site.

Stalking, crazy, noise polluting cunt guilty of crimes against music. If the recent release of "I want to have your babies" isn't enough, her horselike appearance makes her a definite cunt. Horses are cunts too, but not quite as much as old Natasha..

There are probably thousands upon thousands of people I could add to this site, but Horseface is my hate flavour of the month so I thought I would do some self promotion by tagging the image and get her on there. I felt I needed to get a bit of horse hate in there too (probably some of the reason I hate Natasha Bedingfield) but I think I've got my main point across now!

There are some funny additions on there, including Jamie Oliver and Davina McCall, and the site is worth checking out to kill 10 minutes of your day if you're bored.

http://www.cuntscorner.com/

This time last year... 15/05/2006 seems a distant memory

2007-05-14T12:01:00.000Z

This time last year I was saying my goodbyes, packing my things and excited about my "new life" in Korea. I can't believe how fast the last 12 months have gone by..

I left the UK on a grim Monday in May and the same Monday this year its actually quite pleasant out. That pretty much fits my moods for both really; the UK at the moment does seem quite nice, a few clouds in the sky and its a bit cold, but all in all its looking ok. Last year I really was full of clouds and the UK offered me nothing. Strange how a year and the weather can make you reflect on things.

The horizon for the future feels brighter than it did last year, and although I'm probably still not happy about being in the UK (because of the system more than the place itself) I'm a little happier with myself. This blog helps me get some things off my chest at least...

Maybe when the Tories get in they can start to repair some of the damage Tony Blair and his bunch of fuck puppets have done, but I doubt it. This country needs a lot but a housing market collapse would be a start. Maybe then we can start supporting those in society that actually pay their taxes, don't fiddle the system and just drain our resources with no intentions of bettering themselves... anyway, before I start, I'm happier than I was this time last year..

Oh, and fuck L Ron Hubbard and Scientology... they can eat shit and die and I will post on this later...

Natasha Bedingfield, you fucking horse faced bitch..

2007-05-11T10:53:00.000Z

Nothing makes my piss boil more than people wanking off over how cute/great/amazing babies are. Get over it, children aren't special.. Bill Hicks tried to tell the world that and he saw his numbers dwindle, but I'm afraid its true..

Anyway, I was recently subjected to one of the worst things my eyes and ears have ever been subjected to, so bad i wanted to get a soldering iron and burn out my eyeballs, then squirt superglue in my earholes so I would never have to go through it again.

I once thought and hoped that karma had caught up with the Bedingfield household for crimes against humanity by subjected the world to its torturous overtones when Daniel Bedingfield was involved in a quite serious car accident, but unfortunately for Mother Earth, he managed to recover. His torment thereafter has been limited, but his accident paved the way for the torture that is his horse faced sister, Natasha. Knowing how much I fucking hate horses, she was someone I was always destined to hate, and far from a refreshing change to the music industry.

Amy had seen her new video and had to subject me to it, for the kicks of my facial expressions undoubtedly, but I almost couldn't believe it. The gates of Hell had opened and the visual feast of Satans bowels were pouring out with sounds to boot.

Seriously.. the song is called something like "I want to have your babies" and the premise is old Horseface goes around dating men, but secretly she just wants a kid. She probably found the lyrics written on the back of a rizla on the bus on her way to cash her giro, they certainly hit home to what most 15 year old chavettes are thinking. She goes with numerous guys all run like men, but eventually finds some metaphorical eunuch who does want a baby with her. The end involves probably one of the worst things I've ever heard, with her rap talking and describing the babies shes seeing in her head. How that got into the album track Ill never know, maybe it was added just for the video in the name of "artist licensing", who knows/cares.. it makes me wish I had the Ebola virus.

I wish I had an advanced TiVo for this shit, something that could detect the first few frames of shitty music videos and put them on block. It wouldn't even be hard to do. My version would say something like:

The following "music" video has been blocked:

Natasha Beddingfield - I want to have your babies

Under the Crimes Against Music Act 2007. If you do want to listen to this atrocity, enter "666" on your remote now.

Super Mega TiVo - making the World better by blocking the things that suck, one turd at a time.

So if you're feeling like puking so hard your intestines feel like theyre on the way out then jump across to YouTube and watch the video... it might be good for a couple of days of work with a bad back if you retch hard enough (Im sure you will)..

Email Joke of the Week

2007-05-11T08:17:00.000Z

A man came home from work, sat down in his favourite chair, turned on the TV, and said to his wife, "Quick, bring me a beer before it starts."

She looked a little puzzled, but brought him a beer. When he finished it, he said, "Quick, bring me another beer. It's going to start."

This time she looked a little angry, but brought him a beer. When it was gone, he said, "Quick, another beer before it starts."

"That's it!" She blows her top, "You bastard! You waltz in here, flop your fat arse down, don't even say hello to me and then expect me to runaround like your slave. Don't you realize that I cook and clean and wash and iron all day long?"

The husband sighed. "Damn, it's started."

I get lots of crap emails... this has been "the best" this week... rather than pollute your email account, ill just pollute my blog...

My Site Stats... popular? Not so much...

2007-05-11T07:54:00.000Z

A Blog by Dave - I get bored and angry (s36delmorpha)

-- Site Summary ---
Visits Total .......................... 236
Average per Day ................. 13
Average Visit Length .......... 2:36
This Week ....................... 89
Page Views Total .......................... 381
Average per Day ................. 20
Average per Visit .............. 1.6
This Week ...................... 139

I've been tracking the stats of my blog recently, out of interest/hope of becoming more popular as Yahoo had a visitors count but Blogger doesn't, but my SiteMeter addon is great. It lets me know how random people landed on my blog and who visits regularly by location.

My blog is getting more popular thanks to Googles indexing, but I wouldn't say I currently have a massive audience. What has been interesting is seeing new peoples first visit, then to find they are returning, and thats great news!

Some other interesting things are the searches I'm found through. A lot of people steal the Pokemon picture in my 10 games article. It would seem quite a few people are interested in Sonic the Hedgehog having sex with Tails. it would also appear that there is actually an event called "Gizzfest" and my blog is number one for that search term. Happy Days!

In any case, for those of you who read my blog regularly cheers, you keep reading and Ill keep writing. For those of you new to my blog and find yourself returning, thank you too. I have quite a few new things to get off my chest this month, which will start over the weekend with an article I will be calling "I hate Natasha Beddingfield"...

Peace out!

This is Living featuring beardy twat...

2007-05-10T12:40:00.000Z

I don't know this guy, I've never met this guy in my life but he is a twat. Look at him, with his beard and his "This is Living" Sony fanboy T-Shirt. Twat.

I'm told he is 22.. so why does he have a beard?

He is a bell ringer. He goes pot holing. He probably is a member of a Christian Youth Association and runs some sort of swimming club for young boys with innocent intentions under the name of Christianity. Probably..

Well, anyway, couple the beard and the Sony fanboyism, I had to blog this twat. Twat.

Oh, and look... I'm blogging at work... lol... good start Dave, good start..

All Work and No Blog makes Dave a dull Boy..

2007-05-10T08:04:00.000Z

Well, I've started my new job and I'm doubting I'm going to be as flexible to do my blog as I was in previous positions by hey hoe, these things happen! This isn't to say that its the end of my blogging, far from it, it just means I will be restricted to blogging in the evenings and the weekends that I'm not working.

Thus far the new job is going pretty well, it's most definitely a job in IT and a "job" job... unlike some of my previous positions that I had a bit more freedom as it were. Read into that what you will but the jobs great, the moneys great, and the prospects are great so I'm happy. Who knows, this may be a job I can last longer than 12 months in...

Thats not to say I've never had a long term job, I mean I was at Janda for more than 4 years *shudders* but more recently I've had more in and outs that I'd care to remember when it comes to jobs. If you add up the total employment length per employer its actually not so bad, but on paper my CV is a little fragmented. I'm just hoping with the promises of MS certification and the quality of the companies we do business for, and the enjoyment of the job, this will be something I will be doing in 12 months time.

Anyway, I just thought I'd keep people updated, and my blog on the "updated often" trawl of Google. There are a few things I havent had chance to comment on yet (Nintendo, you're lucky...) but I will do once I get settled.

Founder of Pandora drops in and says hi! Hi Tim!! :)

2007-05-06T11:46:00.000Z

To my shock/disbelief, the founder of Pandora has left a comment about my post of the Death of Pandora. For those too lazy to click the comments section, here it is:

Thanks for posting on this, Dave. I think it's important for folks to understand that far from 'jumping in to bed' with anyone, we've made this decision in order not to. In the UK we're working on a statutory agreement that will allow us to remain as neutral as we have always been. Pandora never has, and NEVER will, play a song because we've been paid to do it. NEVER.

So very sorry about this. Any webcaster around the world, no matter where they stream 'from', requires direct licenses for EVERY rightsholder, for EVERY song, for EVERY country in which it is streamed. That's the climate in which the kind of fear you have is more likely to come true. Direct deals can have all sorts of strings attached.

We'll keep working as hard as we can to find a solution.

Tim (Founder)

What a hero! How many web founders are dedicated enough to clear up a few things about their websites new decisions, no matter how small the reader base (although Google seems to be picking me up a bit better and my hits are going up daily, those of you who read my blog regularly will always be the hardcore!) and actively seek out anyone commenting on it!

In response to his comments I say this.. great to hear that your not allowing yourselves to get too shafted by the RIAA and anyone associated with their digital "War of Terror" and good luck trying to get a solution suitable for everyone.

Its also good to hear from the horses mouth that you don't contaminate the mix with financial gains in mind. To be honest, I'm sure it would be very tempting with the more commercial artists to set up a reciprocal pay per play deal (like broadcasting radio stations) but thankfully my taste in music is far from commercial and thats one of the things I love about your site (that I don't have to listen to shite).

Hopefully you will do whats right for everyone, not just for the US. In a week where we've seen you guys and Microsoft shutting your digital doors to to world in one form or another, your reassurance goes a little way to restoring my faith that there is going to continue to be a world outside the US.

You have the formula so, so right.. it turns out that Last.FM was just a cheap fling, so it would be a shame to lose you. Although my Biffy Clyro radio station was far better with Last.FM (only because Biffy are a small band from Scotland and they're similar artists can only be found on smaller independent labels), as a whole it just isn't the same. There is no way to tell Last.FM of other bands you want it to mix in, you can't go back to artists you've listened to easily, whether that be to say you loved/hated it or to perhaps buy it, and the interface just isn't friendly at all.

On a personal note to Tim, welcome to my blog and hope you come back soon! If you keep up the good work, i'll keep recommending you to my friends and associates. Oh, and if you ever need an angry Software Engineer willing to travel the globe, with an opinion on everything whose a big fan of music, digital rights and wrongs, and sticking it to the RIAA just give me a call... I need an excuse to get out the UK and would love to come work for you! ;)

Site of the Week - Life after Pandora.com : Last.FM

2007-05-04T11:09:00.000Z

I am a whore. Only hours after Pandora left me I'm already "in bed" with her hotter British second cousin Last.FM and from what I can tell she does all the things Pandora didn't let you do.. she even lets you share her goodies with your friends!

With a sexier, more streamlined interface, and thus far less Americanised music choices, Last.FM is filling the stop gap whilst Pandora gets its fuck on with the RIAA and she comes back a beaten and abused version of herself.

I didn't want my relationship with Pandora to end, but somehow it has.. her abusive Uncle has come home stomping his feet at her being too cheap, too fancy free with her content and she needs to "Shape Up or he will kill her". I'm not into the needy type, and Pandora will come crawling back and be needier than ever, so our relationship is most definitely over.

So Last.FM gets my vote as Site of the Week... if only because she was there for me the day I broke up with Pandora..

A Net full of Walls - RIP Pandora, gone but not forgotten..

2007-05-03T11:16:00.000Z

Pandora got me back into listening to new music in a big way and today is a very, very sad day for me. Not in the sense that I personally won't be able to use Pandora (after all I am a nerd and know what a proxy server is) but in the sense that the internet has lost something very special... like when Napster got shut down, the first really mainstream file transferring software, and the bovine masses were stumped as to where to find their illegally downloaded music from.

Today, Pandora.com officially closed its servers to IP addresses outside of the US. Previously a simple Google for "zip code" would bypass the US check but now, due to increasing pressure from the RIAA and increases in running costs associated with that pressure, they have implemented IP filtering to direct regionalised content. This means more revenue for the RIAA and publishers (like the artists benefit one bit...), more work for Pandora for less money and a bit "Fuck You" to anyone outside the US until they get the advertising/content manipulation right for your country.

This is also the first time I've thought about how easy the Pandora algorithm would be to seriously manipulate by the RIAA, or a significant sponsor now that they have buckled into the pressure and lubed themselves up. Pandora already do it somewhat by trying to integrate bands that are currently touring into your music; if you click "Now Touring" and buy a concert ticket, you help support Pandora and the system works. Imagine what we are install for when EMI or one of the big labels put enough pressure on.

What you'll end up with is deals where if you say your favourite band is signed to Sonys Columbia record label, Pandora will be contracted to filter in another 3 songs signed to Columbia in the next hour or so. Thus increasing the chance you'll buy a CD off their label, thus making them more money. Add that to the increased fees associated with an Internet radio station and you can see the only winner here is the "Industry" i.e. the Man, not the artists, and certainly not the end users.

I've found some great new bands listening to Pandora, bands whose CDs I'd actually buy too. I heard an artist I actually thought was Ben, thumbs upped the great, thumbs down the shite and been actively involved in using it. Admittedly I'm probably the kind of user they don't want using their service (as my Firefox browser has a lot of Ad blocking software) but the service was great, and one that I've spread to friends and family. Funny how in an age of global connectivity, word of mouth is still one of the best advertising methods.

Unlike Pandora, I had moved on from using Napster when it got shut down, and was already well into the realms of Kazaa and eDonkey as my file sharing application of choice. Today is a very sad day for the internet (in what has been a sad week for digital rights and wrongs - Google "HD DVD encryption key" fiasco if you don't already know) as Pandora really doesn't have anything like it, let alone better and easier to use.

I genuinely wish in all the hours of listening, I had set up one of the programs to rip out the MP3s it plays and stored them myself, but even with that the mixing wouldn't be the same...Winamp still has a laughable random() function and iTunes is horrid, horrid bloatware!

Pandora, you were my first internet radio love... I am heart broken that you've jumped into bed with someone else, and of all people, with my arch enemy, the RIAA and its whole board of members, you filthy slut! I'm going to try and climb your internet (drain) pipes and trick you into taking me back, but your disloyalty has jaded our relationship and shown me your true colours. It looks like I'm back to shuffling it myself, but thank you for being my first... x

City Link...more like fucking Shitty Stink...

2007-05-02T08:49:00.000Z

What a bunch of friggin' retards City Link are... I mean how hard is it to deliver a parcel these days with the likes of Satellite Navigation, Google Earth and every other advantage we have to see the exact locations of places on the planet.

3 attempts at delivering to a place where the post code has only one possible destination and they managed not to be able to find it. My parcel even had my office direct line AND my mobile phone number on and the driver was unable to think to call if he was struggling.

My automatic transmission kit for the FTO was supposed to arrive with me on Thursday but by 5pm I was getting a little worried. I gave Camskill an email and they responded right away with a tracking code. Apparently the driver had attempted delivery at 3pm and we had been carded to let us know they had done so. Had they fuck... our site has one entrance and in an open plan car park we have 2 buildings that are open throughout the day. Nothing whatsoever...

Friday am I gave City Link a call to find out where the fuck things were.. the woman assured me that the driver had our location, knew where he was going and she had logged the name of our company to relay this to the driver to ensure he knew where to go this time. By 3pm we had no sign of any Yellow and Green vans.

So I called again... yet again the woman told me that the driver was still out for delivery and they knew where they were going. She reread my address and details and everything sounded ok. By 5pm I was pissed, still nothing. At 5:10pm their online tracking system had updated to let me know they had failed delivery again, this time at 2:37pm and once again we had been carded. Once again we hadn't.

I was steaming and immediately called them to give them a piece of my mind; that they were an inept bunch of monkeys with the same amount of common sense as a retarded squirrel. The woman was dumbfounded so she passed me across to some Northern driver who told me "ee, tut drivers durt av sat navs" and after decifering that, I told them to hold on to it and I would have to try and collect it on Saturday which was a 40 mile round trip to boot.

We landed at 11ish on Saturday at the Preston depo and to rub salt into the wound the young ginger prick behind the counter had put it out for delivery himself, even though I explicitly told them not to. I looked at him and just shook my head, I mean what else can you do when you're dealing with a company who can't do their job AND can't follow instructions. He got on the phone and rang the driver, who would be back at the depo shortly so I was asked to wait 20 minutes in my car until then. So I did to let the rage calm down.

I gave them half an hour and went back in and ginger bollocks had my parcel waiting for me fortunately for him. The box was pretty battered and I had to laugh when I saw a big sticker on it saying "Hold in cage - Customer to collect Saturday AM" - being able to read can be added to the list of things City Link are incapable of. Fortunately for me everything was ok and inside the box, largely thanks to the excellent wrapping by Camskill.

And thats a wrap... the next time you order something to be delivered, try and avoid City Link... they're a pride of dongs*!

* I don't know the collective noun for a group of penii but I'm sure knowing men, it would be a pride...

I hate the Beautiful South

2007-04-30T11:17:00.000Z

I'm riding the porcelain pony at work and its one of the few times I'm subjected to the radio in my life. I'm not the biggest fan of the radio, no matter what the station, but amongst the many stations guilty of crimes against humanity, Century FM has to be the biggest.

Seriously, they run whats called a "No Repeat workday" (or at least the used to), but the fuckers fail to mention the same playlist is used every day without fail. It's like being at a family gathering and they have one of those DJs that plays the typical 70s disco fever tracks, and thinks hes really extreme by doing the Bon Jovi, Brian Adams and Reef rock mix without realising how cliche he, or his choice in music is. I'm sure these DJs are brought up directly from the pits of Hell..

Well, anyway, I'm enjoying my game of Crazy Bubbles and what should come on the radio; the Beautiful South. Probably one of the worlds most middle of the road bands ever. I fucking hate them!

I mean who actually goes out and buys this shit. I tell you who; the kind of fucks that think that "don't Marry Her, fuck me" is controversial thats who. The kind of people that buy a Renault Espace, go on holiday with their three kids and the dog to France and both work in Accounts. The fuckers that in school thought that having a cider lolly was an excuse to pretend you were drunk and act like a cock, even though everyone thought they were a cock to begin with. People that were born from the turds of middle Britain and blocked Lytham Quays, thats who

Meet Alison Jack, the chairman of Defend Lytham. She looks like someone guilty of listening to the Beautiful South doesn't she. I bet she drives a Zara Picasso too and holidays in the south of France, but tells people she started going there before it was trendy. I am also to believe she is the wife of Michael Jack, local MP and all round Tory boy. He too is a bum winnet.. but thats another story.

Anyway, I digress... so The Beautiful South. Wikipedia cites them as being full of "Kitchen Sink Drama" and thats probably partially the reason I hate them so much. Every song is like an episode of Coronation Street, and as such, I want the band to die in a horrible tragedy. The world really doesn't need more Coronation Street..

The world also really doesn't need any more bands that are perched on that middle of the road peg, sitting on the sidelines ready to jump on the trendy bandwagon to make a quick buck. Now really, the Beautiful South aren't really guilty of this (and fortunately their split earlier this year means they won't be polluting our air waves with any new material.. they're old turds are destined to float around for years to come though), unlike many pop/rock bands *cough* U2 *cough* but they are painfully middle of the road.

U2... now thats a band I truly hate... *save that rant for another day*...

The BBC reported their split as the end of 19 wonderful years in music.. more like 13 shitty albums not worth the plastic they've been made out of. So the Beautiful South can go fuck themselves for ruining my toilet time.. and for giving dickholes like Alison Jack the "gritty" music they can concoct their plans for ruining one of the best things that could've happened to Lytham ever.

Dissecting the 13 points I wanted to do when I got back to the UK from 6 months ago...

2007-04-30T09:58:00.000Z

I've been going through my blog, looking at the statistics to who visits a lot, and what traffic I draw back with my varying rants and spotted someone in Japan had been referred from Google with the search "Where is Guri Wonderland?" (The answer is Hell). I noticed my 13 points of things to do when I got back to the UK and it made me laugh as the reality is far from the ideal.

1. Pint in the Links... on Jonny! A game of darts and a few quid in the bandit... its stupid but thats home... slagging off the gay lord quiz master, whether thats the Racoon or that other Knucklebeard and then not really being all that bothered about it.

Lol... I never did get a pint out of Jonnys winnings, although he has bought me a beer. I've bought some darts and have started to improve, but since the only reason to go to the Sunday night quiz is over (Open the Box was won), no one goes in any more. I also forgot how bad the Sunday quiz is... man that quiz guy is a loser...

2. Boys nights...OiOi with eBoy and the lads.

I think in the 6 months I've been back I've had about 3 boys nights out at most. This isn't to say that I haven't been out on the lash after Snooker several times, just boys nights out have been a bit thin on the ground.

3. Talking Science with Phil

Haha... yeah, top job!

4. Snooker night!

Enjoyed the Snooker season, we finished third and got a trophy! Check the league table here!

5. Steak night at Spoons.

They've put the price up by 50p but its actually better than is used to be.. when they have my Ribeye steak in...

6. Mixed Grill and a pint of Bods at the Fairhaven.

My appetite has changed a little since coming home but I can still manage a mixed grill from the Fairhaven. Unfortunately they've put the price of drinks up beyond logic (a coke is something like £1.60 for a half pint!) so we don't like to go in as often. Food is still the best for portion size and quality in the area though.

7. Driving a car... any car!

I have just this month got enough money together to put my car back on the road. Its cost me a ridiculous amount!

8. Poker Tuesdays/Thursdays

I haven't been to play live poker since getting home, how sad!

9. Knowing my games consoles are all there...

Dreamcast is still at Daxs but I have the rest of them set up just about but our current living arrangement doesn't give me the best opportunity to play them all party style.

10. A TV thats less than 10 years old.... probably again, at Jonnys!

I bought a 32" LCD 2 months ago because the room we are living in was driving us insane and the only escapism was on a crappy 21" TV. It was cheap from DABs (£340 cheap) so I felt it was about time I invested in some new technology.

11. Sitting in the sand dunes.

Not sat in the sand dunes yet, Ive been for a walk on the beach, and took the camera down to try some HDR photography of the sea but thats about it.

12. Having more than one room in my house.

Haha.... we're actually living in a smaller space than I had in Korea and have been for the last 6 months! I've just got a new job so we're now in a position to move out but its been hell!

13. Tescos for bits and bobs at 1am when Im in one of those moods!

This is probably the best thing about living in the UK, but probably one of the worst things for the planet and society. Tesco are taking over and destroying small businesses the country over. Everyone is a slave to Tesco but when they have everything under one roof its great.

... too many little things to count really... moneys a nice thing to have, and tax is a nice thing to avoid, but without the small things it can be a little empty... until you have enough of it not to be bothered about the little things and can just do what you want all day!

What a crock of shit! I don't know what I was hopped up on when I wrote this but I take it back. Tax is a nice thing to avoid... yes, yes it really is... things have got worse in the UK and taxation is still on the rise. The government looks for more and more ingenious ways to make sure all of our wages eventually ends up back with them and we continue to stay numb because as a nation we tend to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't really affect us. House prices continue to rise, but hopefully an interest rate increase will overstretch a few people and I will be able to get a cheap house sometime in the near future.

Money is never empty... poor people just like to think it is because they don't have it and want to justify their own existence by saying things like "you can't buy happiness" etc etc. Its one of the biggest lies thats sold to society. Hollywood sells it, the music industry sells it and most people buy into it.

The truth is that of course you can buy happiness and everyone does buy happiness. You buy it in the shape of the things around you, your house, your car, nights out, nights in, the Sky subscription (keeping you fat and stupid on that big comfy couch of yours, snacking away like the bovine mind cattle you are), the kids, the dog, the designer clothes, the holiday to Tenerife, the weekend break to the Lake District. The secret is to keep you thinking that being really wealthy isn't something you would like, to keep buying things to make you happy and to keep the commercial world ticking over.

I don't know why I complain.. I, like everyone else, am searching for the comfortable place in society where I'm happy to take it in the ass. No matter what you do, where you live, what your walk of life is, someone or something will want to F you in the A. Whether that be the government, a gang leader, a pimp, your boss, your employees, or simply a totalitarian regime set on changing your country for the better of its own, someone is above you and they have that "Rodney" sized strap on ready to give you the ass pounding of your life. It's just a matter of how loose you are at the end of the day....

Grow a set..

2007-04-27T11:59:00.000Z

Internet site of the week: NoMarriage.com

I found an interesting article on Digg on why men dont want to get married and in the large part I have to agree with it. I'm afraid to say that I see it in some of the people around me and it is quite true and hurtful to think that some women out there see men as a pay cheque, or have an ulterior motive towards marriage and kids. Don't get me wrong, men are quite shallow in some of their needs on this site, but some of the stories I can totally see happening. Some of these guys also need to grow a set but thats another story...

Two of my favourite statements on this site are:

Women are, for the most part, not well suited to accept reality or to think logically. they will approach a situation with their mind already made up, then they will twist and manipulate the information to validate what they're already thinking.

and

My granddad told me an insightful story before my wedding. He said for the first year of marriage to put a penny in a jar every time I had sex with my wife. Starting in year two, take out two pennies every time we had sex. He said there'd be money in the jar when I died. I think he's going to be right.

There are some quite bitter personal statements on this site, some jaded opinions of women and I can't help feel like the author got royally ass fucked by his wife in their divorce but all in all its a funny and interesting read.

If you are considering marriage I recommend checking out Whom Not To Marry and seriously reassessing the situation as a man, not a pussy whipped shadow of your former self. Making the wrong decision will see you in a loveless relationship, be destined for divorce and you living off 20% of your wages in a grungy little flat whilst she enjoys your kids, your house and gets everything shes been setting up from day one.

Am I in danger of becoming a girl...?! Beware of Insanely Cute Chihuahuas!!

2007-04-26T11:16:00.000Z

If its news to you that we are looking for a Chihuahua then I have just told you. Once Amy and I get settled at wherever it may be we move to we are going to be looking to get ourselves a little dog called Sega.

Now searching for Sega thus far is fruitless as we can't actually a) afford him/her b) have him/her living with us in our one room at my dads and c) causing heart ache but none the less we have been. I think I am however, becoming a bit of a girl...

You must know that annoying noise girls make when they see something cute? I have been guilty of making that noise on several occasions recently. It is hard to contain that noise when you see some of the insanely cute dogs on the ePupz website we have been searching on and I have included some pictures of the most cute dogs we have seen so far.

Really though I dont care... and if you didn't make that noise when you saw the pictures I've added to this post, then you're dead inside!

How is this NOT cute?!

GamePro do a list of 52 of the most Important games ever... manages to ignore Sega and misses the mark by miles..

2007-04-25T13:36:00.000Z

Starting here and baring in mind this is supposed to be a list of the most important games of all time this list manages to miss the mark by miles. Holy fuck someone hates Sega/loves Sony over at GamePro (maybe they gave them a batch of the PS3s they have lying around doing nothing...) so rather than creating my own list, I'm going to cover just 10 games they missed due to n00bism / stupidity / being 12 years old.

1. Sonic the Hedgehog - Sega Genesis/Master System/Game Gear
Surely this was one of the first battles of a console and caused more playground fights than any other pair in gaming history? Everyone had a favorite, whether it was the furry little Blue Hedgehog, or a fat Italian Plumber but this game started the term "console war" pitting it side by side with Nintendos mascot. If that alone doesn't justify its place on the list I don't know what the fuck will...

2. Sensible World of Soccer - Amiga/ PC / Atari ST(?)
Not a single football game on that list (damn Americans) but this is the first truly classic football game before licensing deals/EA dominance took over. Diehard fans are still creating updates for this game, it was just that good. Management decisions, glorious gameplay and difficulty, in its time this game had it all (and all the player names to boot)! This game is still one of the only great Player Manager football games available to date, 15 years later!

3. Monkey Island - - Amiga/ PC / Atari ST
LeChuck and Guybrush, Guybrush and Le Chuck... what a pair they are! Not the first point and click adventure, but it certainly led the way for Lucas Arts in terms of defining a pretty high standard of comedic script writing and a seemingly limitless number of possibilities for item combinations and actions. With 3 sequels, and numerous other classic Lucas Arts titles that follows (Day of the Tentacle and the brilliant Sam and Max are amongst my own personal favorites) this was definitely an important title for the adventure game genre.

4. Shenmue - Sega Dreamcast
Not only did this game show that a massive budget doesn't guarentee you success, nor does years of planning and script writing, it also showed what it technically possible with the Dreamcast, and within the world of video games. Hoping that the days of not being able to interact with all the objects in a game, Shenmue allowed us to play, fiddle and explore every item of the game, including drawers, cupboards and tables in random peoples houses.

I felt the western release of Shenmue was massively let down by poor (nay, terrible) voice acting which was a turn off for a lot of my friends at the time. If you could look past that, as hard as it was, what you found was a pretty engrossing adventure and quite deserved of a place in the most important video games of all time.

5. Crash Bandicoot - PSX
Crash became the "Mario" of Sonys console and his release into the Playstation catalog was much needed at the time. Crash Bandicoot became one of the first console shifters for the younger PSX audience and is responsible for many a Playstation in the kids bedroom. Whilst nowhere near as good or technically brilliant as Mario 64 on the N64, the Crash introduction as a brand name allowed for many more titles under its licence and yearly updates and versions. They even released a crappy Mario Kart clone or two, keeping all the Nintendo like fun accessible for those with the Sony console, and in terms of the market, I feel that deserves a place on the list.

6. Tomb Raider - PSX
This game became the first game to prove that sex symbols work to sell video games to teenage boys. Lara Croft instantly became the pinup of the day, with rumors circulating of "nude cheats" got the blood pumping to a certain body part that the industry hadn't seen much of before in any other form than cheap sex games. Since Lara there has been a strew of other game hotties, but lest we forget where Sex Symbols in games started to hit the mainstream.

7. Resident Evil - PSX / Sega Saturn
Fuck Resident Evil 4, this is the important Resident Evil. How dare they say that RE4 is more important than the founder of the Survival Horror genre! Where the likes of Alone in the Dark had failed, Resident Evil blasted its way onto the scene with a mixture of fear, tension and great puzzle solving like we had never seen before. RE led the way for Silent Hill, Illbleed, Dead Rising and every other survival horror title ever, showing us what in game tension should be all about.

8. Pokemon - Nintendo Gameboy
Probably the strangest omission I found seen as this is still going and has done more the burn the Nintendo brand into the mind of a generation than any other game, arguably more than even Mario. Pokemon has certainly help keep Nintendo afloat during the hard times of its previous games consoles.

You might not instantly know Pokemon is a Nintendo trademark, but I'm damned if you don't know what Pokemon is. Pokemon and its continuing reign of terror showed the industry how to market to kids and to be able to expand out of solely video games.

9. Double Dragon - Arcade
Ahh... the signs of a misspent youth in the arcade, but Double Dragon led the way for many of the great CPS2 games and arcade titles, including Final Fight, Knights of the Round, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and many other scrolling beat 'em ups. Whips, baseball bats and scary black giants that looked like Mr T.. this game rocked hard! Double Dragon started one of my favorite genres of games, and therefore deserves homage.

10. Katamari Damacy - PS2
Now there are many other titles I could list and justify, but I feel Katamari deserves a place because it proves a point that I have been trying to make for years, and is one of the only games I can recall that does it; it proves that crazy Japanese titles can and do work in the western hemisphere.

This game is truly brilliant, truly Japanese and without its successful launch in the west, it would be unlikely we would've seen the brilliant Loco Roco or a number of other games deemed to Japanese for our differing tastes.

Well, thats my choice of 10 games that should've made it to that list in the top 50. Granted it is somewhat an opinion outside of the top ten (Madden in second can eat my ass..) but really, not a single Sega title in there showed how much GamePro suck balls...

My new Chav Exhaust...

2007-04-24T13:56:00.000Z

If you don't know the story I had to replace the mid section of my FTO exhaust at the weekend as it failed its MOT on emissions and after being quoted around £300 for a replacement mid box I was "fortunate" enough to find a discounted GS Sports Exhaust for the FTO for £230 Saturday delivered in the reduced section on a website.

There were no actual pictures so I had to cross my fingers and hope for the best.. it came and its Chavtastic!

Its a 5" back pipe and although it sounds rather nice, its looks rather silly compared to my twin tailpipe of before. It also hangs too low because of the rubber holding mount not being strong enough to support its weight. Great sound, stupid boy racer look... shame!

Don’t argue with Christians, it’ll only piss you off...

2007-04-24T08:52:00.000Z

Digging at work helps fill the day...that first 45 minutes before the coffee kicks in, the 15 minutes before lunch, the hour after lunch whilst things digest, the 15 minute coffee break at 4 and the last half an hour before I go home. Inevitably I read bits that stimulate thoughts on existence, what I'm doing with my life etc etc and found this picture of the typical Bible Bashers promotion to try and guilt trip you into attending church this Sunday.

Well in the comments I found this particular comment by a so called Trinity (cliche Matrix wannabes can post interesting comments at times apparently)

Don’t argue with christians guys it’ll only piss you off. How can you beat someone who’s wrong but “knows” they’re right. You’ll only get pissed off. At least you can say to took the high road.

It was right up my alley really and quite deep if you can ignore the poor punctuation, grammar and non capitalisation (I can hardly lecture about writing I know..).

I've been known to tickle the feathers of many a Christian in my time, and have a perverse fascination with it. I am quite well read on the religion as a whole, and this comment shares the general attitude I get when trying to voice my opinion. If you're going to have to listen to their bullshit its always handy to have a counter argument to the shit they'll try and coax you in with. In the words of Rage Against The Machine, "Know Your Enemy" is the only defense you have.

It always amazes me how someone with such strong beliefs is the least likely to listen to your own opinions and beliefs. They're the first to reject anything other than their own doctrine as the truth when there is plenty of evidence to support other "theories".

Christians don't really have much to go off, and what they do have has been twisted, reworded, sections removed, edited to fit in with whatever agenda the Christian Missionaries and Crusaders had at the time. You have to laugh when the ideals of 2000 years ago can be hung upon word for word, yet evidence disproving their doctrine with modern science is dismissed as blasphemy, Satans work or just ignored completely.

To be honest I'm not out to kill Christianity specifically, its just closer to home for me and I have to deal with it every day. I'm sure if any religion was forced upon me I would "rebel" against it just the same. I just wish people wouldn't quote the Bible as if it was the only solution...

I mean I could never accept a religion that forced me to accept it as the only truth and denounce all other Gods and possibilities. Just over a hundred years ago scientists thought the atom was a "plum pudding" then they researched and human driven technology allowed us to find nano particles and all the other "fluff" in an atom that we could never have imagined existed... religions are no different, and I always like to keep my options open.

The question I always get asked is "how can you live a good moral life without religion" and people who ask this question get the same look like the next thing Im going to do is punch them in the face. What you're trying to say in that is that you think I'm that fucking stupid that without a book I can't tell the difference between right and wrong, or that you're that stupid... either way I'm antagonised into responding where normally I should just walk away.

If you're such a moron that you can't work out that killing, adultery, stealing, lying and greed are wrong then you need help and maybe you should be cleansed from the gene pool. The first 4 commandments are bullshit to begin with, then honouring my mother and father because God says so without them having to earn respect, lead their own good life is also bullshit (If my parents are Satan worshiping heathens is it still commanded that I honour them... I mean where do you draw the line on that one?). The last 5 "commandments" are just common sense/the law so outside of that you have a whole host of fun to be had if its only by those laws you live (no wonder Catholic Ministers think its ok to bum alter boys).

Rather than teaching religion in schools we should analyse all religions and take the lessons that are to be had from all religions and use them to better ourselves. Religion has a lot to offer the human race, and is also filled with a lot of bullshit, but we can only learn from it if we accept them for the stories and guilt trips they are; in 2007 we don't need the guilt part (commercialisation and global conglomerate has this covered), or the silly practices involved. Maybe if we took the best elements from all religions and created one Super Religion that aimed to teach rather than preach we would be able to evolve and grow, but whilst people are still killing themselves in the name of God, Allah or whatever the fuck you want to call your divine spirit, we will continue to expand but never develop.

Honey BBQ Boneless Bites : Pain, Expensive and more Pain...

2007-04-20T12:38:00.000Z

If you live in the shithole we call the UK you have probably seen the advertisement for KFCs new Honey BBQ chicken on TV. If you haven't, its advertised with delicious looking chicken pieces on a rack being drizzled in luscious BBQ sauce in slow motion; one of those adverts that if you're hungry sends you directly to the fridge.

So I thought I would give it a whirl this week, being Filthy Friday and all, and I have to say I was left disappointed and in pain....

The fat guy behind the KFC counter (who looked a lot like Michael Moore actually) grabbed a few scraps of chicken then took them over to a vat of disgusting looking hot sauce and I knew I was set for disappointment from the get go. The box reminded me of the con of popcorn chicken, again scraps of chicken thrown in the smallest container they could find.

I got back to the office and the first thing I got stuck into was the BBQ bites. As I opened the box I got a distinct acidic waft that burnt my nostrils a little (they smelt good in the bag driving back though) and was met with the above and below images.

The first image I've shrunk but the second is full high res taken with our Canon EOS 350d digital SLR and I recommend checking out the detailing on that chicken because it can only be described as fucking disgusting! It looked like a cross between something the cat dragged in and something it later shat back out...

But fast food is often like that, so I thought I better give it the taste test to confirm my already suspicious mind. One bite and my teeth moved into a firework display of pain. My mouth exploded with the honey entering every little flaw in my "british smile" and not having the best teeth at the minute they were now feeling the wrath of not having a dentist visit in 18 months (bad I know but who has the money when you can't get an NHS dentist..).

I preservered through the pain and tastewise they were very sharp and acidic. If youre a big fan of McDonalds BBQ sauce over KFCs then you'll love these Im sure, but for me it burns my chest. So not only did I have to suffer on the processing, the digestion also came back to haunt me. The sauce is so powerful it completely masks the coating which would be the only redeeming factor KFC has to offer given theyre supposed to be chicken experts and all.

At £2.49 (over $5 at the current exchange rate..) for 5 little blobs of chicken this will certainly be the last time I get them. If you want to recreate them without having to support KFC in the process just buy a bag of shit chicken nuggets from tesco for 52p or whatever the value brand nuggets cost (*shudders* I don't actually want to know what is in 50p for 40 chicken nuggets..) and steal a few free pots of BBQ sauce from McShits... trust me, it'll be exactly the same.....

Score: 1 and a half BBQ Boneless Pieces out of 5

Knorr soup is the shizzu!

2007-04-19T13:40:00.000Z

Are you like me in that you are constantly on the munch at work? I don't know what it is about sitting at a desk that gives me the urge to be nibbling on a cereal bar, or have a big fat mug of soup with my cup of coffee next to it, but I can feel the pounds piling on the more I do.

Anyway, I have been striving to find a great soup and today I think I found it! I tried the god awful Tesco Vegetable "Soup in a mug" the other day, or as I called it "1/3rd a Cup a Soup meets cornflour and dog gizz" and after that disaster I was a bit wary about my next soup purchase.

Amongst other things, Im a definite bargain hunter and often get suckered into the BOGOF offers in the local Tescos on our lunchtime missions, so my lunchtime munchies generally consist on whatever soups/pasta snacks are on offer this week.

Last week it was Cup a Soup buy 3 for £1.80 or something, all mediocre and tasting a bit weak compared to what it used to (doesn't everything these days?!) but not a bad deal. This week there was nothing.

Trying not to panic at the concept of not bagging a bargain and having to pay full price for soup I found what sounded like a good idea. Knorrs actual instructions involve simmering the soup for 5 minutes, but I figured "hey, its fucking soup... what can go wrong?" and you know what... I'm a fucking genius thats what!

I bagged a Minestrone and a Florida Spring Vegetable (whatever the hell that is) to test for 51p each. Given that its suggested making is around 3 mugs (900ml) I figured this was a great buy.. and its turned out to be the best soup ever, or at least the Minestrone has.

I reckon you could easily get 4 mugs out of one pack as my soup was extremely rich and seriously tasty. There was plenty of "bits" including some strands of thin spaghetti that were edible within a few minutes. Overall the flavour took a piss in Bachelors Cup a Soup minestrone and their whole entire range, and teabagged Tescos own brand Shit in a Mug several times. Knorrs soup has now become my soup of choice for day time guzzling.

Score : 5 mugs out of 5! :D

Sony Hates Europe Part 1 : Blu-ray Region Coding map of "Fuck You"ism...brilliant!

2007-04-18T14:51:00.000Z

Sony Hates Europe... Part 1

Sony hates Europe, it really does. I can't quite put my finger on it quite yet but it really does hate us Europeans. Whether it be the long delays on releases to our region, higher prices or just shitting on us all round, Sony just loves to take a dump on us Europeans.

I am presenting evidence that Sony does indeed hate us in part one of my ever growing rally of materials on Sony with the

Blu-ray Region Coding map of "Fuck You"ism...brilliant!

The above genuine Sony map is the new region coding mechanism for Blu-ray discs. The breakdown is as following:

Region A:	Region B:	Region C:
- North America	- Europe	- Russia
- Central America	- Middle East	- India
- South America	- Africa	- China
- Korea	- Australia	- Rest of World
- Japan	- New Zealand
- South East Asia

Now really, this banding makes no sense to me. Unlike the DVD regioning, where you could see some kind of banding, this new scheme sends one big fat message to Europeans and thats Sony hates you!

Ok, ok... let me explain myself a little! First look at that colour scheme; Green, Amber and Red. They could have used any colours for that map, so why a palette that suggests good, ok and bad regions? Well, look at the red countries... the STOP/DANGER countries of Russia, India and China. Producers of probably 90% of the pirated discs so they get a big fuck you. As does anyone thats not deemed as being part of the continent structure.

Next we have the WAIT/WARY continents, those in too much conflict to buy movies, too poor, or just an island full of convicts, bad losers with seriously bad sportsmanship... and then wait, Europe has been lumped in there too! These nations are your average Joe driver nations... those that would normally stop at a yellow light, but could speed through and import if they want to risk it.

Then finally the SAFE go, go, GO continents which includes Central and South America and South East Asia apparently. I mean what the fuck... how does a cinematic masterpiece from Sao Paulo get the same region as Hollywood, yet we get lumped with the Middle East? Holy fuck... even Cuba gets preference over the EU! I wouldn't be so pissed off if Japan was in region B (like region 2 DVDs that are EU and Japan) as thats all I really care about.

Anyway, it hates Europe because it has to add subtitles to its movies in 20+ different languages, then create an advertising campaign for each one of those countries. It hates us because it has to create box art for each one of those regions. It hates us because we dont resemble one big fat cash cow... were a field of little cows that all need feeding in our own unique way. Sony hates our uniqueness costing its precious company much needed dollars and wants us to die.

Region locking sucks balls. Period. It serves no purpose other than allowing us to be subjected to the advertising for that product when its released for our region and this is the reason its there. Why not scrap it and do global releases or use a region coding system that actually makes sense.

I mean an English release region for one. Call this region 1. No other languages, no other subtitles and audio tracks, just an English audience region disc that can be spat out of Hollywoods vagina straight after the cinema. Then start fucking around with your other language releases.

The best solution for both parties would be to follow Microsofts lead on the Xbox 360 and leave the decision up to the producers. I guess the Movie Industry doesnt have enough independent publishers to justify this approach, and those that would probably opted for HD-DVD anyway! :)

(Sorry, this hasn't been one of my best rants, I just wanted people to see that map!)

I'm Han Solo... who the fuck are you?

2007-04-18T13:44:00.000Z

Bored... did some Star Wars test to find out im Han Solo... whatever...

Q2 PAL Release Dates shocking for the Wii - Fuck you Nintendo.... fuck you in the eye...

2007-04-11T09:37:00.000Z

I've been waiting for Paper Mario since I was fortunate enough to get my Wii just before Xmas after weeks of hounding at my local Tescos (And their lies about not getting more stock in..). In fact, I've been waiting for any "good" game for the Wii since putting Zelda down.

Wii Sports are great, well.. the bowling and baseball elements are anyway, but they're definitely not justifying a price tag and Nintendo got it right not to "charge" for it. Zelda is one of the greatest games of all time... and once I get my component cable Ill be back into it (it looks shit on my current TV via S-video cables), but there isn't much out at the moment justifying a PAL price tag. The games I had interest in (Trauma Center and Super Swing Golf) have been postponed in Europe and are coming soon (6 months late isn't good enough in 2007).

I'm starting to see the light and almost believing the Wii is a fad... I hate to say it too, but Nintendo Europe are doing NOTHING to rectify this and I just think we will continue to get the shaft throughout the life of the Wii. I was hoping to hear some good news when searching for PAL releases in Q2, a quarter thats never really full of great games, but as Nintendo have fucked us out of the release of a lot of games thus far, I wanted to see one "Home Run" title to make me believe in the Big N.

But the Wii line up is as follows for Q2 in Europe:

Wing Island (Nintendo / Hudson) - 13th April 2007

Never heard of it... Hudson haven't released a good game since Saturn Bomberman arguably and their latest revision, Bomberman Act:Zero is an atrocity to man that should be buried in Nevada with all those copies of E.T

Chicken Little: Ace in Action (Disney Interactive Studios) - 20th April 2007

Don't make me punch someone in the mouth...

Cooking Mama Wii (505 Games) - April 2007

I actually have to say I kinda want to play thing game *hides head in shame*

Elevator Action (505 Games) - April 2007

Sounds like cheap porn...

Pop'n Pop (505 Games) - April 2007

Bust A Move ripoff maybe? Jordans breasts at 35,000ft? Who knows...

Heatseeker (Codemasters) - April 2007

Again, sounds like cheap porn... involving Cowboys and pudding in hot tubs... *shudders*

BIONICLE Heroes (Eidos / TT Games) - April 2007

Wow... I can already get this title on my 360 so I'm not going to pay more for a bastardised PAL Wii version.

Eledees (Konami) - April 2007

NO NO NO NO NO!!! ITS ELEBITS YOU FUCKS!!!! I really, really, REALLY can't believe they had to rename this game... and I really can't believe how late this game is as its one of the few games I really wanted to play. It's since been ripped to shreds so I'm not even sure I'm going to bother now anyway.

Impossible Mission (System 3) - April 2007

Woohoo... old skool C64 action. Impossible Mission in my memories was an amazing game and I'm afraid to emulate it in fear of shattering that illusion. If this game blows I'm going to be very sad indeed.

Mario Strikers Charged Football (Nintendo) - 25th May 2007

First game to support online play.. hmm... nah, Winning Eleven X anyone??

Brunswick Bowling Wii (505 Games) - May 2007

Wii Bowling is about as professional as my bowling fix needs to be and that came free with my Wii...

World Championship Poker Featuring Howard Lederer: All In Wii (505 Games) - May 2007

Gambling for fake money... sounds great! Oh wait... no, no it doesn't... PKR.com?

Spider-Man The Movie 3 (Activision) - May 2007

Movie exclusives... now they're always great games...

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Disney Interactive Studios) - May 2007

... see previous sarcasm...

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Midway) - May 2007

Has there not already been an Mortal Kombat: Armageddon?! Great use of a cliche word rather than a number..

Puzzle Balls (System 3) - May 2007

Oh LOLOL... better than Sticky Balls I guess!

Chicken Shoot + Egg Catcher (ZOO Digital Publishing) - May 2007

So let me get this straight... I have to massacre chickens by blowing them to bits with a shotgun, then I have to steal their eggs? What a great idea for a game! 0.o

Pangya! Golf with Style (Nintendo) - June 2007

Golf with Style. Notice the capitalisation of the word Style. Fuck me Nintendo, why not call it "Paris Hiltons Pangya! Golf with Style" and have that cum gobbling whore say "Thats hot..." after every shot. I'm seeing pink golf bags and golf balls with her Chihuahua on...

Dave Mirra Racing Wii (505 Games) - June 2007

I wondered what happened to the source code for BMX XXX... well heres our answer!

Transformers - June 2007

Oh please... leave the movie exclusives alone will you! Transformers was good back in the day... LEAVE IT ALONE!!

Mercury Meltdown Revolution (Ignition) - Q2 2007

You think someone would have told the development team that mercury is perpetually in a liquid state and the concept of it melting isn't a revolution...

Metal Slug Anthology (Ignition) - Q2 2007

Great game... emulated brilliantly by my original Xbox that still resides underneath my TV.

Well... thats the lot! No Super Paper Mario, no Mario Galaxy, no Metroid, no Resident Evil 4 for Wii. Nothing! Youll see those titles on the other side of the Atlantic but not in Europe. So fuck you Nintendo, I'm off to Mr. Modchips so I can actually play some good games on the console with so much promise. This is the last time I get stung by a PAL machine, I swear to fucking Christ!!

Live outside the EU and got a PSP? Get a bargain for one week only... f**king Sony...

2007-04-03T15:52:00.000Z

Live outside the EU and got a PSP? Well this is your oportunity to own Loco Roco for the wonderful price of $14.90 (or £7.60 to UK readers). Get across to Play-Asia (see banners) now to grab a copy for this week only! Want to know why us EU folk can't get a copy for so cheap? Thank Sony...

If you don't know what happened to Lik-Sang then I'll tell you briefly and let you make up your mind about them. Lik-Sang were a small Hong Kong based exporter of video games and merchandise from around the world. That meant us poor folk in the UK, and all over Europe, who have been shat on ever since the first iterations of games consoles had the choice to buy US, Japanese or European releases of games when they came out.

This was important as many games in Japan and the US were released way before their UK counterparts and (up until recently where this no longer matters) were natively 60Hz. Remember Star Wing on the PAL SNES and half the screen being borders? That was because of the 50/60Hz issue and our TV systems being different pixel ratios

The other great thing about importing games is the price difference. In the old days of the SNES, importing games was an expensive experience (a copy of Street Fighter 2 Turbo cost me £70 to import from the US back in the day). Thanks to the internet, and global prices generally being cheaper outside the UK, games since about 1998 were and have been generally cheaper to buy directly from Asia. Sony Europe didn't like this...

They took it upon themselves to try and bring down this "Robin Hood" of the grey import market by suing them from so many angles that Lik-Sang eventually had to buckle. One of Sonys bullshit reasons was that the PSP power supply provided from Asia didn't meet "strict EU guidelines" yet the last time I checked my PSP power supply has the CE mark and all the other stuff required. Since when has a DC adaptor been safe for those Asians to use, but not us safety conscious Europeans?!

It seems strange that they only started to really pressurise online exporters around the time preorders in Japan and the US for the PS3 just started. I can only assume Sony didn't like the fact you could buy a region free games console (both the PSP and PS3) and/or the games for about half the UK retail price when they have so much invested in another intellectual property... like their movie industry ties. The failed UMD movie format was the only part of the PSP that carried any form of region locking, and more notably, the Blu-Ray discs are the only region locked part of the PS3. Having eTailers able to provide movies way before their EU release dates would be disastrous for their PR and advertising campaigns in those regions and thus lose sales when we get the upped price discs here.

I also think someone had a lot of sand in their vaginas over at Sony prior to the PS3 launch, with their escalating prices for the PS3, lack of produced units, problems with the Blue diodes and the constant complaints of overpricing of the PSP in Europe and just needed someone to smash their fist into. Lik-Sang was that bitch!!

So, Lik-Sang is gone because they refused to cave in to Sony and they lost. Other online exports, like Play-Asia, now do not ship to zones in the EU that Sony says they aren't allowed to. Nintendo and Microsoft are still more than happy for you to buy their machines and games from wherever in the World you like (after a genuine product sale is a sale for the bigger picture). But not Sony, oh no.. overall it just seems bad for the consumer, bad for the exporter, and surely.. bad for Sony..

Well, anyway... there we go... if you do live outside the EU, go grab a copy of Loco Roco today. Its cute, its fun and its unique - its just an all round great game!! If not, show your protest for Sony Bullshit and just boycott all their products... you can generally identify them as those that aren't good for you, are shit advertised and repackaged to look like they're something they're not and are only out to make money for some greedy corperate scumbag... much like fast food!

Xbox 360 Castlevania Symphony of the Night 200.6% Complete baby, YEAH!

2007-04-03T08:29:00.000Z

So I did it! I finally completed Castlevania SOTN to 200.6% on my 360, without doing any of the Sword Familiar cheating, and unlocked the 35 Achievement points for doing so! The last pesky areas were in the Colosseum, which funnily enough Amy found on the map I printed... they weren't even the difficult to find areas either!

So that left me with 2 achievements on the game left to complete; kill Dracula without getting hit for 10 points, and the slightly more challenging, Complete both Castles with Richter for 45 points... so on we marched!

Amy needed to do some research on the PC, so I used the time wisely and proceeded to start the game as Richter (enter your name as "Richter" if you didn't know) and play through. Richter is a bit of a git to play with as he doesn't level up, has no way of gaining health on the move (other than the "secret areas" where you can find the powerup items that restore your health, as do the drops after defeating a boss) and most hits to Richter knock off 1/3rd of his energy.

Playing as Richter therefore becomes a constant battle to get to the next save spot before something gets a lucky blow in, which is fine in the Castle but in the inverted Castle it becomes an absolute nightmare at times. There were lots of "shit"s "fuck"s and even a "MOTHERFUCKER" at times!

My advice for this achievement is a mixture of the Holy Water or the Daggers as your secondary weapon of choice. Most of the bosses between the start and the Inverted Clock Tower are easiest killed with the Daggers and hitting Y at the right moment for a 20-30 hit combo, but for some of the tougher areas of the Inverted Castle (the Church Stairway for one, should you choose this path!) are a constant Holy Rain attack area!

Despite the many, many times I died in some areas, I managed to get to the Inverted Clock Tower in less than 45 minutes playtime. I then proceeded to kick Shafts ass (what an unfortunate name for a boss character) and completed that achievement!

Last but not least, I had to kill Dracula in Bloodlines without getting hit. After getting hit when Dracula metamorphosises into demon form several annoying times, I changed tactics and collected the Holy Water on the end candlestick and just punished his bitch ass with Holy Rain and hid in the corner. Cheap? No doubt... but 200 out of 200 achievement points for one of my favorite games of all time look good on the olde Xbox Dashboard! :D

This is the first game I have all the achievement points for too.. Konami had the good graces not to put some insane and impossible challenges in there, you know.. like Complete the game in a Record Speedrun style time!

800 Xbox points thoroughly well spent, 10 hours+ of well enjoyed retro fun and Castlevania Symphony of the Night has been totally worth the wait! This game is brilliant and a timeless classic that I truly recommend to anyone.. whether you get an original PSX version, the arguably better Saturn version (with Maria as a playable character and a couple of extra sections to the game), a PSP "PS1 emulated" version or whatever, anyone with a love for gaming should play this game.

Claiming my Technorati Profile...

2007-04-02T14:03:00.000Z

Technorati Profile

I hate Halle Berry...

2007-04-02T12:32:00.000Z

Generally, if you don't want to be on the backlash of a shit load of abuse, its wise to steer clear of talking to me about a lot of actresses, but Halle Berry takes the cake as one of my most hated actresses. She even beats Julia Roberts, and that takes a lot, thanks to her self righteous speech about being voted sexiest woman (wtf?) and it being a step forward for black women...

Shes been talking to Parade magazine (don't ask how I know..) about how she tried to commit suicide over her failed first marriage by trying to "gas" herself. She says:

"I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming when I had an image of my mother finding me. She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do. It was all about a relationship. My sense of worth was so low. I promised myself I would never be a coward again."

I mean what is this article... am I meant to feel sorry for the selfish bitch or what?! This does nothing more than re-enforce the fact she is a self involved slut with no regards for those around her, including her friends and family.

Really... why is she telling the world this? Is it so people will turn around and say things like "oooh, that Halle Berry has had a tough life. You know, it must be so hard for her when so many people think shes the sexiest woman on the planet (again... wtf), a big, rich and powerful movie star with all her homes around the world, who has the ability to do so much good in this world now". I mean come on...

We all have problems and have to deal with shit on a day to day basis, but when a multi award winning actress harps on to a magazine about how she almost committed suicide it pisses me off. How could she ever come close to "rock bottom" and think that suicide is her only option?

I wouldn't mind if she'dve had a decent go at it, you know, hacked into her wrists in a warm bath (remember its down the lines not across the tracks people!), ODed on a massive speedball (heroine and amphetamine mixed I think?), or took a running jump out of one of her (many) penthouse apartments. At least then you could say "Wow... shes such a survivor... someone was looking out for her that day" (I wouldn't.. someone might). But no... all shes done is over dramatise leaving the car running as shes parked it in her garage, then saved it for a shitty magazine interview so they can sell a few million copies with the title "Halle Berry Attempted Suicide SHOCKER!!" (see digg article for an example of how to sell a story).

All credibility for everything she has ever done has just been wiped of the charts in my eyes now. Even admitting this, no matter whether its to be honest, to sell a magazine, to get you some (much needed) current spotlight attention, whatever, just goes to show you are a thoughtless, manipulative piece of filth that is better suited to sucking cock than having the ability to do good things for this planet.

If this interview was an attempt to show you are a strong person and a fighter, you missed the boat completely. I just hope karma catches up with you and you die in a fire.

So well done Halle Berry... you are now my most hated female actress... the next time you're thinking of suicide just drop me a line... hopefully I can give you a few pointers and together we can get it right this time.

199.4% through Castlevania Symphony of the Night! Damn you Konami!!!!

2007-04-02T09:13:00.000Z

This weekend, and since its release a week last Wednesday, I have mostly been playing Castlevania SOTN on my Xbox 360. Some of you may know of its 200.6% completion target, and is actually one of the achievements. Being the Castlevania geek that I am, I have to prove my might and get this achievement unlocked (its actually on my CV that I have done this on its original PSX release so it would hardly be right if I didn't get it on my 360!).

But I'm currently stuck at a whopping 199.4% and that pesky 1.2% eludes me! Then I only have to complete it with Richter and boom, first game to get all the playpoints for!

Pimp My Blog, Support Play Asia and Cheap Xbox360 games!

2007-03-30T14:41:00.000Z

If, like me, you run Firefox web browser and have a great piece of software called ABP (or AdBlocker Pro as its otherwise know) this post and my blog additions will not affect you too much. Together they make the internet a great advert free place, and the only exposure I get to adverts online now is when stupid MSN Messenger gets my email in its own choice of browser (i.e. IE7) rather than my "default Internet Browser" (this pisses me off).

Anyway, I hope you're not too offended by the addition of one of my favorite websites, Play Asia, and their new additions to my blog. Maybe one day this blog will drive enough traffic to make the 1 to 10,000 ratio or whatever it is to generate some money online, but maybe not! I support Play-Asia and buy all my cheap region free Xbox 360 games from them now that Lik-Sang is gone (and there goes the only healthy competition on the international games import market, thanks Sony).

The great thing is that apart from some localisation on the front cover, everything from the manual to the game menus is in FULL ENGLISH. Thats right, NTSC-J games for the Hong Kong region are around half the price and exactly the same as the PAL English counterparts. I'd even argue they were better because they don't have any of those filthy multi-language menus supporting German, Spanish and French. Plus you get them months before their Pal release, for instance, Gears of War I had weeks before I came home and people were still like "what... you have Gears of War... its not even out yet?!?". To add insult to injury I told them it cost me 40000 won (ie £20) and that it was in full English and they go mental!

So stop paying unhealthy UK prices for games and get over to Play-Asia now; they have a big list of games that will definitely work on UK machines so you won't ever get stung again.

Fortunately I own an NTSC-J Xbox360 so I don't ever have to worry about cheaper English language Asian games (ie games released for Hong Kong) but you'll find a lot of games are region free. Avoid anything by EA though... they suck balls by locking all their games to specific regions so they can bleed you of more money in the UK through regionalised advertising sponsorship.... bastards!!!

The Million Person Outreach program! 1to1000000.co.uk

2007-03-23T11:29:00.000Z

Touching one million people is my goal... not in a weird pervy way my usual readers might be thinking, but in a logical, I know, he knows, she knows way.

We all like to think our voice is heard, and more over that if we have something important to say our voice is going to be heard. I am trying to embrace the power of the internet to see if thats true. I have read articles about this before; how in some way we are all connected to the whole world by a chain of 6 people, but recently the idea has been playing on my mind.

Like a pyramid scheme, the logic is simple. I know 20 people, who in turn know 20 people, and so on and so forth. This is not a con, it is simply an educational exercise to be completed by a bored Software Engineering graduate (read GEEK) to test the power of this.

Potentially the plan goes like this...

1->20->400->16000->2560000000

There we go, simple and effective. The maths and implementation aren't quite that simple, but without going into those details, a pyramid scheme would only need another layer or 2 and the idea still works.

Why?
I have a few reasons really, but the main one is to see how far an online voice can travel. I find it interesting that we have a global interconnection of information and communication, but on the whole we can still be fed disinformation, lies and half truths by peers, advertisers, governments, whoever. I read a great Violent Acres article entitled The Government who cried Wolf and her sentiment was shared by myself in a lot of the things I write. It's not an original article, but its nice to hear someone who describes herself as an "Average Joe" (she is far from it in my opinion) waking up to these facts.

I like to think that we all have the power to touch others and in the complete opposite way to the emails I receive daily offering viagra, porn, to be enlightened, to pass this chain mail on to 5 of my friends and something good will happen to me, etc etc, I want to put something in motion that has the potential to make a difference. People believe these emails (still! It amazes me!), but I want to see if they will do the same in an effort for research and development.

Plus, this whole Sony hate month is coming to an end, yet they are still pushing their lies about how well the PS3 is doing and that makes me sad that a just because a company has a massive base, a stock pile of cash, and a direct line into the media they can inject lies, like a poison coursing through the veins of society, and people just lap it up. I want to see if email has that potential if we, the people, find something out that effects us all, if that information could hit the mainstream mind.

Whats in this for me?
Nothing more than the satisfaction of intellectual development and the stimulation of a bored mind.

Whats in this for you?
Ah, the age old question of give and take! Well, in an ideal world I will develop a means of giving a voice potentially massive portal for people. All news is subjective, but a means of hearing real peoples voices in regards to events, news and the real world sounds like a good thing to me. Having lost faith in the mainstream media, I want to know what real people are thinking and whats really going on.

I guess this is what sites like Digg are with a twist, but I'm interested more in the ability for users to filter out what news is relevant to their own lives. There are still a few details that need ironing out but the motion has begun.

Really, just the peace of mind in the potential for knowing whether or not if you had something to tell the whole world, how well you would be heard!

Apologies and Thanks!!
I should apologise and thank everyone who does take part in my experiment for the time they have taken to pass the email on, and for their efforts to see if my goal of enlightening the masses works.

In my email I request you Carbon Copy my 1to1000000.co.uk email address so I can see how many people you have touched, so please be assured your email address and those you send it on to will only be used by me for my own research and will not receive any unsolicited emails. This is a research project and I am not a 419 scammer!!!

The website will be up and running sooner rather than later hopefully, so in the mean time, please feel free to peruse my angry blog.

Copyright Law stomps another great website...

2007-03-20T23:38:00.000Z

CD-Wow is getting the Lik-Sang treatment in another case of corperate scumfucks being able to use Copyright Law as the reason to force the UK into high retail prices with no other options.

Explain to me how this harms the artists and I'll go back to buying my albums in the UK. We are told time and time again we are to "support the artists" as a justification for the iron fist of the RIAA and things like this reiterate the greed element of the record industry. I want to support the artists I love but I won't be ripped off in the process - like Sonys shakedown on Lik-Sang, CD-Wow will just be another long gone Asian website that helped the consumer by offering the UK access to that level playing ground the rest of the world has access to.

You are lucky to find an album for under £10 at a retail outlet (average price for a cd is around £13 these days), and with CD-Wow offering most chart CDs for less than £7.99 delivered each, its easy to see why the big boys in the UK would be losing out... hell, it puts the pricing some where in line with the rest of the world! The last time I checked, the artists (i.e. the people I want to support) got paid on a per CD basis (who also get fucked by the Industry but from a different angle), and as every single CD CD-Wow sells is legitimate I would be doing my bit for them, but unfortuately the system doesnt get enough of a cut.

With CD sales declining (less and less original artists, more covers by cretins, more copy cat bands in a vain attempt to have a "current" artist on every label and expensive pricing in the UK all being factors for this), the UK has to do something to try and "win back" the buying public. Taking CD-Wow away from us isn't going to do them any favours.

Im tired and will finish this in the morning! ;)

Digg : The End of Subjective Broadcasting

2007-03-19T10:06:00.000Z

Digg(tm) has to be one of my most visited sites for the past 9 months and I really do love to hate it now. Dugg(tm) news, as it becomes increasingly more popular, its becoming rife with over elaborating article news in a sorry attempt to get people to view their own site.

I am sick to death of people saying "The Best Flash Game EVAAAAAA!! w000t!" or "Unbelievable Work..ZOMG!?!" only to lead to some decade old piece that some teenage asshole has just found for the first time.

I guess social networked news brings its own take on internal "editorialism" but I'm pleading with the World here, for people to have a bit of self control the next time they feel the need to use a superlative to describe something they Digg... ask yourself these questions:

1) Is it really the best/amazing/unbelievable/life changing? If not.. STFU else goto 2;
2) Will it still be amazing in a few days/weeks/months? If not.. STFU else goto 3;
3) Has the article been online for more than a year? If it has, most of the people on Digg will have already seen is so STFU else goto 4;
4) STFU

You see, the moral of this rant is that the best articles on Digg are those that don't self gratify and allow the reader to decide whether they really are amazing. Most of the time you'll find its just better than average...

Sony Hate Month Continues - BluRay 2 : HDDVD 1, a Scoreline I find hard to believe...

2007-03-15T11:52:00.000Z

Mikes comment reiterating this 2:1 ratio of BluRay sales hit home a little bit to be honest, as he is an In The Know guy who has also digested that stat as gospel truth. Given the theme of March being Sony Hate Month , so charged for landing its gimped console on our sandy shores ("who the fuck wants to see them"..haha, that movie quote works for 2 things in that statement!) I wanted to delve a little deeper.

The first worrying sign was that research material is proving a little difficult to come by. It seems it is hard to put stats down for unit sales so the consumer can't readily see where the format war is heading. Sony seemed very quick to announce themselves as the winner in January when the release of 2 popular movie exclusives saw a boost in sales (*shock).

Im not the only one struggling to find this data. Apparently, those with more than just a keen interest are using Amazon stats in a frantic effort to see whose winning, so the data is obviously a mixed bag. Of the more Sony suck theming stats, I found the following bites.

Sony officials also revealed that, according to an online survey of approximately 100,000 current PlayStation 3 owners conducted by the company, 90 percent have watched a Blu-ray movie on their console.

To me, thats a worrying statistic when the console is bundled with a "free" BluRay movie, TALLADEGA NIGHTS in the US. So 10% of those that bought a PS3 in the US/Japan don't give a shit about BluRay?! That or the movie was so horrible they couldn't watch it all the way through (which goes to show how much Sony care about you, by bundling a POS movie that no one would buy normally (note. The UK launch sees the film Click featuring Adam Sandler as a freebie!)). These are Sonys own statistics too! Even if they didn't like the bundled disc, I would say they tested it to "see the amazing differences", yet there are 10% of PS3 owners that don't feel BluRay offers enough of a difference to warrant buying a movie they actually want.

Plus, this statistic leads to

But even apart from that, 80 percent of those surveyed plan to purchase further Blu-ray movies, while 72 percent of respondents stated that they plan to rent a Blu-ray movie in the near future.

So let me get this straight... 10% thought BluRay was an unimportant feature on the PS3, then a further 10% watched the steaming pile of turd you provided them with and now have no intention of buying BlueRay movies..

Without getting technical (I like to keep my blog at surface level) I can see the merits of future gen (current gen is actually the correct term, it is 2007 ) but when 1/5th of those buying a console don't give a shit about one of its "key features" (see previous entry) you have definitely got something wrong.

Consumerwise, the first company to really embrace the triple format disc will win hands down, as consumers will be future-proof and be able to use it on current players they actually have at the moment. I would buy a HD DVD drive for my 360 tomorrow if DVD movies were dropped in favor of dual layer DVD and HD DVD discs... that would be awesome, and great value for money! I really don't see the Movie Conglomerates or the MPIAA loving the idea of providing people with discs they wont have to replace unfortunately! :(

Blu-ray discs are being declared the victor over rival HD-DVD by Blu-ray supporter Sony. 'And yet while all agree that it was a strong month for Blu-ray, opinion is split on whether the surge in sales is an indicator of stronger user adaption of Blu-ray compared to HD DVD, or simply a reflection of the larger number of new Blu-ray titles that hit the market over the month -- 25 new Blu-ray titles were released in January, compared to just 11 titles on HD DVD for the same period.'"

The statistics are largely pumped up by the "free" BluRay disc in the PS3, and as they pump more PS3s into the US and Japan, the amount of BluRay movies shockingly goes up too. I'm not saying that this is the only reason BluRay is "winning" the format wars, I just think the statistics used to draw these conclusions are manipulated to begin with.

Stock levels at Amazon are a little confusing too :

They show a stock level of, on average, 15k of both formats. The HD DVD graph seems consistent with a good throughput of sale and demand, whilst to me, the BluRay stock looks like stagnant stock rotation to me. Maybe I'm slightly jaded this month, but it does!

I also find total number of sales quite interesting:

More interestingly, VideoScan's numbers indicate that during the seven days between Jan 7 and Jan 14, Blu-ray managed to close the gap of total discs sold since inception with HD DVD by over seven percentage points, suggesting that if the current trend continues, the two formats could be at disc sales parity within weeks.

So, even with 2 million copies of TALLADEGA NIGHTS out there, BluRay is still trailing the total number of sales? Most of the FACTS are still blurred as we approach April, so this "race" is still a Black Box scenario.

Maybe if we had some actual sales figures from both camps, we might be able to see which format people seem to be buying. To me it still seems like nobody really cares, and I'm sure if you compared sales to DVD sales both formats get the finger at the present time.

So long as HD DVD doesn't slowdown its output of films, and catches up with a few killer releases, we hopefully won't be drowning in a Sony proprietary format in the future, one that thanks to DRM (that we all know Sony love so much), will mean we are enslaved to buying exclusively what they tell us, subjected to the advertising they make money from, watch it how they tell us (no skipping those trailers), on a machine they made/licensed, and led into a future of even more formats because Sony is now so "brilliant".

Comical Ali Vs Phil Harrison - The Showdown

2007-03-14T10:04:00.000Z

Is it just me or does every word that spews out of Phil Harrisons mouth just remind you of the now dead Iraqi minister "Comical" Ali? Its every fucking word that comes out of his mouth, it just reeks of bullshit...

After my last rant about Sony and their choices with the PS3, the 2007 Game Developers Conference took place in San Francisco and Phil Harrison was there to give a key note speech about PS3 Home (which admittedly does look pretty cool..if only for a few days until I get bored of it like Second Life) and again in his speech, surrounding interviews and general media that comes from his camp is just so reminiscent of the early days of Iraq II : This Time Its Personal (This Ones for you Daddy).

I've compiled a few of my favorite quotes by Phil, with what I think about them, and a comparable quote from the Comical genius himself.

Do you accept that Sony has had a bit of an image problem with PlayStation 3 in recent months? Phil Harrison: No, I don't accept it. I've been doing my best to make sure that the world sees PlayStation 3 for what it is. I can't deny that we've had some challenges, but I think those are all behind us.

What – an overpriced POS?! No you've actually bee overhyping the PS3 and relaying bullshit information about its Super Computer Capabilities. Really Sony, the challenges are NOT behind you yet - you have a million of this monolith coming to the UK and they really aren't all preordered!!

Comical Ali says - "We are in control. They are in a state of hysteria. Losers, they think that by killing civilians and trying to distort the feelings of the people they will win. I think they will not win, those bastards."

It's all about software now, it's not about hardware. It's all about services, it's all about the way that the industry is changing and the way that we hope to be taking a leadership position in that change.

Since when has Sony been pushing the issue of Software over Hardware? If he truly believed this, the BluRay wouldve been scrapped in favor of, oh.. I dont know, maybe an easy produce DVD drive that developers can actually use! Services too... hmm, I forgot with M$ having IPTV, Media Center etc etc that Sony had BETTER services to offer...

Comical Ali says - "We have shot down 2 Apache helicopters. Have the Americans said yet that they were shot down by their - what do they call it - friendly fire? No? Well... [dramatic pause, then smiles] ...not yet!"

We've been hearing lots of positive things from lots of people, and the response on the blogs and the websites and the forum seems to be almost universally fantastic - so I'm delighted.

So you've only been reading the positive Fanboy sites then, because what I know online the PS3 has been welcomed like a shitstorm!

"The situation is excellent, they are going to try to approach Baghdad...and I believe their grave will be there."

There's still criticism of the PS3's high price point. How long is it going to be before the price comes down? But it's not about price, it's about value, and it's about putting into the PS3, offering the value that is going to make consumers satisfied - and I think we've done that.

My sentiments exactly Phil... its not about price one bit.. I forgot that everyone has a spare £425+ in their pockets to buy a gimped PS3. Value is speculative and relative.. so for a CEO I guess this isn't a massive issue but £425 is a lot of money to me!

Comical Ali Says : "We're going to drag the drunken junkie nose of Bush through Iraq's desert, him and his follower dog Blair...There are 26 million Saddams in Iraq"

The backwards compatibility issue has been talked about a lot in Europe recently. You made comments some months ago saying that backwards compatibility was important, something that you wanted to give consumers and that they wanted... Why has that strategy changed? The strategy has not changed. We have made a technical change to the machine which moves us from being a hardware-embedded backwards compatibility solution to one which is a combination of hardware and software.

This is Comical Ali all over! “The strategy has not changed”!! That could actually be a direct quote! The strategy has changed, changed in the favor of Sony, not the consumer. I read a recent article testing 12 PAL PS2 games on the PS3, all games I would say are worthy of playing (Guitar Heroes 2, GTA amongst them) and only 1 of them worked?! Jeez... what a great stance!

Comical Ali says "They are not in Najaf. They are nowhere. They are on the moon. They are snakes in the desert..."

In America, where PS3 disc is already out, Blu-ray disc is surging ahead as the next-generation movie format of choice. It's absolutely trouncing any other formats, and I think we'll see the same in Europe and the UK.

What?! Next gen wise this is speculative at best as the reports on the Next Gen format of choice are largely false, but saying its trouncing any other format is utter lies. Using the words "any other format" makes it sound like hes encompassing DVD into it, yet DVD is still the media of choice by far... incorporate DVD figures and its easy to see that no one currently cares about HD discs

Comical Ali says "We're going to drag the drunken junkie nose of Bush through Iraq's desert, him and his follower dog Blair...There are 26 million Saddams in Iraq" : Falsifying facts, just like Phil!

So there we have it... one interview diluted into Comical Alis styling! This really could be part one of a million, as I took all those quote from ONE INTERVIEW!! There are a lot of better and more "Comical" ones but this will do for now! I said previously to not get me started on Phil Harrison but I just cant help myself... the guy is just a fucking douche!

UK PS3 at launch?!? I'd rather lick my own arsehole...

2007-03-08T10:43:00.000Z

For those of you who don't know me all that well, you might say I know a little bit about video games... and not in the way that most people say "I know about X", I genuinely can be referred to as an expert in this genre. Why? Well, I live and breathe them, and have done all my life, and not many people can say that.

I dig a little deeper than that, and tell you that as part of my degree in Software Engineering I coded a Physics API that served as the basis for any video game from scratch, rendering such in OpenGL. I code a little for the PSP amongst other things, and have worked in the games industry (briefly appreciated, but thats another story). I grew up in front of a C64 and proceeded through every generation of video game console to date, devouring game after game to progress my own understanding and expertise so that one day I could develop the best game of all time. I know more about the history of video gaming than I care to recall and am an all round gamer geek.

I generally get that "chill" around the launch of a new console; its my crack.. I just love that new console smell. Gaming has revolutionised the way we think about home entertainment and I love that too, and he thought of a brand spanking new piece of kit under my TV fills me with anticipation for any developer to unleash its potential at any moment.

I've paid for my own consoles since the age of 13, starting with my own PSX, saving paperboy wages and mixing birthday and xmas money to eventually afford a new machine. I took time off college on Dreamcast launch day, telling my Physics tutor, much to her dismay, that a new console mattered more to me than her lectures. I'm now approaching 25 and I can generally afford a new piece of hardware out of my monthly disposable income at a push, but not on March 23rd 2007 I can't!

Sony have upped the ante with the PS3 to "considered purchase" with a pricepoint in the UK that is cringe worthy at best. Ripping out one of the more appealing features (by replacing the Emotion Engine with Software Emulation.. I mean wtf is that!) Sony force us to keep our PS2s out as not all games will definitely be supported in the European Launch, unlike the US and Japanese counterparts. Anyone who knows anything about emulation will tell you that 99% of the time emulated support is no match for hardware compatibility. Cheers for that Sony, its bad enough we've had to wait another 5 months for a PS3, then get ripped off with our pricepoint to begin with, but you're making our PS3 WORSE than the NTSC counterparts... thats a pretty bold statement of Fuck You in my book!

..and it seems that this is the Sony brand theme these days. They force standard after standard on us (I don't recall a Sony proprietary format that has genuinely succeeded in the mainstream, although I am open to suggestion) and they attempt to do it again with BluRay. My forecast is due to Sonys iron grip on the DRM for BluRay, HD DVD will be the choice of the average Joe, with BluRay just being used exclusively for PS3 games, until, like every other Sony proprietary format (Betamax, DAT, miniDisc, MemoryStick, UMD... need I go on!), it eventually gets laughed off as another Sony mistake. I know why they keep plugging away (to control a media market and make billions in licensing), but I just wish they wouldn't!

But Blu-Ray is a major factor in the pricing of the PS3, so how can I not be against this format from the get go. The infamous blue diode fiasco they seem to be having in manufacturing their drives was the suggested blame for the low production numbers from day one (and Europe got the major shaft with Sony deciding to allocate their stock to NTSC regions first), so it brunts most of my grudge for PS3 pricing.

Which brings me to my beloved past love, Lik-Sang, and the Iron Fist it used to smash them into oblivion. I can't, thanks to Sony, choose to purchase a Japanese PS3 and import it to the UK as that would break some (made up) international law. I can go to Japan, purchase a PS3 there and simply bring it home with me, but I will struggle to buy one from a reputable online retailer. I would much rather have a NTSC-J console, like my Xbox360 is, not just to save about half the price on Original titles (you know, so I don't have to resort to piracy/second hand buying for shitter games I would never pay and support at full price), but to have access to all the lovely games that never get released in the UK, or we get the shaft and have to wait whilst they are converted to PAL regions (which sucks balls might I add).

Generally Sony seems content giving its fan base the shaft, so in return I am giving the PS3 the shaft this generation around. I am not a fan boy of any specific console (I am a Console Fanboy if you must label me) and always plan to own any new hardware I can get my hands on, but this time Sony have pushed too far.

Pricepoint : Wrong - £450+ for a games machine is a big turn off, even with the BluRay Magic, and (now Emulated) Backward compatibility of PSX and PS2 games. Sony wouldn't even pay for the licencing of the rumble feature, with that cretin Phil Harrison (dont get me started on him) claiming rumble was "so last gen" then oh wait, due to popular demand they pay Immersion off and are now planning on putting it back in. I'm sure all the people who've stocked up on PS3 wireless controllers are rejoicing at the thought of having to buy a whole wave of new pads!

Technology : Wrong, wrong and more wrong! They've spend billions on R&D for the Cell processor then they put a measly 256mb RAM in, with a maximum texture size of 1.something mb (not 100% on this fact, I was pretty drunk in the conference I heard this at!) due to other limitations don't really cover themselves for future proofing. Whats the point in being able to load that 50Gb disk with textures, movies and game content if developers can't a) pull them off the disk quick enough (BluRay drives are sloooooow but will get faster Im sure) and b) dont have anywhere to quickly access them?! This, in laymans terms, is like building a theme park with all the best rides in, then only putting one entrance on the main gate with some slow old fuck letting people in, then only allowing a small group of people on the rides at once... it makes no sense!!

Customer Appreciation : Fuck off! Trying to force a movie format mixture on your customer base in a vain attempt to win a proprietary format war battle is not something I care to get into.

Exclusive Titles : All but none existent, with most developers pulling away from PS3 exclusivity, opting for a much wiser multi platform approach

Games Lineup : Most of the titles I want are coming to both 360 and PS3, and given the things I've seen with comparisons, the 360 version is generally better than the PS3, thanks to (better) graphical brute, oh... and have more RAM...something Microsoft didn't skimp on.

Future Proofing : Something Sony seem to like to drum home about their Cell Processor. From what I know in the coding world, unless youre a Mathematician with a meticulous approach to calculations in real time, and know the Cell inside out, squeezing every last drop of power out of the cell is almost impossible. I went to a (secret) PS3 tech discussion last year and the guest speaker suggested they had only seen about 20% peak rates with the PS3, largely due to other bottle necks. Developers currently don't need all that power, and will always struggle to use it due to other limitations, like only having 256MB of RAM to start with!

Development Potential : In fairness, for me personally, this is one of the only selling points for the PS3. I do quite fancy a dabble with PS3 Linux..

So of all those points, only the development side of things tempts me at the minute is having the ability to code on the box, and given I can do that on a number of other platforms.. Im going to give the PS3 a miss! I unsurprisingly already own both a Wii and an Xbox360 and really do love that Wii60 combo. So my message is Fuck You Sony, Fuck You in the eye!

Here's how I set up a business when I was 23.... I'm a fucking douchebag, thats how!

2007-03-07T11:54:00.000Z

Well I'm looking into sorting my own taxes out with the Inland Revenue and stumbled across this cock stain,with his self glorifying, motivational schpiele on how he set up his own business at 23 and now turns over £500k a year.

Founder of SwapGame.cock, Marc Day is a hero to all aspiring entrepreneurs the country owner... well, not quite. You see, in this rather drab piece of propaganda you may or may not miss the asinine way this fuck weasel founded his company.

Their Reason: Take time for thorough research

Take time for thorough research?! Swapping things... fuck me, thats brilliant... that must've taken him all his years at University to come up with that idea. A way of swapping/renting games online.. a childhood watching Swapshop would suffice.

No, the reason he was able to establish such a company is that his family were already rich.

"Importantly, I also secured a £30,000 bank loan. The bank was apprehensive, but I was able to use my parents' property as security and I made my father chairman of the company, which gave the bank more confidence. My father was experienced in business and I used him as a sounding board anyway."

Wow... I wish my daddy would let me secure my business loan on his property! Apprehensive my arse.. I remember going to the bank to ask them for a loan once and they looked at me like I'd just shit on the desk and wrote the amount I wanted with it.

So there we go... in a nut shell, if you want to start a business you need to do research.. oh, and have a family thats rich.. got that??? :|

Has the media finally caught up with reality in the UK?!

2007-02-26T10:28:00.000Z

Caffeine... bringer of so much joy, and as such I enjoy a nice cup of coffee and read my daily dose of Bovine News and yet again I stumble across an arbitrary piece of "shock" journalism that really should be no-news but as its Fox News thats reporting it, I had to laugh.

The article can be here and as far as stating the obvious goes, it does it pretty well. I could've told you years ago that young women were going out and intentionally getting pregnant but I'm not going to say "I told you so" because I think a lot of us knew this.

The thing I want to build on from this article is the very last comment below the advert of "Neal's comments come as figures show England and Wales have the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe — with the biggest growth among girls under 16.". This is quite a worrying statistic...

I mean why is this just Europe.. surely its then true of the developed world too, I mean what other first world countries are there outside of Europe that have a high rate of teenage pregnancy? I would think even the Chinese (questionably second world) and the educated Indians (again, Second World really...) have curtailed their rutting for their teenage years in favour of a better life so why in the UK are we doing so much fucking?

The simple answer is the welfare state. Most girls can see they are infinitely "more independent" with child so why not have one young and continue spitting them out throughout their lives so they never have to work, and constantly get support from the state. Hell, its got to be better than working in McDonalds... just ask the guy who impregnated them!

I had to laugh that the slag wagon got pregnant on the "first try" with her 13 year old boyfriend... pretty good going as far as I'm aware! Better reporting that than she had a gizzfest with 5 of the local chavs with any one of them potentially being the father, I mean we might be having a lot of teenage pregnancies, but don't make us out to be promiscuous to boot.

The sooner this Labour government gets the chop the better; a government that started with so much promise and potential and has consistently failed to delivery year after year, consistently shafted the British public year after year, and in actuality, just been spouting hot air for almost three terms now. Somehow the tabloid buying masses haven't cottoned on to this and this pretentious prick is still the voice of the UK.

The only man who has ever really had my vote ended up being an alcoholic (we smell our own I guess!) and the current wave of ball bags are laughable at best. David Cameron has my vote at the next election, but even he reminds me of that "wannabe cool guy geek" from school that everyone laughed at behind his back because everyone knew he was secretly a douche. The one with all the "radical ideas" that are so painfully middle of the road it makes you cringe. The guy who got drunk a few days before his 18th birthday and was now a "rebel". The Robert Aide of the Conservative party... (if you didn't go to high school with me you won't know who he is but just think David Cameron with Milky Bar kid white hair and you'll be on the right lines).

I died a little more inside today...

The Cock and Balls Project

2007-02-20T13:20:00.000Z

Well London has now 100% fallen through... what a shit load of fuck! It has been one thing after another really and in some respects Im glad it has. They showed as much compassion as Adolf Hitler with a bus load of Jews holding a firebomb to my sob story of why I couldnt make it for my first day and needed some extra time to you know, relocate to the shithole that is London.

He is my sob story:

Dear Adolf,

Well it really has been a weekend of despair and madness, and of plans changing and changing again. Essentially I have been let down by both my places to stay in the London area and in turn, am not going to be able to start without a little help/after a few days of house hunting.

Having only let me know yesterday that my family can no longer put me up, my friend in Northampton let me know he will be away on business for a week, I have been frantically searching for a viable solution all day.

If I had money to burn I would've quite simply drove down this afternoon and found a short term B&B until I could find a decent place to rent, but knowing i will undoubtedly need every penny I have for a deposit etc I did not feel this was a great solution. Knowing nothing of London I do not know what areas are good, and what are not, and I would really like to get a thumbs up before jumping into something, even in the short term.

So I'm left with a dilemma, no place to stay and am open to suggestions! I really will need to be in the area to look for a flat, but at the same time I can't afford to be traveling back and forth to view properties. I really am drawing blanks when it comes to London now as its so expensive, and although Ill be ok once I have a place sorted in the right area, if Im not able to preview anything before hand, or discuss with people experienced in the area (i.e. people at work!) Im a bit lost!

Which leads me to ask for some advice in this scenario. I want to get down as soon as possible but Im a little inexperienced when it comes to renting/relocating and am just out of ideas! I need something cheap and short term, and don't mind traveling a bit to get in within reason. I hate to have to bring this on you, but I really don't know what else to do.

I seem to recall you mentioning you are not in tomorrow so I will call to confirm the theme of this email with the number I have, and I'll hope to hear from you soon. I will do my uttermost to minimise the amount of time it takes to find somewhere to stay.

Kind Regards,
David Brown

Not too weak, not too anything other than you've given me a week to relocate to London, plans have changed and are out of my control. This was sent on Sunday night, when I knew there would be no way of me making it.

On Monday I contacted them and spoke to probably the rudest man I have ever had the displeasure of speaking to, their MD.. a supposed Upper Echelon of their team, but he was nothing other than a giant vagina with sand in. Three of the comments that left me with a severely bad taste in my mouth included "We are not a Housing Agent", "I don't see how where you live is in any way our problem" and "We have set up a computer for you, that was a complete waste of time".

To which he left the conversation by telling me Adolf would be in touch and left me know what is going to happen. I immediately contacted my recruiters to let them know what this giant douche had said.

Low and behold, today at about 12pm I got an email off Adolf to let me know the following:

David,

Your unannounced no-show on your first day of employment has sent ripples through the management here at the Cock and Balls Project. This has not only disrupted schedules but also wasted time as various people have been making preparations. This firm has now lost faith in your relationship with us.

Unfortunately, due to the gravity of this situation, we are withdrawing our offer of employment at The Cock and Balls Project. We feel that this is the best route for the both of us.

We wish you all the best for your future.

Best,
Adolf H.

As Paul pointed out, this was a reply to the previous email... doesnt take a genius to realise my no show wasn't in any way shape or form unannounced! His "ripples through management" comment is pure class... it makes my joining their team sound like a world shattering event, and by not doing so I may have caused the Earth to implode!

So I'm back to the drawing board on the job front... not the best news Ive ever shared but its probably (definately) for the best. Which now leaves me with this...

Day off work... £70... Diesel...£35.. M6 Toll Road... £8...Subway in Shithole London...£7... Starbucks Coffee... £2

Getting out of a dickhole company before you start work for them... priceless!

Fuck Yahoo in the Ass

2007-02-20T09:38:00.000Z

Hi Pop Pickers... I've moved my blog from Yahoo 360 to Blogger for several reasons:

It allows me greater control over my content, formatting and what I can and can't do with my works
It's a lot more powerful than Yahoo 360 in terms of content
MySpace is only used by 13 year old kids, paedos and the internet retarded... their interface is horrid and I don't need a bunch of sycophant faux friends telling me how cool I am, that my work is amazing or asking if I want to buy Viagra.
Yahoo are a bunch of money grabbing bastards... Google are less so!
Did I mention I hate Yahoo??

It was a simple choice in the end, so I will be moving all my old posts over to Blogger today, as well as continuing the London debacle and the decisions Ive made regarding it. Catch you all laters dudes and dudettes!

ps. I amending the template to make the blog look more me, and if you are using a resolution less than 1024x768 then be prepared to have to use that scroll bar... Im not punishing my visitors because you cant read small text/are blind.. damn 800x600 websites piss me off!

BBC News Bullsh1t spin machine

2007-02-14T09:49:00.000Z

God Bless the BBC, and their totalitarian control of the TV Licensing market in the UK, ruling with an iron fist and demanding their pay. I know of very few other systems where you can demand a subscription fee for an arguably unasked for service (WoW addiction is somewhat like this!). Not really... eff them in the A, the buch of cocklords!

I was having my usual caffeine break this afternoon when I picked up on the usual spun bullshit that most news networks put out, one that the BBC is usually pretty good a weedling out. I hate the concept of University topup fees at the best of times, and whilst it doesnt immediately affect me, Tony Blair and the Labour government do piss me off. Anyway, I found this article :

Applications to university rise

To which I really had to respond. The Higher Education Minister, Bill Rammell proves himself to be a pompous arsehole, typical of these kind of positions. His comment of :

"These highest ever figures show that tuition fees are not putting students off applying to university, as many predicted. The critics of the new system are being proved emphatically wrong."

..is cringeworthy at best. These figures in no way prove critics of the new system wrong! How does a system with only one solution that has an increase in popularity instantly justify the new system?! Is this not called Communism?!!??!

Given we are in a "like it or lump it" situation, how are the critics proved wrong? Please, Bill.. just put me straight on this one! I wonder how many students would opt to go to University in other countries given a better choice. All this study goes to show is that University is now easier to get into that Paris Hiltons knickers...

In any case, I had to respond. I have posted my comments just in case the BBC don't publish them...

This study proves nothing about the popularity of tuition fees or the "new system", it is just yet another indication of the slow decline of standards in our secondary schools and colleges. Exams have become easier over the years (thanks to a mixture of dumbing down questions and teaching pupils how to pass the exams rather than educating them) and thus we are left in a predicament where the bovine masses all want to go to University thanks to their 6 AS Levels at grade D.

Giving the false hope that you will be better off by gaining a degree whilst accruing thousands of pounds of debt is ridiculous. I am fortunate enough to be employed on the back of my solid Software Engineering degree; I wonder how many Travel and Tourism Bachelors graduated, only to end up back in a job in something soul destroying?

As ever, I don't have all the answers, but Ill voice my opinion when something retarded like this has been slipped into the general stream of palatable media. Thanks Tony, thanks a lot for stinking up the Universities of this country with the idiots that should be serving me my McDonalds at lunchtime. Ill have to make my own butties soon.... geez!

London Part 2 : Expensive to get to... I mean WTF!?!

2007-02-13T10:02:00.000Z

London; the city of dreams.. a place of big business, high flying jobs, vibrant city life and brilliant prospects. What a load of bollocks!

Just getting to the place is an absolute joke! Ive been pricing up the train (thinking about the environment and all..) and its an hour journey from Northampton to Londons Euston Road so logic would suggest that a train would be cheaper than owning a car and driving that distance... and you know what, you'd be dead wrong!!

My good friend James lives in Northampton you see, and rather than jump into any old shithole (as Im sure there are many in London) I asked him if I could stay with him until I find Amy and I a nice 1 bedroom apartment that wont involve me having to subsidise my salary by giving handjobs on the subway to afford. I know it will be a ballache but as its short term (and half the time I spent on the road getting to and from Leeds) I know I can cope.

But the sheer expense of the train journey is shocking. I emailed Silverlink yesterday to inquire to the pricing of a pass for the "season" which range from week passes to a full year and here was the response...

Thank you for your enquiry,
Season Tickets between Northampton and London Terminals (for Euston) will cost £92.70 for one week, £356.00 for one month, £1068.00 for three months and £3708.00 for one year. You can purchase your season ticket online, or at any staffed mainline station. To purchase a season ticket, you must have a photocard. These can be obtained from any mainline station, by taking along a passport size photograph.

regards
Barry Cochrane
Season Ticket Helpdesk

£92.70 for a week?!?!?!?!? What in the living piss is that about?!

I knew London was expensive, but I assumed the transport to it would be relatively cheap.. you know, to encourage people to visit the capital! A weeks railpass for the whole of the Japanese rail system is about the same as that, and I can travel the length of Japan on that!!! This is extortion of the highest degree..

So... why is the UK promoting the use of public transport when it is far cheaper for me to own and drive a car that distance (maybe not into London thanks to congestion charging, but Im talking about distance wise)?? Diesel, even by UK standards would be a maximum of £5-7 a day, plus car insurance, the car, maintenance etc so why in the hell is a train that holds hundreds of people going to cost £19.85 a day?!

Not to even mention the overall inconvenience of trains... I mean UK trains are dirty, smelly, full of chavs and terrorists, and the winner of all, always (and I mean always) delayed/cancelled/late. The UK has some of the worst public transport in the world... why oh why is it the most expensive. I have to walk to the train station in the morning (the UK is hardly Spain or Italy where this might actually be pleasant at 7:30am... and its probably 15 minutes) and then from Euston Road I can get the subway for 4 stops (more expense) or walk approximately 20 minutes to Regent Street... fuck the environment, give me my nice, comfortable, cheaper car any day of the week.

I died a little more inside today... this country... i mean jeez!

London: Expensive and dirty, I expected nothing less!

2007-02-06T10:10:00.000Z

If you didn't know, I had a job interview in London on Regent Street (yes, very lar di dar) yesterday so I had to travel down for it early doors to make it for my 2:40pm appointment. I set off at 7am and was surprised to only really hit 2 patches of traffic on the way down, taking a total of 4 1/2 hours to get to Edgware.

Edgware is one of the outer regions on the subway into London, and this rather dismal and dirty town was what I expected of an outer London town; a relatively innocuous place with nothing of real interest there. The houses pretown center were rather nice though, and I felt secure leaving the Bora on a street with houses with Porsche 4x4s and 3 Mercs up the drive.

So I got to the Subway and the ripoff began, being charged £6.75 for a 40 minute return subway journey (although I am to believe with an Oyster card its half that, but thats still far too expensive). The tube station was filthy, the seats on board were grimy and in need of repair, and the comfort factor was just non-existent. For the price of the subway I would've expected it to be the best in the world (it must surely be the most expensive) but compared to other big cities I've used (Hong Kong and Seoul being the other 2) this was a big let down. It was functional, but considering both HKs and Seouls subways are younger, and far cheaper (40-80p a journey maximum) London really does need to do something about this.

In any case, I arrived at Oxford Circus at about 12:30, so I had so time to kill. I took a right out of the subway (which proved to be the wrong decision; Regent Street is LEFT out of the subway!!) and walked down Oxford Street in search of the building. After about 10 minutes I decided I'd headed in the wrong direction so grabbed a coffee in Starbucks (for a city it was standard price in fairness, £1.99 for the largest Standard Coffee) and pulled out the Sat. Nav for directions.

It couldn't get a signal at all, so I just used is as a glorified map and found that I had indeed gone the wrong way. No harm, no foul... I still had at least an hour to get to the interview and it was all of about 4 streets away, so I just relaxed in Starbucks to the always chilled grooves, enjoying my coffee and my favorite pastime in cities of people watching.

It always amazes me, the colourful array of people in the city, from the Businessman in his Suit and Tie, to the tramps with crumbs in their beards, they all look like they have a story to tell. I wanted to pull out the D70 and take a few snaps, but felt it was a little inappropriate, plus I didn't want it getting nicked so it stayed in the bag. I spotted this little Eskimo guy holding a billboard that made me think about Ben, and whether he had a decent job in London yet.. lol.. or whether he was still doing something as soul destroying at the little Eskimo dude.

He looked so sad in his parker and big mittens, with his hood firmly up. I wanted to take a long shutter speed photo of him stood there with people walking by him, it would've been a perfect example of workers being exploited for commercialisation in a busy world, but again, I was in a Starbucks and didn't want to be clicking away with my (expensive) camera.

So after finishing my coffee I walked to Regent Street; the place I was being interviewed at was 3 stores down from Hamleys, so I killed the rest of the time I had wandering in there! If I was a spoiled brat its the kind of place I could imagine running riot in, certainly a place where childrens dreams are made from. I had to laugh as there were no sale items at all.. not surprising really, so I didn't bother buying anything.

After that I went to stand outside the place for 10 minutes or so to get some fresh air and prepare myself for the interview. I was approached by a gypsy woman with some fake flowers, which she put in my top pocket of my blazer. She proceeded with some kind of sob story about giving money "for the kiddies" and when I gave her the shrapnel I had (all of 30p) she tried to kiss me. She had warts, boils and a beard, which wasnt the only reason I pushed her, but it was enough to try and prevent myself getting some disease. She said most people are giving about a fiver, which I LOLed at and gave her the flower back. *shudders* ... dirty bitch!

So I went into the interview relatively confident; I'd done my Space Invaders demo for them, which they were very happy with so I had a good grounds to sell myself from... which I did to the best of my abilities. It went well in my opinion, and I left pretty pleased with doing all I could to try and secure the job.

Which they have JUST this second offered me! As I was blogging this, they called to offer me the position. They're emailing me the details now and all I have to do is say yes! My fingers are crossed that the proposed accommodation isnt too scrubby, and that all the details and good, but I could be officially working on Regent Street sometime soon!

London, here we come!

Weird Dreams, Filthy Friday Challenge and General Stupidity

2007-01-12T10:24:00.000Z

Its Filthy Friday and I am still alive for now... I havent actually done the challenge yet, were preparing our thoughts for what the challenge is going to be today; Warde is going for the raised bar on the Mini Fillets to 6, Neil is going to try the full 5 Mini Fillets and not pussy out on the last one and Im still undecided! Ive come up with a fair few new challenges and a concept for putting it all together into something wonderful, but Im keeping it close to my chest for now *paranoid gazes around for onlookers and idea thieves*

New challenge ideas involve 15 Hot Wings (timed), 3 or More Big Macs, Bargain Bucket (Ive already done that before!! ) and other obvious ones... there are lots I could set up and in time I will be doing soon!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a weird dream on Thursday, I was in the Crystal Maze doing a challenge and Richard o Brian started counting down for the lock in. He said I put two feet on the ground, which I didnt.. so Ibeat the living piss out of him. Then later in the dream some guys in the street also said I put two feet on the ground in the challenge so I beat the piss out of them, with umbrellas Dead Rising style! Maybe I could analyze this to say Im afraid to have people seeing that I have both feet on the ground (being the non committal person that I am) but wtf has Richard o Brian got to do with it, and wtf are the umbrellas about... or I could look at it like Richard o Brian is a douche and deserved the tw*tting, and so did the dumbasses in the street. Who knows but I told you I was mental!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right, my challenge is set! 15 in 15... thats right. HOT WINGS BABY!

KFC
Achievement : Eat 15 Hotwings (15 minutes maximum)
STATUS :: INCOMPLETE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winner! 15 in 15... challenge complete! Challenge complete in around 12 minutes too... and I even had time to be walking around and typing with my none greased fingers! It was, as I said to Paul, Awesomeness Cubed!!!

KFC
Achievement : Eat 15 Hotwings (15 minutes maximum)
STATUS :: COMPLETE

------------------------------------------------------------------

Training for the big challenge

2007-01-10T10:29:00.000Z

Fridays challenge is probably going to be the hardest thus far, 10 burgers is a lot of buns more than anything and they're pretty dry to boot... thus meaning were gonna have to be drinking liquids, bloating...etc etc... bottom line is its going to be tough. Plus Amy is worried about the health repercussions of eating 10 burgers from McDonalds, lol... but its for "science" so I have to!!

In any case, slightly prematurely, we've done some training and done a 5 burger warm up and its been pretty tough! The burgers are sooo unbelievably dry that swallowing becomes the challenge rather than the quantity. We even had BBQ sauce, but the McDs stuff is amazingly acidic after using on a few mouthfuls, the back of my throat felt red raw. Few swigs of water and I was ok.. but they were like eating cardboard for the most part.

5 took a grand total of 11 minutes... not bad considering I was talking to people on MSN at the time too, and had to break whilst Neil got water. The last 5 would probably take 5 minutes longer so ten in less than 30 minutes is an easily achievable task...the question is whether we want to!

So whilst this challenge is actually possible, we may put it on the back burner until next week/month as we've had a filthy day this week, and I think 15 McDonalds burgers in one week is probably asking for trouble, especially given my stomach! But to mark the achievement of 5 burgers I've made a button... not as many LifePoints (Patent Pending *shakes fist*) but another achievement none the less!

McDonalds
Achievement : Eat 5 Hamburgers (15 minutes maximum)

STATUS ::COMPLETE

Raising the bar

2007-01-09T10:47:00.000Z

McDonalds
Achievement : Eat 10 Hamburgers (In one sitting, 30 minutes maximum)

STATUS ::INCOMPLETE

Well the bar has officially been raised for Filthy Friday... but as it has not yet been completed the challenge is greyed out, much like another system with Play Points! Will we complete it?!? I reckon so... McDs burgers are a piece of piss to eat, but 10 of them in one sitting...hmmm!

I can't wait for the drivethru order... "30 Hamburgers please!!!"...hahaha....

The Angry Nintendo Nerd

2007-01-08T10:49:00.000Z

Last nights bottle of red wine in the Links with the scummy sediment in the bottom hasn't sat well with my stomach, and our room this morning smelt like a backstreet Kebab house. To make matters worse I had a mouthful of the stuff which nearly made me puke! Stupid Links and its crappy Sunday night quiz... bring back £1 a pint, thats what I say.... £2.25+ for a pint of shitty lager is a joke so Im back on the wine, but even thats gone up £2 a bottle and has f*cking rancid sediment in the bottle!?! I may start taking my own booze out with me.... that'll learn 'em! (lol.. deliberate sic)

Anyway, todays post is about the Angry Nintendo Nerd found at Screw Attack dot com and his wonderful reviews of crappy old NES games from many a moon ago. Its definitely NSFW material but if your boss doesnt mind a bit (sic!!) of swearing then check it out.. its probably one of the funniest things I watched last year! His review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES made me spit coffee on the wall in my office so its pretty damn funny!

One of my favorite comments is about the Nintendo Power Glove.. he says "Now youre playing with Power...Now youre playing with f*cking SHIT! Youre better off with shit than this f*cked up shit! etc etc...

Check him out in any case, he rocks!! :)

The Mini Fillet Challenge

2007-01-05T10:53:00.000Z

Well Ive just this minute finished the "KFC Mini Fillet challenge" and it was great! A little too easy but none the less it was great.... unlike the Double Quarter Pounder c0wd3th challenge which is just asking for trouble (no-one could eat 3 Double Quarter Pounders from McDonalds and expect to live).

The Mini Fillet challenge involves eating 5 Mini Fillet burgers in 10 minutes...thats it! Sounds easy doesnt it, and you're right, it is! Wanna raise the bar?! Go right ahead!
------------------------------
I should post the rather funny story of us ordering them too as its the best part. I set the mini Fillet to the guys in the office as part of our "Filthy Friday" goodness, our one day of the week we eat junk food at lunch, and they seemed up for it!

So Neil and Steve headed out to KFC to pick up our order... of 15 mini fillets. Steve is a skinny whippet at the best of times, and he ordered a large fries as well, so Neil started the order with that.

KFC Scroat : "Welcome to KFC Drivethru... can I take your order please?"
Neil : "Can I order a large fries... and 15 Mini Fillets?"
KFC Scroat : "Sorry... how many mini fillets??"
Neil : "15"
KFC Scroat : "FIFTEEEEN???!!!"
Neil :"Yes, fifteen.... as in one five.... fifteen..."
KFC Scroat : "Ok... 15????"
Neil : "Yes, god damn it.... FIFTEEN MINI FILLETS!! .. (bitch)"
KFC Scroat : "Ok... thats £16.17 at the window please"
Neil : "....Dick..."

So in any case, we got three bags of mini fillets and proceeded to munch them once they got back to the office. Neil was only just defeated (but I'll put that down to the soup he'd had about an hour before I set the challenge) and he at 4 and just the fillet of the last burger. Steve and I now both hold the Mini Fillet Badge for completing the challenge just like on Xbox Live!!

KFC
Achievement Unlocked : Mini Fillet Challenge Complete : 25 Life Points!!

Why England didnt win the World Cup in a nut shell

2007-01-03T10:54:00.000Z

I'm going to start the year as I mean to go on... COMPLAINING!

Its Wednesday night and Celebrity Big Brother has begun and already got my back up. Some Footballers WAG is on the show and shes a f*cking dick.. in fact I have more brains in my own than she does or ever will. For those of you who are wondering WAG is Wives and Girlfriends (replace W with SL and youll paint the right picture).

In any case, it brought back memories of the World Cup and Englands "shocking" ejection from it. The British media put most of the blame on the WAGS... aparently they were partying until 2am every night, shopping, and again, the media speculative was they were shagging out our "Stars" too. You see these are things you only find out watching good old British TV... God Bless the TV licence...

I just want to clear this up once and for all... we went out because we are shit. Always have been, always will be and the Boomtown mentality of the Neanderthal British public is amazing. Accept the fact that a) Footballers are overpaid monkeys b) England are shit and c) If you blamed the WAGs for our early ejection, you're a friggin' moron.

I don't really like Football at the best of times, but I do like the World Cup.. and yes, I was pretty disappointed when we went out on penalties again, but come on... just accept that we went out, we werent as good as the other teams and that its only a game. Don't try and blame it on a bunch of slappers that only know how to shop!

Phew... thats one rant over with... not my first of the year, but its the first on my blog. Stupid TV made me put my PC on too...

Oh... and I hate Big Brother too - how long is this shit on for?!

Its been a funny old year!

2006-12-30T10:59:00.000Z

Well I cant really argue with this year as it comes to an end, it started well and continued well throughout, so for someone so angry its hard to grumble!

The start of the year gave me a clean break from the hell which was Janda and I fell with good graces into Febland. They took me in well and in turn I loved, and now that Im back, still do love working for and with them. It might not be what I want to be doing for my whole life, but working on their web sites lines my pockets and gives me something to shine with. Lets just hope that the New Year brings the sales that the website sorely deserves!

I lost what I considered a good friend, but thanks to going to Korea replaced him with a real Canadian who's actually grown to become one of the closest friends I have. Hopefully the New Year will give me a chance to go visit him at some point!

2006 gave me half of it in Korea, so again I have nothing to complain about. Korea might not have offered everything I was looking for out there, or completely banquished my Asian fetish, but it really was a good taste of somewhere other than the UK. It has really been a good year looking back on it, one thats let me sort my finances out, get rid of a few demons and made me appreciate the things I have around me a little more. After last year it could only get better, and for that Im grateful.

So heres to 2007... a year that will see me turn 25 (the age I wanted to be a millionaire before... 7 months to go then!) and will hopefully continue in the direction of 2006! Hope you've all had a good Xmas and that the New Year brings all you want from it!

Myers-Brigss Test : Whats YOUR ideal job?

2006-12-11T15:41:00.000Z

So I'm just reading Digg, as you do in your general net surfing and found a link to a quiz, intended to tell you your ideal job... and guess what.. my is Computer Programming!

I had to laugh because given some of my responses I thought I was for sure going to be classed as unsuitable because i like random events etc etc but according to the website my ideal jobs are :

ISTP - Police, detectives, forensic pathologists, computer programmers, system analysts, computer specialists, engineers, carpenters, mechanics, pilots, drivers, athletes, entrepreneurs, firefighters, paramedics, construction workers, dental hygienists, electrical engineers, farmers, military, probation officers, steelworkers, transportation operatives, hitmen. With the ability to stay calm under pressure, they excel in any job which requires immediate action.

I have always considered myself as a possible candidate for the police force, and hitman.. well that would be a pretty cool job! If you want to take the test its here!

Lost friends, Lost memories...whatever Jesus!

2006-12-07T15:43:00.000Z

In my imaginary world, my sharp tongue sometimes gets me in trouble and I once had a friend called, oh I dont know, Brian, (whom I miss dearly) that I no longer talk to because of. You see Be... Brian went to Au...America to fall head over heels in love with his internet girlfriend of 9 months and live happily ever after. I was ecstatic that one of my closest friends was going to be doing something for himself and force himself out of the hole he felt he'd dug himself into... maybe thats slightly off, but its close to the truth.

As you'd expect, contact between the two of us was limited as Brian made the most of his new life and having limited access to a computer meant our catch ups were brief at best. If I had only known about the brilliance of Skype before he went perhaps we would've stayed in better touch, but in any case we didnt hear from each other quite as much as we should've.

Then I get an email, addressed to a crap load of people, telling me that my once best friend was getting married and I should be blissfully happy for them both... but I genuinely wasn't happy so why pretend.

You see, I should also explain the bad blood that occurred between Brians internet girlfriend (lets call her Mrs. BIG - it seems fitting) and my circle of close imaginary friends. From this side of the globe it felt like Mrs. BIG had done everything she could to wheedle out some of Brians old friends and torment his soul about those that she didnt like with a mixture of lies, manipulation and spin, which seemingly worked as if drove a massive stake between a fair few people.

There were some things that just didn't add up at times.. one of my close friends had told me that Mrs. Big had been talking dirty to him, and by dirty I mean enough to cause concern several thousand miles away. A conversation would be going just fine then all of a sudden, like a schizophrenic outburst, the conversation would delve into the realms of dungeon porn. While some of my friends might enjoy and embelish this, this guy is a long standing friend of both of ours and I can genuinely believe that what he says isn't a lie, or even an extenuated story to tell to the lads. He would just close down his messaging service whenever she did this and ignore it straight away, as this was the start of how another imaginary friend was gradually weened out.

In the last stages of our digital friendship it started happening to me.. she started talking about how she liked to pee on Brian in the shower and how it really turned him on at random intervals; I couldnt quite work out the psychology behind this, maybe she was attempting to tell me how comfortable they are together, appealing to something that I certainly had no interest in, but in any case it happened.

But back to my story, Brian and Mrs. BIG were getting married and that was that. I'm not against marriage at all, in fact my real life friend Tom had got married 9 months prior to my imaginary friend, and although I was a bit saddened not to be his best man (he played it safe and chose his brother! ) I was genuinely happy for them both. I just felt like something didn't add up so I told him that.. and I felt the wrath.

Maybe I should've kept my gob shut, but Im not that kind of person so I told them how shocked I was to be told like this, and maybe we werent as close as we once were. I got accused of "making this about me" and "why cant I be happy for them like X and Y". Whatever.

In any case, I'd hoped we'd sorted it out in the end. I said sorry etc etc, we worked it out. Until about 6 weeks later, when Mrs. BIG skitzed out again and turned on me like a pack of ravenous dogs would. I apparently was no longer a friend of theirs. I made up the following MSN conversation for the purpose of this story:

[When I find the time I will make up the story and post it here! - Its on my other computer I find the time to be creative! ]

I haven't heard from Mrs. BIG since, apart from during the World Cup when she reared her ugly head to rub it in my face that Japan had been beaten by her team (wait... America werent in Japans group..lol.. ) from behind my being blocked, to only disappear once she'd gloated.

12/06/2006	15:58:12	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	WE WON
12/06/2006	15:58:15	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	WE WON
12/06/2006	15:58:16	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	WE WON
12/06/2006	15:58:25	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	brian	yup
12/06/2006	15:58:37	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	brian	beat my favourite team no less :P
12/06/2006	15:58:46	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	Japan? Why not England?
12/06/2006	15:59:10	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	What an incredible game... we both jumped up and down all the way through it....
12/06/2006	15:59:10	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	brian	well i support england but japan is my favourite non english tema
12/06/2006	16:00:39	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	Hey gotta fly.. just came online to see my (AMERICAN) friends and get all excited with them... man totally thought Japan had it in the bag....
12/06/2006	16:00:48	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	brian	yup
12/06/2006	16:01:15	brian	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	byebye
12/06/2006	16:01:21	[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β	brian	l8er

I mean come on... this is really really pathetic! 3 minutes to "jump online" (and by jump online I mean message me from beneath my blocked status) and gloat because I had changed my MSN comment to reflect the games result.

But in any case, I tried to keep in touch with Brian, and before I left to go to Korea he was supposed to come round just to catch up/just say hello-goodbye really. But he didn't. He was waiting for my call and he turned his phone off on the evening he was supposed to be visiting me. He knew damn well we had one weekend from the point of his return to my departure when we could meet up and he chose not to use it. He even went to see one of my closest friends in the weekend, and despite my being at home packing and sorting things out he didn't even drop in to say hi.

So I left for Korea, responding to his limp text (that said something about maybe in another life we could catch up) with a typically me response. I think even Amy sent Brian a snotty text as she drove away from the airport, she knew how disappointed I was not to have seen him.

But such is life, and yet again I let it go and was willing to see through it. Until my birthday, where I got a rather half arsed email blaming his lack of, well... anything really, on the fact he was destined to become a "fucking selfish lazy arsehole". I was hammered from too much soju/it being 6am after a 5 hour norebang session so I was in the perfect mood to respond, quoting Bill Hicks' of his long lost lover that once told him she loved him to only leave, and that he hoped one day that she would be led underneath her 600lb husband and he has a heart attack and pukes blood and bile into her mouth, and at the point shes drowning under that warm flaccid monolith she makes Bill Hicks out on the Tonight Show. Genius.

..and I surprisingly havent heard a dicky bird since! I also pointed out in my rather blunt email that I knew I was on Brians blocked MSN list, being the computer nerd that I am, and since that I can now see him whenever he/she logs in on their shared MSN. Score!

So, I hear you cry, why, today of all days, are you dredging this up?! I don't actually know.. I felt like surfing his blog and it brought up a lot of memories, and I just wanted to get my side of things on the table. I genuinely miss my close friend Brian, and hate that there is now bad blood between us. My story is largely incomplete, fact devoid, and completely one sided but I hope its been an interesting read in any case!

Back almost a month, a Great British review

2006-12-05T16:12:00.000Z

Well, Ive been home nearly a month now and having no money in the UK really does suck balls. Even though Im back at work, I really did forget quite how expensive this country is; just visiting a pub seems to cost money these days, and a few tame nights out cost me the spare £100 or so I had in no time.

I had a job, then I didnt, then I did, then I didnt again.... now for the first 10 days or so, when I thought I had a job, I actually wasnt working, so once again Im going to be a little fudged for money for a little while, but hopefully, one day, Ill actually be sorted!
I've started work of my story of my time at Wonderland but given the current work and living situation (Im back at my old mans) Ive had less free time than I might otherwise have, and the time I have had has been frittered away catching up and trying to sort my stuff out. I've come back to an even smaller space than I had in Korea, and I actually have more stuff to boot! Check out Fuck Wonderland or Wonderland Sucks at some point soon for my full lowdown.

People keep asking me "is it good to be back?", half expecting me to be all enthusiastic and reaffirm that the UK is "the best place in the world" but in all honesty, Im not all that enthused. The UK is still the shithole I left 6 months ago, with the same ridiculous tax levels, scroatish general public and its endless grey skys; the only change is people seem "distracted" by the Polish immigrants now (note to the lazy, or the job insecure - if someone can do your job as well as you and is willing to do it for less money thats called healthy competition. Rather than looking at the people that are coming here to do the manual labour jobs most people on this cesspool island think theyre too good to do, look at those benefit cheats, tax dodgers and other leaches that are draining our resources and start pointing the finger at them.... who knows, we might be able to reduce our National Insurance contributions if we do!).

You see, living in another country you learn that this is not the only place in the world that one can make a living, and those manual labour jobs, you know... the ones that anyone can do if theyre not a fat, boneidle bastard, can be done by anyone! So the rhetoric of British jobs for British people doesn't wash with this guy, hence coming back to get back into my career, at that which I went to University to learn (and had to support and pay for myself thanks to that C U Next Tuesday Tony Blair).

In any case, there are a few things I miss about Korea, my good buddy Mike being the main one, but there were a lot of little things about being there that I really did like...hence the picture! I have no urge to go to the gym here because I'm surrounded by fatter, uglier (IMO) people.. I still want to go to the gym (given my current financial debacle its a way off yet), but I'm not driven to like I was in Korea. I miss skirts, shorts and knee high socks, even if its nearly freezing out. I miss being 20 seconds from a shop thats open 24 hours a day, 30 seconds from a cheap place to eat and 45 seconds from the norebang (Singstar just isnt the same... ). I miss having all my wages after tax. I miss Yong San. I miss having a disposable income. I miss cheap booze, even in a pub (Rich & Hayley : Its £2.25 a pint in my local now!). I miss being able to ignore the adverts on TV. I miss a fast, unmetered internet connection. I miss skirts, shorts and knee high socks.

But I would never actually go back to Korea (not that I can on anything other than a tourist visa now). It had its bad points too but I still can't help feeling its good points are available somewhere else in the world. I just need to get off Treasure Island, the tax is just unbearable! I'm going to get my skillbase up in my field and then I'm going to be hunting again, aren't I... I think Japan or Hong Kong has a sock fetish too!

Guess whose back? Tell a friend...

2006-11-16T16:16:00.000Z

Well after 20 hours in the air, and a total journey time of just over 24 hours we landed back in Manchester to the same grey day I took off too. We were worried about gting through customs with all our stuff, and getting landed with a C&E bill of a few thousand pounds but we just breezed through the gate to meet my grandad.

When we did get back we sorted the bed out and planned to crash for an hour or so and then go out for a drink, but like most plans, it turned into 14 and the next thing we knew it was 5:30am and we were wide awake. I ended up at the local shop buying things for an English breakfast (yes, including black pudding Hayley, and it was yummy!) and the whole thing was delicious! A nice cup of proper tea for the first time in 6 months went down a treat!

So after breakfast we proceeded to sort out our room from the bags of clothing we'd left to the clothes we bought to sell on eBay and alike for a few hours and some how I ended up in the garage tidying half of that up for an hour or so. We took three bags of clothes to the charity shop, all of it brand new stuff that was to inexpensive to justify selling on eBay thanks to their ridiculously overpriced fees on small items, and Royal Mails increases in postage costs, it didnt even warrant the time taken to list them... so Age Concern have bagged probably a few hundred quid easily, and although there are better "causes" of charity in the square, Age Concern is the best place to buy clothes!

We hit "Spoons" for a beer and a burger at lunch for £3.99 each, and tried to get the won changed, but all the exchanges were giving us rates of close to 2000 won to the pound, and although its "only" £10, it damn well is nearly £10 difference so I held on to them for the time being. I knew I shouldve changed them at the airport but after getting off the plane, it was the last thing on my mind. I may be sending them back to Mike to pick me up some games at Yong San over changing them for £10 difference - the postage costs would be the same as the fees and Id feel like that £10 was doing something other than lining some slimeballs pockets.

But I digress! We hit up the Legion to see Ken, but he wasnt working until 5 so we then went to the Cricket Club to meet Amys parents before finally ending up in the Links for the footy and a few more beers. We caught Dax coming home from work on the way to the CC, but he was practically on deaths door so we left him to have a kip! Phils fan belt snapped and he ended up not being able to make it, Dax was still KOed from the previous night and Jonny didnt show up in the end! It was only Adam and Heather (Amys brother and girlfriend) and Stef that came out, and Chris who was working behind the bar anyway. England drew in a soccer friendly against Holland, but I wasnt really watching it at all.

All in all, Im back and it still feels like the same old town I knew from 6 months ago. A few changes here or there, but in essence, nothing has changed. Whether thats a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but for now, Ill be happy to be back. I guess I havent seen my mates yet so I wont be thrilled to be back until I do, but Ill peak up when "the boys are back in town"!

Again, if anyone has mailed me at my hotmail account and I havent replied, please resend it, or try to my Yahoo email (delmorphacease@yah00.co.uk with o's instead of 0's in yahoo, damn spam monkeys ) - Im getting paranoid about my mail not arriving, or not getting to me now!

More comical Wonderland BS as my time draws to an end here

2006-11-13T16:21:00.000Z

All you can do is laugh it off and keep your head down as this crap is going on but for the second time in the last week period we have had a "fire drill" in our lunchbreak, neither of which were warned of to the teachers that the stupid woman was just going to randomly set it off.

This may sound like me complaining over nothing but its just another example of complete disregard for teachers at this place. The first time we were pretty pissed, none of us have had the fire procedures explained to us, and the fire alarm sounds like a bomb syren so you can imagine the panic and chaos when it was set off the first time, but today we were steaming. As Richard said, some tall buildings have special procedures for fire situations, like placing things over your head as you go down the stairs, and we havent even been told about any of this.

The other annoyance was that both were in lunchtime, at a time where were doing our unpaid duty of feeding the kids. With them now drilling twice at the same time it shows the mentality of this hell hole, just wanting to screw the staff out of every ounce of energy they can, so long as theyre not getting paid for it too. Theyre even telling us that we now have to spend 15 minutes in that 50 minute lunck BREAK to make the children read workbooks!

Well F them... my time here is drawing to a close, and not a moment too soon really. I will give a further lowdown to you all when I get home, and a blog post about my full ordeal in Wonderland over a few beers sometime soon. My website, www.wonderlandsucks.com will be live shortly after my return!

------------------------------------------------------------

To anyone that may or may be pissed at me for not replying to emails they have sent please let me apologise. It would appear that I havent been receiving all the emails I should've to my Hotmail account as my grandad has sent me several that I havent received, so its plausable that I may have others too. I spoke to him last night and he has sent me at least 3 that I know of that I havent received, even in my Junkmail folder. So if you read this before I get back then please accept my apologies and Ill speak to you soon!

All we can do is laugh

2006-11-06T16:58:00.000Z

Sometimes you just have to blog these things as a reminder of the shite we have to put up with as teachers in a hogwon in Korea... there has been so many of them that I havent that in the dying period I have left I probably should get as many down on the virtual paper as possible. Today, thus far, has been one of them!

We had to be at the school for 9:15 for a mystery schedule change that we hadnt been informed of until leaving on the Friday, so it put a downer on the day. We all arrive to find we now have 2 block sessions in the morning for 80 minutes before lunch with the same class which is just hell. I had Berkeley first, the UC "HELL" A, a class that in my 6 months tenure as teacher, I havent taught once. To add insult to injury, the "lesson plan" is vague at best, so as soon as we find this out we're trying to form plans of action.

But before we can even get to the photocopier, the moody bitch tells us that we have to go down to greet the children as the get off the shuttle bus. Theres 6 teachers greeting 4 buses, plus the teachers/assistants as they get off the bus. Common sense isn't a Korean strong point. Its another dogs dinner of a decision, and more of the bull shit we didnt sign up for.

In any case, Berkeley were great and UCLA were a nightmare.. that class must die in a fire. I started to make a wildlife scene with Berkeley which was fun, and spent 80 minutes beating kids with my stick in UCLA. Then lunch, then the next piece of crap, another mystery art lesson...

I have 8 kids in Cornell and I was told that each one of them had a seperate art project to do in 40 minutes. What a crock of shit.. this "art" lesson includes finger paints, craft paper, scissors etc in a random amount for each child, and I have to help each one of them do something completely different! Oh the joys!! At least I had the oldest children, poor Hayley and Michael had 11 kids each in younger classes!

It was a painfully slow 40 minutes, and now, at 1:40pm I have my first break of the day.. lunch doesnt count as I have to work through that too. Stupid Wonderland...

A painfully tepid week...

2006-11-03T17:05:00.000Z

This week has been one almighty suckfest... its just crawled throughout and I have nothing interesting to report other than being bored out of my skull. My only saving grace is the thoughts of getting drunk tonight and playing some NHL07 with Mike, as otherwise its been pretty mindnumbing.

I seem to have aquired more frees than usual this week, that or time has been slowing down in the ones Ive had as Im quite literally bored of surfing the net. I find myself perusing the same sites over and over in the bleak hope for something interest but to no avail; Im surfing for surfings sake, and I cant really do anything "constructive" on this machine to kill time. I should really start bringing my PSP to kill time...

In any case, Im glad my time teaching is coming to a close... Ive given it a go and you know what, I hate it! I can hear the "I told you so"s now but to be honest I really am not bothered in the slightest. I had to give it a go, if anything just to say Ive done it rather than just dismissing it as "I could never do that" or alike. Some people take a year or so out after graduation seeing the world... Ive spent 2 years clearing my head of the coulda-should-wouldas and now I can look forward to the start of my career.

Whether thats a future in the UK is yet to be seen... it most certainly is for a brief spell at least, but the pursuit of my career is now my number one priority when I get back. Ive been "out of the game (s industry)" for a while now but after some intensive personal training I think Ill be ready to punch above my graduate weight again... I may have even learnt a few new tricks in the process!

I have a few things to chase up on the job front when I get back, and hopefully will have enough money to keep my head above water until I find a "decent" job. Sitting on my arse all day coding has never seemed so appealing until now!!

Im looking forward to seeing friends and family on the 14th or thereafter and will be in the pub before you know it!

Mike wins a million........ won!

2006-10-30T17:08:00.000Z

Yes, its true... we hit the casino on Sunday night and Mike, the lucky SOAB won just over a million won on the slots. Thats close to $1000, or just under 600GBP at the current exchange rate. He slipped and slided to take the jackpot on one of the slots to will a cool 10,000 credits playing the Seal Slide game (probably my favorite machine in the casino we go to, anyone who knows what the "Jazz Bee" is will know what I mean when I say this is a great feature! Its a Jazz Bee beater in any case!). They brought his winnings in a little plastic container, for which he had to sign for and got a hearty congratulations off the staff!

Other than that there wasnt really much in the way of "new" excitement. We hit the Norebang on the Saturday night after trying the bowling alley in this "city" they call Guri... it had all of 6 lanes and was completely full and we got told to go away. I pulled out "She Bangs" by the olde Ricky Martin amongst others, and Friday night we did some boozing in the apartment playing NHL07. We also sorted our flights out on Saturday, which we get full confirmation of today at some point. All I can say for definate is we'll be home soon!

Beyond the Last Straw

2006-10-27T16:10:00.000Z

In an amazing continuation of the turd ideas that come out of the head of those in "charge" of this hole, we were all blown away by the audacity of this woman! Its truely unbelievable!

We hadnt been formally told about the events on Halloween until this Wednesday... quite amazing seen as though the children knew, the parents knew and there was even a poster put up in the foyer advertising it. In any case they dropped the amazing "sleepover" idea in favour of a big party in GS Square on the top floor. Its a big events area, and is probably likely to net this woman some extra advertising and maybe some new kids but who knows. If anything it will show the parents the lengths the school is going for the kids, which in turn will be good word of mouth to their friends.

Good idea you might think, and I somewhat agree, but the best part is yet to come.... ;)

Given that the thing goes on until after teaching hours we were a little pissed. We even had to order costumes for it and weve all been allocated roles to do. Im in charge of an Arts and Crafts event, Michaels doing "Balls Eyes", which we can only assume is a piece of Engrish for Bullseye and Hayley and Richard have something to do with fish and cotton candy.

So we ordered costumes.. Mike and I are gothing it up, which should be pretty funny, but in the meeting we flick through to find a piece of paper with costs on. We all knew what was coming!

Mrs. Lee must think shes spent enough, and aparently had allocated us 10,000 won each for our costumes (thats about 5GBP) so Kim squirmed when she said she wanted us to make the difference up OUT OF OUR OWN POCKET NO LESS! Our jaws just dropped....

In any case we stood our ground - "If you want to put on this little show then she has to pay for our costumes, its not our decision to do this crap" was our theme. Kim said she would tell her, but we think she will pay the difference herself not to cause too many waves (the stupid bitch has already told Kim that shes too lenient with us... i mean WTF!!). We feel kind of bad that she'd do this, but at the end of the day thats her choice, we all know who should be paying.

The amazing this is the difference per costume is about 10-20,000 won. We were even told to pick a costume without telling us there was a budget, or saying about this crap until after they were ordered! The best part was the breakdown of the costs for the event prior to the page with this costume bollocks on - it was the equivalent of a picture of a puppy with big eyes, meant to cause the reaction of "ooh theyve spent so much money on this"... but if anything it made this seem even more petty.

This place amazes me by the day... its not a matter of money; I spend 10,000 won on 2 drinks in the UK, its just the principle (or is that Principal, Wonderland... lol.. inside joke!). I'd rather smoke a bunch of 1000 won notes in front of this woman than help her make up the difference in her promotional events! Its beyond the straw that broke the camels back and Im counting the days now!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

In other news weve had a few problems with flights. Apparently you cant book flights the way we wanted to do it - the cheapest flight was a return flight for 420GBP, starting at Manchester first, which is what the problem is. If we dont show for that starting flight, we wouldnt have a place on the return flight, which is the only part we want any way.... and a one way ticket out of this stupid place is nearly twice as much as a return, or 550GBP for the same deal on a return but starting the journey at Seoul. Absolute bollocks, huh?!

So our dates have yet again changed and we have another plan. I will be able to hopefully confirm that on Saturday, so fingers crossed!!!!

ps. Excuse my spelling and poor English... Im having one of those days and Im sooo tired!!

The Last Straw

2006-10-24T16:14:00.000Z

So Im due to get on the shuttle bus this morning at 8:30 for my weekly shuttle bus duty that some "genius" here thinks will somehow promote the school and get us extra staff. We "get paid" for this hour of sitting there but as we are all still no where near our 110 hour limit to get paid extra it really makes no difference to our pay. I dont really have so much of an issue with it other than its a complete waste of my time, and means that we have one grumpy teacher thats had to be up about 90 minutes earlier than they would normally start a day but according to Kim, its only for a month (bullsh1t... )

Anyway, last week the bus was a no show for Mike. He was pissed and told them straight that it was bullshit and if theyre gonna make us do this then at least have the damn buses show up. This morning it was my turn...

Emily comes down at 8:55am and ive been waiting at least 30 minutes... were due to get picked up at 8:30am at the school and we were there at 8:20-8:25, coffee in hand, waiting. Mikes bus shows at 8:25 and he jumps on with the old man, mine this week is a complete no show.

I get upstairs to a sour faced bitch and shes trying to make out its my fault.. can you believe the cheek of some people. She tells me its "impossible" and "was I there at 8:30 on the dot". I practically feel like telling her to get f*cked right there and then... I sternly tell her that Mike got on the bus at 8:25 so yes, we were there at 8:20, a full 10 minutes prior to our supposed departure time. After a few more sour looks and squirming she calls the woman on the shuttle bus, 30 seconds later I get a broken sorry and it crawls back into its shell. I say nothing, smile crudely, turn and walk... *parents cover your eyes now* F*CK THIS F*CKING SCHOOL!

Mike got hugs and apologies and although fake as hell, its typical of the way I'm treated by her. I'm obviously too stupid to get on a bus, or even tell the time in her eyes... I mean like all foreigners out here that work, we must have fluked our degrees or something! I am done.... really I am!

On a lighter note Amy has sorted her visa extension... we just have to book something and take proof of the ticket back to the Korean Immigration Office and they will sort it for them. Praise the Lord...

Decision on the horizon

2006-10-18T16:21:00.000Z

Our decision is becoming clearer... utlimately were back to the UK sooner rather than later and its a decision Im certainly glad we've made. Dates are still a little uncertain but at the moment were hoping for a stop over in Hong Kong for a couple of days to a week and then coming home. We found that a new airline called "Oasis Hong Kong Airlines" is offering super cheap LGW->HKG and vice versa for GPB75 plus taxes (about GBP140 once the tax offices have taxen their cut) and a flight from here is looking at 280,000 won+ taxes, so getting home for about 300 notes each is plausable. Hopefully Ill even have enough left to buy my Wii....
In any case there isnt really a great deal to report as of yet for definate, other than you're likely to see us both before Christmas for yet another indefinate period.

I'm so glad I chose Korea, and Ill be so glad to get back to get into computing. I think if Id've been teaching in Japan or Hong Kong I wouldve wanted to stay longer but this way I know teaching isnt my "cup of tea", Ive cleared debts that wouldve taken me a lot longer to in the UK, got a 6 month holiday for free and Im coming home with my 360, my new Nikon D70 (..oh yeah, I bought that this month! ), a new 300GB hard disk full to bursting with new TV episodes, music and alike (and possibly another one before I come back ... anyone want anything downloading before we come back just let me know!!! ), and Ive met 3 new close friends that I can tap up for breaks in foreign lands when were bored of the UK! So yes, 6 months away from home has been good for me...

..but Ill somewhat be glad to be back! Yes, Im still going to be grumpy about paying all the UKs stupid taxes (but it now gives me a good excuse to finish my book!), the shitty weather (we _do_ have some of the worst weather in the world.. the world isnt all shades of grey!), the deal with prices being pounds not dollars but Ive grown to appreciate some of the things we do have, like being thousands of miles away from the nearest psychopath! Lol...
Theres nothing quite like the threat of a nuclear war to get you thinking of...

A quick list of things I want to enjoy when I get back...

1. Pint in the Links... on Jonny! A game of darts and a few quid in the bandit... its stupid but thats home... slagging off the gay lord quiz master, whether thats the Racoon or that other Knucklebeard and then not really being all that bothered about it.
2. Boys nights...OiOi with eBoy and the lads.
3. Talking science with Phil
4. Snooker night!
5. Steak night at Spoons.
6. Mixed Grill and a pint of Bods at the Fairhaven.
7. Driving a car... any car!
8. Poker Tuesdays/Thursdays
9. Knowing my games consoles are all there...
10. A TV thats less than 10 years old.... probably again, at Jonnys! 11. Sitting in the sand dunes.
12. Having more than one room in my house.
13. Tescos for bits and bobs at 1am when Im in one of those moods!
... too many little things to counts really... moneys a nice thing to have, and tax is a nice thing to avoid, but without the small things it can be a little empty... until you have enough of it not to be bothered about the little things and can just do what you want all day!

Oh, and the gyms going pretty well... still just about doing between 90 minutes and 2 hours a day 5 days a week and you can totally see the difference... its a small start but its certainly in the right direction, so a gym membership is a must for me when I get back! I hurt my neck which put me out for 3 days (that hurt in more ways that one) but Im back on course now...
Right, thats another free period done... I will post again once we have a definate plan of action! Take it easy y'all!

P.s. RIP Paul Hunter - I only just found out today that he passed away. People die of cancer ever day but he was a great player and a sorry loss to the world of snooker.

New, Clear Decisions to be made!

2006-10-11T16:23:00.000Z

Hey y'all! Its been a while but its been a crazy few weeks so I thought Id update quickly and post a full lowdown of events later!

In light of the recent nuclear tests we're in discussions about our future in Korea at the moment... the cash is nice, as is the lack of tax but its not really worth it if a nuclear bomb is iminent to be dropped in our faces now.

Reading today on the Guardian website, the US has proposed sanctions for NK to the UN and a 30 day deadline for action after the date it is agreed so that gives a minimum of about 2 months before anything could "really" go down if it was to go through... and knowing the UNs actions, they wont be any great rush to decide on a millitary solution, so personally I feel our only real threat to stability is Gee Dubya doing something stupid (these aren't odds I would be backing)...
In any case, it does feel a bit weird here now.. its always been a little questionable and unstable in this part of Asia, but it now feels even more so. So were coming up with a few plans to worst case scenarios, other plans for just in cases, or whether we want to just say balls to it and its not worth the risk.

Amys visa here runs out on the 5th November so she will have to either find a job, go on a day trip to Japan, or she'll be heading back to the UK in less than a month. Im sure a lot of you would like the later option so please get in touch and let us know your thoughts.. we're a little concerned were not getting the "full picture" on the news out here!

Whatever our decision is I will let you all know as soon as its set in stone!