RealSnakeHead is NOW ONLINE!!

Oh. My. God.
OH MY GOD!!!!

I didn't know when I wished that 2007 would be the gaming year (here) that my wish would come true!!

In what can only be explained by The God of Gaming smiling upon us, another good old friend has gotten an Xbox 360, and is online with it!

Yes, that's right, Haitham has gotten one too, despite him being adamant initially thath is PS3 was the only thing that mattered! (he's got a Wii too, so what a collection!). Suddenly one day he called me to say he's getting a 360 because he wants to play Pro Evolution Soccer 6 online!

And sure enough, today, me and him and Hani played online!!! you can only play 1v1 but we did some matches and chatted, and it was AWESOME! The gameplay was smooth as usual, and it was really really great talking and playing to old friends, just like we're in the same room.

Thank you Microsoft for creating the EXCELLENT Xbox 360, which really is player/community centred, and is a joy to use. NOW PLEASE PLEASE add camera support to all games, so then we can play, chat, and see each other!

So that's 3 new friends on live, Hani, Yazen, and now Haitham.

The next thing we're planning to do is a 4 player Worms deathmatch :)

I honestly hope that other friends will join us soon, it will be awesome if we can pull off an all-Iraqi Gears of War 8 player match :)

SoB - Happy

The new hard drive, case, and psu

It all started with vista. XP was happily chugging along on my 36gb raptor, which I've dedicated just for the O/S and any programme installations (not games though).
With vista, 36gb just isn't enough. The O/S is big and with the programmes installed, it was getting tight.

So I thought I'd get a new hard drive. As I refuse to use anything other than Western Digital, I ordered a 150g RaptorX, those sexy drives that have a see-through cover.
Now to display the drive you need cases that have a drive bay sideways, and a window obviously. After loads of looking around, I decided on an Armor Jr from Thermaltake.

And since I was changing the case, I thought I'd get a new power supply. I liked Wolf's Thermaltake Toughpower because of it's cable management system, so I bought a 700w Toughpower to go with the case.

After about ONE MILLION problems installing everything, and I mean turning the PC on once and smelling this horrible burning smell (no clue what burnt, but it was because I'd jumpered a power connection - don't ask), and loads of other problems like forgetting to install the PSU so I had to uninstall everything to fit the damn thing in, and so on and so forth....... it's finally all installed, and I think everything is ticking perfectly. I hope. Windows has installed ok and I need to install tons of drivers, which I can't be arsed with at this moment.

The case is great, it uses cool screw-free rails to install the 5.25 devices, and some screw-free clips to install cards (but to be honest I screwed the gfx and sound cards in, I'm not trusting a piece of plastic!). It also features a useful frame that holds 4 hard drives in, and the screw holes are fitted with little plastic rings to reduce vibration and noise. It also has five 5.25 bays, one of which is at the very bottom!
Problem is, when you install the RaptorX in it's display position, it totally blocks the hard drive cage! The solution is to move the cage into the space of 3 5.25 bays (hence rendering them useless for 5.25 devices). As such, I had to lose a dvd burner (I didn't really use 2 drives to be honest, so I'm not bothered about it that much), but I also had to remove the abit uGuru panel (that displays time, temps, voltages etc). I miss that a lot actually, so tomorrow I'm going to order one of these ;)

Watching the RaptorX work is really scary. The needle jumps around so fast I keep thinking it's going to break. Or scratch the surface. I tried to video it but it was too dark, so I'll try again tomorrow.

I leave you with some crappy out of focus pictures (I'm tired :p)

NYC - Day 7 (Last)

Ah, so it's over :(
Tomorrow at 8:20 we fly out to Heathrow, arriving at 20:20 local time. My mum's gonna pick us up and take us straight to Liverpool Street, on the other side of London.
Problem is, we need to get to the airport (Newark, New Jersey), fairly early, so our Super Shuttle is coming at 4:00! Oh well...

Today we did a MASSIVE shopping trip, mainly at Macy*s and SoHo. We bought loads of stuff for us, for my mum, and for Kelly's family.

We've only eaten breakfast at around 12ish, so we're hungry, VERY hungry. We've packed all our stuff now, and we're going to go say goodbye to New York by:
1\ having loads to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co
2\ having a coffee and Number One Original Cheesecake at Junior's
3\ have a cocktail at Dave and Buster's

Then it's back here to shower and then off to airport. It's been a great week and we've seen and done tons. We weigh tons also :p

SoB out for now - see you in Britain.

NYC - Day 6

Today we made it to The Statue! Thank God we didn't go yesterday though. I'll explain:
Theoretically, getting to Liberty Island is fairly simple, by taking the Number 1 Metro to "Battery Park", which is the last station on Lower Manhattan. From there, you buy a ferry ticket and hop on to the ferries that run every 30 minutes to the island. Easy right?
We left the hotel about 11ish, and walked to a different subway station that is a bit further from the hotel but is on the Number 1 line. We had a quick breakfast there (Starbucks in America is crap also, just like everywhere else), and got on to the train to Battery Park.
On the train there was a notice saying that you needed to be in the first 5 cars if you wanted to get off at Battery Park, so we had to change cars en route.

When we got to Battery Park, it was fairly simple finding the ferry, and the HUGE queue that was waiting to get on board!! We started to queue and then someone told us that we had to get tickets first, so we went to the ticket booths (small queue there) and got our tickets, then queued again.
The queue moved fairly fast, until we reached this big tent-like thing, where there were security guards and metal detectors and x-ray scanners! And, just like airports, we had to have our stuff scanned and pockets emptied etc. It turns out that since September the 11th, security at national monuments had become very strict.

After that we waited for the passengers on the ferry to disembark, then we got on. We sat on the top deck and I instantly felt sick! It's odd, cos I've never had sea-sickness before, and I'm ok on river boats and theme park rides etc. I spent the 15 minute trip looking at the floor :(

We took a look around the island and the statue which is very impressive. It's huge and is very detailed, and it felt great seeing something that you'd read and heard so much about before.
The Gorillapod that Kelly gave me last christmas really helped today, because I used it to set up the camera on the floor in front of us, and I set the camera to remote control capture. Once I'd gotten the right angle, I sat next to Kelly and just pressed the remote control button, which takes a picture after 2 seconds! It was really useful and lets you take pictures of yourself exactly as you want them, without having to ask people to do it for you etc. The site of the camera and pod also intrigued quite a few people :)

We then had to take the ferry (long queue again!) to Ellis Island (Immigration Museum), and waited for people to get on and off there, then back to NY. We got back to Battery Park at 15:45!

So, what should be a fairly simple thing was actually nearly a whole day's worth of queuing and traveling, because of the huge number of visitors to the statue and security.

After that we went to Little Italy, which was basically a single (but fairly lengthy) street with restaurants galore. Surprisingly, it took us ages to find one of the rarest Italian dishes we wanted to have that day, PIZZA! Yes, in Little Italy it's nearly impossible to have a pizza. The majority of restaurants serve pasta, pollo etc etc. No pizza.
Eventually, we found a place that sold pizza (El Picollo Buffalo or something like that). We ordered some starters (Stuffed Mushrooms for Kelly, Fried Calamari for me), and 2 large pizzas for us to share. The menu had 2 sizes of pizza, and this is exactly how they were described: Small - 4 slices, Large 8 slices. We thought that small would be like Pizza Hut small, and the large 8 slices sounded reasonable.
We should have guessed from the surprised tone in the voice of the waitress that this was what we had gotten ourselves in to:



They damn things were huge! We managed to eat a half of each one, and took the rest in a box, which we got bored of carrying so we tried to give it to the first poor person we saw. He refused it cos it wasn't hot (no joke!).

After that we wandered to SoHo, which was full of hippy kind of shops (ever heard of The Yellow Rat Bastard? me neither). Didn't really see anything nice there, and it was quite hot and we were getting really tired, so we headed back to Times Square and went to Jamba Juice for a quick, refreshing, and again really big, fruit smoothie. I had Mango-a-go-go and Kelly had Caribbean Passion.

And that was that. Our NYC trip is nearly over, with only tomorrow left that we've dedicated to a big Macy's shopping spree, and an even bigger dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Maybe a cheese cake at Junior's and a cocktail at Dave & Busters as a goodbye ;)

NYC - Day 5

Today we were meant to go to The Statue Of Liberty. The plan was that we get up, go get some breakfast, then quickly go to the Skechers shop because they had a weekend-only 20% discount.

Another thing was that my Macbook's laptop decided to break while we're here. A few days ago it decided to shut down while still about 25% charged. I thought nothing of it and carried on but it started happening again and again. I took the battery out and for some reason it had a big bulge in it, as if something had swollen up. So I thought I'd take it to The Apple Shop (any excuse!) to see if it was still under warranty.

So we needed to buy some Skechers, sort out the Mac's battery, drop our stuff back at the hotel, and go to Liberty Island.

We got in to Times Square around 10:30 and just sat in a random cafe and had some bagels and coffee. Then we went to the Skechers shop, I had already decided what shoes I wanted from a previous visit (Some green and blue and orange and white and gold and navy trainers! Seriously, the look great! Picture later on), and Kelly got some nice trainers that don't need laces (they have elastic bands across them). My trainers aren't actually Skechers, they're something else called "Avirex", just as American though. We both also got some slippers.

It was off to The Apple Shop next, and I showed them the battery. Strangely enough they didn't think I had dropped it or something, seeing that it had a big bulge in it. Apple give a one year warranty with their stuff, so I was worried I was past that. Luckily, my warranty expired on the 25th of April!! So, the battery chose a great time (and place!) to break, just 3 days before I would have had to pay $120 for a new one.

We got back to the hotel at around 2ish, dropped our stuff and freshened up to go out again. I checked the guide book to see how we could get to The Statue, and it turns out you can only get there by Ferry, and the last one each day was 15:30! If we had rushed we might have gotten there on time (it's at the very bottom of Manhattan, and we're near the very top). For a city where shops and restaurants stay open till 1am, and the metro runs 24 hours a day, it's really odd that their ferry service to a major tourist attraction actually operates "British" hours!

With the Statue Of Liberty plans out of the window, we went to Macy's quickly instead. I needed a pair of jeans (I came here with a single pair of tatty jeans that had a hole in them!). We zipped in and out of Macy's, mainly because it was an amazing shop, huge, full of everything, cheap-ish, and we could have stayed there for hours!
Then we went to eat at TGI Friday's on Times Square. That was a disappointment, not because of the food (OK, nothing amazing), but the service was really bad and the food took ages to come out. Not just for us, but every other table on our floor (it's a 4 storey restaurant!).

Now, on our way out from the cinema a few days ago, we spotted something called Dave and Busters. It's an odd mix of an amusement arcade, a bar, and a restaurant. It looked cool so we went there after Friday's and sat at the bar, watching baseball (!!) and we had a couple of cocktails.

I was waiting for it to get dark to take some pictures, so as we left the bar it was nearly dark, so we went to the Junior's Bakery (a small side of the main Junior's restaurant, sells coffee and cheese cake). I had a coffee and a plain cheese cake. Kelly had a coffee and a "Devil's Food" cheese cake. Her slice was so big and heavy, I had to take a quick snap of it, with Kelly's hand by the side for scale :)

Finally, it had gotten dark by then so we wandered around the square taking tons of pictures of all the lights and buildings. Most of the night shots end up being deleted, either because of a really bright light ruining them, or bluriness, or bad exposure etc. I tend to set the camera to take 6 continuous shots rapidly, that way there's always one of the shots that looks acceptable.

Tomorrow: Statue of Liberty, Little Italy, and SoHo (South of Houston Street, got some nice shops apparently).

I leave you (at last!) with some of the pictures :)

The Averix


Devil's Food Cheese Cake (Bigger than Kelly's hand!!)


Toys 'R' Us (That big display changes periodically! and if you look carefully, you'll see some of the spokes of the big wheel ride inside!)


Times Square Subway station (those letters are glittery gold and move about)


Broadway

NYC - Day 4

We spent most of today in Central Park. The weather was really good, being sunny but with a bit of clouds and a nice breeze every now and then.

The park is huge, so we just wondered around and sat somewhere with lots of people. Before we went to the park, we bought lots of food and goodies from the local store (which is really good) and so we were sat there munching most of the time :)

One very noticeable thing about New York is that a) most people are alone (ie single) and b) almost everyone has a small dog. Some in dog baskets, some in little dog clothes, but out of every 10 (single) people we saw, at least 6 had a small dog.

I was also messing around with the camera and realised that taking really close up pictures of flowers or grass or insects is really cool, especially when the rest of the picture is out of focus, and the main focus is a small thing like that. I also like taking pictures where the foreground is out of focus (see Kelly's picture below).
May be that's another (expensive) hobby I should take up, photography!

Finally, as we were wondering around we stumbled on a part of the park full of sports courts and the like. A bunch of people were playing a rather heated game of street basketball, while some parents were watching their kids play baseball. It was all very cool, and very very American :)

NYC - Pics

Times Square


View from The Top Of The Rock:


Me, Kelly, and some chewing gum.....

















The Apple Shop, 5th Avenue

















My Nintendo Genuine Leather Wallet (with that case!)

NYC - Day 3

Hello :)

Lots of things going on today. We got in to Times Square at about 11:30 and decided to have Breakfast (Brunch?) in Planet Hollywood. The NY Planet Hollywood is one of the coolest I've seen, mainly cos it has massive screens all over the place.

We then went to The Rockefeller Center on 5th Avenue. It's a funny complex of lots of buildings, but the main attractions there are The Nintendo World shop, and "Top of The Rock", which is a 67th floor observatory. I bought some t-shirts and a really cool wallet from Nintendo (looks like a NES controller and comes in a great tin case resembling an NES cartridge!), then we went up to the top in a super fast lift. Was fun up there but gets boring quick cos there's so much you can see.

After that it was Katz's Deli, which is a very famous Deli in The Lower East Side. It is a huge place with loads of pictures of celebrities on the wall, and the most famous claim it has is that a famous scene from (When Harry Met Sally) was filmed there. On top of the table where they sat is a sign making you aware of it. They sell some really good pastrami sandwiches, and Kelly had a burger.

Then it was back to Time Square where we saw Grindhouse at The Empire AMC.
I loved Grindhouse (and so did Kelly). Planet Terror is more fun I think, mainly cos it's gory and just over the top cheesy. Death Proof is excellent also but in a Tarantino style, ie loads of long and sometimes meaningless conversations, but with some extra-witty narrative, and an explosive scene or two of pure action. The fake trailers in the middle are great, particularly the ultra-gory "Thanksgiving" by Eli Roth. Highly recommended provided you watch the trailer and promise yourself that you're not gonna expect anything more than trailer quality, b-movie, cheesy, gory, dodgy camera, missing reels (if you see it you'll see what I mean) kind of Hollywood.

Best thing about watching Grindhouse though was the American audience! They are loud, chatty, loads of "oooooohhhhs and aaaaaaaaahssssss" and "Jesus!!" when something really gory happens, and of course the mandatory applause and whistling when a baddy gets caught or taken down etc etc. Really added to the whole experience!

And that's about it for today. I've been trying to upload some pictures for the last 3 days but this leeched internet I'm using doesn't seem to be very happy. I'll try agiain tomorrow.

SoB

NYC - Day 2

Have had a great day today, but also very tired, so I might sound incoherant :)

Today we decided to wander around the "Center Of The Universe" as they like to call it, ie Time Square. A great place where there are tons of neon lights, big massive screens that display anything, and where all the shops are supersized and just American.

To start things off, Kelly had told me about a restaurant she saw on TV called "Junior's". We thought that it only served cheese cake and there was one in Brooklyn. Turns out there's 3 of them, one in Time Square, and they serve main course and cheese cake. We went there for breakfast. We both told the waiter that we wanted Benedict Egg and some coffee, so he told us that we should really order something with the egg, otherwise it's just a single poached egg. We foolishly agreed and both ordered some corned beef hash as a side.
The food came and not only was there 2 eggs on a base of bread and meat, but the corned beef hash wasn't a side order, it was a main meal in itself! I had to really force my self to finish it (OK, not really :p). Then we had the cheesecake which we thought was really nice. The Original Number 1 Cake (aka the plain cake) was really good.

We then just wandered around the square and saw tons of really American things, like semi naked men and women filming something outside The MTV Store, and the big massive Toys R Us store that is so big it actually has a full-sized ferris wheel ride inside it!

Another American oddity was the M&M's World Store! Yes, M&M's have now got stores that sell all the usual franchise things you'd find in a Disney Store. We actually liked a few things there, so we didn't leave empty handed!

We also went in to a smoothie shop called Jamba Juice, that does these really fresh, big, and very thick and cold smoothies that were great. They literally start off so thick that you can't suck them properly through the straw, just like Mc Donald's milk shake!

Later on we walked down 5th Avenue, which is the posh designer store street, with lots of things like Lous Vitton, Prada, and Tiffany & Co. It also has Apple's flagship store, which on the outside looks really cool, being basically a big see-through cube with the Apple Logo hanging in the middle. The whole store is underground, so all you see from street level is the cube, inside which is the logo and some see-through lifts and stairs! Inside though, it was actually disappointing and fairly basic compared to The Regency Street store in London. Come to think of it, even Steve Jobs himself thinks the London one is better.

I also managed to buy me a hard drive from Best Buy, which is the worst name for a massive chain of stores that sell electronics/computer stuff etc.

Finally, we went to China Town, which really was China Town! Unlike other China Town's I've seen, which were built by cities to look Chinese, this area in New York is actually just a poor, semi-dirty area with predominantly Chinese people. It doesn't just have restaurants and grocers, but all the little stores sell all sorts of Chinese fake stuff, like the bags and the watches and the DVDs etc etc. The restaurants themselves look really authentic, and aren't westernised in any way.
We looked around for a bit then went into a Vietnamese restaurant that looked nice, and it was! The staff were nice and polite (a rarity in NY it seems), and the food was some of the best we'd ever had. We both had some noodle soup dishes for main courses, and they really tasted authentic and fresh and we were just enjoying the whole experience. It was also cheap :)

And I think that's about it. I'm sure I've missed out some other really cool things but I'm too tired to think.

SoB out

PS: tomorrow we go see Grindhouse. Scary thing is, the cinema we're seeing it in (AMC Empire) really does look like a seedy grindhouse. Stay tuned.

NYC - Day 1

To sum up this morning's events (it's still 16:20 here), these two pictures require "no comment".

And, in case you're wondering, the sandwich is real, and the two trucks were both waiting for the traffic light to go green. So no, they weren't part of an exhibition or something :p

NYC - Day 0

Hello.

I'm tired. We've arrived at our SHITTY hotel (yes, very crap hotel, nothing like it was described on the website, but oh well). It's currently 21:35 local time, but that's like 02:35 UK time, so we're both tired and cranky!

Come to think of it, we woke up this morning at 8am, and traveled as follows (all times below are British Summer Time):

10:00 am - walked to train station
10:42 am - train from Ipswich to London Liverpool Street
12:00 pm - Underground from London Liverpool Street to Paddington
12:33 pm - Heathrow Express from Paddington to Terminal 3, Heathrow
16:00 pm - Virgin Atlantic Flight VS001 to Newark, New York
23:00 pm - Arrived at Newark
00:40 am - Squeezed in to a "Super Shuttle" that took us and 6 other people to various locations around New York. It's a good shared-taxi kind of service, but kinda sucks being squeezed in after spending 7 hours on a plane.
01:40 am - got to hotel (Astor On The Park - AVOID AT ALL COSTS!). Didn't manage to figure out how to open the room door, so Fatime on reception called Enrique to come and sort us out.

So, in that one hour car trip, we saw amazing sites! The city is just a landscape of lights, and colours, and lots of yellow cabs! I think we went past Times Square, which looks AMAZING.

Right, off to sleep now and tomorrow we gotta work out how to attack this mad house :)

SoB out

EDIT: Forgot to say, but the crappy hotel offers a 10$ per 24 hours WiFi service. Luckily for me though, there's an insecure network that I've managed to latch on to :) So, for now, I'm online on somebody else's internet for free. I've also managed to work out the router password for this connection, I'm wondering whether I should change it so that no one can check the logs. But, saying that, if someone were to try and log in to the router and fail cos their password isn't correct, they would definitely be suspicious that something has happened.

Hence, I'm leaving it as it is. For now :p

Yazen is NOW ONLINE!!

OMG! Another (Xbox Live! RULES!!!) post.

But seriously.

Yazen is IN IRAQ. MOSUL. Using a satellite kind of ISP thingie.

Satellite to PC

PC to X360

So, we tried and tried and tried ages ago to voice chat/play - NOTHING

Then, yesterday, he tells me he's changed his ISP, and perhaps we should try again.

And that we did. AND IT WORKED. And me and him voice chatted for ages over Live!, then we tested a few games just for fun and ALL OF THEM WORKED!

Lag was noticable in only one single game, while the others (about 5 of them) were all very, very playable online.

AMAZING, NO?

So, that's Hani and Yazen on live now!

Anyone else?

SoB - that's it, no more blogger thingies until I'm in the US of A tomorrow.

NYC!

Ok! It's finally here! We're (me and the lovely future Mrs SoB) off to New York tomorrow!!

Unfortunately, The Nor'easter storm hit the East Coast yesterday, cancelling 300 flights to and from NY! For some reason, I actually insured this flight, so if we do get cancelled tomorrow it's all covered. But, I've checked with Virgin Atlantic and BA, and flights are on schedule as usual, including today's flights. So, hopefully, all's ok :D

We're staying there for 8 days (Tue-Wed), and my mum is gonna pick us up when we come back.

I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to this!!! I have a million things I want to do, from the usual Empire State Building/Statue of Liberty/Ground Zero etc, so the things like watching a basketball game, going to Junior's (some cheese cake place), and going to that Chinese restuarant for trannies :D

Oh, and of course, the Rockefeller centre, for the wonderful Nintendo World Store, and 5th Avenue for The Apple Store. And loads of shopping!

Man, I'm excited! I love city holidays, we're both not the beach/sand/sun kind of people, I hate them!

Finally, am gonna try and blog daily from there, complete with pictures and all! I've bought a card-reader for the laptops so we can transfer the pics daily. Am not sure if the hotel has broadband or not, but I'll try my best :)

SoB - see you tomorrow from NYC :D

Scaredy Cat!

Not sure how authentic this is, but it sure is funny :)
2 Japanese guys playing Biohazard 2 on their PS1 (put right by A13, ta!), and are SHIT SCARED of the whole thing!
Enjoy

Post-it Donkey Kong!

Some creative UC Santa Cruz engineering students decided to decorate their "Engineering 2" campus building with a big scene from the 80's Nintendo classic, Donkey Kong, using nothing more than ordinary coloured Post-its!

What's amazing about the thing is that it looks exactly like the old game, took only 5 hours to complete (seriously! only 5 hours! teh awesome!) and I think all the people involved weren't even born while their parents were playing DK at the local hang out :)

There's a live journal page here that shows how it was all done, complete with some crappy snaps.

Grindhouse

I was checking some trailers on Apple's Front Row yesterday, and noticed this very interesting thing called Grindhouse.

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are back together to present Grindhouse, a movie made out of two Back to Back full feature movies! The premises sure is interesting, and A Grindhouse is apparently a type of cinema very prevalent in 70's America, that traditionally showed two uncensored back to back "exploitation" movies, with anything from sexploitation to gore to blackploitation.

Grindhouse will be a 185 minute showing of Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" and Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof". In between the two films there will be fake trailers for movies that don't exist, and they say that both films will feature grainy scratches added on, to make the experience as authentic as possible!

It sure is very intriguing, and watching the trailer makes me think that the ride is gonna be a typical Sin City/Kill Bill witty gorefest, and to be honest I can't wait to see the thing!

Grindhouse is out on the 6th of April in The States, and in June elsewhere. As I'm off to NYC in 2 weeks, I'll be watching it there.

In the meantime, check the trailer here.