Halloween :)

ANYONE reading this blog will relate to this! (click to enlarge)

Photoshoot

Last weekend I bought a new camera. My old Konica Minolta Dimage 200 wasn't cutting it any more. It's a great camera, I've taken loads of great snaps with it. BUT, it was just an advanced point and click.
Sure it had aperture and shutter controls, but it remained point and click.

So, I took the DSLR plunge and bought a Canon EOS 40D, along with a Tamron 18-250 lens and a Manfrotto 190XB Tripod. Playing around with the camera a bit I noticed a HUGE difference between DSLR and everything else. The main difference is that what you see with your eye is exactly what you see in the camera. This may sound weird, but try using a DSLR and you'll understand.

Anyhow, so today me and Kelly went out on our first "Photoshoot". We went to a nearby local park and took some pictures of the trees, wildlife, etc etc.
The results ranged from crap to OK, but nothing spectacular. Of course I wasn't too disheartened, it was my first go at a DSLR shoot.

But there's one picture that I really liked. Kelly spotted a bird on a tree and we zoomed in to find that it might be a Kestrel, some bird that is rarely seen. Anyway, tons of snaps later and with a little bit of cropping (thanks for the tips PyroMax, or is it Jinx, or is it Anmar M?) and the result is below. Hope you like it :)

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE...

(Posted in an Atlanta Paper's Dating and Personal Section):

.... seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I’m a very good looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips,cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 875-6420 and ask for Daisy, I’ll be waiting…


Allegedly, 15,000 men found themselves talking to The Atlanta Humane Society about an eight week old BLACK LABRADOR!

Clever eh?

Jail Breaked

Today I managed to "Jail Break" my iPhone.

I hadn't heard about jail breaking before, but today I was told all about it by Zzz, and after some research and a relatively complicated procedure, I managed to do it.

Jailbreaking is the underground term for letting the iPhone install and run third-party applications. Apple have been very crappy with third-party developers, and essentially not much can be ran on the iPhone unless it's via Apple.

My iPhone was at version 1.1.2, that had to be downgraded to 1.1.1, then jailbreaked, then patched, then upgraded again. After all this the phone ends up with an installer app, which checks loads of sites for apps and installs them with a, erm not click, erm press (?) or touch (!) of a finger!

I've installed loads of things now: an arabic SMS app (the iPhone doesn't read arabic yet), some games (the usual suspects), and some tweaks to the system.

The best thing about it is something called "Summerboard", which lets you customise the whole UI. It also downloads themes for you, and I've fallen in love with something called "Smooth", a picture of which is below (taken by a screenshot app I downloaded also, so the picture below is actually from my iPhone!)

Apple have said that they're happy with the progress these apps are doing, and it may well all become official one day. Provided we don't all use the anysim.app that is so easily downloadable with one "touch".....

I like this

The Pills Won't Help You Now

Was the name of The Chemical Brothers' set last night.

And oh what a night!!

We drove up to London yesterday afternoon and got to Mum's at about 16:00. Me and Kelly had loads of Arabic food (Dolma, which I hate but Kelly likes, and some other thingies) and then we headed off to Brixton at about 18:30.

See, I had looked at the Brixton Academy's webpage and it said that the Chemical Brothers will be on stage from 21:30 to 23:30, and the gig starts at 20:00 (DJ and Special Guests first).

We got to Brixton on the underground, and a few minutes away from the station was The Brixton Academy. This place was a posh cinema a long time ago, but has now became an internationally acclaimed venue for all things live. What makes it very unique is that the standing floor is sloped, meaning that the people in front of you don't obstruct your view, hence giving everyone a great view!

Anyhow, we got to the doors and found the place closed! On the door was a notice with the schedule on it: Doors Open 20:00, DJ till 21:30, Simian Mobile Disco (guests) till 22:15, DJ again till 23:00, then finally The Chemical Brothers set from 23:00 till 01:00!!!

So we were there at about 18:45, more than four hours before The Chems were live! We sat in a bar called Backstage and had a drink, until it was 20:00 and the doors opened.

After a boring DJ and a semi-OK SMD set, The Chemical Brothers finally came live! There were loads of people standing and also in the seats upstairs, but it wasn't too cramped or hot, and we we were in a good central location seeing the whole stage.

The set was AMAZING! Other than the fact that there were tons of electronic devices and keyboards and things that flashed in the dark and HUGE speakers, the brothers played some of their all-time favourites, all with a bit of remixing, and all very very loud! There were times when they were transitioning between songs with some weird noises and sounds which were a bit uncomfortable, but that's a small niggle.

They kick started it all with Galvanise, and went on from there to things like Do It Again, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Under The Influence, Star Guitar, and the excellent Block Rockin' Beats!

Best of all though, they played a favourite favourite track of mine, Surface to Air (see here), and also 2 great tracks from their latest album (We Are The Night), the brilliant Saturate and the even better Das Spiegel. I was jumping up and down with delight when that last one came on!

There were loads more songs, all of which were blended in amazingly and were great to watch live. They ended it all with The Sunshine Underground, their epic (and one of their best) long track from Surrender. It is a great song, with complex layers and very anthemic, but live it wasn't as good as I had hoped, mainly because the loud bass masked the subtle and intricate details of the rest of the track. Still, it was a treat to end with.

Being a fan for so long and seeing them live was a great experience, they really can put up a great show!

Finally, the best thing about the whole set was the screen. Behind all the instruments was a kind of see through screen. When it wasn't displaying anything it looked like horizontal bars, behind which you can see lights and things. But it also was a screen, capable of at least 256 colour images, including full sized movies! It was used to awesome effect, and the fact that you could see through it made some scenes look beautifully deep and layered. They used the screen for every single song, and it added to an already electric atmosphere!

We left when the set was done at about 01:00. There was an official merchandise stall from which I bought the above T-shirt. We took a cab back to my mum's flat where the car was parked, and drove back all the way to Ipswich, getting back to a very welcoming bed at 03:30.

A great show. One side effect though is that I can't hear stereo any more, my left ear has gone on strike. Brilliant!

The Chemical Brothers Live!!!!

YES! YES!

The postman just came, I signed for the letter, and inside are the 2 tickets to see The Chemical Brothers live at The Carling Brixton Academy, London, Saturday 15/12!!!!!

I won these tickets on eBay a while ago, but didn't want to talk about it until I actually physically received them!

I can't wait for this, it is going to be AWESOME! It's a late night show, starting 20:00 and finishing 02:00!! I've seen their live sets on TV (Glastonbury was amazing) so actually seeing them live is gonna be great.

The Chemical Brothers have been one of my most favourite acts since I heard their 2nd album, Dig Your Own Hole (Their first album, Exit Planet Dust, was done when they were called The Dust Brothers). Since then I've owned all their albums and followed their scene.

Can't wait to listen to stuff like Block Rockin' Beats, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Push The Button and Do It Again live!

More impressions on Sunday after the gig.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

I have Blue Blood to thank for this one. One late-night-chatathon-gameathon-thingie, he gave me a link to a video. I clicked, and saw this guy running around in a jungle blowing things up. I didn't really like it, but I remembered the name, Uncharted.

Then a demo was released on PSN, which I downloaded. I played a little bit, and didn't like that either. The next day, I played it again and thought it was actually quite good.

Then the reviews came in and everyone is waxing lyrical about how great Uncharted is, so I preordered it from play.com. And it arrived a day early yesterday. And by God how awesome it is!!!

It's kinda like a mix between Tomb Raider and Gears of War, but instead of big boobs and/or big American soldiers, it's just an ordinary guy in an extraordinary predicament. Lots of guns, traps, and platforms to play around with. Kinda like a modern day Indiana Jones.
There's nothing new that hasn't been done before here, but it's just all done with so much emphasis on fun and story, that it's just a really good game.

But, for the first time in my recent memory, I'm actually enjoying a game because of how good it looks. Something I've never took in to account before (Graphics don't mean much to me). But this game is just AMAZING. There are scenes in it that you just want to stop playing and take tons of pictures of. I remember when the first cutscene finished and the game started, the graphics were so good that I thought I was still looking at a prerendered scene. It was only until I moved the joystick around did I realise this was the in-game engine in all it's glory.

And glorius it is. I think the PS3's real potential and power is starting to be unlocked now that developers are getting used to the system. I still haven't even put Ratchet and Clank in the machine, but from what I hear it's another great gameplay and graphics tour-de-force.

Both great endings to one of the best years gaming has ever seen. Thank God I'm a gamer.

Psychonauts and new Gamertag!

First, I've changed my Xbox Live! Gamertag. It was DrSbaitso, which, for those in the know, is a tribute to D.R.S.B.A.I.T.S.O, the Creative Labs Soundblaster programme that pretended to be a psychologist. There are two problems with this tag:

A\ 80% of people on Xbox Live! probably weren't born when Dr Sbaitso came out. As such, they can't even pronounce the word, let alone understand what it stands for.

B\ Being a real-life doctor, and having a tag with "Dr" in it made you sound like a prick. A prick that wants to tell everyone that he's a doctor. Not what I want to do. When people got to know me on Live! and asked me what I did for a living, answering "doctor" made them either go quiet or snigger silently (though loud enough to be heard). Essentially, a shit idea.

Problem is of course is that this gamer tag is from the original Xbox Live! and at the time I hadn't thought of Sobtanian. SoB in itself was already taken, so I had to think of another tag.

Anyhow, this is now all changed (for about £8, bloody microsoft!!!) and I'm now called Sobtanian. The Gamertag to your right shows that, but I wonder if the 360 blog will keep up...

Next, the 360 received a "fall update", in other words a firmware/os update. The interface has changed considerably, but what's more important is that original Xbox titles can now be downloaded over Xbox Live!, and played on the machine (it emulates them).

What's more important than that is that Tim Schafer's excellent excellent Psychonauts is on there!!!! For about £10, you can play this classic game with some upsampled loving. But, I hear you asking why play it again Ali? I played it and loved it last year, so why again. And that's cos I'm feeling guilty. I actually downloaded the original and didn't pay for it. Sorry Tim. And this is my way of saying sorry, by paying for it and sampling it's delights again.
Especially seeing that the original sold about 30,000 copies only and didn't do well in retail, so I've got to do my part :)

The 5.2 gb download or so had finished while I was at work, so I'll give it a twirl later this evening after Heroes. Which is the next best thing on TV besides The Simpsons and Ugly Betty. Which is for girls but I don't care, I watch it with Kelly.