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.

Bil-pakeit, Part 2

It's 12:00 British Summer Time, Saturday afternoon. I'm sat typing this in my bathrobe, having just come out from an extended shave and scrub session (the longer version of the infamous Shit, Shower, and Shave).

This morning at around 10:00 I finished the final leg of my "week" of nights, ie the last 3 shifts. As always, it wasn't too busy and wasn't too quiet, just normal medical crap that has to come in each night (Chest pains, overdoses, epilepsy etc).
I got home, and instead of going to sleep first then scrubbing second, I decided to get it all out of the way, so I can go to sleep happy (and clean). The difference this time is that Kelly also clipped my hair (the universal NUMBER ONE cut that I've had for yonks). So, in addition to shaving my face and trimming my beard, I've also clipped my hair. This is seriously Bil-pakeit.

Now: Gonna have a hearty "celebration" breakfast (aka A Good Old British Fry Up), and then sleep for 3 hours. This evening I'm hoping to watch Stranger Than Fiction with Kelly and then do some 360 lovin' with The Boy and his "al EmaraTi" friend, who's also called Ali and owns all 3 consoles.

SoB out.......

Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Games

No, it's not a trick. It's not a rumour either, and it definitely is real.

Mario and Sonic, the pinnacle of 16bit rivalry and loads of play-ground arguments, are to appear together (for the very first time) in a game!

Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Games is a Wii/NDS title by Sega, and that's all we know. Do they compete in normal games or does it require Mario to try and do some gravity-defying 360 loop-the-loops or Sonic to pick up turtle shells and PUT WEIGHT ON?

Who knows. But finally SNES and MEGADRIVE Fanbois can bury the hatchet and play a game featuring their favourite mascot. Whether it's any good remains to be seen, if it isn't, I double Nintendo's fat plumber will be affected, it's the blue hedgehog that's been getting a load of shit lately.

Finally!

Today, after a four-and-a-half hour session, and a total of bloody 46 gameplay hours (waaay too long for me!), we finally managed to finish The Legend Of Zelda - Twilight Princess on the Wii!!

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game - awesome even, just too long. Mind you, absolutely non of it was boring, and some of the levels and dungeons were awe-inspiring in design.

Worst bit was the last boss battle, as in traditional Zelda style it wasn't just one battle and you're done, but more one boss merges into another etc. When you reach the stage that you're gonna chuck your Wiimote at the screen, you actually finish!

Twilight's final battle(s) were as follows: Zant (who goes from one previous boss location to the other, emulating how they fought you, so he was like 5 battles in one), then Ganon Puppet Zelda, then Ganondorf Dark Beast, then Gannondorf horse chase/battle, and then Gannondorf Sword Fight (toughest of them all). Remember, there's no saving or shit in between, so a booboo is a BIG booboo. Luckily, we managed it all in one go (we did have only 1 heart container left at the very end but who cares!).

So that's that. Zelda is done and dusted. Now to get Red Steel out of the way (shit game), then I want to get some new Wii goodies (Kororinopa, Eledees, Sonic and The Secret Rings, Mercury Revolution and Excite Truck). It's gonna be busy.

Teo and Tea have arrived

One of 5000 limited-edition CD/DVD combos, which is becoming the norm for recent Jarre releases.

I hated this album when I heard the promo, I now love it. Jarre has moved, not up, but sideways, and has gone for a more dancey, main-stream kind of feel. It works for the majority, but has also managed to upset loads of fans.

I personally really like the album, first few listens didn't impress me but then you realise that even though the songs would work in a sweaty night-club, they also retain a lot of Jarre-ology.

Some tracks are pure genius, while others are so Eurodance/techno they'll make even Scooter cry (Teo and Tea being the worst offender).

If you do decide to give it a twirl, listen to it more than once (it's only 50 minutes), don't skip tracks and don't give up listening cos you think that the track isn't good. Just listen and forget other Jarre albums (after all, the golden classics are 30 years old!) and listen to Teo and Tea afresh, like a new band you've just discovered.

A quick tip

for those wanting to burn DL DVD+R discs

USE ONLY VERBATIM DISCS! (MEDIA CODE MKM001 OR 003). Yes, they're way more expensive than other blanks (cheapest .uk is £1.50) BUT they are brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And no, DATAWRITE, BULKPAQ, TUFFDISC etc aren't worth the effort.

SoB - has loads of cheap DL coasters

Disappointing

We saw 300 today.

We were both disappointed by 300 today.

Why? cos all it is is ONE BIG FIGHT SCENE. True the gfx and fights are awesome, but that's about it. There's no plot to follow, no characters to relate to, and nothing that hooks you.

All you see is one fight, which finishes, and then guess what? another fight, and then another, ad nauseum.

Heck, one guy watches his son's head get chopped off in front of his own eyes and you feel nothing for the dad nor the boy. The characters are that distant.

Don't get me wrong, I know the film is just telling the story of a battle, but surely someone could have dramatised it a little bit, and actually made a SCREENPLAY. Even Sin City had more story than this, and that was about prostitutes and yellow men.

This film will appeal to 2 kinds of people, those that are die hard Frank Miller fans, and those that wet themselves thinking of Brad Pitt as Troy jumping up to kill the challenger and then saying "are there anymore" or something to that line. If you're in that camp then 300 is the best film ever made. It's just like that scene repeated for 1 hour and 57 minutes.

For those that like to actually follow a story, relate to a character, or actually like to listen to some dialogue now and then, stay clear. Watch Gladiator instead.

Bil-pakeit

(In the packet)

That's how I feel right now. Fresh, new, and bil-pakeit :)

Let me digress. I embarked on a week of nights on Saturday. I say a week though, but due to recent EU working hour regulations it is illegal to do 7x12 hour shifts in a row. So, to bypass that, my hospital decided to split the week of nights: you do 4 nights in a row (Sat. to Wed.), then you have a WHOLE WEEK OFF (not annual leave, not time owing, nothing. Just off) and then you're back on Wed. night till Fri.
That way, you do 4 nights, have 7 days off, then do 3 nights.

Anyhow, so I finished my first 4 nights this morning. Got home really early (around 9:30) and managed to stay awake till about 11:30. I then entered a deep coma until my alarm clock woke me up at 15:00. I have to force myself to get up so I can sleep again tonight and try to return to normal. Usually, I'd have a shower before going to sleep so that when I get up I don't have to rush to start the next shift.
This time however I jumped in to the shower after waking up, and man did I need a full body scrub! All that grime of hours of staying up all night, and I refuse to shave on nights so I was starting to look like I was going to blow myself up any second (:p), oh and my nails were a bit too long too.

So, after about an hour of shaving, clipping, scrubbing, and showering I am out a new man. Brand new. BIL PAKEIT. I actually don't stink any more.

In other news, I am listening to Pan's Labyrinth OST as we speak, and it JUST DOESN'T WORK. It's a very picture-centric score, doesn't really mean anything without the movie. I also bought the 2 disc special edition DVD, even though I had a copy ages ago. The movie is so good it had to be bought. They deserve me £11.

Oh, and I've pre-ordered Jarre's Teo&Tea album (CD + DVD), which I hated initially (been listening to promo) but now I can't stop listening to it and thinking that it's actually one of his best albums.

SoB out - off to eat some pizza, then text hani for some PES6 lovin'. He kicked my ass yesterday. REEEEVEEEEEEEEENNNNGGGGGGEEEEEEE!!

Black 360 This April!

Kotaku the gaming blog has scans of Game Informer's April edition, which has a story about the black HDMI-ready 360. Rumours of this have been floating around for ages, but now it's been confirmed!

Engadget have the web exclusive.

Now THIS is how it's meant to be done

I'm ranting about Xbox Live again. Why? cos yesterday me and Hani met up online at some late hour (since he got his 360 his sleep pattern has practically been reversed), and decided to have a go at some Pro Evo 6 (I know I know!).

Anyone who remembers me will know that I am not generally a fine of sport games, except a few exceptions (eg Tennis, and Speedball if you can count that in :p). So with reluctance I got PES6 and we tried it out last night. And man what a night! We were both really shit at it, but game after game we started learning the tricks and ended up scoring some great goals!

But what's really amazing about it is its great online function. For the majority of our PC gaming Hani has had problems with higher than average pings (cos of UAE-UK links), and has had to put up with some mild lag on Quake. Amazingly, every game we've tried on Live has no lag whatsoever, except now and then like normally expected. I have no clue how Table Tennis manages to keep us playing at blazing speeds all the time. With PES6, the first 30 seconds of every game we played chops up a bit (I presume it's syncing and calculating what it needs to compensate) and then we're playing EXACTLY as if we're on the same machine, or on a LAN.

Best thing is, whenever a goal is scored it is replayed from 2 angles, and then the scorer has about 1 minute to manually control the replay, including slow-mo, reverse, camera control etc etc. And this shows on both players' machines! So for that sweet post-goal one minute, you have the opportunity to really annoy and charge-up your opponent, by showing him the goal over and over again. Sweet.

Of course, all of this is with lag-free voice chat throughout the whole game. It really is amazing how MS got the Live servers so good.

I say again, those that are considering getting a console (or have recently settling in .eu *cough* india *cough*) I seriously recommend a 360. Get it and relive the golden oldie days were gaming was simple, and fun.

Finally, here's a video of something I was hoping would happen way back here: a 4 player Command and Conquer 3 skirmish, on Live, with full video/voice chat while the game's playing :) I can't wait for other games to have video conferencing built in (imagine it in football or tennis games or anything really, seeing your foe as you battle!). Good times are a-coming!

GameSpy To Power Wii

[Joystiq QUOTE]
In a press release sent out today, GameSpy has announced it will provide "multiplayer technology" to publishers developing games for the Wii. The middleware allows the same online functionality found in DS games but will include friend rosters, matchmaking, and ranking data similar to Xbox Live. It's about time! Looks like Nintendo is finally willing to share their online service with 3rd party developers.

Nintendo has had a toe in the online world since Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection launched in 2005, but game-specific friend codes and the lack of a central hub have made the service a cumbersome experience. Could this mean the end of friend codes and the beginning of a beautiful online experience?
[QUOTE]

Could it be true? Have The Big N finally realised that having game specific friend codes and all that crap makes it stupidly difficult to play games with your friends, without a certain degree of offline co-ordination first? I mean, when me and Kelly used to play MarioKart vs online, we had to CALL each other to start the game and find each other!!

Compare that to Live!, where you just turn your 360 on, and you get a list of your friends that are online, and what they're doing. To play with them, it's just a matter of sending an invite. Easy as pie. Nintendo, to keep their family-kid-friendly image don't show you what your friends are up to at all. You gotta speak to them in the real-world to get them to start an online game. Works yes, SUCKS BIG TIME though.

Here's hoping.

Which reminds me, India you still haven't fixed that wireless router? we were gonna duke it out on Tetris-DS-Crack.......

Commodore Are Back!!

(Source C&VG)

The Commodore brand is returning to the videogame world as Commodore Gaming, which is focusing on building high-end gaming PCs.The company is to unveil its first range of machines at the CeBIT show which takes place on Germany on March 15. Attendees will be able to "play the high performance purpose-built machines with the latest PC games", it's stated."We are privileged and excited to bring the Commodore brand back to the gaming community and mark a new chapter in its history with this exceptional machine. We're sure that it will deliver what gamers need and want", Bala Keilman, CEO for Commodore Gaming, has commented.

Lapoonia is NOW ONLINE!!

It has FINALLY happened. The unthinkable has happened, and one of my friends has bought an Xbox 360, AND gone online with it, AND played with me for a good while!

And to think it's Hani of all people. I say that cos he's the last person I thought would get one, cos he went "off" games ages ago...

Anyhow, he rang me a few days ago to chat about 360 or Wii, and I recommended 360 for him... lo and behold he got a UK PAL one today for a good price, with 10 games!
This evening, he set it all up and then we voice chatted and I ran him through how to get Xbox Live! up and running, and sure enough he was on it in no time, and we moved our voice chat over to the Xbox. I have to admit it all worked at first attempt, which is something of a miracle in the tech world, as all you people that visit this blog will surely agree with.

Then, we played the only game we both have (Table Tennis), and there was a teeny bit of lag but nothing major, all this while still voice chatting. It really was great fun and I am very happy that he got one, cos as much as I love playing online with strangers and "friends" I've met in games, nothing beats playing with golden-oldie real life friends that you shared this interest with 10+ years ago. Hopefully, he'll keep the gaming spirit. He gets Gears of War tomorrow, and am hoping he'll get as addicted as me to it's excellent online matches.

So, if you're reading this and now and thinking about getting one, then YES! PLEASE DO! It's an excellent system, with great power and capability, and awesome games especially if you're online with it. The Live! system (as I've ranted before) is so easily and properly integrated in to the system that even Haniboy can use it :p

Also it's cheaper than decent PC but can do just as well, if not better. No need to worry about pings or IP addresses or drivers or new VGA cards etc etc... just plug in, play, and be amazed at it all.

NILE - PLEASE GET ONE - ME AND HANI WOULD LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Here's hoping.....

D'Oh!

The Addiction Is Back

No, I haven't started smoking again, thank GOD.

I'm talking about the new expansion pack for Titan Quest, called Immortal Throne.

I know there's a few new things added to the game, which I don't really care about, but what I also know is that it's more of the same. EXACTLY the same, ie click-n-slash action, with nothing more than one mouse hand needed to play. And more the great graphics, fantastical creatures, and great sound.

Oh and the other best thing is that your character from the original Titan Quest is fully playable. Actually, I think if you don't have a character from the first one you actually have to play through it all to get to the expansion pack content. So, my level 65 kick-ass Summoner is gonna have a great time in the expansion back.

So, am gonna be addicted soon. That's if I can get myself to stop playing Crackdown, which should be "finished" soon.

Titan Quester out

Crackdown "The Big Bang"

Crackdown is one of the best Xbox360 games to date. Actually, one of the best games I've played in a long long time. Essentially a GTA-like game (I mean GTA3 and beyond), and created by one of the minds behind the first GTA games, Crackdown drops you in the middle of a HUGE city made of 3 islands, and from there it's all up to you.

You play as a special genetically-modified agent that has the job of "Cleaning The City", each island has a gang composed of 6 members and a king-pin. Your agent has 5 core abilities (agility, arms, explosives, driving, and strength). By killing people with your gun, or blowing them up, or round-house kicking them across a building you increase your abilities. This is where the game really shines. The more you progress the more fantastic things you can do, especially the agility attribute. The more agile you get the faster you run and the higher you jump, until you can literally jump over buildings. Couple that with good explosive damage and strength, and you will see yourself targeting a baddie, jumping over a building while blowing them up with your rocket launcher. All in real-time, real-physics, havoc-engine, render-ware force.

The game also lets you play co-op, coupling you and a friend to do whatever you want. Tackle some missions, do some car or foot races (there's loads around), or go hunting for the 800 (yes, true number) agility/secret orbs scattered all over the city. Enormous fun.

So, today, I was playing co-op with a friend and after doing a mission we decided to do something a lot of people have done, create a Big Bang. We piled up loads of cars, sprinkled them with sticky grenades and a few explosive barrels, climbed up the nearest building, and launched some rockets towards the whole thing. The KABOOOOOM was huge, and luckily the macbook was close so I caught the action with the iSight. After a bit of editing (again, apple iMovie HD), below is the video :)

I honestly believe that the Xbox 360 is THE console to own this generation. Excellent games, even better online services, and just all out fun. Enjoy "The Big Bang"

OMG!

Have a good hard look at Song Hye Kyo, a famous Korean actress:



QUOTE:
It's hard to believe, but you're looking at computer-generated image of Korean actress Song Hye Kyo, created by Indonesian CG artist Max Edwin Wahyudi. To create this stunning shot, he used a combination of digital sculpting and design application Pixelogic Zbrush and animation modeling software Autodesk 3DS Max.
SOURCE: GIZMODO

How about that then? and we thought the CGI Final Fantasy movie was the best it would ever get. Give it 5-10 years, and our graphics cards will be rendering Song in real time, as she navigates her way through a physically complete environment. I wonder what's next in our expensive hobby, better graphics or (as Nintendo seem to be thinking) more immersion. Perhaps in 5 years time we'll all be using a PROPER version of Virtual Reality.

Scary.

I would love one of these

The Super Mario Rubik Cube :D Can you get any more nerdy?

I think they're on sale in Japan, the local ebay for some freaky reason doesn't have one... perhaps there's a problem with The Matrix :p

The picture that brought a tear to my eye

Iraqi Airways - August 1988, Just departed from London Heathrow, en route to Saddam International, Baghdad :(







Reminds me of a GREAT time, war was over, people could travel, and Iraq was going to be the best place in the world. Now look what's happened.


Check here for 160 various pictures of "real" Iraqi Airways and the new ones (up to 2006). I must warn you though, if you've ever been on one of them these pictures will give you lumps in your throat... includes pictures of the planes "stored" in Amman and Tehran.


Upsetting isn't it?

Picooz In Action!

The long awaited video......

Valentine's Day cards for that special geek

Just proof to show that playing video games and being a geek is currently extremely chic and everyone wants to be one... personally, I can't wait until we geeks are just that, geeks, ie bespectacled chubby men that talk in binary and make internal jokes about things like cacodemons, area-spells, and HP. I can only hope....

Anyhow, tomoz is St. Valentine's Day, where yet again ALOT of new babies will be born in November :D To celebrate the day with your special geek, why not print out one of these geeky cards, especially designed for the Nintendo loving geeks.

SoB "The Real Geek" out.

Teo and Tea FULL video

I can see this becoming a dance hit, in .eu at least....

PS: PicoZ is here, managed to crash it tons of times. Kelly's not here to film it, we'll make a video later on this weekend :)

PicoZ Micro Helicopter

I have spent half of my £50 firebox voucher on this little beauty. A teeny weeny indoor RC Helicopter, which weighs just 10 grammes!!

The PicoZ looks really addictive, you charge it for 30 minutes and it flies for 10 minutes. Ideally, you only use it indoors cos it's so light any wind can crash it in to the wall...

Check the firebox product page here for loads of pictures, customer reviews, and videos.

I should be getting it tomorrow, and as I'm working from 1pm I'll be crashing it in to the wall (with a video hopefully) very soon :p

Stay tuned

Pixelblocks, or how I won £50!

I bought some Pixelblocks the other day (from firebox), which are some really geeky toys that combine my childhood obsession (lego), and my adult obsession (no, not porn you dirty, dirty people! I meant computers and games)

Pixelblocks are lego for adults, little plastic blocks that look like pixels and can connect in different ways. Of course, the greatest fun is recreating some classic characters from the great 2D era of gaming. (if you're sad you can create your favourite windows icon :p).

Me and Kelly spent an evening together on the weekend creating our 2 of our favourite characters, Yoshi and Toad. After we finished, I put them on the window sill, took some snaps, and sent them to firebox (they encourage people to send snaps of their purchases, they use them on the website).

To my surprise today, I got 2 emails from firebox: one telling me that the picture was now live, and the other one telling me that I'd won £50!!! Little did I know, but firebox had chosen my picture as "picture of the week", and if they do that you win a voucher for £50!

So, there's my little happy story of the day, and my little promotion for firebox, who I've used before and they rock, not only cos of the voucher, but cos they're made for gadget/toy/computer/game/geek boys like me (and you - if you're reading this)

SoB

Vista

I've been running vista semi-succesfully since Friday evening. I say "semi" cos the 64 bit version, as usual, doesn't have proper driver support yet...

The 32 bit version has better support, but still my soundblaster has the crappiest drivers I've ever seen (still beta).

Otherwise, nVIDIA's drivers are doing the job ok, and everything else is automatically configured. So, what's the big deal?

Well, for me vista is a MASSIVE improvement over XP, and is a great O/S to work with! For starts, it features tons of eye candy, which I am a sucker for. From the way windows fade in and out, to the way the title bar is see through (kind of like a lens), to the way you can put HD videos as your background (yes, ages ago we could do that on windows 98 with 3rd party software, but this is built in to the system so takes very little resources), and those massive icons that are beautifully detailed (I love big icons). One cool feature is that windows shows a thumbnail of pictures and movies (yeap, old too) BUT if the file's a movie it adds 2 little cellulloid strips around the edges, and the icons are the same ratio as the movie itself! (see picture)

I could go on and on about the visual things...

In terms of the OS itself, admittedly it doesn't offer that many new things that anyone who's used a mac in the last 3 years hasn't seen. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, cos we all know that Apple's OSX is a great system, so to have something like it on a PC is great. There's the built in instant searches, the quick bar on the left of windows for quick access to your favourite parts, and finally user-based system decisions that have been a stable of *nix system since they first began! So now, if a programme wants to change some system files, windows alerts you and asks for permission. Let's hope it can't/won't be exploited.

The start menu has been radically overhauld too, and now instead of spreading out gradually, it actually opens out in one single menu. So when you click an item, it just unbranches underneath, in the same menu. A bit slow, but needs getting used to and when you're used to it, you'll realise it's better than the old style.

Another nice touch I found is that when a programme crashes (yes, windows, still crashes!), the system goes online to see if a solution has been found for this. I presume that in the following years MS will have a big (huge!) database of crashes and potential cures. Either that, or it will be useless (just like the XP attempt at going online to find what a file extension is).

From a quick gaming point of view, I disabled my soundblaser and enabled the mobo's built-in sound device, which is fully supported in vista. The sound quaility sucks but at least it's working in 5.1 and not buggy. I mainly tried FEAR and I have to admit I think it's way faster than on xp with the same hardware and settings. More about VISTA gaming once drivers have settled.

There's loads more to discover and do, but I haven't really messed around a lot. One thing I wish existed was "springy folders", like on OSX. This lets you move a file around by dragging it on to the icon of the destination, if you don't let go, the icon opens up and you can then go to folders inside that, and they open up too etc etc. Once you've reached your destination, you drop the file there and OSX automatically closes all open folders and takes you to your starting point. A great system, if a bit difficult to explain in words.

Finally, I leave you with a screenshot of my favourite feature, the "show all windows" button. Note that the screenshot does no justice to this, as windows are updated in real-time (so a video carries on playing, and games are moving also, etc etc). Great to find the window you want to work on easily.

They've done it!

In what seems to be record time, those lovely Chinese people have managed to hack the Wii!
In about 2 days, not one mod have been announced, but 3 different mods are already in production!

One mod (the CycloWiz) has even been installed and reviewed by maxconsole, and they give it great marks!

The beauty of the mods is that they're stealth (ie they send absolutely NO DATA to the cpu, hence being undetectable), and can be installed without any wire soldering. One problem is that non of them allow for region free gaming (original or backup), cos allegedly to do that the chip has to send some data to the cpu, hence not being stealth.

Personally, I think this is great news, as I definitely would install one cos I'm not that fussed about owning originals for the Wii (unlike the 360, which I want to keep live enabled).

The WiiKey is the mod I'm gonna hold on for, cos allegedly it allows different regions and is also upgradeable via software.

As always, the games have been ripped ages ago, which is the norm when it comes to the scene, ie games get ripped and distributed before you can play them as "backups"....

It's here!

......More Later......