Late night surfing

I love the internet.

I've loved it way before I even knew how it worked, or what it did. Back in the old days of living in Baghdad, we had no internet. We knew there was an internet explorer with windows, and we knew the internet was a great place. PC heaven. But what did it look like and how did it work?

I was to find out in June 2000, the year I left Iraq. My first time so to speak was at an internet café in Jordan, when a friend of mine type www.hotmail.com in a browser, and from then on I was hooked.

It's not just the info, but the other main reason I love the web is communications. Thanks to the net I'm in touch with loads of friends all around the globe, some just emailing now and then, some chatting randomly, and others regularly voice/video conferencing and playing games.

And now, I'm laid on my bed, browsing the web for random tidbits at 2:30 in the morning on my laptop, and I'm enjoying it so much that I thought I'd blog it. Come to think of it, today was a good geeky day, cos my gaming buddy Dan came round and we played the Serious Sam 2 demo, and then played ALOT of Mortal Kombat : Shaolin Monks (Ko-op mode). Essentially golden axe but in the mk universe, the ko-op mode is so much button-bashing fun and arguing about screen-stealing and item allocation that it just takes you back to the good old 2D co-op games of yesteryear (double dragon anyone?). Great game. Great day. Great internet.

69 Love Songs

I don't know why I haven't mentioned this earlier. I've been bugging poor old anarki13 about this every other time I post on his blog.
69 Love Songs is a triple CD album by the not-so-known The Magnetic Fields. Why would a blog about computer games, medicine, and jarredom mention such a soppy album? Well, cos not only is it one of the best hidden nuggets of music around, but it's also got nearly nothing to do with lovey-dovey love, but more about betrayal, lust, passion, sadness, happiness, adultry, and anything else that no one else would sing about other than incomprehensible metal bands.

The 69 songs on the album cover a wide range of genres also, from folk rock, to electronic, to pop and even experimental, it's just a brilliant experience all together.

The main man behind the music is a Stephen Merritt, a genius at lyric writing and composing at the same time. With a dull, monotonous haunting voice like moby, he adds more meaning to his music by singing the majority himself (with a few other vocalists sometimes).

With song titles like The Cactus Where You're Heart Should Be, It's a Crime (To Fall in Love), and Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits, you know that this is a special album that deserves recognition.

Worth mentioning is "I Don't Wanna Get Over You", a song about giving up on trying to forget, and about living in blue. Sung with Merritt's trademark dull and dark voice (that you wouldn't expect to be so sentimental and sad), to a bouncy sing-a-long tune that again contradicts the sad and sentimental lyrics, which are about living in blue forever, it's a great example of the genius behind this album.

My personal favourites have got to be:

Absolutely Cookoo:

don't fall in love with me yet

we only recently met

true i'm in love with you

but you might decide i'm a nut

All My Little Words:

you are a splendid butterfly

it is your wings that make you beautiful

and I could make you fly away

but I could never make you stay

Reno Dakota:

reno dakota I'm reaching my quota of tears for the year

alas and alak you just don't call me back

you have just disappered

it makes me drink beer

I Don't Wanna Get Over You:

I don't wanna get over you

I guess I could take a sleeping pill

and sleep at will

and not have to go through what I go throuh

I guess I should take Prozac, right

and just smile all night

at somebody new

The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side:

Andy would bicycle across town

in the rain to bring you candy

and John would buy the gown

for you to wear to the prom, with Tom

the astronomer who'd name star for you

but I'm the luckiest guy on the lower east side

cos I've got wheels and you wanna go for a ride

It's A Crime (To Fall In Love):

my mother said gently

syou can buy her a bently

but my son she'll only drive it away

I didn't listen

cos my brain was missing

and I only found it today

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!:

Are you out of love with me

are you longing to be free

do I drive you up the tree?

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

though I need you more than air

is it true you just don't care?

are you having an affair?

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

Revolution!

Not the Jarre album or track (both great), but Nintendo Revolution!
Tokyo Game Show started today in the Empire of the Sun, and Satoru Iwata (ninty boss for those on the wrong blog :p) did what the whole world was waiting for, he revealed the nintendo revolution controller!
On first impressions you'd be excused to think that you're staring at a TV remote control. Ditching the very thing nintendo invented 20 years ago, ie the 2-handed control method, the revolution controller is a one-handed simplistic affair with a few basic buttons, and the now trademark big A button in the middle. What's so revolutionary about that?
The revolution comes in with the sensors on the console and the controller itself. Using bluetooth, the controller can sense any kind of movement. Not just gimicky twist and turn, but full rotation and 3D spatial awareness! It's a something you've got to see to fully understand, but imagine a fully 3D mouse and you're nearly there!
Also, the controller can have wired attachments, the one displayed is basically an analogue stick, used for FPS games.
Confusing right? dwell on the pictures below but more importantly, get yourselves browsing here for Revo-Europe's story on the revealing, here for a brilliant trailer of the controller in action, and here for the full 60 minute webcast of Iwata's keynote. Watch the trailer to understand what I'm going on about!
My mind has been made up, Revolution all the way! I was initally on that opinion but thought I'd wait for the controller to materialise before making my mind up. I'm not sure how much the western markets will warm to this idea, but all nintendo needs is Japan, and knowing them they're gonna lap this up big time.
A very excited SoB signing out for now!

XBOX 360 Overload

Bizzare Creations (them of Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing fame) are trying to Burn Out (Pun intended - Criterion's racer rules!) an Xbox 360 by putting 35,000 spectators polygon rendered spectators on a corner of a track from their next-gen racer!
The new game boasts realistic fans and crowds that react and take pictures etc, but Bizzare promise thousands (which is still alot) rather than 35,000 in the real game!
Check the pic, and count the heads if you don't believe it.
PS: No results yet whether the box has burned. Keep an eye out here.

Friends

I'm gonna be out of action for a week or so. Reason? My good from Zzz is coming over from Dubai for a week! We last met when I went there back in xmas 2003 and this time he's coming here for something called PLASA at London's Earl's Court. It's something his company boss and him are coming to attend. I'll be going to London today to see him (he arrives today), and will be spending the week over there. Wanna take him to all the great places, Oxford Street, TCR, Trocadero and Leicester Square, Westminster and Waterloo, Imax, Madam Tussaud's, and ofcourse Thorpe Park!!

SoB out for the week or so. Will be online from powerbook but don't think I'll blog.

They invented Tetris...

...and now Russia's biggest design agency has come up with what must be the coolest invention since Alexey Pajitnov's masterpiece.
Cue the Optimus Keyboard - where each key is actually a mini LED screen on it's own! A brilliantly cool idea, with endless possibilities. Push one button and your keyboard changes from English to any other language in the world. Pissed off at all those keyboard shortcuts you can't remember in photoshop? Optimus' keys will show you an icon of what each key is.
BUT, the main thing this keyboard gets a mention here? check this out:

The Da Vinci Code

I've just finished reading The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.
I used to read loads of books as a kid, especially all the Roald Dahl novels - that man wasa genius!
But, recently, thanks to the internet and laziness, I've lost my passion for books. Having being persuaded by a friend to read The Da Vinci Code, I bought a copy and found myself transfixed! It's an amazing story that capitalises on the myth of the Holy Grail and secret societies, with enough riddles and twists to keep it more than interesting. It's also full of historically correct facts and serves up not just a brilliant thriller, but a lesson in history, art and geography of Paris and England.
The book is becoming a motion picture next year (with Tom Hanks), so now's your chance at reading the story. A brilliant book to say the least.

I've also finished reading The House Of God by Samuel Shem. A book about junior physicians, very true and very funny! Don't think I can recommend it to someone who isn't in the medical profession though....

Next Stop: Bill Bryson - A Short History Of Nearly Everything. I've had this book for ages and I've forgotten where I've reached. I'll start again.

No Comment

Virtua.Tennis.EUR.MULTI5.PSP-WAR3X

I have a feeling of deja vu
I think it was 5 years ago, the dreamcast was dying, and I was waiting for the excellent virtua tennis 2 to "be released". I found out it was out at some unholy midnight hour, and it took me about 4 hours to get the damn game and succesfully burn it (my toshiba combodrive sucked then, and dc games weren't easy to burn).
Fast-forward to today, and again I just found out (albeit too late) that Virtua Tennis for PSP is out. As it's now possible to play isos from the memory stick (been enjoying too much Hot Shots Golf recently thanks to that), I'm now downloading the damn thing and now all too well that I won't sleep till 5am. SIGH.
And, if you can, get a PSP for 3 reasons: Lumines, Mercury, and Virtua Tennis

SoB (Jarre fan) out.
PS: need to post about Space of Freedom soon

The.Happiest.Man.On.Earth

I can't believe what just happened!

I wasn't really looking forward to this fan meeting business. Everyone was a stranger and being alone was putting me off even more. But still, I thought I might as well get out of the hotel and go find out what's going on in the city. The fans had all met up by some famous fountain, so I got there and decided to join them.
I headed for a guy I recognised from the flight but hadn't spoken to. His name was Mike and he was a military aeroplane geek as well as a jarre fan, all rolled into one big, red-headed, chain-smoking nice guy! After a while of small-talk, everyone wandered off around town, while me and Mike decided to go to the concert place (the shipyard) to see the place and perhaps listen to the rehearsals.
Picking up a few drinks and the polish version of a doner kebab, we eventually got there, and were happy sitting outside with the loads of people just listening to the rehearsals. It was difficult to see what was going on though.
After a while, we noticed that one of the gates openned and people started pouring in, with some brown tickets on them! Turns out that today was a preview day only for workers of the shipyard and their families! The concert was to start at 9. While me and Mike were trying to get in one way or another, a very nice polish couple offered to sell us tickets for 20 zlotis, about 4 pounds! We bought them straight away and went in (with our cameras!) and managed to watch the whole of the concert a day earlier!!!! Every single thing (with a few hitches, it was a rehearsal), complete with fireworks, laser harps, light effects, projections and all!
Man, being there is just something else!
I could talk on and on about today, but the proper concert is tomorrow. With 120,000 people attending, I just can't wait! Best thing is that I took loads of pictures and movies, so I don't need to worry about the camera tomorrow and just enjoy the show.

SoB - Needs to shower/sleep/eat/jarre

Gdansk

Right.
We reached Gdansk at 11:10 (local time). By we I mean me and the plane :)
Got in a cab (guy called Richard. Seems nice, I'm sure he's overcharging), and checked in to this huge hotel, with a big room. to my delight the room had wireless broadband! Problem is, the signal is shitty, and my room is the only one without an ethernet socket! They've offered me to move to another room, but I can't be bothered and the signal seems to be OK now.
Just gonna go down to town to attend that Jarre fan meeting near some Neptune Fountain. Problem is, there will be NO CAMERAS AT THE SHOW!! Bastards!
Oh, and here's something Jarre said, to wet your (and my!) appetites:

"I am going to cross all boundaries with this concert. It is going to be better than you expect. You all are going to be the participants of my spectacle. I just have to say this to you - do not plan any holidays at that moment, stay in Gdansk because it will be well worth it. This concert is going to be the best concert in my entire career!"

The useless drag of another day

Anyone heard (Hear Is No Why) by The Smashing Pumpkins? A great song, from the even greater (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness). It starts with the title of this blog, and carries on to tell you about how you'll forever stay in your sad machines. Classic.

Anyhow, 3 things I need to mention here:
I\ I leave for London today later this evening (still gotta go to the damn gym first. I hate gyms!). My plane to Gdansk leaves Luton airport at 08:10am, so need to be there at around 07:00 or so. Luckily, my brother lives about 15 minutes away from Luton, so that's a relief. I'm starting to worry about this trip. It's the first time I go away all alone (as in, with no one there to meet me that I know), and ofcourse my tummy is in knots cos of the small teenie weenie fact that I'm seeing Jarre play live! weather.com says that there'll be showers in gdansk on friday, but as the man himself said in London (Frogs like rain!).
The hotel I'm staying in boasts of internet access in each room. Wether it's wireless broadband or over-priced dialup is yet to be known, but I'll try to post something from the east.

II\ ICONOCLAST. This year's Assembley demo party was won by Iconoclast. A state-of-the-art demo for PC. It is an amazing product, with some brilliant middle eastern music, great gfx, and a tribute to one of the other best PC demos ever made! Old timers that'll watch it will immediately recognise the scene (and music) from the older demo. The last demo to really (blow me away) was VIP2 (Very Important Party 2) by Popy Team, although it had commercial music and some very obvious Poser models in it, it was still great to watch. This one is totally original though. Grab the demo from here.

III\ This one is for all those Amiga-lovers out there, and especially to a certain (anonymous) poster on good-delicious that I'm sure will love this to bits. Courtesy of Nile Warp who gave me this link today, check out this great web emulation of many classic Amiga demos, all coded in pure html (with a bit of java here and there). It's a beautiful tribute to the great 16bit machine. Unfortunately for mac users, it needs a fairly new version of IE. I tried it on Safari/Camino/Firefox/Omniweb/Mac IE and it doesn't function right :(
Everyone get your browsers over here and remember your spotty teenage years.

SoB OUT

Count down

I can't be bothered to go to the gym today.
For, erm, other reasons, my legs are hurting me this morning and I feel like I've had a good work out as it is :)
This Thursday I fly to Gdansk, can't wait! Jarre plays live on Friday at 20:00 (gates open at 16:00, gotta go early!). There's a fan meeting on the Thursday (organised by www.jarreuk.com), so I guess I won't be that lonely! Man this is going to be SO GOOD! I really can't wait, I'm dying from anticipation!
The concert will be broadcast live on the web (in dolby 5.1 surround nontheless) at http://www.itvp.pl/ so hope you guys will enjoy watching it. Can someone save the stream? it'd be so cool.
Gonna take my powerbook with me, and the hotel I'm in has web access, so I'll blog from there. I also bought a 1gig memory card for my camera, so I can shoot tons of pictures. Drool. Man if I actually meet the guy or get a picture with him then my life is complete.

MUM PWNZ JU

Can't help laughing at this one!
A young boy who was sneakily playing WoW at 3:30 in the morning was caught and grounded by his mum after he posted a thread in a forum she read, as she was a player of the game as well!
Other than the poor boy being caught, how cool is that?! Geek women rule!
Read the story and see the thread here.

Link courtesy of Wolf - Cheers mate!

Up Up And Away In My Beautiful My Beautiful

The 15th of August this year marked my mum's 50th Birthday. Being the nice son that I am I decided that this time I'll treat her to something different. So I got her a big-ass birthday card, and took here to a Chinese restaurant appropriately called Palm Trees (don't ask me why!). See, how nice am I!
But, before the restaurant, we drove half the way around the rural country side to get to some crafts show in a place called Braintree. There, in the middle of the field, lay this MASSIVE balloon in all it's glory!

Man the thing really was big, and very colourful, and also very dead! After everyone had gotten ready (it takes 16 passengers), the pilot told us all about what to expect, how to get on, and how to panic if something happened 2000feet above the ground!

Then him and some henchman came out with some kick-ass industrial fans and started inflating the balloon with "cold" air, with the help ofcourse of some passengers (it's all part of the fun you see!) Half way through it inflating, they both went inside to do something or another (perhaps make sure it blows up evenly, don't know) but it was cool seeing to adult men in there and the balloon just dominating all over them!


Soon afterwards, the balloon was nearing full size, and it was time for the captain to turn on the big burners. But, before he could do that, all the passengers had to get in, otherwise it'd fly off all by itself. Easier said than done! To get in, the basket is tilted on it's side and you have to climb in, sit down, and hold on for dear life with both hands!

Once everyone is in, the burners start (And they are HOT! it did say on the website to wear a hat or cap, but being arab we decided to ignore any official warning and just brave it. After all, who wore a cap in Iraq eh?)

Soon after, the balloon straightened itself and was tugging ferociously at the rope keeping it at bay (tied nontheless to a Range Rover Defender), the rope soon gave way and we started flying! Higher and higher, it was a scary feeling at first, cos there was no comfort in the fact that you're flying in a wicker basket with some flimsy balloon keeping you afloat!

Higher and higher, until we reached about 2000feet (so he said), and then it all became very surreal. When the burners are off you hardly feel or hear a thing, and all you do is just float in the middle of nothing! Houses and cars look like toys, the landscape patched beautifully with the colours of summer, the greens and the yellows and browns. The weather was helping as well, for that day it was actually sunshine in Britain!

As it was the flying season, we were soon joined by other balloons (I counted 4), and it was fun to watch them hover around and nearly follow the same path as we did

Surprisingly, it's not windier nor colder up in the skies as one would imagine. The sun started to set and I risked life and limb to take a picture of the beautiful sunset without showing any part of the balloon nor the passengers!

Then we started to descend. The captain explained that they could never pick where to land, and hence we'll end up in some random farmer's land any distance from where we started. Luckily, the Defender was connected by GPS and walkie talkie to us and it was following us around, to take us all back to the original flight field (and where our cars were!).
The landing itself was a bumpy affair (again you have to sit down and hold on to dear life!), but it went as smoothly as possible. We landed in some harvested wheat, and spent another 20 minutes packing the balloon into a tiny bag!

And that was the end of a great flight. All hungry and thristy, we went to that palm tree thing thinking it was a pub, only to be greeted by Mr and Mrs No Cum Too and their All-you-can-eat menu. Great stuff!

We Are Siamese If You Please

Once upon a time in China, lived two Chinamen.
One named I cum and the other one named No cum.
No cum marry pletty Chinese girl named No cum tu.
For velly obvious leason No cum and No cum tu not have any children.
One day, No cum went out of town on business.
I cum came over and spent the night with No cum tu.
That night I cum came and No cum tu came too.
This make both vely happy. However about 7 or 8 months later, No cum see he
about to become father but he not know how come,
so when baby come, he named it, How cum u cum.
Of course, I cum and No cum tu know How cum u cum came but to this day No
cum not know how come How cum u cum came!!

Google Bombing

I think I'm risking alot creating an entry with "bomb" in it, being all arab and muslim and all that, AND in the UK :o)
Everyone uses google. Even the word "google" is now in the New Oxford English Dictionary, and that's a statement to the new culture of ipods, blogs, and google. But what exactly is google bombing? Google uses a once-unique way to rank it's search results. Pages that had more external pages linking to them got ranked higher. A great idea, but with a big flaw: some pages will show up as results to keywords that don't even exist on the page! Let me explain: if alot of pages link to good-delicious with (the worst blog in the world link), then eventually searching google for "the worst blog in the world" will bring good-delicious up as first result!
Google bombing capitalises on just this by getting page masters (and now bloggers!) to link to something using specific keywords. The motive? humour, or most likely political. Why do I mention all this, then. Well, try googling "Miserable Failure" and see what you come up with!
Anyone remember ages ago searching for "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in google and ending up on that spoof IE error page? well that was also a google bomb intended as a joke!
Make sure you check out Miserable Failure, and go here for a great Wiki article about the Google Bomb

Doukutsu

The best 1.5mbyte download you'll do in your life.
Created by a very talented (and generous) Japanese coder called Pixel, Doukutsu (or Cave Story) places you in the role of an amnesiac soldier that's trying to figure out what's going on. A great platform game which shamelessly borrows from all the golden "classics" like metroid, zelda, mario, knightmare, and all those wonderful 8bit platformers-come-action adventures. With a good plot, excellent controls, and 2D platforming and exploring at it's best, this game is a true gem that shouldn't be missed by any self-respecting gamer.
Luckily, romhack have translated it to english, so there's no excuse not to play the game!
Grab your windows version here, and your mac version here

First Encounter Assault Recon

F.E.A.R.
The new game from Monolith (and if you don't recognise them, you're on the wrong blog)
So what's the big deal? the SP demo is out and man oh man oh man!
This game is SCARY. No that's not the word, it's more than scary, it messes with your head, screws you around and leaves gagging for more.
The demo is a small (and not that easy) sample of things to come, basically an FPS that looks just as good as the new batch, but leaves them all in the dust when it comes to sheer psycho thrills. Graphically it looks more half life 2 than doom 3 (which, quite controversially, i like alot more than half life 2, cos it's just pretty damn amazing), with pretty neat bullet-time (slow-mo) effects. But that's not why you'll play it. You'll play it just to prove to yourself that you ARE a man, and that games WON'T scare you, cos they're just games.... or so I thought.
Now, everyone hold hands and get your arses over to gamershell and download the 650mbyte demo. Out in October - I'm scared already...
SoB = Scared of Bad little girls in games

I'm back and I'm on the rag and ovulating

Broadband is here! it's been here since yesterday (although officially the turn-on date was today), but was too busy yesterday to blog...
Few things: some of you might've gotten this by email but I got my ticket for JEAN-MICHEL JARRE live in Gdansk Poland 26/08/05 and I JUST CAN'T WAIT! One of those things that I've always wanted to do in my life, is watch Jarre live. This is my chance and I sure as hell am looking forward to it. Time is just too slow these days...

Listen to Tenacious D's self titled album. Jack Black and some other guy (Kyle I think) have made one of the funniest rock albums I've heard in ages. With songs like "fuck her gently" and "cock pushups" you can tell you're in for a treat. And the single Tribute is a great song in itself.

I'm lounging around quite lazily these days, doing nothing much other than going to the gym and playing games (well at last, I'm catching up on alot of games I've missed out on)... currently finishing of Metroid Prime 2 - Echoes and still playing Guild Wars online. And I've finished Resident Evil 4 - Drool. On that note we've got a ps2 here as well now, but it's not modded yet, once I've sorted that out I'll play R-TYPE FINAL!

I'm sure there were alot more things I could talk about, I've just forgotten..... I go off now and if I remember I'll blog again. Salam

Just a quick note to say I start moving today. The house has been cleaned and today at around 10:30 BST I will start moving all my crap. It's gonna be a lloooooooooonggggggg day. I won't have a phone line in there till Friday, and no BB till the week after at least. But I can still use bluetooth GPRS with my powerbook, so I will go online from time to time to check on things.

Over and out

Be There

Wow I'm excited about this alot! I'm lucky that my mum's flat is spot in the middle of London (Victoria to be precise), which is very close to alot of key things, eg westminster/downing street etc. But I'm not excited cos of the touristic value of it all, but cos the majority of pilot digital schemes include her area, which makes me very priveledged. That's why I've got 8mbit when the rest of Britain is excited about 2 (which I had 2 years ago). Ofcourse, Britain sucks compared to other countries (10mbit is the default in sweden, 100mbit in hong kong!!), but not for long!
Be have announced that their new ADSL2 service will launch in the next couple of months, comes with a free ADSL2 wireless modem, and will cost less than £30 a month with NO caps or limits. Best thing about it is, it's a 24mbit service! With my current 8mbit (runs more at 6mbit with headers), it takes about 20minutes to download a 740mbyte CD. So, multiply that by 3, and you've got yourself a pipe that can download a full DVD9 image one and half hours-SWEET!
The service is rolling out in central london first, so I've registered interest on the site, and let's hope they get it right. Let's hope it uploads faster than bloody 256kbit. perhaps it uploads at 10mbit LOL. Would be VERY useful, if you know what I mean ;)

Moving

I'm moving. Going out of my trusty old Flat number 2, and most likely going to house number 7 a mile down the road. Why? cos I'm out of a job here! my contract in Colchester has finished, and due to reasons beyond me, I'm actually unemployed for the next 6 months! I will be doing locum work though (ie paid lots to do nothing). I have to leave this flat (it's hospital staff), and such have rented a 3 bedroom house to rent with another unemployed colleague. Why 3 bedrooms? cos bedroom 3 is going to be our digital centre, with, hopefully, a big LCD TV, surround sound, and my old pc/consoles/his ps2 to play around with :)
good times I hope. We've also both got an exam come December though :s
So, today might well be my last post for a while. Tomorrow I get the keys and might just start moving stuff around, and will d/c my phone line here, to transfer it down the road. I'll be online from my mobile from time to time, but no blogging I guess.
Wish me luck y'all.. I've already been offered 2 locum posts so I guess there's no shortage there, but moving is SUCH a hassle.
SoB

Guild Crack

I never was into MMORPG games. Killing rats and harvesting for a living to increase my XP was never my cup of tea. I must admit, as a kid I did play alot of fantasy role playing books (without the dice, couldn't be bothered) and it was great fun! One day at around 1am I got possesed and went down to asda, and found myself buying a variety of dvds I don't want, one was guild wars. A MMORPG that had no subscription fees, so was a good way to check what all the fuss was about. Essentialy this game chucks everything out of the window and re-writes the holy book of RPG. To some purists (read: D&D geeks) this is not a welcome change. To short attention span people like me, spoilt rotten by arcades and id software, this is ideal! The game lets you play the usual rpg stuff (which is GREAT FUN) but more importantly also lets you join in to the player versus player action straight away, which is the best thing since the original death match! these games consist of 2 teams of 4 people randomly grouped by the pc, with the objective being anihilating the opposition. As it's a RPG, you get various classes battling out against each other, eg monks, warriors, necromancers, etc etc. I'm a healing monk, and I can't do anything to defend myself, but I'm very good at healing everyone and resurrecting the dead. This makes me a very valuable asset for the team, and also for the enemy! there's always a big warrior making sure I'm ok, and another 2 chasing my ass around to kill me! Playing is more fun than you can imagine, and really needs good co-operation to progress in the arenas! Problem is, last night at 23:30 I thought I'd play one game. Here I am, 6 hours later, 5:00am in the morning, typing at this while dreading today's 12 hour shift.
An addictive game if there ever was one, and a beautiful one at that. GET IT. FULL STOP.

ps: a cool moment in a match today was when I was the last one alive, with a big mofo warrior chasing me around to kill me. I decided to use the "Bring Back Life" spell that takes about 12 seconds to activate. I found a fallen warrior and started the spell, by that time the enemy warrior was whooping my arse big time, just as I resurrected the fellow warrior, I was killed by the enemies! My team mate then got up and kicked the other guys arse, and the team won the match. Gut clenching excitement at it's best! Oh and did i mention, GET IT! NOW!!

What time is that?

I have a confession: I am a gadget geek-addict-freak (whatever you want to call me). I like having new technology around the house, and love gadgets. I say that cos I just bought a binary watch. I think whoever designed this made it specifically for anyone old (and geeky) enough to have used C:\DOS\DEBUG.EXE
Now, can anyone guess what time it is on the picture?

ps: TurboDebugger ruled

Never ever do this alone...

play resident evil 4 in the dark!!
I never liked the resident evil games. My main gripe? the obscure puzzles, and the terrible controls (character-relative sucks). But, God gave Capcom brains, and Capcom gave us Resident Evil 4. More an action adventure than anything else, this game DEFINES all survival horrors, and all action adventures at that. A beautifully scary game, it's emphasis on action and the tense atmosphere it creates (even if you're not being attacked by mad european villagers!) make it an unmissable experience. Add to that the fact that you always know where you need to go, it's getting there that's the problem (Exactly my cup of tea), and also that this is the only game other than Half Life 2 that I've played that amazes you with something fresh and new each level!
Just take my advice, play the game (get a gamecube if you must, they're cheap now. Or wait for PS2 version), BUT NOT IN THE DARK! I played alot last night (and most of today as well) and trust me, hearing those creepy gregorian chants at 2am isn't funny. Scary indeed, but it has restored my faith in gaming and my beloved Gamecube. See you in Spain mortals.

Sweet Day, Bitter Day

Shame isn't it. How some people can REALLY ruin what was a happy time. Again, us Muslims are catapulted straight into the limelight with the bombings today in London. Just when you thought things were quieting down, they go and strike in the heart of the city, the very day after London was announced as the host city for the Olympics 2012. Yesterday was a great day, it was my birthday, we all went out for a great meal, and London won the Olympic bid.
Today, I walk in to a mess of doctors talking about how those "bloody Qaeda" are behind this, and you can't help but wish that you weren't arab nor muslim at that very second. Shame isn't it.

Cardiac Arrest A&E Resus, ETA 5 Minutes

12:30pm, 01/07/05: I was on call today, and as always I'm part of our world-class (my foot) cardiac arrest team. The bleep goes off and the announcement says "Cardiac arrest, A&E resus, ETA 5 minutes". Well at least I don't have to run half way across the hospital to get there, and I still have 5 minutes to go.
Wobbled down to resus and found a lot of people hovering around waiting for the so-called arrest. A 55 year old biker had fallen into the river with his motorbike, and was taken out of there by air ambulance. The general thought was that he had a heart attack on the road and the bike went out of action. In comes Mr Arrest and his heart wasn't pumping. He was also profoundly cold (temp 32 centigrade, normal 36.5)... shoot. We CPRed him and he needed some electric shocking to the heart, and for a few moments he looked like he was coming back to life, but that wasn't to be. Problem is, when someone has a temp of 32 you are legally obliged to continue resuscitation until they're temperature is "compatible" with life, ie 35 and above.. using tons of warm fluids and very hot blankets all over the poor guy, it took us ONE HOUR AND 30 MINUTES to get his temp up to 35, to then declare him dead. That's 90 minutes of jumping up and down his chest, running lots of blood tests, and generally chaos.
Moral of the story: DON'T DRIVE A MOTORBIKE

Reunited, well sort of

First of all, credits to HaniBoy and NileWarp for this. Hani once bugged us all to install something called "skype". I'd tried it before with a friend and thought it sucked. Anyhow, we installed it and it turns out to be a cool VoIP app that lets you conference chat. Cool. Then someone thought we should do this with video like them lucky mac owners, so Nile came up with vSkype, which is a video add-on for skype. It's beta, so there were hiccups but we got it working in the end! here's a pic of us happily conferencing:

Ofcourse, it's no fun if there's no fraggin', so I've setup the london pc as a private server for all our q3a/ut/doom3 needs, and just for hani's sake, I've installed the unlagged mod for q3a so he plays just like a LPB.... great times
if anyone wants to join in then just catch us online and come join the fun :)

Playstation thumb

Computer and Video Games reports here that a South African 13 year old managed to get an article published in a top medical journal about what she calls "Playstation Thumb", ie strain injury to people who do lots of gaming.
Though not dismissing it (my thumbs were way too sore after playing tons of virtual tennis on dreamcast), the fact that she made it into the journal after describing an injury known for centuries (sports men get them alot) is amusing. But not as amusing as the comment from C&VG about the matter, where they cleverly stated "Karim stopped short of positing that children who play videogames will evolve into superbeings with two huge, bulbous thumbs and a large, unblinking single eye designed for maximum screen soak-up"
:o)

I've GOT The Power!

So today the delivery man decided to come at 11:30, instead of 6 in the morning! I was at work, but I had a strike of genius yesterday and left him a message on the flat door asking him to call me on my mobile (another strike of genius, I took it with me to work this time :). Anyhow, I received my new PSU (Antec TruePower 550 EPSv1.2 or something). I felt bad for paying alot of money for a useless box of metal. I installed it and being atx2.01 compatible, it already has pci-ex and SATA connecters (ie without the need for adapters). I hooked everything up and alas, the system worked. I quickly ran 3dmark05 (to see if it survived it), and surprisingly it did, and scored an impressive 10017. Much better.
So, what next? well I could replay doom 3 (OMG! FORGOT TO SAY! EVERYONE HAS TO GET THE DOOM3 1.3 PATCH FOR EAX4.0 It adds AWESOME 7.1 surround sound to the game and you'll play it like never before. Oh and it runs on ultra mode for me now :), or I could finally get to finishing half life 2... who knows. Bring on the games....

I Want The Power!

Aha... I'm not having fun with my all new PC. First of all, it took me ages to figure out that I had to disable a few bios options for it to be stable with SLi (it was written in the manual, but who reads the manual?!). Now that I'm passed that, the system is fine 2D, go 3D though and a few minutes in it turns itself off! No warning, no bleeps nothing, just turns itself off. I've boiled it down to me having a crap PSU. Even though it's 500w, it's from someone called jeantech and they suck. Now I gotta shell out on a bigger, badder psu from antec or something. damn.
I can't blame the psu really... here's what's inside

Abit AN8 SLi-Fatil1ty mobo
Pioneer DVR-109 40x32x16x6x dual layer DVD burner
Samsung 16x48x DVD drive
Mistumi 7 in 1 Floppy + media reader
2x XFX Geforce 6800 Ultras in SLi
Western Digital Raptor 36gig
2x Western Digital Raptors 74gig
AMD 64 Fx-55 (San Diego) Processor

In total there are 3 fans on mobo, 3 on the case, 2 on psu, and 2 on the GPUs (total 11).
I don't think my crappy PSU is keeping up, and rather than blowing up (like my old one did when it didn't take the pressure of doom3), this one just turns off.

I'm gonna order one now, shower, play some resident evil 4, and sleep. STOP

Blog In Progress

08:29: Bloody hell!! those damn courier people. You spend all day waiting for them and they never show up, but on a Saturday when you're fast asleep (was playing RE4 till late, GREAT game), and the damn buzzer goes rrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiinggggggggggggggggg. It's the courier man, with 6 boxes. Hauled them in (lucky I live in ground floor), and here they are on the floor


08:54: Surfing around on the net with powerbook in bed. That's a great thing of having a wireless laptop, freedom! Was gonna go to sleep but who can resist all this stuff lying around eh? gotta choose something to listen to while I do this. Oasis or Coldplay? both perhaps. I go make a strong coffee and dive in.


09:29: Just unpacked everything, and *nearly* broke the case! I've ordered too much shit, and there's so many packets to get rid of. Oh and that abit mobo pack KICKS ASS! if only it didn't have the picture of that guy on it that's good at games.


09:40: OMG! This mobo is awesome! it's got a front panel, tons of options, some kickass fans and other crap I haven't heard of. My fault for not upgrading the pc since 3 years :s


09:44: It's very reassuring to say the least, to know that your spanking new cpu comes packaged in recycled egg cartons. Maybe I should've stuck with intel.



09:57: OK Mobo half installed. I've mounted it in case and I'm trying to make sure I wire all those awkward wires you only find out about AFTER you've installed all the cards..... You know the feeling


10:23: I BET YOU I've installed those bloody usb header wires wrong! why don't they just charge us 50p more and put a damn connector. Gonna try to figure out this SLi thing now.

10:57: Ok, so I've finally managed to connect those huge geforces and I hope set them up for SLi properly. oof. Right, problem is, is my sound blaster gonna fit in there, beneath them beasts? I don't wanna end up using the mobo's default sound card do I...


11:18: Barely fits.......


12:00: Had a bit of an interruption from brother calling me moaning about his set of nights he just finished. Trying to squeezy my hard drives in (should've installed them BEFORE the geforces). I'm cut and bruised all over

12:28: OK. I think I've finished assembling everything inside the case. I had to dismantle the geforces to get to some connectors, but everything seems to be back in place now. Gonna wash my hands and hold my breath, here comes the power!!

12:37: IT'S ALIVE! yeap it seems to be breathing quietly in the corner, stuck with nothing to boot from though. I wonder if I should risk closing the case or installing windows first then closing it just in case... I think I might just install windows


13:09: Please enter your regional settings. Same old BS.

13:26: It's crashed.

13:45: OK I'm stuck offline with a half working pc. Problem is that the LAN driver is crashing windows. This 64bit xp isn't as cool as they say it is, especially that it needs new drivers (remember Win95/NT?!). Thank God I have a powerbook that's online

14:34: Found out a few problems: first, my boot drive is G: That sux. second, I've connected the 2 76gig raptors on different RAID controllers. Works but would be better if they're on the same. So I've taken out the 2nd geforce (cos it's the one blocking all the connectors), reconnected the hdds and disconnected the media disk reader (it had become c:). Reinstalling windows now. I'm hungry. Only had that cup of MARIO coffee earlier. I go fry eggs.

15:03: Time for a cup of TOM tea ;)


15:22: PC is online now! got the network sorted out, problem is that it thinks it's got one GPU instead of 2. Let's see...

15:45: Ok, not sure if I'm reading this right, but apparantely SLi is NOT supported on windows xp64bit. Hmm weird that, what's the use of providing a 64bit mobo with SLi but no O/S to support it. I really can't be arsed to install windows XP home edition now though, or maybe I will...

16:03: I might just install H/E. This xp64 business sucks, and problem is I went and paid for the damn thing! I should've read around the net before buying it. I'm sure it'll be useful in the near future when complete drivers are out for it. In the meantime, I wait for all my old files to copy from the old seagate to the new raptors... 55% through of 120gig........ I think I go play some Alien Hominid while this carries on.....

16:56: I think I've heard Coldplay's X&Y album a million times now. It's a great album though, and I think they should carry on with the same style, rather than "evolve". Couldn't get SLi to work on xp64 at all, so I install H/E now. Damn

17:12: wow! H/E already installed. Time to do drivers then see if this damn SLi thing works

17:38: well at least now the computer says it's ready for SLi! Just going to do a windows update and update all drivers to new, then maybe try out 3dmark2005, or the ever great doom3...

18:07: Right. XP H/E is up and running... sp2 is downloading now (it'll take ages), and everything seems to be stable enough for me to pop out to the gym. I hope to come back and find that it hasn't crashed. Until now it's been blazingly fast, not only cos I just fresh installed but I think the raptors know how to dish the data out.
Gym time....

20:50: Back from gym, computer has managed to install SP2 relatively event-free. I also did some shopping for a BBQ we're doing now. The weather is cool but who cares when the PC is so more important than the sun... Installing the last windows updates now, and the latest creative sbaudigy 2 drivers. After that I'm gonna do a default run of 3dmark05 and see what happens.

02:40: done with bbq, and pc managed to get 9000 points on 3dmark05 (is that good? I haven't got a clue). Disaster struck when the damn case fell off the table onto a 10 point extension lead! Has a big dent at the top now (not very visible), but it wouldn't let me close the side slides without a bit of DIY. All sorted now. Seems to be working as well. No time to check games now, I'm feeling really sleepy.

Omed

The other on-call doctor has just popped in. He didn't believe that this blog was mine, so he wanted his own entry. Go for it:

I'm tired... have to go to Peldon ward to see patients. Expect a cardiac arrest any second now.

See, boring isn't he! Aren't you glad you read my blog instead of his.

SoB at work over nights.

Malaena

Sigh oh sigh
I type this from work. It's 3:43am. I'm tired. Just been cursing the A&E doctor for lying to me over the phone and getting me to accept a case that really shouldn't be under medical care, but should be surgical. I'm too numb from nights to call him up now and kick up a stink.
I've still got one more punter to see, A Mr Alan something or another, that according to the A&E doctor, had "central crushing chest pain". Don't they all do....

But there's light at the end of this way too dark (and long) tunnel! In 5 hours time I'ld be finished from my week of nights, and to treat myself for passing mrcp1 and for finishing nights, I've just blown around £2500 on a MASSIVE PC Upgrade! I damn you internet, and credit cards, for making shopping so much easier, and spending too much money just a click away.
I've jumped ships I must admit. I bought an AMD 64 FX-55, an abit fatal1ty an8 sli, 2 xfx 6800ultra cards with sli, 2xrapt0r 74 gig hdds and 1x36gig, 4x1024mbyte of corsair dual rams, a dvd-r/+r/dual layer, a dvd-rom, a floppy/media reader, and I'm sure some more stuff that I can't remember. Oh and a case.
I'll post all about the upgrade when I get the stuff (this saturday I hope. Paying a extra bob to get the stuff quick) and I'll take some pics (ala wolf)

Now, I feel bad for spending so much.... i go cheer myself up with the patient... SIGH OH SIGH

Oh My God!

I was dreading tomorrow... it was the day my results for MRCP part 1 come out. I've tried this exam twice already, and it's a bitch to pass with success rates of 30%. I was wondering how I'd pull through tonight's shift, while wondering about the results, and I knew I wouldn't sleep tomorrow until the website would be updated with results. Damn pressure I tell's ya.
Anyhow, woke up today around 17:15, feeling sort-of refreshed. Turned my mobile on and I had received a voice message from a guy called George: "hi Ali, it's George. Look the results came out early today, and there is an Alsawaf on the list, not sure if it's you or not! can you check and call me back when you get this message". SHIT.
Now, I know for sure that there are only 3 registered doctor Alsawafs in the UK (there's a public list you can check on, you see). One was me, the other was my brother (a surgeon!) and the other was some guy who is also called Ali Alsawaf (same spelling!) and he works as a GP in, guess where, Colchester! (it's funny getting patients from him to me. from A Alsawaf to A Alsawaf). So it had to be on the website right? I quickly jumped out of bed and checked the site, sure enough, it said that an AFB Alsawaf had PASSED!!! NO WAAAAAAAAAAY!
Man am I relieved!! a damn mofo exam that is the bottle neck of MRCP, is no done and dusted. Thank goodness for that. If only I wasn't working tonight, I'd definitely be out jumping up and down the streets of britain!

The Way To Do It

Lately, I got the latest mame32fx (0.97) and with it the complete set of roms available (12gig of 5800+ roms). I found out that there were lots of new games that didn't work before, including the excellent raiden series. Anyhow, I realised that if I tilted my monitor 90 degrees, I could get a great view of vertical scrolling shmups... then I thought I need an arcade stick for all this. Already having an xbox one, I just bought a cheap xbox2usb convertor, and hey presto! I'm playing some great classics on a vertical monitor with an arcade controller. It really is great fun, and these games are really frantic and pump your adrenaline!
X-Arcade it ain't (I'm not paying 100 bucks for a joystick), but it sure beats keyboard/mouse.

And I go off to nights today, starting today 9pm. So I guess I'll be MIA till next week. Have fun everyone...
SoB

No way...

My oh my, what this world has come to.
20 years ago, playing games meant being a nerd that stayed home alot, hunched over either a D&D board, an adventure book, or infront of the telly all alone in your room, saving some pixel in distress from another pixel on the loose. Bliss. Those were the days of typing tons of code from a magazine just to have your mum pull the plug on the computer cos it was time for tea. It was the time when things were 2D, and alot more simple.
That's why I love retro gaming. I can play r-type again and again and again, but just can't replay any new games. Don't get me wrong, 3D rocks, the FPS is a great genre, and action adventures never looked any better. Doom 3 and Half Life 2 changed the world forever, but still, nothing beats jumping up and down a 2D hill with your favourite mascot, or running across a desert with a commando and his trusty machine gun.
Then ofcourse came PlayStation. Dragging us gamers out from the dens, screaming and kicking into the daylight (damn that sun!) and the whole public found us out! Not only were we playing, but so was every Tom, Dick, Harry and their wives/sisters/grandparents... Sigh
Why the rant then? Well, cos some clever person has taken the idea of retro gaming WAAAAAAY to far for my taste. I'll explain
Pacmanhattan is a real-life pacman game. Players dress up as either pac himself or one of the ghosts, and run around a block in Manhattan. Connected via WiFi, mobile, and GPS with their "controller", they update him where they are and he in turn updates a custom made pacman program. This way, pac eats all the dots while the ghosts try to hunt him down (the ghost controllers and pac's controllers see the same game screen). If pacman eats a power pellet, his controller gets to see where the ghosts are and pac has 2 minutes to go and "eat them".
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure whether this is good or bad for the image of gaming. It might be a cool and bold idea, but imagine watching weirdos dressed as videogame characters running around your local high street..... Have a look at the site, watch the videos and look at the pics, then make up your own mind.
As for me, I'm off to play some MAME games.

See ya when I next find a mad http again, G-D

PS: Play DanDaDan!

Dan Da Dan!

Ok, this I HAD to mention...
Another Japanese nutter freebie game, this one's actually really good fun.
Playing somewhat like a hybrid of Ikaruga meets Mr Driller, DanDaDan! at first looks is a basic shmup. But delve deeper and you'll find this game very unique and original. Controlling your ship, you cruise vertically and have only 1 primary weapon. Your enemies are mainly blocks of different colours, some of which shoot bullets either randomly or when destroyed... The genius bit is that when you destroy a block of a certain colour, any adjacent blocks of the same will be destroyed as well. This makes for some really clever puzzles and VERY frantic game play (if you're ever played any japanese shmup, from gemini wing, to radiant silver gun, and recently the excellent Ikaruga, you'll know what I mean!)
The game is very easy to get in to and has that crucial (just one more go) factor. Being free makes it even more of a delight!
Grab DanDaDan! from here and relive your childhood!
Keys are:
arrows: move ship
Z: primary fire. Hold Z to shoot a spinning disk that can go past indestructible blocks
X: Hyper (fires like a mad-man for a few seconds)

Enjoy this Good-Delicious-Game!

It Was Bulldozed in 1992

So we just had a long bank holiday weekend (ie Monday is a bank holiday, ie we don't work!). As the weather was cool I thought I'd take everyone to Windsor Safari Park. My memories of it as a kid were great, and everyone I asked here in Colchester thought it was a great idea.
The day before I was trying to plan the trip on my TomTom, and it couldn't find the park. So I thought I'd check their website and get the address from there. I googled "Windsor Safari Park" and I got http://www.windsorsafaripark.org.uk/ and I'm greated with the following message:

Come back to Windsor Safari Park in Berkshire just one more time. Although the park CLOSED in 1992, this site is dedicated to it's legendary animals!

yeap! the damn thing was bulldozed in 1992, and I'd been wanting to go there for the last 5 years. Why-oh-why didn't anyone tell me this before. So instead, I find Woburn Safari Park (alot more inferior I must add) and take everyone there. It was a great day out, but the best thing about it has to be in the picture :)

And so it's back to work tomorrow. Oh well, let's hope things aren't too bad. Patients tend to get sicker when left for 3 days in a row. I'm sure they'd be delighted to see their favourite doctor back in action, eh?

20q

I've been lounging around at home for the last 3 days. On Tuesday, I woke up with a rip-roaring sore throat (it must've been that guy that lives alone with his wife). As I had to do a 12 hour on-call, I went to our staffing co-ordinator an hour before duty and coughed and spluttered on her so she could get someone else to cover. It worked, and I've been home since. Yesterday was a shitty day, with lots of headaches and muscle aches etc etc. Today hasn't been too bad still, but feeling grotty now.
Anyhow, back to topic. firebox.com kindly send me a quaterly magazine with all their latest cool stuff, and something that caught my eye was a ball called 20q. It claims to find out what you're thinking of in 20 questions, and you could be thinking of ANYTHING. hmmm, BS I think.
A quick google 20q took me to www.20q.net an online version of the same. It turns out that 20q is an on-going and learning AI that has about 10 million neurosynapses (we have about 100 billion in our brain), that learns the more it's used. Interestingly, someone has shrunk it all into a small toy.
OK, so i gotta outsmart it. How about "WAR", it'll never get that. At question 18 the damn thing said "Are you thinking of a war?". OK, how about "light bulb". Again, round about 17 or 18 it guessed it right. Me and a friend spent nearly ALL of last night trying to outsmart the damn thing, and it just kept getting it right!
The only thing it can't get is specific places, things or people. Everything else it can. By asking simple questions like "is it bigger than a microwave", "will it break if it falls", "can you wash it" it'll effectively figure out 90% of things right (providing you give honest answers). The damn thing is simply amazing. I was even thinking of it and it guessed "Are you thinking of 20q.net?" I kid you not.

Here's an example of something that it guessed right in 20 questions. I won't tell you what I was thinking (answers in comments if you fancy), but it managed to guess it right using just the answers below...

19.Does it use numbers? No.
18.Does it make noise? No.
17.Would you find it in an office? Yes.
16.Is it usually visible? No.
15.Is it a synthetic material? No.
14.Is it straight? No.
13.Does it come in a box? No.
12.Can it be washed? No.
11.Do you hold it when you use it? No.
10.Is it something you bring along? No.
9.Can it fit in an envelope? No.
8.Does it contain a lot of water? No.
7.Is it found on a desk? No.
6.Is it square shaped? No.
5.Does it play music? No.
4.Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? Irrelevant.
3.Is it a common household object? Yes.
2.Does it help accomplish tasks? Yes.
1.It is classified as Other.

I've ordered the 20q ball (from amazon actually, sorry fireball) as it'll prove a good party game to just put on your tea table when someone pops in. Head over to 20q.net and experience it yourself (it even speaks a few more languages, eg German and Spanish!)
Oh, and before I forget. To cash in with the latest StarWars craze, Burgerking and Lucas have made an animated version of 20q. The Sith Sense is the same as 20q but with a very real animated Darth Vader doing the guessing, and playing his force mind games. Good for a laugh, but not as fast as the original site.

"Can you find it in an Church?"

LRTI ---> Sepsis

Ok, so I was on-call the other day. A middle aged man was refered with a nasty chest infection. The bug (and all it's toxic products) had made it's way into his blood, which made him quite hot and confused. I like to call this Lower Respiratory Tract Infection (LRTI) with secondary Sepsis.
So why do I mention this here? Our man was so confused that he gave me one of the funniest replies I've ever heard to a question before (not intentionally, he had no clue what he was saying)

ME: So, do you live alone?
PATIENT: Yes. I live alone with my wife!

:) made my day I tell you. I saw him yesterday and he was fine, so I reminded him of it. He didn't have a clue what he'd said, but worst of all he had no idea who I was. Oh well, goes to show that sometimes being a medic is a thankless job after all.

Over, and out.

Wait for Episode III, I can't....

A month ago, not more than that, and if you asked me what the Millenium Falcon was, or who killed Obi Wan Kinobe and I would've thought you were rambling mad.
It all started in the doctor's mess one day. I remember watching one of the Star Wars movies as a kid (Return of the Jedi I think), and I was trying to remember the events. I foolishly asked the doctors that were lazying around and was met with responses like *GASP!* YOU DON'T KNOW WHO HANS SOLO IS?!!! or YOU DIDN'T KNOW LUKE IS DARTH VADER'S SON??!!
And since every monkey under this sun knows all about Star Wars, I thought I'd see what the fuss was all about. I "acquired" the DVDs for all 5 released episodes, and watched them as they were relesed (ie 4,5,6,1,2). And I gotta admit, the Star Wars universe is brilliant! I like the badies most (who can resist Darth Vader's kickass presence), but all in all I'm happy I decided to watch them all, in preperation for Revenge of the Sith.
I think I disagree with the critics of episodes I and II. I really enjoyed I, and even though the guy that plays Anakin leaves alot to be desired, I still enjoyed episode II. Natalie Portman can be my senate any time, that girl rocks since the excellent Leon.
Oh, and isn't it shocking that Frank Oz (aka Miss Piggy, Fuzzy bear, etc) is Yoda!!
So, I can't wait to see Episode III. The trailers look great and it'd be cool to finally figure out how Anakin gets into the most famous mask in the world.
Finally, thought I'd end this post with 2 trivia facts about Star Wars
In Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back), the story starts with Luke being attacked by a snow monster (forgot it's name), and that slashes his face and scars him. That had to be put in the movie cos between episodes IV and V Mark Hamill had a car accident that scarred his face :)
And alot of the light sabre fighting scenes with Ewan McGregor in had to be redone, cos Ewan had the knack of making the sound fx himself (ie going woooo and wooooosh and so on) while they were filming, and this mucked up all the sound engineering. Can't blame him really....

Till later, when I'll finally blog about the excellent XBOX360, which I hope I can afford come X-mas.... the console war is beginning, and it's all for the better. I'll do them all justice in another entry.

May the force be with you.....

And you thought you knew how to play Tetris

didn't you?
everyone has played tetris. Whether they admit it or not, we've all had our moments with THE daddy of all modern age puzzlers.
But, we're note all Tetris Masters, like the guy in this video. Totally insane stuff, from some sort of tournament.
Fake or not, you decide... but pretty damn impressive!

Let's all rasterbate

Having a quick look around my flat (read dump), noticed that I'm missing a printer. Last one I owned (was also the first one I owned) was a cheapo canon that sucked big time. It broke and I just threw it away a long time ago. As it was the wireless age, I thought I'd get a network enabled printer. Went on froogle and typed "network printer". Alot of responses came back, but the HP deskjet 6840 from ebuyer caught my eye. Ordered that, and also 512meg of RAM for good old powerbook.. The printer is a good inkjet that has a few tricks up it's sleeve. It can autodetect paper quality (very useful), it can print borderless (even more useful if you're rasterbating. See later), can print double sided automatically, and finally is wireless 802.11g enabled, and it connected to sobnet in no time at all. I can now print from PC or MAC from anywhere within my HUGE flat ;)
Then it dawned upon me.... How about printing labels for all the *cough* backup *cough* CDs I have, especially DivX, XviD, (S)VCD, DVD-R etc. So off I go to PC world and get an Afterburner. Essentially, printer prints on special labels and the afterburner applies them flawlessly to the CD. After a few hiccups calibrating the printer to the labels, everything is now fine and the majority of my backups look nearly original. Funny that, as I've lost most of the originals I backed them up from... Those of you that backup like me and have yet to witness the wonders of self-labelling, do give it a spin, you'll be amazed at how fun it all is, and looking at the cds with labels is quite satisfying.
Not been doing much gaming lately... I've got SO MANY games I really have to do that I've just given up. Till now I've only clocked Doom III Resurrection of Evil, and that's it! I am though having a good time playing a great PSP game called Mercury. Created by the ever-amazing Archer Maclean (old timers, remember things like dropzone, IK+ etc), the game follows the Super Monkey Ball formula of tilting the world to move a blob of mercury, around a series of difficult mazes/tasks/etc. It's a great great game, with lots of clever gameplay. Some levels involve races against the clock, others involve strategic puzzle solving, while others require you to finish the level with a minimum percentage of mercury left (it falls off the level you see, if you're not careful), and combo levels are the most devilish, combining all the above. The gfx are great and the physics are as true as you'd imagine a blob of mercury would do. Great stuff and well worth everyone's pennies.
As I said before, watch SIN CITY. Also, while I'm on that note, do yourselves a favour and instead of reading this boring blog, get a copy of Kung Fu Hustle (thanks INDIA for the tip!). A great Chinese comedy about some very unlikely kung fu masters. Nothing special here in terms of direction etc, but a great movie with slapstick comedy and great fights to boot. Don't expect another Crouching Tiger, but more of a better Jackie Chan. Definitely worth the watch!
The Rasterbator is most probably the coolest website to grace the net in a long while. I'm surprised I haven't mentioned this before, as I've known about it before G-D was even born! In essence, pick a cool picture you have, upload it to the rasterbator and watch it turn into a work of art! The image is converted into custom-sized posters (printed on A4 pages) while being stylised into large dots. It's a bit difficult to explain without seeing examples, and there are some great ones on the page. The possibilities with it are endless. After getting deskjet (remember? from this same blog a long time ago.... it's amazing you're still around!) I decided to revisit the rasterbator and create my own piece of art. I found a cool picture of superman and rasterbated it on to 16 pages of photo paper (from the era of crappy canon). The result was so good I actually went and bought 2 frames and framed it all lovingly. It's now hanging proudly on my living room wall.

Go visit the site and come up with your own funky ideas. It'd be cool to see what you guys come up with.
Finally, decided to get a new set of headphones yet again. Remember a while back I mentioned the Seinnheiser PX100. A great piece of kit that lacks one thing: sound isolation. Now to achieve that publicly means either wearing some big-ass motha fucka headphones that only people with large 'fros or shaggy hear wear, or getting some in-ear phones. Looking already like a retired pimp, I went for the latter. Shure e2c is what I decided to go for, after researching the massive head-fi.org. Looking more like hearing-aids than anything fun, I bought mine from the apple shop in London. As it was a weekend Oxford Street was perhaps the busiest place in Europe. With cars, people and other wonderful noises around, I unpacked my e2c nervously and wore them as the manual explained (yes you do need to read the manual about how to put them in, and with 6 sizes of pads to choose from, it's not an easy task at first!). Lucky for me I've been taught how to stick things into people's ears succesfully, so I gave myself a taste of my own medicine (terrible cliché!).

Withouth the ipod on, it felt exactly like sticking your little finger in your ears. I turned on the pod and shuffled the tracks to see what would randomly come out. As the first mysterious song loaded, I walked out of the shop into the raging street. The sound of life around me was loud enough to reach me even with these foreign bodies in my ears. And then she sang! Alanis Morissette was singing JUST FOR ME. In a private session, complete with band and all, but me and only me there. Her voice more beautiful than I'd ever heard it before! She was telling about all she really wants, and I could hear every darn syllable, every breath of emotion, every little noise coming from her band! I was literally walking down the street dumbstruck. I couldn't hear a single thing from the monster outside, and it was only me and Alanis. A quick hit of next-track and along came Jarre, with his Bells. Not a favourite track but one that greatly showed me that even after all these years of Jarre fandom, I haven't really heard his music as he made it in the studio! The details in his music were amazing, and I'm sure I heard at least 2 new instruments I hadn't heard before in the same track!
And thus my journey to audio nirvana was getting shorter. If you like music, and if you really want to hear your tracks properly, get shure e2c. Even better, if you like to listen on the move then these babies are ESSENTIAL. problem is, they'll set you back around £70 = €105 = $133. Well worth it if you ask me, but I'd say that cos I just blew so much dosh on such a small thing!

Time to sleep now I guess. It's 01:35 now, meaning it took me 40 minutes to type all this crap. Amazing really, I'm sure a monkey with a typewriter could've come up with better stuff alot quicker.
SoB from Good-delicious HQ2