Dark-kai3's Ramblomatic

In Full Swing

2011-12-11T13:37:00.001Z

I'm sat here trying to think of what to write for my Christmas article, but can't seem to write what I want to say. You know that feeling of everything you write being substandard and not capturing your thoughts well enough? Either way, I've got that. It's possibly the most irritating thing when you're trying to write an informative and entertaining article about something that's important to you!

If you're wondering, this week's article is a quick rundown of the top 5 games for Christmas. I won't say what the games I've shortlisted are, but one of them is a bigger git to write about than any other. This is primarily because I don't play that sort of game. Frankly, I can't stand them and it irritates me seeing a new iteration EVERY DAMN YEAR! The game mechanics never change, not in the slightest, and the only thing that ever does change is the player roster, but that can surely be sorted with DLC for the previous year's version.

I'm trying to avoid turning the part of the article containing this game from becoming a derogatory rant about it, but it's slowly turning into a complaint section about a game that I'm predicting to be in the top 5 this year. I know it'll be top 5 this year, primarily because 2008, 2009 and 2010 all saw those years' versions in there!

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong in my prediction, but I really do weep for humanity if this trend continues!

If you have any suggestions for article ideas, feel free to email them (darkkai3gaming@gmail.com) or post them as a comment on this page. If I like your suggestions, I'll let you know and inform you when they go live!

Sorry for rambling a bit, but I'm trying to make my articles entertaining enough to keep me near the top on the site.

Hope to see you all again very soon!

A Long Wait, An Even Longer Journey

2011-12-09T05:19:00.001Z

It's been a good while, yet again, since I posted. It's an unusual case for it to be stupidly early in the day, rather than stupidly late, but here we are.

If anyone's wondering why I'm posting this at around 5.45am on a Friday morning, it's primarily because my sleeping pattern has become so out of whack, that I'm pulling an all nighter in the vain hope that it will reset my body clock. It's a situation I'd rather not be in, but having not had a job for quite some time now, I've got very little reason to wake up at sensible times. I'm hoping that if I manage to get into a somewhat sensible sleeping pattern, I'll be able to get my self study back on track.

Anyhoo, that's enough about my sleeping pattern, so let's give a quick rundown of what's happened in the HUGE gap since my last post. As usual, not much. I reached this year's YouTube subscriber goal early, hitting 100 subscribers in late November. It was a rather happy moment for me, as earlier this year I didn't think I'd reach it before January, let alone November. The people I know in person, I really do thank you for putting up with me going on and on about my channel, and the people I don't know in person, I thank you for your support and hope that you will help me reach my new goal of 500 subscribers by December 31st 2012.

If we look at what my channel was like around one year ago, I mostly talked about random things over some COD gameplay. Now, I have a selection of series that I record and edit myself, Viva Pinata and F.E.A.R. for example, along with my Let's Try series and The Dropzone, the series that Chris and I record together alongside the podcast we do occasionally. Alongside these videos that appear on my channel, I'm constantly talking with other YouTubers and recording joint content with them that appears on their channel, bringing awareness of all groups involved to each of our sub base. If you had said a year ago that I'd be this confident in my videos, and that I'd be doing collaborations with next to no hassle, I'd have thought you were joking, but here we are. My videos even have intros now, and considering what they were like about three months ago, the quality has jumped.

I'm miles away from a proper partnership, but I'm making some pretty substantial steps. One of my videos is even approaching the 10k view mark, which is a very impressive feat for a channel of my size.

On the otherside of things, a friend of mine from Penzance asked me if I'd like to write for a website he was developing, a good while ago, and in October, the first edition of the website went live. With it, my first ever published article, a discussion of whether regenerating health is a plague on gaming, was posted for the world to see. It's far from my best work, but with each article I publish, I learn many things and my confidence in what I write increases. It's rather different to what I usually do in recording my videos, be they the let's plays or the more time intensive videos, but I try my best nonetheless. It's kind of funny, if I didn't record videos revolving around games, or if I didn't happen to know said person through the Japanese students and a friend from college, I wouldn't have received the opportunity to publish my thoughts. It's pretty humbling for so much to happen in a short period of time, really, and while I don't have a job at the moment, it does make me think that the job I'd like isn't actually that far away. Especially with a load of published articles floating around the aether that act as a portfolio.

Sorry for rambling on, but I seemed to have found a way of using words to properly describe everything. The more I write on the whole, the easier it will be for me to write my articles and, in turn, my blog posts. It's an interesting thought that writing blog posts help with my article work and vice-versa.

As always, guys, I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope you'll enjoy the video below. Fellow YouTuber, Jennamuse, asked me to play some games with her again not too long ago, what you see is part 1 of the games we played.

See you all again very soon.

August 23rd - Late Update and technical difficulties

2011-08-24T15:29:00.000+01:00

How are we all doing, guys? Sorry I've not posted much recently, even after I said I would! I fail, I know.

I've had technical difficulties yet again and my PC is now permanently out of commission until I buy a new motherboard. For the full details, here's my update video for this week!

Feel free to throw ideas my way for future videos, I really do appreciate feedback and suggestions. On a related note, 50 subscribers! I'm now halfway towards this year's goal of 100 subs. Thanks for the help and I really do thank everyone for everything they've done for me =D

Expect a few more video updates soon.

Thanks guys
o/

The London Riots (Video)

2011-08-09T23:47:00.000+01:00

Sorry I've not posted this week. No excuses, but I'll post about some things soon!

For now, here's a video that me and Chris recorded yesterday about the London (and now UK) riots. We didn't have all the facts, but we did what we could to get a good video out.

I'll write about these riots in another post soon. I hope that none of you have been involved in any way, shape or form with these riots.

Take it easy everyone
o/

Preview: Let's Play: F.E.A.R.

2011-08-01T22:07:00.000+01:00

You may be aware that I started recording my new Let's Play series last night. Due to just how awesome I think the series will be, I decided to smash together a quick trailer to whet your appetites! Hope you guys enjoy and I look forward to your reactions to the series.

Laters guys
o/

100 Videos - Improving Confidence

2011-08-01T01:44:00.000+01:00

Yet again I find myself writing this relatively late and most likely alienating half of my audience. Oh well, I may have to get used to advertising the new posts the next day too!

Anyway, on to my point. Earlier today I recorded (and just finished uploading) my 100th video and, I have to say, it appeared relatively suddenly. I only realised earlier today that my 100th video would be uploaded today and tried to think of something awesome to do for it. Instead I ended up making a general commentary, but this one came much easier than any of my previous ones. I think I've really grown and improved since my first commentary over 8 months ago and can only improve even further!

To help my confidence even further, I found myself playing a few games on Black Ops with one of my subscribers. It was really good fun and, while I was a bit apprehensive at first, surprisingly easy to do. There was a slightly odd feeling of stardom involved, not stardom like you'd see with people like Tom Cruise or anything, but more a feeling of "I've never met this person, but he actually asked me if I'd play with him because he's seen my videos." It's an interesting feeling and I've never really experienced anything like it. I'm interested in getting a few games going with a lot more people, like a 12 person party, 11 of which are subscribers on my channel!

Either way, here's to 100 more videos and a load of new subscribers. Let's hope the new subscribers are just as awesome as the current ones! I'll leave you with my first commentary and my most recent video. Enjoy!

Laters guys
o/

Portal 2 Bonus: Turret Opera

2011-07-31T13:39:00.000+01:00

Update likely to come later today. For now enjoy the last bonus of my Portal 2 playthrough, the turret opera!

Take it away GLaDOS turret orchestra!

Laters guys
o/

Elevator Trolling!

2011-07-29T16:01:00.002+01:00

Hey guys, I've not posted something substantial for a few days and I'll likely do that tomorrow or something. For now, enjoy a random clip of how not to troll a person camping in an elevator!

Laters guys
o/

Occasionally...this happens!

2011-07-25T02:06:00.001+01:00

Hey guys!

This isn't an update or anything really, but fairly recently I managed to get my Portal 2 videos and have already uploaded a fair few of them. Considering how hard I failed at a the first puzzle with the white goo, I ended up cutting parts out to avoid boring the audience. Well people wanted to see the whole thing, so I sped the clip up slightly and, lo, we have me failing at a puzzle on a grand scale.

Hope you all enjoy it and see you again soon!
o/

Norway and celebrities

2011-07-23T22:55:00.004+01:00

I don't know how many of you have heard the two "big" news stories at the moment, but I'm currently feeling the need to at least bring attention to them, as well as the relative importance placed by the general public at large.

So yesterday Norway faced a tragic loss, that is difficult to comprehend, when a bomb went off in Oslo and a gunman, disguised as a policeman, killed at least 90 people on the small Utoya Island, just west of Oslo. I'm sure many of you will share my sentiments in that our condolences are with the families that lost someone, and hope that Norway can recover from this. At a similar time to me finding out, earlier today, it turned out that Amy Winehouse (a singer who I've disliked from the moment she entered the scene) was found dead after an apparent alcohol and drug overdose. Frankly, her overdosing did not surprise me in the slightest, the public reaction did.

Twitter and Facebook went nuts over the news that Winehouse died, but, considering I only found out about Norway when a friend of mine, who lives there, told me, neither of these sites went nuts when things went down in Norway. I can't understand how a celebrity dying is bigger news than a country, that's generally very peaceful, having something so devastating occur. It's understandable that the sheer loss of life in Norway is a lot more difficult for us to comprehend than the loss of one life in the form of a celebrity, but all of these people saying things like "it's a tragedy that we have lost Amy Winehouse," but saying absolutely nothing over just how many people died yesterday!

It's situations like these that open your eyes to our culture in this day and age. To quote someone on Facebook, we live in a "moronic celebrity obsessed culture", and I actually agree with him. I've been of the impression that the public at large, here in the UK, is somewhat moronic for quite some time. I mean we (well not me personally) allowed the Conservatives into power and then wondered why the country started going to hell almost immediately. Maybe if we spent less time focusing on celebrities and actually put our energy into something oh so much more worthwhile, we could sort some of the issues we're faced with.

I'm not sure what else I can say about this without making myself sound like an ass, but I would definitely like to hear what you all think about this. Worried by celebrity obsessive culture? Or that we don't care about them enough maybe? Either way, feel free to leave a comment below.

I'll see you all again later
o/

Magic the Gathering 2012 Core Set Launch: Deck Tech

2011-07-20T02:02:00.001+01:00

So I thought I'd take a break from rendering videos and sorting Magic cards to write up how the launch party went for M12.

It may surprise a fair few of you to find that I actually ended up in 2nd place after winning 3 rounds, but losing the last. I'll give a run down of the deck in a moment, but I was honestly amazed at how well this deck ran considering how certain I was that I was going to lose due to the cards I pulled. No mythics sadly, but there was so much silencing that I didn't need to worry that often. Actually, the final would have gone a lot smoother if I actually drew any of the silencing cards which the deck was based around. The results were:

Round 1: 2-0
Round 2: 2-1
Round 3: 2-1
Round 4: 0-2

I was majorly outclassed in the final. My opponent was (apparently) ranked 3rd in the country or something, so there really was little chance of me winning. A "David and Goliath" final, according to the store owner, and I think a fair few people were actually wanting me to win considering and, if I had drawn ANY of my silencing/removal, I could have with the deck I was running ^_^

So you're probably wondering what my deck was. Here you go:
Land:
7 Plains
10 Swamp

Common:
Benalish Veteran x 1
Griffin Rider x 1
Lifelink x 1
Mighty Leap x 1
Pacifism x 3
Peregrine Griffin x 2
Stave Off x 1
Stonehorn Dignitary x 1
Bloodseeker x 1
Child of Night x 1 (sexy foil)
Drifting Shade x 1
Sorin's Thirst x 2
Taste of Blood x 1

Uncommon:
Oblivion Ring x 1
Timely Reinforcements x 1
Onyx Mage x 1
Sengir Vampire x 1

Rare:
Vengeful Pharaoh x 1
Solemn Simulacrum x 1

The sheer volume of silencing (I couldn't believe I pulled three Pacifism cards) allowed me to calmly plod along while keeping my opponent unable to attack or block. The oblivion ring was almost solely used for keeping planeswalkers subdued and showed up whenever I needed it. I was definitely happy to have one. Timely Reinforcements saved me a few times. In a round 1 game, it happened to save me right at the end, casting it took me down to 2 life due to the Manabarbs on the field, but my opponent was on 2 life due to that same card. Timely Reinforcements allowed me to summon 3 1/1 Soldier tokens and win me the game. Solemn Simulacrum was the manafix I so desparately needed and basically made it so I didn't have to mulligan in a single game. A rare event indeed!

I could have played a few games better, but this was the best I had ever played! I think first prize was quite the incentive as it was an entirely me item, a Japanese Jace vs. Chandra duel deck, with alternate art cards. Sadly, due to coming second, I didn't win it, but I'm not all that upset about it. The fact that I came 2nd, after playing some high end opponents, is quite the feat and I definitely look forward to the Innistrad prerelease and launch. Hopefully I'll do just as well, if not better, against more opponents!

We can all but wait and see. And it's with that that I will bid you all good night!

Laters guys
o/

Sneak Peak: Duke Nukem Forever "What?" Moment

2011-07-15T02:13:00.001+01:00

How we doing guys. Sometimes something exceptionally wierd happens while doing a Let's Play recording. This one just had me going "what?" followed by a questioning silence.

Feel free to like and expect to see it sometime soon with my commentary over the top.

Laters guys
o/

Console Wars!

2011-07-13T22:33:00.001+01:00

So, I'm thinking of making Wendesday my "thought of the week" day or something (as well as randomness during the rest of the week), so, for now, I guess I'll talk about something...(smooth Jonny, smooth...) Expect a lot of meme references!

If you go around the game community hang-out sites like Gamefaqs, the Respawn Army app on Facebook or general forums (like the one I use called Secret Anonymous, I hope you like that plug guys!) you'll likely find people arguing over the "best gaems console evaaaaaa," or words to that effect (and possibly with better spelling or grammar, but don't hold your breath) and completely hating on anyone else that happens to own or prefer a different console.

Now, while I agree that we're all very much entitled to our opinions, do we really need to flame each other if we're all in the same community? I personally still deem Final Fantasy VII one of the greatest games in existence. Others probably say that FIFA 2010 is the best game ever, although I myself can't stand football, or sports, games on the whole, and I'm probably going to be hated on for saying all of this (I should build a breakfast fortress to keep those haters out). I've owned an XBOX360 for 3 or 4 years now and, frankly, I'm not regretting it. I've actually had some messages on YouTube slagging me off for using an XBOX (I wish I was kidding) and it's spurred me to try and figure out just what is causing this war. I'd own a PS3 if I could afford one at this point in time, hell I probably would have bought one instead of the XBOX if they weren't so damn expensive all those years ago. I would also like a Wii if only for a few games. My desktop is a gaming rig, albeit in need of some upgrades, and I own a PSP3000 and a 3DS. I'm definitely what you'd call a hardcore gamer, but even I'm the target of flames.

I know I've mentioned myself a fair few times so far but I do this in good reason. I mentioned I'd own all of the consoles if I had the budget and that is 100% true. The Wii gets more hate than it deserves and while it probably is for the casual game market, there's no reason why a hardcore gamer can't own one and enjoy it. When it comes down to it, there are probably two main factors that decided what console we bought. The first being our budget. I couldn't afford the PS3 when I was buying a console, but I could afford the XBOX (and didn't have the space for a Wii, also I wasn't really that interested in the Wii all those years back). The second factor would have to be what our friends are using. If all of your friends play on PS3 and you buy an XBOX, you're not going to be able to play with your friends online. I know using the aspect of online gaming may not convince some of you, but there's A LOT of people who play their console online, even if it is only now and then, and not being able to play with your mates would bring a slight downer on things.

Surely by now, assuming you've managed to read this far, you'll have at least started to realise that those of us who play games on different formats aren't all that different. The games themselves don't change, only the medium in which we play them. There's really little reason to hate on people just because of the format. We're really not all that different and all of us in the gaming community have one major thing that connects us. We all love playing video games.

So the next time you find yourself going, "pfft, the Wii sucks," "the PS3 is for fags," "everyone on XBOX is a 8 year old," or something quite likely more harsh than these examples, remember that we're all united under a common banner, gamer!

Have fun gaming guys
o/

You know that feeling?

2011-07-11T22:44:00.000+01:00

Yeah, THAT feeling. The one where you know that you want to write about something but can't quite figure out what it is you want to actually discuss?

I'm suffering from that right now, but in a slightly unusual way. In actuality I'm saturated with ideas, but I don't know which to write about first or how. It's a feeling similar to writers block where nothing is going through the thought "hole," except in this case it's that nothing can get through due to every idea clogging it up. It's an odd analogy, but I believe it gets my point across.

So what am I going to do about it? It's a pretty simple solution, write about all of them. I've got the want to discuss things, like the overuse of regenerating health in action games, the Steam Summer Camp Sale and, of course, trying to get known on YouTube as a commentator without the heinous act of spamming videos with "check my videos."

There're a fair few posts coming up then. I'll try to make them unbiased, but also contain my opinion. Hell, I've played enough video games to know what works and what doesn't, along with some pretty unique systems. I may even discuss these unique things in future posts.

I hope that you enjoy reading my thoughts on these things and, as always, comments are welcome!

See you later guys
o/

Magic the Gathering 2012 Core Set Prerelease

2011-07-10T01:07:00.001+01:00

The picture above is of the 3 mythics that I got by taking part today, with the Bloodlord of Vaasgoth being the promo for taking part.

So, earlier today was the prerelease for the 2012 Core Set for Magic the Gathering (if you didn't already get that from the title) and man were there a lot of Magic players there. If I remember correctly there was somewhere around 40 of us for the prerelease with me ending up 24th in the end with 9 points (3 round wins and 3 round losses). I'll be frank, if I wasn't cocky I probably would have been in the top 15 with 12 points, but what can you do. If you're interested in the deck I was using, here it is:

Common:
Act of Treason x 1
Goblin Arsonist x 1
Goblin Fireslinger x 1
Gorehorn Minotaurs x 1
Incinerate x 1
Shock x 2
Bloodrage Vampire x 1
Blood Seeker x 1
Dark Favor x 1
Distress x 1
Drifting Shade x 1
Duskhunter Bat x 2
Gravedigger x 1
Taste of Blood x 1
Warpath Ghoul x 1

Uncommon:
Greatsword x 1
Sengir Vampire x 1
Smallpox x 1
Tectonic Rift x 2

Rare:
Flameblast Dragon x 1
Royal Assassin x 1

Land:
Mountain x 8
Swamp x 8

That Bloodthirst mechanic is bloody awesome. The speed at which I consistently managed to get a 2/2 flier or a 5/5 Gorehorn was insane. Most opponents had little time to stop me building a scarily powerful force due to Bloodthirst and I can't really complain. It does suck that I didn't end up using a deck with the Garruk, Primal Hunter and Frost Titan that I pulled, but if you can't build a decent deck that uses them, there's little use in using them. It happens, but I can't complain about pulling a Garruk really!

So, what did I learn today? Two things really. One: Don't immediately go "ooh mythics," and then just bash a deck together to use them. Two: Don't, no matter how well it's going for you at that moment, get cocky. That's possibly the most important thing I learnt today. Get cocky and you WILL make a stupid decision and, more likely than not, get well and truly dicked on, believe me.

If any of you guys happen to play magic, let me know what decks you ran in your respective prerelease deck and how it went for you.

Laters d00dz
o/

Returning Jace - A Newbies View

2011-06-26T17:18:00.000+01:00

I know I'm not a huge MTG knowledge buff, nor am I the best player, but even I can see that this Jace is better than a lot of people are making out.

Sure, it's a 5 drop planeswalker. Sure, 5 drop planeswalkers are rarely as scary as they seem (although I seem to do just fine with Liliana Vess in my UB Discard deck, and I've activated her ultimate more times than I've lost with her on the field) and don't dominate. What people fail to see is that 0LP ability, "Target player puts the top ten cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard." I know this Jace isn't as cheap as TMS (thank christ), and he won't see as much use as he did before, but I've already come upon an idea for a deck using him! Sure it's mill (which I hate), but with the tiniest bit of mana ramp, you can get this guy out before turn 5, which seems to be what so many people are complaining about.

Sure, you're not going to use his ultimate, and that +1 ability is kinda meh, but that 0 is insane. Put this Jace in mill or proliferate and your opponent is going to topple quickly, assuming you can get him out, but that's the issue with a 5+ CMC planeswalker.

I'm hardly an expert, and I've only been playing Magic a couple months, but I fail to see what makes Jace, Memory Adept a bad card, assuming it is legitimate. Maybe people have played Jace, the Mind Sculptor for too long to notice a good BALANCED card when one appears. Maybe not, who am I to say.

It's on that note that I shall head off. Let me know your thoughts on this.

Laters
o/

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 Promo Cards

2011-06-23T00:43:00.000+01:00

If anyone who reads this happens to play Magic the Gathering on the table or on the computer, this'll be of interest.

Up above, I have the promo card for the Steam/PC version of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, the Frost Titan. Compared to the other titans, it's kinda meh (especially compared to the Grave Titan or Primeval Titan), but the alternate art is damn sexy. If you get the PS3 version, you'll get the Inferno Titan (red) and if you get the XBOX360 version, you'll get the Grave Titan (which is a complete beast of a card that a lot of people want!).

Along with these titans, you also get one of 5 "decks" constaining some M12 cards. I call them "decks" as they only consist of 30 cards, 12 of which is land, but they're pretty interesting. As you can see, I got the green pack and I'll put the card list down below for anyone interested. I have no idea what cards are in the blue, black, red or white, but when I find out I'll throw a list up for you.

Garruk Wildspeaker mini-deck:
12 Forest
1 Alpha Tyrranax (SOM)
1 Ezuri's Archers (SOM)
2 Garruk's Companion (M12)
1 Gladecover Scout (M12)
1 Hunter's Insight (M12)
1 Lead the Stampede (M12)
1 Llanowar Elves (M12)
1 Lure (M12)
1 Plummet (M12)
2 Runeclaw Bear (M12)
1 Sacred Wolf (M12)
1 Slice in Twain (SOM)
2 Tangle Mantis (MB)
1 Titanic Growth (M12)
1 Trollhide (M12)

I have to admit, I do like some of those cards. The Gladecover Scout and Sacred wolf are amazing and carry the new Hexproof ability (more affectionately known as "Troll-shroud"), as well as having brilliant costs. One mana for the Gladecover scout (a 1/1 with Hexproof) and 3 mana for the Sacred Wolf (a 3/1 with Hexproof). While not the most amazing in the world when compared to some previous cards(if we remember the Glistener Elf in New Phyrexia, a 1/1 Infect creature for 1 mana!), I still really like them and look forward to generating some brilliant combos with them.

I'll be attending a M12 prerelease event in July, as well as the launch party of course, and will give my thoughts on the cards I get to use then. I'll also give a rundown of each FNM I play every week from now on (I've definitely got the Magic bug T_T), letting you know what I win...if anything XD

See you around guys

Laters
o/

Day late update

2011-06-21T00:49:00.001+01:00

I know I said I'd post these on the day they went up. If I'm honest, I actually forgot... Yes, I'm well aware of how much I suck XD

Here's the update for June 19th 2011:

Progress

2011-06-18T17:12:00.001+01:00

So, we're here in the usual situation of it having been 5 months since my last update and I'm finally in the mood to blog about things again. Sadly, there's not really that much to talk about other than what has been going on with my YouTube channel.

So, what's going on with my YouTube channel? Well, I actually uploaded my 50th video earlier this week and have started properly sticking to an upload schedule. What used to be me uploading just Call of Duty videos and commentating on what was going on has changed to weekly updates consisting of any game I feel like using as a backdrop and a selection of Let's Play videos during the week. Currently I've got Viva Pinata and Duke Nukem Forever being played through, with Portal 2 being put on indefinite hold until I replace the graphics card in my desktop. I guess I should mention here that my desktop went boom a little while ago with the graphics card dying well and truly. I can't afford to replace it at this point in time and I keep forgetting to pick up the one that a friend of mine keeps saying I can borrow. I'll remember to get it eventually and then I can finish uploading my Portal 2 videos.

In terms of money, I'm struggling through, but am still in dire need of a job. I applied to a few jobs, but it turns out I wasn't considered for them. I did apply to a few jobs at a rather well known credit company and am currently waiting to hear whether I've been considered. Here's hoping I am, as I would very much like the money! Oh, on another note, I may have landed a pretty snazzy writing gig, but I'm not going to get too excited about that until everything's sorted. Again, here's hoping it works out!

There's little else to say in terms of updates. I'll start putting up my weekly YouTube updates on here just so there's a regular post here. Hopefully you'll feel compelled to subscribe to me on YouTube, but either way I hope to see you all again very soon.

Laters guys
o/

Gamplay: 59 - 16 HC CTF

2011-01-10T20:46:00.001Z

Here's the second of my gameplay commentaries. I'm a little more confident than in my first one, so hopefully it'll be better ^^

Laters d00dz
o/

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T22:25:00.000Z

I thought I'd just take a quick moment to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I know it's late on the actual day (if you're in the UK and Europe, it's passed in Asia and it's probably around 5pm in the US east coast) but felt the need to post.

Just to let you know, I'm working on a little Christmas video for my gameplay channel on YouTube. It's also a small part of an upcoming project me and another person are working on. It's going to be good, so keep your eyes peeled this coming 2011 for "The Dropzone," a colaboration project between me (Dark-kai3) and a person I've played the XBOX and WoW with for a fair amount of time (AKA Stab Man Face on the XBOX...apparently he was drunk when he chose that name). I'll tell you more when the first release is ready.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Laters d00dz
o/

Finally some gameplay!

2010-12-14T09:20:00.001Z

I finally managed to get my HD PVR! The moment I got it, I installed the software, plugged it in and recorded some games that I had ready and waiting.

Without further ado I present my first gameplay commentary!

Comments welcome as always.

Laters d00dz
o/

A reintroduction may be in order...

2010-11-30T00:06:00.000Z

Well my comrades, it has been a fair amount of time since I last posted here. It is due to this that I feel a reintroduction is in order as things MAY have changed since you last heard from me. Or they may not have, who knows ^^

I'm still called Jonny, and I am still most definitely a hardcore gamer who happens to love anime and making gundam kits. Well, that was alot to reintroduce wasn't it? Laaaaaawl!

Moving on to the serious things. I've been neglecting the blog recently and for that I do apologise. I've had a backlog of things that I've been wanting to post, but I've been remarkably lazy and haven't even written them yet. Photos need to be taken and uploaded before I can even start doing the posts though. All shall come in due course I believe. I've actually got around 6 figures and kits to post stuff about, then another few coming sometime soon. There're games I'd like to talk about and of course what's happening in my life. For now I think I'll go on about my current life as a quick update for you all and leave the other posts for a later day, but not that far in the future as I have a gap coming up soon ^^

As I may have posted a while back, I got accepted on the PGCE here in Nottingham. I've been doing what I can, but it's honestly alot harder than I had first expected. It started off somewhat OK, but slowly snowballed and I'm currently swamped with 2 seminars to prepare, an essay to actually start researching as well as writing, and 2 lessons to plan for this week (which I really should have done last week, curse my lack of organisational ability). It's fun, but if you don't have a decent level of organisation you're going to struggle...like I am. I need to be up bright and early every day too as I need to get a fair distance to my currently assigned school. I'd like to say what school, but I seriously doubt I'd be very popular and would possibly be breaking a few rules if I did so. What I can say is I have to get up at 6.30 every day I'm there in order for me to arrive for 8am. Lessons start at 8.30 at this school...madness!

Now the eagle eyed amongst you all may have noticed the somewhat large picture of space food. It's partly there to have a picture in this post and get it onto certain feeds, but it's also there for me to reference in my teaching. I have a year 7 class, a year 9 class, a year 10 class and an AS Physics class to teach at my current school (which I finish my placement with this Friday coming...) and these pouches are for my upcoming year 10 class. I'd been wanting a valid excuse to buy these for some time and the "living in space" lesson seemed perfect, so off I went to grab a few packs. I should say that 2 of those pouches are for the class, the other one is my own personal one ^^

Something I should say here is that the PGCE isn't something to be entered into lightly. I made a mistake, I'll be honest here, in thinking that I could do it and still keep up a decent level of self study with other things. Oh how wrong I was. It requires an unprecedented level of commitment and I'm not completely certain I'll be willing to see it through. We all know I'm not one to give in, but I'm curious myself to see if I can stay the course. Only time will tell. It's an interesting way to spend the year though, I'll give it that.

I'll blog a bit more now I think as I've kinda gotten back into the mood to. I'll get those figure, gundam and game posts up when I get the chance and possibly work on more videos on my youtube channels (yes channels, one for gameplay and one for me, although the gameplay one is relatively empty until I can sort recording), so watch those spaces. I doubt I'll change in the randomness of them though, so for that I guess I should apologise, but that's me through and through ^^

I'll see y'all in a bit

Laters d00dz o/

Civilian Astray WIP

2010-08-23T02:14:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, thought it about time I got back to my Gundam models and decided to continue with the Civilian Astray DSSD Custom. If you're looking for insane customisation, I'm afraid I don't do that as yet (if ever), and am just doing an OOB build with panel lining.

So earlier I managed to sort the annoying main thruster (I think) on the torso, and get the head done complete with panel lines. Torso's far from properly complete due to the vernier thrusters, but it's coming along.

One complication with the head, that irritated me to no end was the visor. As you can see in the picture, I don't have the visor in place. This isn't from not wanting to, but during the trimming stage of the clear plastic I managed to crack it. It's hard enough to clean the clear plastic up with a knife and file/sandpaper, but this piece just didn't want to play ball. So, against my will, I had to put that part aside and do the head without it. Luckily it looks good either way ^^

Anyone else had issues with parts like these? I find them almost as irritating as chrome plated parts, primarily due to the difficulties in cleaning them up with both a knife and sandpaper.

Let me know guys, always curious to see.

Laters d00dz
o/

The Cinema

2010-07-29T23:01:00.002+01:00

Well I just returned from the cinema, and I must say I am remarkably satisfied. Usually I end up leaving the pictures (how old fashioned does that sound?) with a relative "meh" feeling, rarely feeling wowed by a movie.

Today's film was Toy Story 3, in 3D. Now it was my first ever 3D film, and it was pretty damn awesome, even the little Pixar short at the beginning had me going "ooooooooooh." Anyhoo, got side tracked with the 3Dness, the film is well worth seeing. If you've not seen it, get a few friends and go. If you have seen it, go again, or let me know your thoughts. A warning to those that haven't been yet, expect to shed a tear or two, as some moments are pretty tear jerking (you'll definately know when you get there).

Now to my point. There are a load of films coming out this year that have alot of hype, and I mean ALOT, Scott Pilgrim for example. The premise for that is amazing, and it's got gamers on the whole going nuts (mainly because the 'books' are great from what I hear, I still need to borrow them to read through), but the downside is that it leaves a huge chance for a "meh" reaction. Too many films have looked amazing and been a slight disappointment. Don't get me wrong, they were good, but didn't leave me with a feeling of wanting to see it again. Kick Ass takes the lime light here (mainly as it was the last film I went to see in the cinema if I remember correctly), and it was a good film. The only downside was that it got a fair amount of hype and I was expecting a little more. The reaction "somewhat meh," which is generally better than "meh," but still a "meh."

It's because of all this hype that films tend to end up disappointing me and I've now reached the stage where I try to ignore all hype to the best of my ability. Games also tend to suffer from this and so certain games I tend to wait until the dust has settled and the true gems reveal themselves. Of course when it comes to series like Final Fantasy, I'm a complete sucker and just have to get the next game.

I've lost sight of my point...ah yes...Toy Story 3 is the first film in a long time that's left me feeling satisfied and with nothing but praise for it. I really do recommend you see it. Yes it's technically a childrens movie, but there's no reason why you can't go to see it with a few friends, and the fact that it's a kids movie kinda adds to its charm.

To sum up, Toy story = awesome, hype = bad idea, games = I like them...indeed.

Laters d00dz
o/

3 Minutes

2010-07-28T01:42:00.000+01:00

This is my entry to the Inspired By Images Of Eve Competition 2. More details and links to all entrants can be found at Starfleet Comms

“How many more times is command going to throw us into hell this week cap?”

“If I were to hazard a guess Adriana, I’d say until we die. I really do think they send us into these fights to kill us off so we don’t have to get paid.”

As I sat in the captain’s chair, gazing out at what you’d be mistaken in thinking tranquillity during warp, my navigator chips in with that question. I didn’t earn my reputation or rank in this navy by holding my tongue or being insincere with my subordinates, and I wasn’t going to start now.

Officially we’ve not been at war with the Caldari for a good few years, and that’s why most of my crew signed up to the Gallente Federation’s navy. Unofficially we’ve been fighting those bastards for the best part of the last three years, and the higher ups on either side seem hell bent on making more of my men die. Either way, I never anticipated that my Taranis, a tiny Atron hulled interceptor, would be called into a major fray this deep into Gallentean space, let alone five in three days. Of those five, two were major victories, and the other three? Well, let’s just say that I’ve had to have the sector twelve armour plating rebuilt twice, the main airlock decommissioned (we’re seriously using the cargo bay to gain entrance to this blasted ship, if that gets hit lord knows how we’re getting out of this thing), the scanner replaced (along with the antennae at the front of this tin can), and also had the displeasure of informing 22 families that their sons or daughters have died under my command. To top it all off, my proper chair broke in the first fight and I’ve been sat on this bashed up old desk chair that’s been bolted to the floor instead. The fact that the ship has taken this much of a beating amazes me. What’s more, our luck to escape those previous encounters without losing the entire crew is unheard of.

“Three minutes to arrival cap. All internal sensors show normal, weapon systems normal, life support is working at acceptable levels”

”Our little…’surprise’?”

“Should be usable Sir, although, a module of that type has never been fitted to an interceptor class…well, not in the Fed Navy at least”

“We’ll just have to hope that those idiots in the hangar were better than what I’ve been giving them credit for.”

“Aye Sir.”

I’m still not entirely happy with that decision. “We’ve got another mission for you Zak,” “Your ship is going to be used as a prototype for our new weaponry.” All brilliant things to say to a man who’s been to hell five times and lived to tell the tale. Of course, I had to accept, and I’d rather die in this trusty old ship than at a court marshal for telling a superior where he can stick his mission. I must admit though, I’m curious as to whether ‘that’ module can be activated. You occasionally hear things from the frontier that ‘the immortals’ are fitting these to their frigate class. It’s even rarer to hear them fitting them to an interceptor, but again, you hear it. Never come against one though. At the rate these things destroy small ships like mine, and the range we have to be within to use our blasters usually, I’m bloody glad that I’ve never seen one, we’d have no hope.

“Cap?”

“Adriana? If you want to speak openly you know that I always allow my crew to do so.”

“It’s nothing really. You just look a little distracted considering what we’re about to come up against.”

“We have no idea what we’re coming up against. We weren’t even told why we were in Placid, let alone Stacmon of all places. I’d be impressed if the Caldari managed to setup a blockade or even organise a few ships to arrive here without setting off alarm bells for the higher ups.”

“Well, and sorry if I’m prying Cap, what were you told during your briefing?”

“Sweet F.A! I’ve never been thrown into a mission with such little guidance to an objective. All I know is there’s something out of the ordinary at the target coordinates, which were given straight to you, bypassing me entirely. Speaking of which, we’ve been in warp for quite some time now…”

“That’s just it Cap, the reason we’re warping so far away from the star. We warped past the last planet in the Stacmon system about one and a half minutes ago. Long range scans show no ships…no wait.”

“Something abnormal Corporal?”

“Scans show a large object. Bigger than a standard station or outpost sir. It’s just sitting there, in space…not orbiting anything…”

“Would explain why we were sent out then. Smallest and fastest ship in the fleet, we were the best bet to scout this thing out. What’s our E.T.A?”

“15 seconds cap.”

I sit here waiting for our arrival, in my bashed up ship, with my exhausted crew…on this tattered old chair. There are too many things that don’t add up. Command had to know this thing, whatever it is, was out here in order to get us to explore it, but why send a combat vessel with a crew like mine to check it out? Also, why replace two of my turrets with smartbombs? Activating those meant we had to remove any of the turret enhancements and replace them with PGUs, and it also left us without a MWD due to possible capacitor issues. I managed to convince them to give us an afterburner, but it’s nowhere near as useful as that MWD would be.

“Arrival imminent Cap…”

We arrive at what can only be described as, a ring…

“Well…this certainly changes things…”

The Return Grande!

2010-07-14T01:19:00.000+01:00

Well...not necessarily a return of epic proportions, but nonetheless I am back on the interwebs. Along with this return comes a backlog of things I have been intending to post. Let's go through what's happened and what's coming up.

The events
"Events" is probably a push, but nonetheless I've been up to a fair few things recently. First up was my guitar finally coming up to Nottingham to be with its owner again. It's been a good while since I played my guitar, and I felt now a good time to get back to practicing. Only just got around to replacing the strings, and now it sounds better than ever. Looks nice too! I would like to point out that you shouldn't expect any videos or soundbites of me playing as I'm far from good at this point in time. Maybe in the future, but it's still a way away.

Had a few things happen in my "personal" personal life which I'm not going to delve into in detail. It was good for what it was though, but I'll leave it at that. On a slightly related note, Halo 3 multiplayer, with 2 xboxes and 7 other people, that equals pure awesomeness and hilarity. Sure I'm a geek, and alot of people seem to think it's derogatory to call me it (doesn't work if I admit I am people, get with it), but we all have our own ways of having fun and relaxing. Games happen to be one of my ways ^^

Moving on...

Projects
As we know, I've been pretty lax the past month with my JYA series. I apologise and I really will get the 5th episode up, which will contain a pretty drastic change. From episode 5 onwards I will be making the JYA a video. By this, I don't mean what I've previously been doing with multiple video embeds, but I'll be splicing the videos together into a 3-4 minute long video with narration. The timeframe is subject to change each week depending on the videos I choose. This can also change as my Realplayer (the program I use to get my videos from the internet) appears to be refusing to acknowledge videos and prevents me from acquiring them. I hope to have this sorted in the near future, but for now we may have to make do with JYA 5.

Along with the JYA series, I've still got my Freedom and Astray kits under construction. I've also been kinda lazy in the building of them, so there's no real progress, but I'll get to work on them again and start posting some WIP photoshoots. Also, I should have some figure reviews up soon, although I'm unsure as to use video or photos as yet. I'm likely to try both and see which I prefer, but prior to either of these I am required to go out and buy a backdrop to be used. I'm thinking a blue or green colour fabric with a lamp above, but if any of my readers happen to be like Actar (hit him up at figure.fm or youtube) and do figure shoots, pointers on what to do and what works would be great.

Other upcoming posts
Along with what I mentioned in the previous 2 parts, I have a few other posts to come. One consists of what my room looks like. You've likely gained a few glimpses, be it through my computer tinkering, or my youtube videos, but this will be a full view of my room. Photos of my computer setup, my shelves, my figures, my guitar and keyboard, and of some sneak peaks at what future posts will consist of.

Of course I've also got a loot post to come soon as my HLJ order (FINALLY) shipped, and I'm quite excited at one of the three items to come in the order. My Rei shrine gains a member ^^ After that will be a second loot post, likely in September due to the delays in second runs, consisting of (primarily) the Yui Hirasawa Nendoroid (by GoodSmile Company) and Halo: Reach, which I have on preorder. Assuming neither get pushed back on release, we should be set to go.

Sorry for the long post guys, but to make up for it, I leave you with an image of just what can go wrong when 2 people get in a helicopter on GTA IV multiplayer and decide to land on a high platform.

Laters guys o/

I'm not dead yet...

2010-06-19T02:54:00.001+01:00

Hey guys! Just thought I'd apologise for not updating at all for the past couple weeks. I don't really have an excuse, my attention has just kinda been elsewhere and I've not been in the mood to blog.

I'm intending on updating again very soon and I'll also upload JYA #5 very soon too. It's a special, so I think you'll all enjoy it. As the JYA is now a regular on both here and figure.fm I really should work on the editting etc (I'll let you read into that, but chances are you're correct =) ) and upload it. It shouldn't be long, maybe even this Sunday!

Keep an eye open for more updates soon not proclaiming that I'm alive!

Laters d00dz
o/

Japanese Youtube Awesomeness #4

2010-05-30T23:22:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the lack of posts people, been snowed under with exam related stuff. Don't worry, I'll be blogging alot more after the final exam, so be prepared for an influx of posts! ^^

Without further ado...WELCOME TO JAPANESE YOUTUBE AWESOMENESS #4! That's right, it's time for yet another installment of wackyness from the land of the rising sun. I have to say, I'm curious as to how in the hell I stumbled upon one of them at least ^_-

1 - Training with Hinako

This here is a small snippet of one the Isho ni Training (いしょうにとれ～にんぐ) episodes. Training with Hinako was designed purely to get otaku exercising, but I get the inate feeling that they didn't do their market research well enough. Or maybe they did it too well...I MEAN LOOK AT THOSE...erm, shorts? One comment on another similar video to this was simply questioning what part of the body this was designed to work out (arms and abs, or the dolphin), and I must say, considering, it's justified. Oh, on a final note, if you couldn't before, you can now count to 12 (or 24 if you watch the full 24 minute episode) in Japanese!

2 - Fanta Commercial

You sometimes really have to admire the Japanese when it comes to marketing. Sadly us Brits will be hard pressed to find these flavours over here, but this definately makes me want to try the flavours "only available in Japan." Basically, the Japanese are quite a bit more "fad" cultured than us, and it can be seen quite easily in day to day life. Styles change quite rapidly, and there are alot of "limited time" runs of your favourite snacks. Pepsi and Kit-kat get alot of seasonal runs and you'd be hard pressed to find them after a month or so from what I understand. If you can still find these flavours when in Japan, give them a go, as they're unlikely to be there for long.

Hope you all enjoyed the fourth installment of JYA, and I look forward to seeing you all again soon!

Laters d00dz
o/

Japanese Youtube Awesomeness #3

2010-05-24T00:43:00.000+01:00

Hey guys. Here I am again with another edition of Japanese Youtube Awesomeness!

1 - "Cagayake Girl's" Bass cover

This guy, Irojiro0318 is insane! Not only does he play the bass well, but the guitar too! Here's a cover he has done of the first K-On! op, "Cagayake Girl's". Impressive to say the least, and he looks like he's enjoying himself! Check out his mixi page here, but you do need to have an account with mixi to view it, and the entire site is in Japanese.

2 - Japanese Toilet Training

Seriously, how in the hell I stumbled upon this during my usual Youtube wandered I don't know. There's definately something charming about it, and I could see it being an effective way for children to learn about it, especially with the cute cartoon tigers. I also see the Japanese are sticking to the tried and tested "sing it and it'll stick better", which is actually quite true. I tend to get annoyed by the sheer volume of singing going on in most adverts though (seriously, I'll do a special sometime consisting of JUST adverts)!

I wonder how I come across these sometimes, but I'm glad I do as they tend to brighten my day ^^

I hope you enjoyed this weeks edition of the JYA, and I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Laters d00dz
o/

First opinions: Gundam Seed: Stargazer - Civilian Astray DSSD Custom, HG

2010-05-23T00:33:00.003+01:00

Thought I'd try this, as first impressions can make or break things (think about it, food, the opposite gender, games), and give my thoughts on a few things when I first take a gander at what's coming up.

Today we have the HG Civilian Astray DSSD Custom.

Above we have the view greeting us when we first open the box. I must say I do like the art at the bottom of that booklet, and flicking through it, it has a few cool pics and schematics!

Let's unpack and see what we have:

4 runners for the actual unit
1 smokey/clear runner for back and visor parts
1 runner for the stand
1 dry transfer sheet
1 sticker sheet
1 advertisement card
1 construction manual

I do like the advertisement card, as it has some development sketches of Strike Noir, and as expected of Bandai, the manual is of good quality, easy to follow, and contains some very well done images. The dry transfers consist of the usual warning, faction and part images, and again appear good quality, although I'm unsure how difficult it is to get dry transfers wrong. Stickers are standard and as you'd generally expect from a Bandai kit. The only niggle I have with the stickers, is that they're generally more shiny/metallic than the kit itself and appear slightly out of place on the models, however this is more of a general complaint and isn't a complaint about this kit at all.

The runner parts themselves feel quite sturdy, and what little work I've done with these pieces, it's safe to say they have the standard Bandai quality. Not that much work, but this is only a HG kit. The smokey runners are a slight bit disappointing. While the visor had its runner attached at points you wouldn't see, the other smokey parts don't have such inconspicuous locations. I've not worked with many parts like this, but I'm probably safe to say it'll be a git to get those looking perfect. I may be wrong, only time will tell.

The stand runner is pretty standard, and looks more than capable of holding this unit. I'm unsure as to whether it could withstand a 1/100 model, but most 1/144 scale units (bar the Kshatriya unit and a few other oversized mechs) should quite happily sit on it.

One thing that seemed odd to me was the lack of polycaps (those little rubber connector parts). I'm not that well versed in the gundam kit as yet, but I've not seen many modern kits (HG or higher) that don't use polycaps. I'll probably be a little more worried about posing this mech due to the lack of posability and durability associated with the polycap joints. I know the older kits didn't have the newer joints, but this being a more modern kit, it kinda surprised me.

Something else was the inclusion of only one set of hands:

As can be seen from the picture above, the runner only has one set of hands. Again, as I have only a little experience with these kits, the ones I have used have all had more than one set of hands. Even if it's just an open hand, that would be greatly appreciated. So if you want to do some of the cooler poses you may probably want to get hold of Bandai's spare hand parts (available from HLJ and most other reputable online retailers, as well as some shops in Japan itself if you happen to be there)

As I said a few times in the post, I'm not that well versed with these kits as yet, and as I experience more my opinions may change. Any feedback on this kit, feel welcome to post in the comments. Disagree with my opinions, again feel free to post in the comments.

I'll have more first impressions coming up as I get new figures and kits, so stay tuned guys. Constructive criticism welcome!

Also, keep your eyes open for WIP shots of both Freedom and Civilian Astray DSSD Custom.

Laters d00dz
o/

This is May? Nottingham sunshine!

2010-05-22T22:27:00.000+01:00

(Earlier promised Gundam post to appear later this evening - I kinda fell asleep halfway through the draft a couple nights ago T_T)

Hey guys!

So I strolled onto campus today (armed with my camera as I've started getting into the habit of photographing cool stuff!), slightly annoyed that I'd resigned myself to study on one of the NICEST days, possibly, of this year. I arrived on campus at around 2pm, claimed a lecture theatre for myself, and then proceeded to notice something was slightly amiss...

What in the hell was a pinecone doing that far up a wall in a 2nd floor lecture theatre?! Also, how was it attached? There was no obvious damage to the wall, nor were there any adhesives...Impressive feat eh?

So, what happened that was interesting? Nada really, I just happened to get a text requesting an appearance at a nearby park if I got bored...about 20 seconds after setting up in the theatre. Turns out, the room was actually hotter than it was outside. This tends to happen this time of year, when the university fails to realise that the air conditioning is specifically for days like these, and leaves it turned off! A stroll to the park was a necessary distraction, and quite a nice stroll it was too!

As can be seen, 'twas lovely out, and I actually managed to get study done. Not a wasted day after all! I'll admit that I didn't work anywhere near as much as I should have. But in this heat, there's no way in HELL that my body was going to allow me to do much but laze. Damn you inability to stand warm weather!

24 degrees is a rarity this time of year, so while I did appreciate it, it's not inkeeping with what it's been like recently. The weather is schizophrenic (for lack of a better word), and something's gotta be out of whack when we start getting warmer weather than parts of europe!

Anyone else enjoy todays weather? Was the weather as good in other parts of the world? Let me know in the comments below! I'll read them at the very least ^^

Laters d00dz
o/

An apology

2010-05-20T23:42:00.000+01:00

Hey guys. I just thought I'd make a quick post while I've got the chance to apologise for not updating like I said I was going to. I'm in exam season right now, so I'm spending a fairly large chunk of my time revising for my exams. In what little free time I've had, I've struggled to motivate myself to do anything other than play games.

I really do wish I had a capture card so I could give you guys stuff to watch/look at while I'm busy here. Even an uncommentated game would be more entertaining than an un-updated blog.

As I get the busiest a couple days before the exam, you can expect a few updates between now and monday, and then next wednesday through monday again during my free time slots. I'll also try to keep them as interesting as possible, instead of me rambling about nothing (unless you lot find my rambling interesting?).

I'll leave you with this one discovery...the K-On! girls character CDs are bloody good to revise with. For me at least =P

Laters d00dz
o/

(Oh, Gundam post to follow this very shortly)

RIP Zen

2010-05-17T22:41:00.000+01:00

I knew it would happen eventually, but why did it have to do so during exam revision. I really do need it to revise due to my extremely short attention span, and inability to stay extremely focused for prolonged amounts of time (read: I get bored easily).

If you didn't guess, earlier today my Creative Zen Vision:M had a terminal HDD failure. It doesn't boot (hangs on the "ZEN" screen), and the sounds from the inside scream spindle problem. Luckily a very nice friend has offered to lend me an iPod in the meantime, and has also located a replacement HDD. That's pretty awesome eh?

I know opening it will void the warranty, but I'm pretty sure the warranty is over now anyway, as it's survived 5 years of constant use and has been through a fair bit. Hopefully I won't have to get rid of it just yet with the HDD replacement. I'm kinda attached to it, and I don't really have the budget to get a new player. £30 for a new 30GB HDD is better than £119 for a newer model, with the same size HDD, and no real new functions.

When I get around to the repair, I'll let you all know how it goes. It should be fine, and as I said, I should have a media player in the meantime, so YAY NO BOREDOM!

Laters d00dz
o/

Japanese Youtube Awesomeness #2

2010-05-16T22:00:00.000+01:00

Huzzah! It's been (just over...sorry) one week since the first JYA, and so please welcome this evenings host...ME!

I'm meant to be revising, but procrastination is funner, and the JYA waits for no man!

1- Human Tetris 2 (Brain Wall)

Another edition of the somewhat popular Brain Wall from Tonneruzu no Minasan no Okage deshita (とんねるずのみなさんのおかげでした). Explains itself really. ON TO NUMBER 2!

2- Clock

This was found after last weeks JYA. It's from Kasou Grand Prix again, and this guy was one of the winners from the 79th edition. It's pretty cool.

I really do hope that the US, UK, or anyone else for that matter, don't try and do shows like these. Britain's got talent, and America's got talent are filled with alot of the most talentless people on this planet, and I seriously doubt anyone who attempts this would get very far sadly.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks Japanese Youtube Awesomeness. Tune in next weekend for episode 3, with your all knowing, and ever gaming host...ME!

Laters d00dz
o/

May Loot

2010-05-15T21:29:00.001+01:00

Hey guys. A quick update of this months loot (and this is probably all of the loot for this month due to budget and time constraints).

So, what do we have?

Griffon Haruhi Suzumiya, Swimsuit version
SEGA Rei Ayanami, Summer Drops Swimsuit version
KOTOBUKIYA UCC coffee and Rei figure
Region 3 Moon Child
COD4
COD WaW

Haruhi is pretty nice, and she's getting a spot in front of where I usually work, along with Yui and 00 Gundam (as well as Rei of course).

SEGA Rei has a couple flaws, but I'll explain when I make a post of her (Haruhi should be getting one too). Don't expect it too soon as I've got exams coming up.

KOTOBUKIYA Rei is a relatively small figure, but very detailed. I think she'll be going next to the Gothic Lolita Rei on my PC =)

It's a shame Moon Child has no European release, as it's a really good film. Has Gackt and HYDE as the main characters, and definately worth a watch. Play-asia has it for about $7 US, if I remember correctly.

COD4 and WaW were on sale, and I couldn't pass them up. Gonna cause problems revising, I know it!

Me likey, and I've got another figure on preorder for June/July. 2 guesses as to who that'll be of...

Laters d00dz
o/

Halo: Reach beta update

2010-05-14T00:54:00.000+01:00

Hey guys. I just thought I'd post a few screenshots of the Halo: Reach beta that I've taken throughout the course of my testing. There's still 5 days left of the beta, so hopefully I'll get a few more good ones.

I like being artsy sometimes so some are pretty artsy, others are just showing off or showing action. Remember, as I don't have a capture card, these were taken using the halo theatre screenshot function and downloaded from Bungie.net.

(top) ID Please - Pain about to ensue on the guy who just picked up that shotgun...

"Something tells me this ends badly for all of us..."

Artsy - "I knew things would end this way!"

SKULLAMANJARO! - In the new game type "Headhunter", the goal is to pick up skulls and capture them in a capture point. Hit 25 and you win. Those numbers you see are people who have skulls collected, and how many they have. The more you have, the bigger target you make yourself. Capture 10 skulls at once and you get a SKULLAMANJARO! meaning you automatically win! Not an easy feat, but I managed it ^^

Ship graveyard - You'd think that's concept art, but in actuallity you can see it on the current invasion map. So if you're playing, take a break sometime to see this pretty awesome view.

PRESS Y! - Of course, this being a beta test, there are a few glitches here and there. This theatre glitch made the switch weapon pop up stupidly large! Kinda funny at the time though.

IMMA FIRIN' MA LAZOR! - The spawn system in invasion is also slightly off. You work in 3 groups of 2 per team. I died, and spawned on my teammate as he fired the laser. Yes I spawned in midair. Yes I spawned directly in front of the laser as it was fired. Yes, it counted as a betrayal for him, but again, a pretty funny moment where the beta test goes slightly tits up ^^

There're also a few pretty upgrades to the engine, but I'm saving those for the end of the beta to show off and probably drum up interest for Halo: Reach when it's released in September.

Hope you liked the images.
Laters d00dz
o/

DELIVERY!

2010-05-13T00:28:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, sorry for no updates yesterday (or the day before as I just noticed it's past midnight). Been trying to get some revision done (and considering I've lost alot of my drive, unless it's in Japanese, it's difficult), and my exams are coming up very soon. So I may be updating less than I said I would for a couple weeks. Sorry.

Anyway, on to my point. I had a parcel arrive today (finally). I was pretty happy as the size told me that it was the Haruhi and Rei figures I ordered a while back (the other Rei figure shouldn't be that far away either so expect a group photo). I then noticed the box and was pretty worried. Notice the gaping hole?! What they were doing during transit to do that I don't know, but it removed what little faith I had in the Royal Mail. The box was also squished on one side! Good job the figures themselves were packed nicely with polystyrene everywhere (although I'm still finding those polystyrene "3"s!) and were undamaged (minus a few flaws on Rei, but they're manufacturing defects to be expected with figures of her kind).

I'll post stuff about Haruhi and Rei later on both my blog and figure.fm, including a mini review of both. So a group thing, then seperate posts of my opinions (which reminds me, I should head out and grab some fabric sometime for photos).

Anyone else had major things like this (or worse) when they've ordered things (not just figures)? Let me know in the comments, as I do find it interesting learning about each persons experiences with this.

Laters d00dz
o/

Because I'm such a serious scientist...

2010-05-10T23:50:00.001+01:00

Yes, this image is the culmination of 5 years at school, 2 years at college, and 3 years at university studying physics. I made my hair stand on end, by generating static electricity by rubbing a balloon on my head...

Actually, physics lesson quickly (hands up who didn't see this coming). Although you can't see it in this image, this "experiment" (I call it that, but it's really arsing around in the pub while I should be studying) can show electric field lines quite nicely. See, when you rub the balloon, it generates charge. This charge is released into the surrounding area via field lines. My hair follows these field lines to an extent.

Kinda useless in the pub, but cool nonetheless. If you get bored, give it a try!

That's it for now, laters d00dz
o/

EDIT: I hate to admit it, but writing scientific stuff at that time of day is a bad idea. What actually happens is that when the balloon is rubbed, electrons are transferred to the balloon. This then causes the hairs to repel each other, and also be attracted to the balloon. No example of field lines. My bad T_T

Old(ish) photo discovery

2010-05-09T21:20:00.002+01:00

I was browsing through the photos I recently grabbed off my phone and one caught my eye. It's what happened in the astronomy building on April fools day 2009.

Yes, that is a notice board. And yes, it was unscrewed, flipped upside down, and rescrewed on. You really do have to admire the enthusiasm that the astronomy PhD. students, post-docs, and lecturers have when it comes to this. No idea which member of that dept. did it, but he definately gains points from me ^^

More things to come soon.

Laters d00dz
o/

Japanese Youtube Awesomeness #1

2010-05-08T22:58:00.001+01:00

Huzzah for awesome idea number...erm, I've lost count...Yes. This is basically an excuse to spam all of you with some pretty cool videos from Japan I find around the interwebs.

In this edition we have 2 videos which gained my attention courtesy of Japan Probe.
1- Umbrella Art (Dailymotion)

As far as I am aware, it's from a programme called Kasou Grand Prix, but I'm unsure as to which one (as they appear to be numbered). If I can find more, I'll let you all know.

2- Human Tetris (Youtube)

I'll note here, that Human Tetris was found a good while back (although I did find it through Japan Probe). Also, the game is not actually called "Human Tetris", but is "Brain Wall" from a show called Tonneruzu no Minasan no Okage deshita (とんねるずのみなさんのおかげでした). Sadly I've been unable to find any full episodes around the interwebs which is a shame. It even has Taka-san from Utaban, which makes it even cooler ^^

Enjoy the videos guys.

Laters d00dz
o/

CARNAGE!

2010-05-08T21:16:00.000+01:00

Yes, that's what my room looked like when I was replacing the HDD a week or two ago. It's actually an improvement to what it looked like about 30 minutes before with old HDDs strewn about, cables everywhere, and dust in places I never knew existed (I also inhaled a fair amount, which cannot be healthy).

It's a late showing of the "operation" on HAL (for those that have seen the PC tower unit, you know why it's called that), and just how much trouble you could go through if you take the techy route through things.

There wasn't much else to this post really, but as I'm getting more hits now (the reader count has doubled!), I thought I'd post something for the daily checkers to read ^^

Laters d00dz
o/

ASS KICKERY...of the me kind

2010-05-07T23:05:00.001+01:00

Sup guys? Just to let you know what's been going on today. Awesome is what's been going on today! (I should also say this is one of the new rare occasions a post will have both "update" and "games" tags)

There was a Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament in the Portland building on campus, run as an independent event with the help of Game Society. 32 players, all fighting their arses off to get to the final and win the prize. System was simple. Win, and you continue. Lose 2 matches and you're out. So if you lost, then won continually, you fight in the final. Each match consists of 3 rounds. First round is a completely random arena, no items. In the second round, the loser of round 1 chooses an arena, and the third round followed the same system. So best of 3 rounds to decide the victor.

First place was a guy calling himself PMS, who used Samus Aran throughout the tourney, not losing a single match. His skills were insane, and he walked away with £20! Second place was "Goro", who was also impressive, this time using Marth, and he walked away with £10. I wasn't paying attention to who came third sadly, but he got some Haribo for his troubles. At least he got something eh?? ^^

How did I do in all this? Well considering I'd not played for 3 years, and my best character is Luigi, I didn't do too well. Lost my first game (to a falco blaster spammer T_T), won my second (by quite a margin, that poor guy didn't take a single stock from me in round 1), and then finally lost in my third match. That final match came down to the wire. 1 round each, 1 stock left each. I had 4% damage when he spawned back in. That fight went so down to the wire that a mistake is what caused my loss. I knocked him up, as he was falling, frantically trying to recover, I set up to use Luigi's rocket. He recovered JUST before I launched the rocket, shot under him and flew off the edge, unable to come back on in time.

So I lost quite badly, but on the whole it was a great experience, and I'd be more than happy to take part again, or in any other decent game based tournies around.

On that note, I shall leave. Enjoy the Smash Brothers Melee intro!

Later d00dz
o/

Politics

2010-05-07T15:09:00.000+01:00

Apologies for going a few days without updating guys. I've spent a fair amount of it sorting my room/desk out for some stuff at Danny Choo's website and figure.fm. It kinda requires my room to be somewhat presentable and I'll go into detail in a bit. I'll probably post the items on figure.fm and here anyway, so keep your eyes peeled.

Now on to what I wanted to talk about. The general election. The results were released this morning, and it appears we have a hung parliament for the first time since the 70s. The conservatives ended up gaining a crapload of seats, but not enough for them to come into power outright. Now the parties have to try and agree with each other on how to run the country, which I doubt will happen in as short a period as we'd like.

I was surprised to find that both Cornwall and Nottingham were predominantly conservative, especially considering the part of Cornwall I'm from has been majorly lib dem for quite some time. Glad to hear that Mebyon Kernow gained a fair few votes though. Maybe that Cornish assembly isn't that far away after all. I know I would have voted for them had I been registered to vote in Cornwall, but alas I wasn't.

On an ending note, the result may not have been what we wanted, and the conservatives are holding a majority of the cards in this new parliament. That doesn't mean we can all go out bitching and moaning about it though. I know I don't agree with the conservatives, and a fair few others don't either, but that's how a democracy works guys. Hopefully this government won't screw the country up more than it already is, but best get our contingency plans sorted just in case.

See ya later d00dz
o/

You BETA believe Reach has come!

2010-05-03T23:27:00.001+01:00

That's right guys, the Halo Reach beta is finally live! It's a 1.15GB download, and it was up for action at 1800 GMT.

From the few games I've played, it's pretty solid. The new weapons are pretty awesome (the new sticky launcher and DMR are INSANE!), the new maps are a decent size, and the new armour options add quite a bit of variety to the mix.

I'll explain in another post about everything after I've played it a bit more, and gained more experience with each loadout.

Remember, those of you that have ODST are elegible to take part in the beta. Those of you that don't have ODST are going to have to either get it, or wait until Reach actually comes out to try it. Unless of course you dislike the halo games.

I'm off to play it some more guys. Laters!
o/

Video update 2

2010-05-02T21:42:00.000+01:00

I'm going to name the video updates simply that, "video update" from now on. It's easier than thinking up cool titles. The cool titles are reserved for normal posts ^^

Change of format. Definately not as choppy, but I really do have to sort out my recording style.

I'll sort something out eventually, so stay tuned!

Laters d00dz
o/

April(ish) loot

2010-05-02T02:12:00.000+01:00

Yo guys. Here's a little poke at what I got hold of around April. I say around April as it was mostly late March, April, and earlier on the 1st of May ^^

-The newest EVE Online expanded universe book, The Burning Life. First book was great, hoping this one to be just as good!
-Evangelion 1.11: You are (not) alone DVD. It's FINALLY released over here in the UK. Took ages! Now to wait another year or so before we get 2.0 T_T
-Yui plush. Even though I'm a guy, I'm kind of a sucker for some of these cute things, especially Yui Hirasawa ^^
-Yui T-shirt. I watched K-On! in a short timeframe, and was kinda sad it was over (this was before season 2), kinda went mad and bought this ^^
-Yui Mug. I'm a sucker for Yui it seems ^^
-Eternal Sonata. I'd been thinking about this for quite some time. Randomly popped into Gamestation with some friends and saw it for £5! Had to grab it ^^

I've got a few other things coming soon, so I'll post about those too when they arrive ^^
o/

Freedom WIP

2010-04-30T23:08:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update that I promised a while back of my MG Freedom progress.

So far I've only managed to finish the torso. I'm not going to spray it, but I am using this as a panel lining test bed, which I think looks pretty good (especially the ^ parts on the faceplate).

Only one picture at the moment, but I'll get some more proper WIP pictures when I get batteries for my digicam (currently using my 3 megapixel camera phone, not my 8 megapixel digicam). Constructive criticism always welcome!

o/

Specifics

2010-04-30T22:46:00.000+01:00

Hey guys. Just to let you know I've got a few new things set up.

First off, I'm separating posts from this point on. If I'm talking about games, gundam kits, or figures predominantly they will not have the "update" tag. Each post is going to be specific! If you look to the right, a little under my profile, there're 4 links. Each links to a different series of posts. General life (random stuff and how my life is going), Games, Gundam, Figures. Look out for those specifics!

Secondly, I've changed the name of the blog. "Jonny's blog" was a bit too plain, so it is now (drumroll please), "Dark-kai3's Ramblomatic". Definately more me and true to the point.

Third...MORE POSTS! That's the main reason for the new setup. If I find random awesome stuff, I'll post. If I get a new game, I'll post. As I make progress on my gundam kits and acquire figures, I'll post. That simple dudes. I'll also eventually get around to acquiring a capture card to record gameplay, so you'll get to see some "fools rush in" gameplay along with more conservative stuff depending on how I'm feeling.

Hope you guys like it!

o/

It's a cold cold time!

2010-04-30T20:17:00.000+01:00

"ENEMY NUKE INCOMING!" is something I hear ALOT on Modern Warfare 2. And for the first time ever, I managed to induce that alarm to the enemy team!

Kinda awesome that my first nuke also came while we were losing, so I also got the spinny star!

I'm that awesome peeps!

o/

(on a side note, this is a few weeks old, I've only just been able to get the pictures from my phone)

Alive inside?...Me?

2010-04-25T23:24:00.001+01:00

I know it's rare for me to update twice in a day, but I just found this and felt the need to share. Those of you on facebook will have already seen my link, so here it is for those not friends with me on facebook.

It would appear I'm not quite so heartless as to not find this sweet or touching. It's a lovely 3 minute video, with one majorly sad part, and then one amazingly warm moment.

Have a good evening guys
o/

Through the KeyHole

2010-04-25T16:00:00.004+01:00

Hey guys, this is an information post ^^

For those who've been looking at my Twitter feed on the right of the page (or on Twitter itself) you may have noticed my "What's going on in the world of Japanese TV" posts every now and then. Yesterday afternoon was one such event after discovering that TBS is now on KeyHoleVideo.

"What's KeyHoleVideo?" I hear you cry. Well, KHV is a program that allows streaming of Japanese TV and radio being aired live at that time. As can be seen in the picture above, I'm currently watching a programme about baseball on 日本テレビ (Nihon/Japan television). It's a pretty cool program, and I definately recommend it for all of you learning Japanese. Although if you have a limited Japanese vocabulary, it is kinda difficult to follow due to, as expected, the programmes not having English subs. But it's live Japanese TV, if you're expecting English subs there's something wrong with you.

There are a few issues, but considering it's streaming from across the globe it's understandable, and the quality of the stream is impressive considering. Watching it on a video size much bigger than what you see above is a bad idea, as it's then difficult to make words out, and pixelation gets out of hand. Also the Engrish used in the buttons and program itself could cause a little confusion, but on the whole they're pretty self explainatory.

One pretty cool feature is the ability denoted by the "NO TOP MOST" button, which allows it to ALWAYS be on top of other windows. So if you're browsing the interwebs and wanna watch TV too, just click that button so it's green and you'll be fine! It's something I do quite often.

The one thing that you need to remember is the time difference. Their best programmes (like Utaban) show at around 1900 Sapporo, Osaka, Tokyo time, which is 11am for us brits. Don't use the program between 7pm and 9pm GMT though, as you'll be stumbling into that annoying informercial part. Unless you want to watch the SAME four adverts over and over and OVER again avoid it at all costs. I made that mistake yet again last night, wondering why all I was watching was adverts, before I noticed the time of day.

If you're interested you can download the program HERE by selecting "SetupKHVideo4.41.exe", installing, and then choosing a username and password, then clicking registration. It's relatively simple to use, and I recommend three channels predominantly: Asahi TV (TV朝日）, TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting Station), and Nihon TV (日本テレビ).

Have fun guys!
o/

12 hours of effort?!

2010-04-22T20:16:00.003+01:00

Yo dudes (and ladies to avoid being sexist).

I finally finished switching harddrives over last night at 11pm. I wouldn't have minded but I started at 11am. That's 12 hours of tinkering. The removing of the old (RAID 0) drives was simple, as was the installing of the new drive, but the OS installation...oh dear god was that a bitch. First I had the task of getting the motherboard to recognise the drive. A simple task usually, just enter the BIOS, find the drive and Bob's your uncle (whoever this Bob fellow is...). However, I forgot that my RAID controller was motherboard based and that I had to sort it within there before the motherboard could recognise it. That was 2 hours in, which was a relatively good time. I installed the OS fine, then the shit hit the fan.

I decided to install updates before transferring the files I backed up. There were 106 updates, and me being the impatient bugger I am, I chose to install them all at once. Let's just say that Windows Vista can't seem to handle that many updates at once. How did I learn this? It wouldn't shutdown. Nor would it boot up. I gave it the best part of 3 hours to sort itself before I ended up having to sort it. I ended up wiping the HDD and reinstalling again.

Attempt 2: OS installed, and upon inputting the username and password I wanted for the administrator account, I was taken to a login page...with "Other User" as the option. I couldn't login! I couldn't do anything from this point all due to it wanting a "password reset disk", to which there wasn't one, and there never has been one with my OS disk. Solution? HDD wipe and try again T_T

Attempt 3: I'm actually currently using this attempt, so I appear fine (touch wood T_T). This was the cleanest of all installs. I've only done a few updates as I'm taking it very slowly. Prior to shutting the PC down last night I installed a few drivers. Namely my graphics cards and webcams, so they're now working nicely. I also managed to transfer all of my files just before the driver installs, so I also have all of my music, pictures, documents and EVE ^^

I'm actually liking the new drive. It's a damnsight more stable than my previous RAID pair, while also being alot quieter too! EVE runs smoother, sitting calmly at 60 fps while in station, 60 fps while in space, 60 fps while in a fight...it's great! Although this could be due to the updated graphics drivers too, but it's cool nonetheless.

For those wondering what I upgraded to in the end, it's a Western Digital Caviar Green 750GB 7200rpm 32mb cache. I know a fair few would say I should have bought a 1TB, but to be frank the stability on those is still lacking and I don't intend on buying a drive to replace the drive I bought to replace a drive.

Oh, my graphics card is sitting in its space fine too now. It's no longer shoehorned in as I lowered the HDD location by one space. Now the only thing I have left to sort is that friggin fan which has been driving me nuts for the best part of a year. A bearing's gone, so I'll need to tinker.

I'll leave it there for now peeps, but I leave you with the knowledge that I'll try to get a new video recorded sometime, and hopefully with a better camera than what I used last time. Laters peeps

o/

(I leave you with a Tiny Tank video from several years back!)

The one thing that ruins it...mostly

2010-04-14T22:15:00.004+01:00

Hey guys, hope you liked my Youtube venture. I intend on getting back on sometime soon but I've got a fair bit to sort before I can stick on game recordings (mainly as I play games on my PC monitor, and I can't use a capture card with my monitor while recording, annoyingly). Anyway to my point.

I love Modern Warfare 2, but there's one (well a few but this takes the biscuit) thing that majorly annoys me (see picture). It's those asshats who keep harrassing other players about boosting, and prestige hacks, and also about slagging you off because you tore their face off with the butt of your M4A1 and they didn't like that you had more skill to do it. OK I can ignore it, but the sheer volume gets out of hand. It's also the one thing IW can't fix as it's the players, not the system.

I dunno, small rant about that. I'll go continue playing MW2 and FFXIII. I'll see y'all later d00dz!
o/

(oh check out the Tejbz video attached ^^)

Youtube? I tube too!

2010-04-11T20:09:00.003+01:00

Hey guys. Just letting you know what's coming up soon...IN A NEW MEDIUM! That's right, I'm coming at you through the wonders of VIDEO! Something tells me I'll need a new camera, but I'll probably get one of those soon.

Say nothing about my constant head tipping and the overuse of the word "videos" (although I seem to put emphasis on the "EOS" making it "videeeoooooooss"...).
Have fun peeps and as always, comments welcome!

Yaaaaarrrrr I be a pirate...a legitimate political candidate

2010-03-23T14:24:00.003Z

It was only a matter of time until a party emerged that protected the rights of the internet user (thanks Sweden). It is with great pleasure that I introduce...THE PIRATE PARTY'S MANIFESTO!

Give it a read as some of the points are actually food for thought, and have got me interested in the party. As I'm meant to be working on my essay (I'm on a computer on campus now) I'll leave it here.

See ya later internet peoples!

STAR TREKKIN'

2010-03-23T00:30:00.005Z

What's up internet peoples? Just thought I'd share a video recorded by my good friend Mr. Boucher of what a fellow sci-fi member got for her birthday earlier today. A POLYSTYRENE ENTERPRISE! I hope it looks as awesome to you as it did to us (also, for those that don't know me personally, yes that is me going "that is so cool" at the end)!

(Apologies to those viewing on facebook, but you'll have to over to my blog to view this, by following this link)

Decisions decisions

2010-03-20T22:48:00.003Z

Well, it's been yet another month since I last posted on my blog (apologies yet again folks). I've still got a fair bit on my plate, but I think I have an idea of what I'm going to do, at least in the near future.

Let's get the academic/work stuff out of the way first. I had the choice of an MSc or work in my last post, which hasn't really changed. However now I have the added option of teaching. It's never been very high on my list of potential jobs, but something says that "Games tester", "professional game reviewer", or "paid for doing anything that I find amazingly interesting" are somewhat unattainable. At least for now. I've thought about doing a PGCE and learning to teach in college as I hear that there's a major shortage of Physics teachers around...*loses train of thought due to a sudden winamp choosing of "私の恋はホッチキス"...damn you sudden urge to air bass guitar*...and so that's an option at least. And not a bad option at that. Just to make it clear, I've basically decided to at least take a gap from doing an MSc. I've actually been considering not doing an MSc, taking a job as a graduate with a BSc, earning a decent level of cash in the process, and investing in my hobbies. With that process I may get to a stage where I can turn at least one of my hobbies into a cash scheme (Like Danny Choo, oh god of Otaku. Although Melonpan is definately the otaku a fair few of us aspire to, but I'd prefer to not reach that level...).

This brings me onto the blog. I know I've not updated much, and to be frank I've not updated as much as I want. Main reason is my being a student. Yes I buy stuff, but with my being a student and not having a job (apparently noone wants to recruit me), I have little in the form of disposable income. This means that I can't keep up to date on figure and mecha releases (also meaning I miss the limited runs...grrr), thereby eliminating my want to devote a segment to figures. I could talk about the games I buy, but due to constraints I'm not buying as many as I used to (on a related note FFXIII is awesome! But that's another post), although I am finding time to play them.

So what I'd like to ask (those who read this on Facebook as well as those that visit the blog directly) what I should do? Should I just keep updating like I do, or is there something specific I should turn my attention to, at least for now? I've got Freedom still being built, so I'll probably review that at some point. I also have an Astray civilian model kit arriving sometime soon, so I'll get a review/in progress making of that up too. I'm also planning on sprusing this blog up with a complete redesign, but my HTML/XHTML is far from perfect, so that'll take a while, but I've got a cool design waiting so keep an eye out (although I guarantee bugs. This is ME we're talking about ^^).

I'll stop here, but I'll post about FFXIII sometime soon, maybe even how far I've gotten with Freedom. I'll leave you with the intro to Chobits, which I got the sudden urge to rewatch today ^^

Later internet peoples!

Prestige?

2010-02-12T00:45:00.005Z

As per usual, I'm sitting here at nearly 1 in the morning wondering why I'm not in bed asleep like the non-geek my age. But, I'm a geek, and therefore I am awake at nearly 1 in the morning =)

Yes my mind does indeed work in mysterious ways (mysterious to even me), but interests are far from mysterious. Recently I started (and finished sadly) an anime called K-ON! which is awesome! It's too good for only 13 episodes and an OVA, and I'm really hoping that the rumours of an actual second season are true! It initially follows Hirasawa Yui, a completely spaced out girl who's just started high school, and ends up joining the light music club (Kei-on). She can't play an instrument, nor does she understand the costs involved, but undetered she perseveres and learns the guitar (although she doesn't understand what she's doing when she plays). It's a great series, and I really do recommend it, although I should stick a warning with this. The songs involved are the J-Pop standard happy tunes, and they WILL stick in your head! There's no escaping it, but there're no complaints from me about that! Oh, I also finished watching Gundam Seed Destiny earlier today too. I must say, I'm kind of disappointed with the ending, so much more could be explained at the very least. How do the governments cope? What becomes of Athrun, Kira, Lacus, Shinn, Luna and Cagalli? I get the feeling they left the ending vague for a chance of a Gundam Seed film, but Gundam 00 is the new kid on the Gundam block, and that has it's movie coming out this March. Seed's not going to get a look in anytime soon, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about the 00 movie (I mean 00 Quan-T just looks awesome, and a nice return of the funnel system methinks!), but it'd be nice to see the Seed series finished off properly.

Moving on from anime we have the gaming part of my life. While I bought Force Unleashed and L4D2 since Modern Warfare 2, MW2 is the staple of my playing. Left 4 Dead 2 is good, don't get me wrong, but it's boring playing single player, and I've not really got the setup for 3 friends to pop over and play it. Force Unleashed is awesome, and I really should get around to finishing it. Those force powers alone make it worthwhile! In reference to MW2, I'm essentially second prestige. Essentially due to me being level 70 first prestige and having been so for quite sometime while I finish the challenges I almost have complete, which is taking a damnsight longer than I had anticipated! It's not quite a chore though (although winning 50 sabotage games is a friggin joke, and if I ever play another sabotage game it'll be too soon!), and doesn't become as repetetive as you'd think. This is mostly due to the sheer variety of skill between the players. It's odd when you think about it, there are some tenth prestige people floating about, who are so amazingly crap it's unbelievable, while there are some pre-prestige people who are so unbelievably good! Of course as with any online FPS there are the noobtubers, the campers and the glitchers (not to mention the boosters, "2100 gamer points for 10th prestige". Not sure how many I've told to, erm, "go away" in not quite so nice language, but it's beginning to get irritating), but as soon as you push past that and actually get a game with good players that isn't riddled with lag (due to no dedicated servers, another CLEVER idea...) it's a very good game! The story isn't that bad either, and the Spec Ops mode is definately a challenge on veteran!

Now here's the interesting bit. Way back when, it must be a good 6 years now, I used to play the piano. I was never graded, nor did I play in concerts or anything, but I played nonetheless. As an interest if you will. So recently, after watching all of these amazingly talented people on Youfai...I mean Youtube play these beautiful pieces, and also finding the FFVII Piano Collections sheets, I decided to relearn it. It's not so difficult relearning it, although my left hand is pretty spazzy, and getting it to do what I want properly again is going to take a bit of time. It didn't help that I forgot how to read sheet music too, but again all things in good time. Can almost read sheet music by glancing again, so that's always a handy skill to get back. I'm definately looking forward to being able to do the Piano Collection pieces justice, it'll just take time and effort. Sadly this effort is shared with my studies, and they take precedence at the moment, along with these uni applications.

The applications are remarkably narrow now. There're only 3 or 4 universities in the country that actually do a MSc in astrophysics, and I need to get into one of them. From what I hear the University of Sussex (edit: I really should check these things sometimes, Surrey doesn't even offer the damn course) is my best bet, as they have quite a good Astrophysics program, and looking at the campus earlier, it's quite nice I must say. Going to have to accept the life of the astronomer really, rarely staying in the same place, constantly moving. That'd be hard if I actually end up finding love on my travels, but as usual let's play that one by ear.

Riteo, I'm now actually kinda tired (sorry my geek brethren), and so I shall leave you with the song "My Love is a Stapler" (Watashi no koi wa hotchi-kiss - 私の恋はホッチキス) from K-ON! Enjoy peoples!
o/

And so it all begins anew

2010-02-07T01:15:00.003Z

Well, it has been quite a while since my last post, so why not give a HUGE update on my life? Although it's 1.16am so I may forgo the minor details. Forgive me.

I guess I may as well go in chronological order. My last post was talking about the MG Freedom kit, and well, that's made little progress. Things got majorly busy around November, and getting Modern Warfare 2 didn't really help things (I'm way too addicted, but that's another post entirely). I had the realisation that there'd be problems if I didn't pull my finger out this year, and so I studied harder than most people would have ever seen me do. I'll admit I was slack over the Christmas holidays during the whole 9 days I spent in Cornwall (seriously, I got a complete total of ZERO minutes work done...), but I made up for it with the sheer volume of work I put in when I returned to Nottingham, attempting to be ready for my six exams spread between the 12th and 22nd of January.

So did all of this revision pay off? I was quietly confident with some, and not so confident with others. The results came out earlier this week, and while I did up my average, I still have to do alot of work this semester in order to achieve that 2:1 I want.

Shortly after the results were out (and I mean the next day) I popped in to talk to one of the professors about possible postgraduate masters. While I was redirected to another professor (and then my supervisor of all people afterwards), I had the bad news of the chances of me even getting onto a Ph.D course in Theoretical Astrophysics was slim to none due to my grades, no matter how specialised I am. To be frank, this hit me quite hard, and made me question why I had chosen this path for myself in the first place. Had the dream of becoming a Dr. Harper of Theoretical Astrophysics been just that, a dream? Well those of you that know me, would find it hard to believe that I'd give up that quickly, and you're right, I haven't given up just like that. While the news hit me hard, and left my head all over the place, with the help of a few people (my mother included, as she does tend to know me better than anyone else...sadly) I managed to calm down, regain my self and do some number crunching.

Think about it, while the government is willing to help when it comes to being an undergrad, and universities are willing to help if you're doing a Ph.D, what do us potential masters students get? Answer, nothing. Well, nothing easily available thus far. I've taken the option of funding myself if I get accepted on the MRes I'm applying for (at a few universities, I even applied for a MPhil in Leicester on the off chance they see my potential and like the idea of my research), and so I need money. The course costs around £3500, while I estimate the living to be somewhat around £4000, judging by my previous experience with the fallback just in case. After much number crunching...and spamming Rosie's skype (again, sorry), I managed to determine that it was doable. Of course this runs on several assumptions, one assuming a somewhat decent rate of pay, and two...that I can actually find a job by March. No simple feat, believe me (we are in a recession afterall...as much as the government would like us to think otherwise).

To sort this, I've actually taken the initiative for the first time in quite a while. I've been getting my applications sorted slowly for each university course I like the look of, and have also been handing CVs to different places around Nottingham (of which Games Workshop seemed the most interested oddly, the guy there seemed to like my previous shop experience). So on the job front it's a waiting game, on the postgraduate front I just have to keep working on my applications and make my research proposals stand out and make them want me (investigating peculiar galaxies will hopefully get some interest).

I know this is a long post, so I think I'll end it here and continue this tomorrow. I'll make it a bit more light hearted and give an insight into the anime I've been watching, the games I've been playing, and the new instrument I'm relearning from a time long since past. I shall therefore leave you with a video of something I'm intending to learn (eventually) on the new instrument, "Cloud Smiles" from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Enjoy, as it's a beautiful piece, and I'll see y'all soon!

FREEDOM!

2009-10-24T12:19:00.003+01:00

Sadly not freedom from work or anything, but the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. Yes it finally arrived today, and I can't wait to start work on it. I need to get some fine sandpaper to get rid of the nubmarks (those of you that saw the previous kits I made may notice there are some white bits still around, that's because I couldn't fully sand them away), but I do have some Gundam markers now, so I can panel line and touch up as needed ^^

I'll make posts of the progress as it'll be a bit slower than the previous ones, partly due to the number of parts, partly due to the stupid workload I gave myself (an 80/40 split does not equal an easy first semester).

Anyhoo, as I have much work to do (or gundam to make...maybe), I'll leave you with Freedoms reactivation from Seed Destiny. See you again soon.

BSc in Procrastination

2009-09-29T13:50:00.004+01:00

Yes, it looks like I'm going to be doing alot of procrastination soon. I spoke to my tutor today, and changed to a top heavy year. Now if no problems occur and make me go back to the 60/60, I'm on a 70/50 (although as someone pointed out earlier, it'll be more of a 80/40 split...). Main reason for this was due to a couple friends saying that the Computational Physics module is stupidly easy for someone who has more programming history than the average Physics undergrad (turns out I actually do have more than the average ^^).

On another note, first lab session was held today. I signed in at 10:00, and signed out at 10:05. Yes it was that useful. I'm yet to meet my partner, nor have I had a meeting with my supervisor yet, so I actually have no idea what I'm meant to be doing. So for the 2 hours after I signed out (and then got bored) I sat in a computer room, and found as many research papers about my project on a certain research paper archive website. Have to set aside some time to read those, which will most likely be Thursday.

Curious as to how this will all turn out, but here's hoping my average goes above what it was. Although, a few things that could throw a spanner into works have recently arisen. I found myself talking to the cat, and apologising to it, which is obviously a sign that I've been single for faaaaaaaar to long now. Then there's the need to play games, as let's face it, reality does suck. And finally there's the Freedom Gundam kit I ordered, and when that arrives I'm going to spend a fair amount of time making that look awesome. May even spraypaint it to give it the proper colours instead of the injection moulded plastic colours.

Anyhoo, I'm off to procrastinate some more. I'll leave you with the 4th intro the Gundam Seed, just so all of you can see how awesome Freedom looks!

The drop into Hell

2009-09-26T18:21:00.003+01:00

This isn't an emo post don't worry. It's referencing Halo 3: ODST. New Mombasa is known as hell now due to the sheer volume of covenant.

On to what I was intending to say. I've recently started my third (and technically final) year at uni. Looks like it's going to be a busy year, what with the massive project (and useless partner), coupled with the sheer volume of work I have to do in order to bump up my average. Luckily I managed to get the project I wanted, so it should be all good ^^

As I mentioned before the uni update, I've been playing a fair amount of ODST this week. It's amazing, if a bit short, and Firefight is worth the money alone. It gets out of hand so quickly, and when hammers get involved it turns into a deathtrap! The last 3 of the Halo 3 Mythic maps are released with it (with every map now on one disc with ODST, handy eh), and they too, are awesome! The community favourite Heretic makes its return, and with it comes Longshore (a remarkably large map set in a dock), and Citadel (a very open, if a bit cramped, Forerunner artifact). Not had the chance to play Longshore yet, but I'm genuinely impressed, and they didn't make the Citadel skull the easiest thing to find. But we all like a challenge ^^

I also gave in to temptation and ordered the X10A Freedom Master Grade kit, along with some Gundam Seed Destiny markers for panel lining and touching up the nub markings. This MG, while 1/100 scale (the same as my 00 Gundam) consists of over 250 parts, so I'm looking forward to making this. If all goes well I'll end up ordering the Strike Gundam with the Aile pack, which is also an MG. I really must resist buying the MG Exia Ignition Mode, and the PG (Perfect Grade, the highest level level of detail/articulation) 00 Raiser Gundam (that's 00 Gundam with the 0 Raiser attached to it's back and shoulder GN Drives).

Roll on the next month so I can get that kit eh.

I'll leave you with the extended ODST live action trailer. Even if you don't like Halo, you have to admit, this trailer is awesome!

September loot

2009-09-18T12:30:00.002+01:00

Well after an age of waiting, I finally get my loot from Tokyotoys. A haruhi oppai mousepad, which helps with my severe case of RSI I must say, and a Haruhi/Mikuru/Nagato bunny girl wallscroll...mainly due to the Kaname Chidori/Teletha Testarossa (Full Metal Panic) one being out of stock :(

Just to point out, I was debating what sort of mousepad to get, one of those boring ones, or one that is relevant to my interests? Obviously the otaku inside won, and I purchased one relevant to my interests ^^

If it wasn't for the Royal Mail postal strike yesterday, and their sheer incompetence, I would have had it Tuesday. There's another strike on Monday, meaning I won't get my copy of ODST on time most likely T_T

You guys had many problems with the postal service your way?

Cable Ties

2009-09-16T17:26:00.005+01:00

No not the kind that you can tie cables together with, more the kind that can tie you up!

Let me explain. I'm fed up playing my xbox on a small TV/DVD combi, and so have been trying to connect my xbox to my monitor and speakers without having to pay through the nose. I ended up buying a £18 cable from Amazon to do it easily, as the number of converters I woulda been going through is immense (although I did spend £10 earlier on a HDMI to DVI converter...that's wasted but never know when it'll be handy). But it got me thinking. Why do we need so many cables? We have USB, DVI, VGA, Scart, Composite, HDMI, Ethernet (and so many different ones of that, CAT5, CAT6, etc, etc). Why can't we use one all purpose one? I know it'll be a bitch to manufacture, but it would save so much hassle. Or what about an anything to anything converter. Again a bitch to convert, but then we won't have so many different cables bloody everywhere.

I was almost buried by the sheer volume of cables I was searching through earlier and I still didn't have the one I wanted. It's madness! (No...THIS...IS...SPARTA! to milk an already overused catchphrase).

I'm going to go and watch a new series while I wait for that cable and calm down after the whole "buried by cables incident" as it shall now be known. I'll leave you with the intro to the series, but I'm not saying what it is ^^

F***ing Kanji

2009-09-14T17:55:00.002+01:00

I'm busy trying to work through that issue of Newtype I ordered a while back, but there's so much kanji, and I've still not properly grasped the Japanese language. I understand the connectors (ie, wa, no, wo etc) but 'tis a bit harder than I imagined. Something that confused me majorly is something that's similar to what people learning English struggle with, and that's the whole double readings thing. I was looking at my dictionary trying to figure out what the hell the last part of the sentence was, and the only thing I could find was 'to shout', which seemed out of place. It was. Turns out it should have actually read 'the beginnings' or something. Wasn't expecting the 'origins' kanji to combine with tonaru to read as that, but it sure as hell makes more sense than 'origins are shouted'...

Just thought I'd let you know of the pains of learning another language, especially one with entirely different writing styles to our own. I'm sure any other Japanese learner, as well as Chinese, Korean, Russian, Thai, Arabic, etc. student will tell you the exact same thing!

Have fun with whatever you're doing people!

o/

I'M A BILLIONAIRE! (with internet moneyz)

2009-09-10T20:41:00.003+01:00

Yes I am! Last night I hit 1 Billion ISK in my wallet on EVE. Technically I've got well over a billion in assets, but still this is the first time I've actually had this much in my wallet!

AWESOME!

On another note, may have to just do random posts to give people something to read. I know some of you read this as you think it's pretty interesting to read my thoughts. Expect some pretty random ones then ^^

I'll leave you with CCP's most recent EVE trailer, The Butterfly Effect. Clever I must say!

o/

The Race

2009-09-07T19:46:00.003+01:00

Well, while not one of the cooler posts that I said I'd do, it's a post nonetheless! HUZZAH! *listens to the silence* OK, let's fill you in with what I've been up to shall I?

As you know I've been back in Cornwall for just over 2 months, and I must say, I'm bored to tears. I've been working 5/6 days a week, learning to drive a couple hours a week, and playing the XBOX every evening. Work's drained me majorly, but luckily tomorrow is my last day (how many times have I told my boss that I can't work next week? Lord!).

I happened to have my driving test today as well...of which I failed! Still pretty annoyed about it. A culmination of retarded parking forcing me into a VERY awkward place, and a learner who didn't know the width of his car stopping. So 2 majors, on an otherwise 5 minor run. Unbelievable eh? And we still have all these collosal asshats on the road. How they managed to pass I'll never know. Still debating as to whether I will retake the test in Nottingham sometime soon, or wait until I return to Cornwall for Christmas and take my test then.

One thing I've been doing alot of this summer, is playing games. Moreso than usual. EVE, and Red Faction have been the staple of my gaming. I have to say, Red Faction's online is amazing, and the experience system is much better than Halo's, although I recently started playing that again due to another friend getting an XBOX.

With EVE, I'm in a race with the IA7 (Interalliance Tournament 7) to reach 1 Billion ISK, which I'm 90 mil from. I intend to get 1 billion before the second round of the tournament, which starts this Saturday, so I have about 5 days to acquire it. It should be pretty easy with a few of my setups.

Anyway, I'll leave you be for now, but I'll leave you with an awesome tune. Yello, and The Race!

Schrodingers Cat

2009-08-28T21:11:00.004+01:00

Hey, I know it's been a while since I last posted. Got a couple cool blog posts coming up when I can be bothered to upload them from my phone but until then I have this.

I was watching the last episode of Big Bang Theory season 1, at which point I got reminded about this. It has to be one of the greatest points of genius I've ever experienced and can truly be used in real life to weigh up both the good and the bad parts of a certain goal in everyones life. I know I go on about it quite a bit, of which I apologise, but check it out!

I know you can figure the whole thing out!
See ya later guys o/

July Loot

2009-07-23T20:17:00.003+01:00

Well, I had a pleasant suprise earlier, so I'll be combining the Rei figure pics, with the other loot I happened upon today ^^

First we have the combined loot. Rei Ayanami Lolita Noir, New Type, and Young Ace!

New Type, with a pretty wierd cover. I think it's an Eva sketch of some sort!

Young Ace, with the very lovely Rei on the cover ^^

The first figure of my collection, Rei, and first to enter my Rei shrine ^^

Was greeted by this K-On 2 page spread...most lovelysome!

So I've spent quite a bit of moolah this month, so gonna have to start saving a bit, but there's another really nice Rei figure in a new version entry plug, which costs around £80 which I'd love. It costs a bit much though, so if I do decide on it, I'll have to not have any other things that month. Tough choice!

I leave you with the Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone trailer! Can't wait for the European release, as I'll definately be buying the most epic version available! EVA LOVE!

First Impact

2009-07-20T15:01:00.004+01:00

HUZZAH, we have a very happy Jonny today, as it has been the most win day ever...well at least for a while anyway!

I went into Hayle at 10.30 to go to the Foundry sorting office, expecting hassle, the need to complain, and leaving empty handed. Instead, I got there, had a friendly person come up to the window, fetch my package for me with a smile on their face, and sent me on my way in a good mood ^^ The package was undamaged...seriously, the corners of the box weren't even squashed the slightest bit, leaving me remarkably impressed with both HLJ's courier airline and the Royal Mail. This doesn't happen often, but I'm giving them credit this time ^^ So Rei is my new housemate, and (I don't care what anyone says for this next bit) she's bloody cute. Seriously, the dress is cute, the hat is cute, the boots/socks are cute, and of course the face is amazingly cute! Happy I bought it now, the Rei/Eva shrine has been started! I'll post up some pics later on.

Also just had my bike MOT'd in Lanner. Again, amazed at the quality of service. I know these guys at the Kawasaki Centre are good, but all I did was sit down, have a can of Tango and a Twirl, and the bike was done. Only cost £28 too, which left me, again, in a very good mood!

One thing put a slight downer on the day, and that was when the rain came while I was halfway home, but it was light rain, nowhere near enough to even wet my jeans, let alone my biking jacket. So still in a good mood ^^

I've gotta say, this doesn't happen often me being in such a good mood. I really can't see how the day can go downhill, as I have a pub quiz later (in Lanner again) with a few peeps I've not seen much of, and even if we don't win, it'll be a fun time...as well as the first chance I've had to have a pint in a good while. Only one thing can make me happier today, so let's see if that happens, but not gonna divulge anything about that, so I'll leave you all guessing!

I leave you with L'Arc~en~Ciel - Link which is a really upbeat song!

The Royal Fail

2009-07-18T12:45:00.005+01:00

Quick post about the postal system here in the UK again.

I ordered my Rei figure a while back, mentioned in the previous post, and it arrived today...well it would have. I had customs fees to pay, as well as 'unpaid delivery' to pay as well. So I go on the Royal Mail website, get the tracking number and everything sorted, then go to pay...which you would expect to be simple...it ain't. I needed to click both boxes, for customs fees, and unpaid delivery, but you can only click one....ONE! Either I had a retarded postman (which I doubt, I've spoken to him a fair few times), or the guy who designed the website, was a complete dick!

Anyway, after sorting it by just clicking customs and hoping, I paid the fee, expecting a redelivery time to pop up...it didn't, instead informing me that I STILL have to go pick it up at the sorting office, which defeats the point of me paying the fucking fee online!

After being screwed over by RM once before when I had to go to the sorting office, only to find it wasn't there by one of their mistakes, I thought I'd clarify with the tracking number that my parcel was indeed in the Foundry sorting office. I still don't know, considering this tracking number doesn't appear to fucking exist. So on Monday when I actually get to pick it up, if the fees are unpaid or my parcel ain't there, I'm going to kick off. The Royal Mail has had too many failings, and I'm getting fed up with it!

Rant over, but if things keep going like this I'm going on a personal hate campaign to destroy Her Majesty's mail service.

I leave you with a video about their fails from 2 or 3 years ago...come on sort it you twats!
EDIT:after watching this video, I hope my figure is whole and undamaged!

C to the O...etc.

2009-07-15T19:07:00.003+01:00

Ahoy! It is time for the seemingly monthly post!

What has happened then since my return to the land of infinite rain and pasties? Not much in all fairness. I'm back to work at Haven, with the locals and the emmits, one group of which seems glad to see me, the other group not so much, see if you can guess which...yes you're indeed correct.

I've ordered a few imports, and preordered a game, as well as buying two other games for a fair price. I spend waaaaaaaaay to much money on games it would seem, but the newer hobby of figures is preventing the money being spent on games...which I cannot tell whether it is a good or bad thing. The imports consist of two Japanese magazines, and a figure. Newtype is a figure magazine from Japan, informing of new figures on the market etc, Young Ace is of the same style as Shonen Jump, a manga magazine featuring short stories. Previous issues have contained a Gundam 00 follow up, involving Exia Avalanche, which looks amazing. The figure is of Rei Ayanami in gothic clothing. The full name is Rei Ayanami Gothic Lolita Noir (as there is also a red version), and looks amazing. I'll get some photos up when she finally arrives, which could be anything from 2 days, to 31 days....that's one hell of a gap!

Game wise, I preordered Halo:ODST, which I am looking forward to...as well as the Halo Reach beta coupled with it! I also bought Mirror's Edge, and Armored Core: For Answer which I have been wanting for quite some time! Mirror's Edge is friggin short, and AC is number crunchingly awesome, unless you want to find a person to play online T_T

I've also been working on a few reviews, so expect a few of those to go up on the other blog sometime soon. You may notice that they're a little nicer looking than these posts, and that's due to me teaching myself HTML (this post may be a little fancier than normal due to this). I've been improving, but I just find HTML a bit gitty with all its < and " etc. but I'm sure I'll get used to it sometime soon!

I'll admit I didn't write the embed for this next part, but I'll leave you with Aeris' Theme from the Piano Collections CD. Enjoy the FFVII loveliness ^^

CAAAAAAAKE!

2009-06-24T20:28:00.004+01:00

Well I told you all that I would post some pictures of the cake that I made not too long after I finished making my Gundam kits. Well low and behold the awesomeness that is a Chocolate Kai cake (see what I did there lol):

As you can see, it's a very chocolatey affair, with choc drops in the choccy sponge. The cream was fresh whipped by me, and then added in a fair bit of cocoa, and topped the whole cake off with melted down dairy milk!

I'm going to have to make another cake similar to this again soon, as it would appear Shell wasn't too happy that I made it a couple days after she returned to the sunny (lol, well actually that sense of irony doesn't work at the mo due to it being remarkably sunny and warm!) land of Cornwall, and my folks are also intent on trying the baking that I can do.

I don't understand what's wrong with baking, seriously. I've had a few people call me a woman just because I can bake, and it's a senseless statement. I enjoy baking and cooking. Almost as much as I enjoy playing games and making models. It's a surprisingly calming activity so I do recommend trying your hand at cooking, you never know you may find a new love!

I leave you with how to bake a pretty cake...

What a figure!

2009-06-18T21:19:00.005+01:00

Well, I finished the GN-X III A-Laws and the 00 Gundam models. Now I admit they're not the best finished models I've ever done, I didn't touch up their edges, nor did I do the panel lines, but I don't have any of my full blown modelling gear up here in Nottingham. Maybe I should bring that up this coming september, as I'm intending on making many more Gundam kits!

As promised, here are the pictures! (I actually found the macro mode on my camera too, so they look cooler than any pictures like this I've done before!)

I'm toying with getting the 0-Raiser kit as well, and them combining it with 00-Gundam, in order to leave it as 00-Raiser Gundam constantly as it looks so much cooler than 00 itself.

I'll leave you with the 00-Raiser Gundam entering Trans-Am Burst mode for the first time, which was one of the coolest moments in 00. For those currently watching 00, don't click the vid!

Boredom

2009-06-13T16:15:00.004+01:00

Well, the exams have been over for 9 days now, and I have to say, I honestly didn't think I'd be this bored.

I went and spent another £80 on Friday 5th June on two games. Both Red Faction Guerilla and Star Ocean: The Last Hope were released that day, and I couldn't choose ^^ Both are amazing. Star Ocean, typical SO gameplay, and as expected from Square Enix, amazing storyline thus far. Red Factions GEOMOD-2 engine is amazing! Never have I had so much fun in an online match setting up traps in buildings, to make them collapse on some poor unsuspecting sod ^^ They have been officially added to my review list, making it about 20 games long now, I really should start ticking them off review wise!

My mech kits finally arrived too! The GN-X III A-LAWS, and the 00-Gundam, both from the second series of Gundam 00, which is an amazing series might I add. When I finish making 00 I'll post a couple pics, as I can't be arsed to take photos of the GN-X III without having them both nearby. If the GN-X III were to be anything like its model, it would be a bastard to control, as it's arms would keep hitting its waist armour, you'll see what I mean when I eventually put some images up.

Moving on from the otaku/gamer related news, one of my housemates moved out yesterday after finishing her degree, and it's really wierd. Her room was opposite mine, and now it's completely empty. It's disconcerting T_T So now I've just got to wait until our new housemate comes to fill the void...I'm still sceptical about her cat though, and no innuendo there for a change...I'm serious! Whether I'll be here for when she moves in I don't know, as I actually return to Cornwall next weekend, enabling my summer to be work filled....*sarcasm* YAY HAVEN! */sarcasm*...driving lesson filled (assuming I actually pass my theory test, but according to the two practice ones I just did online, I'll pass with ease!), and game filled! I'm hoping more of number 3 than 1 or 2, but chances of that are going to be slim methinks.

Anyhoo, I'm going to attempt getting back into EVE, been training some Caldari skills, so time to see how well I can fly this level 4 fitted Raven. I'll leave you with KISAKI-Project Eternal Separation

EDIT: I need to find something other than 'amazing' to say methinks, considering I said it at least 3 times in 2 paragraphs....

Postal system

2009-06-03T16:35:00.002+01:00

Hello again all, I should be revising so this is a quick rant post about the UK postage system.

A week or so ago I ordered a couple Mecha figure kits from Hobby Link Japan, who happen to export these things from Japan (oddly enough lol). The 2 items were fairly priced, adding up to £26 for the two items, then I asked for the quicker shipping method, EMS, which ended up being around £15-20 quid, a bit much there, but ah well, still ended up being cheaper than over here. So I've just gone and checked what's going on and why it hasn't arrived yet, while it's been in the UK for quite some time. Turns out it's being held by the post office as I've been slapped with yet more fees by Customs...thanks Customs, the first thing I order from Japan, and you end up making me pay more to get the item, than the item cost itself...

I don't understand this whole system, I've ordered countless things from America, and not once have I had to pay customs fees, unless I've just been excessively lucky.

Anyone else really dislike customs for their fees?

Anyway, going to have to go to the Post Office sometime soon to go pay off my friggin debt to them, and to FINALLY get my package ¬_¬

o/

And so we find ourselves here again...

2009-05-16T15:47:00.004+01:00

Indeed, another month has passed since my last post, and what a vaguely eventful month it has been. There has been lectures, films, games, music, a test, and a set of results. Yes it's that time of year yet again, where those of us who laze about 99% of the time have to actually put in effort....and revise eurgh.

So let us get the boring stuff out of the way first. Lectures have started and ended in the time I was meant to be posting but haven't (sorry again), in which I've realised 2 things. 1) that the modules are actually a damn sight easier than what we've been led to believe...and 2) that there's no way in hell anyone is going to get above 60% in the Structure of Galaxies due to our lecturer being a completely unknowledgable twat...and American (me...Politically correct....you must be joking!). He's contradicted himself, been proven wrong by me several times, and has also managed to bugger his notes up to such an extent I really have no idea what's going on...did I mention he's American? What's even more worrying, is that he's actually quite respected for his research into galactic formation and he proposed the current idea we have of how galaxies are formed and their structure...and yet cannot accept that N = n, is not the same as N = infinity.....

Anyhoo, rant about that idiot over, I had another Theoretical Physics test, and should have at least passed that module, never know if I'm exceptionally lucky, I may have a 2:1 ^^ Revision for the other modules isn't going too well, but I'm slowly getting there. Galaxies this coming Wednesday, then over a week until the next test, which is a bloody good thing considering I'm required to learn a full years worth of stuff for a 3 hour exam.....death on paper I believe.

And so, to keep me sane during this period of stress and library I have a new game! I was bored of playing Halo, and as I generally play my 360 between 11pm and 1-2am I end up playing matches online, or co-op with a person I know from WoW. So Gears of War 2 it is, and I must say it is pretty sweet...apart from I actually appear in the game....end up with rust lung...and also end up captured by the locust and taken underground. Talk about unlucky! I am well aware that my review list is increasing, but alas this is also being added!

Oh, something I just remembered, I think I'm finally inspired enough to get to work on the bigger picture of my life. Sure my degree is a remarkably large chunk of it, but there is a fair bit more I must achieve before I've even started the shove off down the hill. I'm aiming to do the JLPT level 4 this December, unless I've missed registration...actually, thinking about it, I don't even know HOW to register for it. If anyone knows please leave me a comment informing me of the process. This does mean I need to bone up on my verbs, connectors and kanji...as well as my friggin Katakana, man I hate that! On top of my Japanese, I'm also decided that I need to master a few programming languages C, Java, HTML and Linux code to be precise.

'Why all of this all of a sudden?' I hear you cry, well this is due to the fact that I was reading one of my usual blogs about Japan (well, Japan, anime/manga figures, and a dancing Stormtrooper...) and happened upon him actually recruiting people for his company. It required JLPT level 2, and the ability to code using all of the aforementioned programming languages. Also, the other flaw, is that I do indeed require my degree in order to actually get a VISA for Japan. They're quite strict on entry, and the only real way a non-Japanese national can get citizenship is if they have a degree in a somewhat decent field...assuming Physics is a good choice then ^^

Riteo, as something new, I'm going to leave you with a video at the end of every post from now on. Whether it be some cool music I found, or an inspirational piece is unknown until I get to the end of each post. This time I leave you with the genius that is Richard Feynman talking about the analogy between the rules of chess and the rules of physics. Enjoy
o/

Survival of the uber!

2009-04-22T21:17:00.003+01:00

Well it's been nearly 2 weeks since I quit the consumer of life known as World of Warcraft, and I have to say, I haven't felt like this in a while. I've been getting up at decent times, actually in time for breakfast, my sleep patterns have improved, I feel slightly healthier, and I have a good load more free time!

I never noticed how much time WoW takes up. I know I have EVE running in the background usually, but I can tinker, and leave it running while I do something else. It's refreshing ^^ I do miss the people that I played WoW with, but paying for a glorified chat service I do not!

Other than that, nothing has really happened. Exams loom on the horizon, so study for that is paramount, but otherwise nada.

I shall leave you with this awesome remix of NIN - The Hand That Feeds, remixed with Ghostbusters!

Laters dudes
o/

Place of origin

2009-03-30T18:03:00.002+01:00

Another month passes with no updates, of which very little has happened, bar one event which very few people would have seen coming. But first, the uneventful shiznat.

...I've got a new game, been playing through GTA IV and Fallout 3 with some degree of uberness, and erm, am back in Cornwall for a week...

Riteo that's the uneventful shiznat out of the way, now the for the unexpected. I know that a fair few people were amazed and apalled to find that I started playing WoW back in June last year. Well, rejoice in knowing that I cancelled my WoW subscription. Those that I wanted to stay in contact with have my email now, so the people I liked I can still talk to, but I left WoW all because it was only those people I was staying for. It's a pretty expensive chat system isn't it really.

The repetitive grind is just too much in the end. When your characer gets to 80, and you gain NOTHING from heroics or normal raids, and only get to do heroic raids once a week, you've hit the wall, and have NOTHING to do. Even getting achievements got boring, so I've packed it in, and returned my attention to my first love...EVE ^^

Expect to see a shitload of ship carcasses and wreckages all over New Eden, as the Tank designer has returned. Of which note I'll leave it here, and let you all know how my return goes.

o/

And so another month passes

2009-02-28T12:35:00.006Z

Hello again people. As usual it has been a month since my last post, and I have no idea why.
So what has happened in the past month? Well allow me to give the run down ^^

Earlier in February Britain had snow....REAL SNOW! I haven't seen snow this crazy since I was 5 (although we got close when I was in college, but it wasn't like this). We must have had a good week of snow, of course that does mean that the slush was so amazingly abundant that people were slipping all over the place. I tell ya, snow is easier to walk on that ice or slush lol.
The Millenium Garden looks remarkably Christmassy, even though Christmas was 2 months ago.

The Hallward Library while the snow drifts down...a students life goes on.
As it was Matts first time in snow, we thought we'd skip some problems classes and show him how fun snow can be, and we spent the whole day getting in snowball fights and making snow men. I'll warn you in time for next time, don't pick a snowball fight with 30 odd people, when there's 5 of you, you won't win lol.

Secondly, I got my exam results back. I'll admit it, I'm not happy with them, but I did get lucky in not failing any modules this time, so I guess I did ok in that respect. It's a bit annoying about Theoretical Physics, due to the fact I followed my lectures advice and condensed the material, I reckon if I didn't condense my material and went over the word limit, I coulda got a much better mark, but can't change that now. 55.4% average overall this semester, so gotta work so much harder for the June exams.

That's about everything that would interest most people, however I have got one other thing for the gamers out there...
I got Halo Wars on the 360 on Thursday, yes a day early, hooray for online pre-orders ^^ I haven't had the chance to play much of it yet, but from what I've played it's really good. The control scheme was built from the ground up for the 360 controller, and it works. Usually the controls feel sluggish and shoehorned on console RTS, but this isn't the case. As I play PC RTS games a fair bit too, there is an obvious difference, and the controls do seem a bit over simplified for it to work on the 360, but otherwise it's fine. Along with Halo Wars came 3 of the Mythic maps for halo 3. Sandbox is nothing short of amazing. Let me explain...

When you open Sandbox on forge, you sit there thinking, "it's a pretty large map, but that's it?!', then you start exploring. The first thing we discovered upon removal of most of the objects, was a teleporter, just sitting there in the sky, leading to apparent nowhere. Upon entry, we find ourselves 300 feet in the air with a whole new forge area to play with. Exploring that a bit (and several deaths later), we thought we had it down. Apparently not. Upon deletion of all spawn points we could see, Rob managed to get himself killed...my rocket had nothing to do with it...honest. Upon respawn, he found himself in a room with a ceiling, which we had no idea was there! Exploring that room a bit led him up a small tunnel (in the guilty spark mode of course), to which he hit an apparent wall, but realised it could be deleted. So with that deleted he found himself back in the ground floor where I was. So Sandbox is a three tier map, which is crazy!

Then we have the other 2, Orbital and Assembly. Assembly is very pretty, and some of its design is amazing, as this one wasn't built for forge fuckery I'll let you explore them for yourselves when you get them, same with Orbital. I'll give a quick rundown of Orbital though to be fair. It's corridors twist and turn in such a way that if you lose track of how many lefts you've taken, you're basically screwed, but in a good way. It makes an amazing SWAT level with all the cover, ramps and hiding spots in walls. I do look forward to playing some of you on these maps.

I'll leave it there for now, but expect some reviews soon, I'm even considering a Mythic map pack review, so stay tuned (I am aware I have a long list of games to review, but I'll get them done soon enough).

o/

The issue about that thing called 'love'

2009-01-29T00:09:00.003Z

You know that fuzzy feeling you get when you find you have a thing for a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex if you swing that way I guess), and you're finding it nice for a while? Then I'm assuming you know the feeling of the sudden realisation that if that person doesn't already know, how in the bloody hell are you going to make it known, without:
a) being so blatantly obvious you make gears of war's fighting style seem subtle, or
b) being so overly mushy/creepy/plain wierd that you terrify the shit outta that person.

Yes it's another one of THOSE posts, of which I apologise, but it's been a thought of mine for a short while now. I have a thing for this girl, but how in the hell do I make it known. Do I just come out with it, and risk the highly likely result of them saying they don't see me that way (which is better than some rejections I must admit), or do I spend so damn long trying to make it known quietly that they don't realise and end up with someone else anyway, even if they did feel the same about you. The reason I'm posing this question, is because I've never been able to hit the middle ground (properly) of it working out well. I either spend so long trying to be subtle, that the person ends up with someone else anyway, or I freak the person out by being so up front about it.

Now I know I'm not the only person out there with these issues, but there is one thing that has been bothering me alot about this kind of thing. For us more socially inept, or those of us that are amazingly shy (read: terrified) of the opposite sex, we have major issues with women, and although we're all really nice guys (generally, don't quote me on this), the girls tend to end up with complete dickheads who couldn't be understanding to any problems, or not think about sex for longer than the length of a football match. It's an irritation, and I know I'll eventually meet the right one (or may already have, you never know), but it's remarkably disheartening to see it happen to perfectly good people.

I'll end the questioning here, but I'll leave a quote I read (somewhere, I forget where) especially for those girls out there that us nice guys long for. 'Girls, when at a club or a bar, don't go straight for those loud, macho guys in big groups talking about football. Go to the quiet guy, sitting in the corner, with a few friends, having a quiet drink. Sit down next to him and talk. That is the one you'll find love with. He is the one who will show you true happiness'.

Much love people, and I find that quite beautiful at the end 'he is the one who will show you true happiness'. Think about it.

o/

And so it begins again

2009-01-22T11:38:00.002Z

Well, after what has seemed like an eternity, I am back blogging again. Sorry that it's been so long, but everytime I thought about blogging, something happened and I was distracted yet again.

So, what's happened in the near 2 months since my last post? Well, I returned home for 2 1/2 weeks for christmas, of which I spent most of it playing WoW, EVE and the 360. Christmas was celebrated with the family at my grans as per usual, of which I received very few pressies, but ah wll money's just as good ^^. Returned to uni on the 3rd January and spent a whole 3 weeks in the library preparing for the January exams, of which I reckon one 2-1 (or first maybe), one fail (epicly), and one pass (and if lucky a 2-1 instead lol). So now just got a couple days until I start lectures again, and the timetable is horrible, no days off anymore >_<

On another note, I got 4 more games over the christmas period, one for christmas, and 3 in the sales. My aunt got me Ace Combat 6 on the 360, of which I am eternally grateful cos as you all know, I LOVE ACE COMBAT. This game really doesn't fail to deliver, it's win! I also got GTA IV, Soul Calibur IV, and Ninja Gaiden II, which I reckon I really should review sometime soon considering how much I've been playing them.

Ah yes, I'm on Live with the 360, and on Halo 3 most nights, so if any of you readers wish to have a few games, feel free to add me darkkai3. Also, if you're curious as to how I rank game wise, check out my bungee page. Constantly winning ranked matches against those supposedly several skill levels higher, so I guess that says something haha.

So, how's Nottingham been since I returned? Meh is all I can really say. Being holed up in a library for 3 weeks can piss you off to no end. At one point after our second exam, me and quite a few others just couldn't get the drive to study for our final exam. On the upside, after our final exam (which was 2 days ago might I add) me and a fair few others went to the student bar, had a few drinks, then later that night met in town for a sesh in the Pit and Pendulum, which is an awesome bar for those that don't know, but I've mentioned it before in this blog, so read that post instead for details on it lol.

I'll leave it here, and I know I keep saying I'll post more, so I won't this time, just in case. Hopefully will though lol.

Peace y'all
o/

SILENT NIGHT!

2008-12-06T12:37:00.001Z

I just found something on youtube that I never thought I'd ever see....GACKT AND AYUMI HAMASAKI SINGING SILENT NIGHT TOGETHER!

AWESOMENESS!

Thinking it through

2008-11-29T01:56:00.004Z

Hey guys, I know it's been a short while since my last proper post again, just had uni work kinda pile on me. I've still got 2 essays to write, 2 tests to prepare for, and another question sheet to come, and this is all in the last 2 weeks of term T_T

The past week or 2 hasn't been too adventurous. Bought a 360, with Fallout 3, Fable 2, and recently got Halo 3...expect reviews in the future ^^. Went to the telescope last friday, which was pretty cool, and it's the happiest I've been in a while. It just seems that looking at the stars calms me down, and gets rid of my stress while I'm there. Short lived it was, as I'm back to being stressy and not smiling much, as well as complaining about everything and being an 'elitest bastard' (Rob's words not mine....thank you ¬_¬), but the elitest part is always there no matter what lol.

That's about all the exciting stuff I've done recently, got our physics meal coming up soon, all you can eat chinese food is win! Looking forward to that, and hopefully I'll be able to cut loose and smile a bit more ^^

As the title of the post suggests, I'm really wanting to think parts of my life over at the moment, but I'm not getting the time or chance to really do it. The telescope trip was the only chance recently I've had to think things through, and talk to one of my best friends at uni about, which thinking about it, I've never actually told him he's one of my best friends. I want to change things about myself, but I have no idea how. I don't know if my current path is what I want. I've got a few things to sort out, but in 2 weeks time, I'll be back home in Cornwall, with ample time to think. Maybe a few walks or going to my favourite spot will be the ample things for my in-head debate. Never know, may make a breakthrough and figure out exactly what I want. I think the whole being single and living with a couple thing doesn't help my head, but that's only a thought and doubt it is of real consequence. Maybe when I'm home, seeing my old friends from college and the rare few from school will help set my mind back on track.

It's odd, I was so sure of what I wanted, but I just can't focus at the moment. As some of my friends and I have always said, I have the ability to do Physics really well, but am just to lazy to apply it often enough, but at the moment, I lack any drive at all. I love physics and space, I always will, but the drive I did have, just seems to have disappeared, and without that I have no road to drive along. It's like I'm in the middle of the desert in a sports car. The sports car is the drive I have, but the desert is the complete lack of path for it to follow. Maybe when I straighten things out, the road will return. Whether it'll be the same road as before is yet to be decided, but lets hope I get one eh.

Sorry for the philosophical post, but it's just what's in my head at the moment. Feel free to post your thoughts as I always appreciate them.

I'll see you all again!
o/

ew

2008-11-22T16:11:00.005Z

Now I know it's been a while since I last posted, but this is only gonna be a short post to inform you what I just found.

I was doing my usual daily run through my bookmarked sites, when on Lolitron I found this very freaky cook book...

http://www.lulu.com/content/4956212

EW is all I can say, and I refuse to eat semen T_T
Wrong is nowhere near harsh enough to explain how bad that is. I know we have a financial crisis at the moment, but eating cum? That's fucked up!

If anyone does buy this, I am scared for our health as a country

laters
o/

I'M ALIVE!

2008-10-24T16:44:00.009+01:00

Well hello to my avid readers out there! Sorry that I haven't posted much for quite some time, and I shall now begin my frantic mind boggling posts again! ^^

As my last post said, I've returned to the great city of Nottingham to continue on my second year of Physics at the University of Nottingham. It's amazing to see everyone again, even though we've all segregated into specific groups. It's sad to see different groups splitting off and not seeing much of them, but as long as we all see each other I'm happy.

Last friday I got an awesome new item, that everyone I see in person has had to suffer a whole 2 weeks of me bouncing up and down excitedly telling them about it. This mysterious item is a new graphics card. Yes I forked out a bit more money (sadly due to stupid flight costs I cancelled my Japan trip, and so have that fund as spare cash) and bought a 9800GT to replace my 8600GT. I must say it's awesome, and I cannot wait for Farcry 2 to arrive tomorrow to put it through it's paces more than crysis (which I now have running on high, instead of low/medium) ^^

I do have to admit, along with a few others, that the question 'Do I really have time to use this graphics card and the plethora of games that I want?', and have come to the simple conclusion of, as long as I remember to do my reading, study hard, and work on my presentation and essay, I'll be able to play Farcry 2, Crysis, and Fallout 3 with a clear conscience and hopefully a first at the end of it.

Moving on from the techy side of my life, I've been cooking a few things recently too. Made 'brownies', with quotations as they turned out more like a cake, and are now being refered to as 'the chocolate brake' which is pretty funny I must admit. Tastes really good, and NO IT IS NOT GAY FOR A GUY TO BAKE! Why is that a preconception nowadays that any guy who can cook well or bake well is closer to being gay than anything else? Also, if it's so attractive to women that a guy can cook, why the hell am I still single? Anyhoo, also made a loooovely cottage pie on monday which went down a treat I must say (looks tasty doesn't it?) ^^

Lectures have been quite interesting. We've had many funny moments, including the now infamous 'Only physics can fail this hard' quote, and the many fresher scaring moments (that poor fresher stuck between so many of us second years)....and allow me a good reason to never allow us physics students to have a whiteboard and pens in the common room....

Anyway, I'll leave it there as I've basically gone through most of what I've done, and I was meant to be reading one of 3 books and 6 journals while writing this post T_T

Post soon
Laters
o/

Nott really here

2008-09-28T11:28:00.003+01:00

Hello again all. It's been 2 weeks exactly since my last post, yes I am that shit!

Recently moved back to Nottingham, and am in my new house! woo! It's pretty cool, and I get to do some baking up here for a change. Gonna make some cake today ^^

There isn't really much else to say at the moment, which is odd, as I normally have loads to say T_T

If I think of anything more I'll post don't worry

Laters
o/

Speeeellin?

2008-09-14T01:36:00.006+01:00

Hey guys, sorry for a longish gap, but I've been meaning to post this since monday last week :S

While reading mondays The Times newspaper, I came across a worrying, and quite frankly stupid, article. It's about making the English language phonetic (which ironically isn't pronounced phonetically lol). The person it was about wants to make the language simpler, as, apparently, it's too hard for children to learn. Sorry if I'm sounded a bit overopinionated or big headed here, but the only people who can't grasp any of the intricasies of the English language, are either complete fuck-tards, or dyslexic. I have sympathy for dyslexics, as I know a few. But the fuck-tards are unforgivable. Just try a bit harder, the language isn't as hard as some. He also wants to abolish apostrophes, and make their, they're and there, all spelt as there......IT'S NOT RIGHT AND MOST OF US KNOW THE DIFFERENCE...don't we?

Here's the link
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article4698949.ece
give it a read, and let me know what you think. It's stupid in my personal opinion, but I'm somewhat biased being a self-confessed grammar-nazi.

Peace out dudes
o/

Handwritten 2 - 'Eating'

2008-09-07T19:37:00.003+01:00

(Second hand written, sorry for the massive delay, work has been pissing me off a bit, but 2 days of work left now \o/)

Earlier today, after having been in Toronto for most of the day, a thought hit me. The main thing that we've done on this trip so far, is eat. Ironically this thought hit me while I had a mouthful of fries and had a glass of sprite ready to wash it down with.

Now I'm not saying we've done bugger all, but it really does seem to be an underlying connector. It's also allowed me to see a pretty plain reason as to why America and Canada have an issue with obesity. Everything is just so easy. When you start seeing drive-through friggin Starbucks, you know that somethings gone wrong.

The stupidest thing about all this, is that you can't plainly take it all away at this stage. It's like throwing the proverbial shit at that so called fan and being 'that evil bastard there' who started this in the first place. It's like removing all porn from the internet, to leave that one site called 'bring back the porn'! OK, enough metaphors, but you get me.

Our society has hit such a brick wall due to the ease of self gratification, that we're quite literally killing ourselves due to our own success. Sure we CAN recover, but there's that one underlying question...

Do we REALLY want to?

Handwritten 1 - 'Starting'

2008-08-30T11:48:00.002+01:00

(This is the beginning of all of my handwritten notes while on holiday in Canada, woo handwritten ^^ )

Well this is a rather odd way for me to blog. Now I'm actually going to photograth photograph this and stick it on the blog (edit: CBA!), complete with a typed version, so you're going to see how I think and write on paper, with spelling mistakes and all.

Now it's not often I take pen to paper, but I've been compelled to here and I'm not quite sure why. I've also just realised that I've spelt photograph - 'photograth' *corrects*. I guess this shows to you, that no matter how well I attempt to use good grammar and spelling on the typed blog, that while actually typing it, I have to corrext so many errors that it's not even a joke. OK, mind has run off on a tangent again, but I'm sure you're used to that by now.

I've also taken up this idea while I'm out in Canada because while I actually use the PC to blog, some of my ideas sit there and kind of stagnate while waiting to be posted. So this allows me to stick my ideas down, allowing me to focus on other things, and not having to try and hold onto one idea, possibly not even allowing myself to get a better idea onto the blog.

Oh, something just came to mind. Nothing new there really, so I'll stick it down. Don't you think it's odd when you're doing something, and all you can think of is how awesome a blog post it would be. It's like on the flight over here to Canada. I was basically taking ages precisely picturing what I could say on the blog about it. I even, for the first time ever, came up with the post title before I wrote the entry. If I remember, it's scheduled to be posted 1 or 2 before this one, but knowing how I work, it'll probably be 4 or 5 (edit: WOW 2ND POST BACK! I rule!). It was my first ever flight, but I kinda enjoyed it, so I'm prepared for my flight to Japan now....WHICH IS GONNA ROCK!

It's strange here, I'm going to bed at stupid times. And I don't mean stupidly late, I mean times like 10-11pm...I don't even do that at home when I have to be up for 7am. Mind you, I'm being slave driven to get up at gayass times. I've actually gotta be ready for 8am tomorrow to go Toronto. It means up at 6! These times don't even exist at home, why do they over here on holiday?!

I'll have a few posts in this note pad, so bear with me. I can tell already that I have to change the number of posts on the front page to 15 instead of 10 as I have so many blog posts planned.

I hope my handwriting is legible to all of you grammar nazis (edit: doesn't matter, I'm the only one who has to read the handwriting \o/ )

I'll keep this up, so see y'all in number 2
o/

Fucking BT

2008-08-28T07:25:00.003+01:00

I was waiting for 9 hours yesterday for BT to pull their finger out and actually FIX a problem. Our internet went down at about 1 in the afternoon, and didn't come back on until about 10 in the evening, with me clicking the 'connect' button every 30 minutes. Sad thing is, I really did have nothing to do without the internet, even with all the stuff I have that isn't based on this computer.

Oh well, internet's back lol. I'll blog about Canada later to celebrate, but I gotta go work now.

Laters
o/

Life at 34000 feet

2008-08-26T12:57:00.004+01:00

Well, the flight went pretty smoothly, apart from lack of circulation, but that's expected in a plane.

This was my first ever flight, but I must admit, I kind of enjoyed it. It was alot better than I had expected, but the only thing that got to me was how little there is to actually do, even with a load of things with you. Sure they have films, but if the films are things you find crap (or french in one of the cases) you're restricted to your items for entertainment. Believe me, there's only so much GTA and Crisis Core even I can take. Sudoku got boring after that, and then I wasn't that much up for reading, so I tried to find ways to entertain myself by looking out the window...after annoying the hell out of my cousins sitting behind me lol.

So, looking out the window....amazingly it kept me entertained for most of the journey we had left and, of course, I took a load of photos. Some artsy, some crap, some normal, but some of them are amazing. This was a morning flight, and here are the best piccies I got....

This was taken in....Newcastle. As you can see, while we were stopping off there, the weather went crap, typical British weather eh?

"There's...something on the wing" in my best Shatner impression didn't go down well with the other people on the flight lol

This one is so cool. It was taken while over Canada, and as you can see, the weather looks alot better from above than Britain did.

The wing one was done for artsyness really, but I reall did the the Shatner impression >_< lol

I'll leave you with these, and later I shall post 'blogposts' from my 'BLOGPAD!'(tm) lol.

laters
o/

Return from Canada

2008-08-26T12:55:00.002+01:00

Sorry for leaving it a week after I got back from Canada for starting my Canada posts, but I've been catching up with a few people etc.

I got some awesome pics, and a load of thoughts to put down, so bare with me, these will take a while lol.

And so, with no further ado, I POST THE CANADA STUFF!

o/

CANADA!?!

2008-08-08T19:19:00.002+01:00

Well hello from CANADA!!
Yeah, I managed to get onto a PC while over here, but I can't stick up all the pictures I was hoping to for a while. The first post when I get back will be 'Life at 34 thousand feet' which is basically blogging about the flight and will have some pretty awesome photos from the flight over here.

I'll just give a quick rundown of what I've done so far over here. The flight was initially delayed, so we arrived an hour or two late, but the flight itself wasn't to bad, just a bit boring. I must admit though, I was suffering from a little pain in my legs and feet, but once I got up and walked for a bit, I felt fine again. Just a bit crappy having to do that every 30 minutes...that and my youngest cousin was a tad annoying (tad = me refraining from killing him), but I reckon I coped fine lol.

While over here, I've been able to explore the surrounding area here, which is amazingly nice. Canada is so much bigger than Britain, but amazingly, it's so much quieter, fewer people walking around. OK the roads are a little busier than ours, but on the whole it's amazingly easy to get around and even easier to find things. The main thing that you need to remember is different to where we are from, is that the price you see, isn't the price that you pay. You must remember to add tax onto every single price that you're looking at. I was almost caught out by that today when the item I was getting said $2.99 and I had to pay $3.26, but that is still pretty cheap, so what the hell ^^

I'll leave it here for now guys and attempt to update a bit more while out here. If I don't, you can all look forward to a load of blog posts all nicely laid out when I get back. I've even got a notepad I'm using to draft blogs while I have awesome ideas here lol.

See y'all around guys
o/

The place which I call "half-home"

2008-08-03T20:48:00.005+01:00

Well, I've been busy taking photos while on my travels down here, and I thought I would share a few of the views I've experienced while being home. It's not often I really get the chance to get these photos, because, well, it rains a majority of the time. Let's show you the area near where I live....

Now just look at that view, it's pretty awesome ain't it?

The water here just looks so calm, and it's hard to believe I took this at about 3 in the afternoon.

Now technically these weren't taken where I actually live, but this is the nearest place alot of people have heard of that's near where I live. These were all taken in Penzance, near the Jubilee pool which is on the seafront. In the last photo I took, you can see St. Michael's mount in the distance. I would take a closer picture, but that would involve going to Marazion, and I just really dislike trying to park there...that, and the road layout sucks completely.

Now don't let these photos lead you to believe that Cornwall is always this glorious. I shit you not, that this is a rather rare occasion to get views like these, even this time of year. Like I said, it's wet here alot more often than it is sunny, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice in order to get these stunning views. It's only when you've been away, do you really realise what it is we have that we take forgranted down here, yet I still haven't been to the beach T_T

I'll leave it here, but I've got a couple photos of my favourite eatery to show to you all, which I will stick in another post either today or tomorrow.

Enjoy the pics
o/

Good evening

2008-08-02T21:44:00.004+01:00

Evenin' all.

Bet you're wondering what I've been up to recently then eh? And if you haven't....TOUGH (lol), I'm gonna tell you anyway.

As alot of you who know me know, I'm going to Canada for my cousins wedding later this week, and so I have finally got my outfit sorted. Took two days to get all the stuff, and it's crazy having to think about what to wear >_< Ended up with a pair of beige suit trousers, a fancy shirt and some pretty sweet brown leather shoes. I think I look quite good ^^

Also, bought GTA: Vice City Stories, and Tales of Eternia for my PSP last week. Been playing them and they're both really good. I'll leave the review to another time, I'll have played the hell out of them on that 10 hour flight I have coming up T_T

On a much more surprising note, while in Truro today, on my usual browsing of HMV, I came across something I'd never seen before, and on closer inspection, it did indeed turn out to be what I had hoped. You all know how I love Japanese music, well, I saw a label saying 'DIRENGREY', to which I thought 'It can't be'...IT WAS!!!!! For the first time since finding that polysics album, I had found another Asian band with a CD over here. Of course I snapped it up straight away haha. It's not their newest album, but they're second newest, with their newest being Uroboros, of which I would love to hear.

This album has some really good songs on it, my favourite being 'The Pledge'. If you've heard Dir before, you'd know that they have some VERY HEAVY stuff, and then some more melodic stuff where you can actually hear Kyo's voice properly, and The Pledge is just that, melodic, but keeping a part of their heaviness. I will admit some of the songs on the album are a bit much even for me, but on the whole, a thoroughly good run of songs.

Oh yeah, on another note, making a massive jump between things as my mind generally works, I've taken a look at Bekky's blog and noticed one major difference...SHE'S SO MUCH MORE ORGANISED IN IT. It's like she actually thinks or drafts it before she posts. I'm more haphazard and blog what comes to mind while doing it, as you can tell lol. Dunno which style is better, but I know I find mine so much more fun ^^

Work has been 'meh' recently, and I'm kinda losing patience with it, but hey 2 weeks on holiday should be enough to relax me etc. and you know what they say about weddings, so let's hope so eh? LOL.

Oh yeah, on another tangent, saw John (mate from school) on friday. First time we've actually seen each other since my 18th birthday party, which is kind of upsetting thinking about it like that. When you consider that we were always laughing and joking over his place while 'pwning noobz' on Halo 2, it's a major contrast to barely even talking anymore T_T But getting to see him again was pretty cool, and he seemed happy to see me again too, so ^^ Also saw Phil for a fleeting moment, who is also a friend from school, at which moment we shook hands, caught up a bit, and both agreed it would be a good idea to go hang with a couple others and get the old gang back together ^^

This time home has been alot better than both Easter and Christmas holidays. Not entirely sure why, but I think keeping busy is a major part of it, and I for one, am not going to complain.

I'll leave it here guys, and I'll hopefully post once more before I go to Canada, got a few ideas, and some really nice photos to stick up. I'll also make a major attempt to post while over in Canada, but no idea how that'll work >_<

Laters guys
o/

EDIT (03/08/2008): I just found out that Uroboros isn't released until November, and so The Marrow of a Bone is indeed their newest album

Hello again

2008-07-23T17:48:00.003+01:00

Well, it's now been a complete fortnight since my last post, sorry for the gap, but there really has been bugger all happening recently.

I've been working, playing WOW, playign EVE, and meeting up with people. Seriously, that's it. Although, I have been to see a couple films.

First on my review list, is Kung Fu Panda...to which I had no idea that Jackie Chan voiced the monkey, they really should have advertised that better. On the whole, a great film, kept me entertained, and had some really funny moments. Some bits dragged a bit, but it was an awesome film nonetheless.

Second, we have Hancock. Will Smith's performance was amazing. And what a twist. Although, to be frank, if you didn't figure it out quite early on, shame on you, but if you managed to figure out the whole twist in advance, good on you. Bits of comedy (as you'd expect from a Will Smith film), combined with the action and the bits of drama, all bundle together to form a brilliantly executed movie of a classic 'hero'. Also, I must say I kinda feel for the main bad guy, but following the transition of Hancock from drunken low-life anti-hero, to clean, spandex wearing hero, was truly a very enjoyable experience, and the contrast is amazing. A good piece by Will Smith, and I do recommend you go to see it while it's stil in cinemas.

Now, this may seem like a review session, but those films deserve some kind of review, and I really did enjoy them.

Now to go on to something that alot of people never thought I'd do. I went and got myself a PSP. Not just any PSP, oh no. I went and got the Limited edition, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core pack, complete with silver PSP with the FF logo on one side of the back, and a cool picture of Cloud, Zack and Sephiroth on the other. The game came too of course. The only downside is, that this pack doesn't come with a memory stick at all, which, seems like a bloody stupid idea on sony's part, and appears to have cost them a large amount of possible sales generated by this, as other FF fans went and got the standard psp, which at least has some form of memory stick when you get it. But ah well, I'm happy with this baby, and I bought a 4gb memory stick anyway.

Crisis Core is set a bit before VII, and shows what happened between Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth and Genesis. It also shows (from what I can ascertain) the link between Zack and Aeris (written Aerith in this, but it's fair enough as either are acceptable translations for アエリス,　which is her Japanese name). I'm enjoying it so far, but am not far into the game due to the sheer volume of extra missions you can do. These missions, although not integral to the story, are a collection of short missions required of SOLDIER. They rank from easy, to very hard and each give a different reward, varying from a simple potion or crappy equip item, to valuable equip items and summon/rare materia.

The only niggle I have with Crisis Core, and it isn't the biggest problem in the world, is that the DMW is a bit of an issue at times, and like some reviews said, it can make boss battles vary from stupidly hard, to flukily easy all due to the DMW rolling a powerful limit break/summon. Levelling doesn't work in the traditional way either. Most of you out there who play RPG's would be wondering how, 'you gain XP, it takes you to the next level, you gain stats'....WRONG. What actually happens is, it's linked to the DMW again. If the DMW enters the Limit Verge (which is when 2 images are the same, and it's waiting to see what the third one is to initiate limit breaks or summons) and after the images finish (they don't have to be the same for this, or have to initiate a powerful ability), the numbers that have been rolling land on 777, then Zack levels up. Leveling materia is similar and also depends on the DMW. If the DMW goes into the Limit Verge, and the 3 numbers read as 222, 333, 444, or 555, then the materia in that materia equip slot (2 for 1, 3 for 2, etc) gets levelled up, which can be to a maximum of 5 (otherwise known as master for those that don't remember VII's materia system). The downside of this, is I've never actually had a 444, so the third materia equip has never leveled. 111 and 666 appear to do nothing, even though the manual says they did something...don't remember what tho >_<

Good on Square for trying something new though, and this is a very clever idea, shame it wasn't made so that the player themselves had some control over leveling, limit breaks, or summons. I'm enjoying the game though, and if any of you want to hear more about it, most of you know my email etc.

That's this post done for now then, sorry if you disliked the collection of reviews there, but I thought it was quite a cool idea to let you all know how I felt about a few of the things I've seen recently.

If I see anything cool soon, I guess I'll review them too haha. I'm gonna grab another RPG for my psp, and probably GTA: Vice City Stories or something, so I could review those, and they'll be good for my flight to Canada ^^

Laters d00dz
o/

And we continue

2008-07-02T14:11:00.002+01:00

Hello again avid reader (yes singular methinks :P ).

It's been a bit to long since my last post, but in all actuallity, bugger all has really happened recently. I've been working at Haven again, not bad, but I swear the tourists get stupider every year.

Daz was here for a fortnight, and so hung with him a few times. Was good to get out of the house and hang with friends for a change, you'd be amazed how difficult it is to get anyone to do anything. We also went for a chinese buffet on sunday. Me, Daz, James, Marc, Marc's girlfriend (sorry I forgot your name T_T) and John (who I only met 3 days previously). There's a chinese just a little out of Resudgeon, and it wasn't to bad I have to say. We were there from 8pm until about 10.30pm, when they were shutting lol.

Oh, a couple saturdays ago was the birthday of Jeni/Mabel/Mongoose/whatever she goes by now. What was meant to be a garden party became a rain party due to the sheer volume of water falling from the sky. Wasn't to bad tho, met a few new people, caught up with college mates, so all in all a good night.

I haven't got much going on in the future really apart from Canada, in which I am going to end up baking (as we all know I can't take much above 15 degrees, let alone 30).

If I get anymore interesting things happening to me, or if I find some awesome things on the internetz I'll let y'all know.

Laters
o/

Howdy d00dz

2008-06-26T16:56:00.003+01:00

Hey guys.
Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I'll make a post or two soon about what I've been up to and how I've been.

Been working again, so not had much time to do much lol. I'll just post the results of last weeks poll.....

What do you think of the Ace Combat series?
Never heard of it - 2, 100%

Odd, I thought it was a very well known franchise. Oh well, appears the people that voted must play Nintendo only then :P (I know you do Rob :P). I kid guys, but I recommend you go and find Ace Combat 5, 0 (PS2 for those 2), or 6 (360 only....DAMN YOU NAMCO), cos they're ace....and full of combat (with the odd escort/save or whatever missions).

I'll take your advice too Rob, 'Less polls, more blogs', haha, fair statement I think ^^

Stay tuned guys, gonna post some stuff soon, but it probably won't be much about my life as bugger all is happening.

Laters guys
o/