I sense a lawsuit from RedOctane

Want to play Guitar Hero II (if you scroll down and read a few previous posts, you'll see I've been playing little else since April)? No Playstation 2 or XBox 360 though?
No problem, simply download "Frets On Fire" (a.k.a "Guitar Hero II" for the Mac/Windows/Linux).

Tis open source, and not as pretty but it does the same thing (essentially) as Red Octane's effort - and apparently the 360 controller can be used with the game...

So what are you waiting for..?

Less talk, more rokk!

WTF?

Acronyms.
Eh?

They're everywhere these days aren't they?
Whether its "mobile speak", email or forum posts you cannot get away from them.. For any technophobe who is currently trying to decipher LOL or FTW means, there is an online solution, The Urban Dictionary. Quite possibly one of the handiest things to have to hand when trying to determine whether you're being dissed or not on that internet forum ;)

Decided today to find out more about Freezepop, a band that do one of the better "bonus" tracks in Guitar Hero II. They jumped out immediately as thyeir song had a bit more of a indie, synthpop/New Wave vibe as opposed to the rest of the tracks that are more MOR/Rock/Metal (as dictated by the guitar, really). I urge you to check out the track "Less Talk More Rokk", as it's really rather marvellous (and damn catchy too)!

Over staying your welcome

It's been a shame to witness such a fall from grace, as when it first came along "24" was an awesome show. But, according to the Beeb, this tired out show is going to get a futher two more seasons!!

Why god why?

They should have killed Jack Bauer off to series' ago..
With any luck the final four hours of the final season will feature Kiefer Sutherland kicking the shit out the of show's script writers for letting things get so bad. It comes to something when a show like "Battlestar Galactica" (men in space fighting robots) seems to have more gritty realism than a show set in modern day America.. Indeed, if at the end of the final season of 24, Bauer was finally offed by a six foot gleaming metal cylon centurion it would probably be a closer representation of current affairs than anything this tripe has depicted on our screens for the last couple of cheers.

Sincerely, FOX, cut your losses and bin this turgid nonesense.

Just my $0.02 of course

Serendipity

Just happened to be browsing the Favourite channels on the ol' Sky Plus box last night, flicking through dismissively seeing what was on.. and then.. I stopped as FX were showing Sleeper Cell..

Surely it's a repeat, thought I..
But I did an "info" and no, the description began with "Opening Episode of the second series".. Joy! But it had already started - boo! But there's a FX+1 hour! Hurrah.. Seriously, how often does that ever happen??

And it's good news seeing as Battlestar Galactica has gone, Life on Mars has finished, Hotel Babylon is on a break until next year and 24.. well, 24 is just shit now, isn't it?

So new telly - hurrah!

Rejoice

Also.. fuck the reviews, I really enjoyed Spiderman 3 last night. Okay maybe they did try to cram in a little too much into the film's running time. But it was funny, action-packed, 'citing and featured a cameo by Bruce Campbell - so well worth the time and money.

And after six days of courses I'm back to work tomorrow.. Arse!
Still, another course next week.. another exciting lunch menu to look forward to - hurrah!

Laters

My Spidey Sense is tingling

Off to see the new Spiderman flick tonight. Hopefully it'll be worth the admission price, as I've heard mixed reviews. Will update sometime later this week with my thoughts. Have high hopes as Sam Raimi used to be a hell of a director (watched Evil Dead 2 again recently and thouroughly enjoyed it - had forgotten just how good it was).

SQL courses continue.. this is the SQL sequel course, I guess!! ;)
(Like Godfather II though, it IS better than the first one).

One down, one to go

So I have finished my first three days at Xpertise training doing the first of the two SQL Server 2005 course I have been sent on. And my brain has remained, mostly, intact..

So, hurrah.. time to punish the ol' grey matter further tonight with a nice combination of red wine and vodka methinks ;) (Not, I hasten to add in the same glass!!).

Last week of the Premiership this weekend - boo... and no Euro championships or World Cup to look forward to, either.. It's going to be a bleak summer.

Ah well, I feel that this post is lacking direction.. so I'm going to cut short.. time to treat my head to a nice alcohol-induced haze and then 48 hours off before the onslaught of further Microsoft training courses begins!

S'later

Brain Malfunction

My neurons and synapses are currently overloaded with SQL Server 2005 terminology, and I can feel other important geek information doing battle with this newly acquired knowledge for space in the depleted real estate that is my ickle brain (right now the ability to instantly names of various creatures from the Star Wars cantina because I can still remember them from the original Palitoy packaging is under threat from such shite as how to create db Snapshots, and the new XML type in SQL Server - pah!)..

So it is, quite frankly, amazing that I can write anything.

Still I promised posts so I am.

The food is lovely!!!

More tomorrow

Another Bank Holiday

Been busy this weekend putting up coving to (finally -see last year's archives for when we started) put the finishing touches to the bathroom. Have also had the folks over, cooing over their granddaughter so it's been quite a full three days. Hence limited blogging time. Also this week I'm off on a training course (SQL Sever 2005 training -make of that what you will) so may be a bit brain dead for the remainder of the week.. Not a particularly new state of mind for me, but it may also be combined with a state of knackered-ness that may mean further entries are, well.. sparse to say the least. That's the excuses out of the way anyway.

So last night, I got a little distracted on the internet. I was searching for a new laptop for the folks (they want a new one for the various Skype converstaions back to good ol Blighty from the warmer climes of Spain), and whilst I waited for them to look at the results of my search I began looking ahead to the next big XBox 360 release: Forza 2.

This game looks bloody amazing, and I cannot wait until June to give Guitar Hero II a little rest, and play this baby. Check out the official site, as it show's off what you can expect to see from the game. There are even some really nice video's in the pit pass reports section. Which is really good news as the 360 really does need a class racing game. Cannot wait to trade in a few older titles for this (doing so will allow the game to cost me about a fiver - sweet)

Blast from the past..

Still funny after all these years.. Terry Tate Office Linebacker.

Just like buses

What happened to the glorious sunshine we were enjoying this week? It's cold and grey here as I write this (and, dare I say it? Shall I? Okay, look I'll just come out and say it, it's a bit damn chilly too!).. I guess it's the curse of the UK Bank Holiday weekend striking once more, but it has come as a bit of a shock to the system after the more than plesant weather we've been enjoying this week..

Anyway, finally got around to seeing the seaon finaé of BSG this week.. As sad as I am to see this show disappear for another year (Lord knows that the quality of television shows has taken a nose dive recently.. I mean have you seen this season of "24" - it's more unbelievable than Battlestar Galactica), I was again seriously impressed at how good a finish we got. And indeed although the general quantity of good shows is dropping away (my Sky Planner never seems to look half as busy as it did, say, 12 months ago), the quality of what remains seems to be improving. Look to this season of "Lost" for example.. series two of this show really dragged it's heels in places, but series three has really ramped up the tension, drama and has offered us a far more intriguing story line. Bravo. Doctor Who seems to be going from strength-to-strength this season too, with improved story lines, characters and effects on show. Additionally was pleased to see Hustle return to our screens last noght, it is a charming show, very tongue in cheek and knowing, but slick and amusing and well written.

So, whilst kiddies are young, and babysitters are thin on the ground, there is still some qulaity entertainment to be hard - hurrah!

Bugger me, it's May

What the fuck happened?
Who nicked the last month off me?

Agh, bloody hell where did the time go..?

Alright, alright I'm not going to deny it, I have been denying my beloved blogspace, blogsphere, erm.. well blog. But things have been going on, man, things have been happening there have been

distractions

and that's not conducive to regular blog updates.. and I have already been shouted at by a number of different individuals to get my ass back and posting and so here I am now, back.. here, writing a post and everything..

So where have I been, what have I been up to?

Well I could roll out the old usual excuses for my lack of posts, for my failure to bring you your daily dose of mindless babbling.

But I shan't

I have some new excuses instead..

Intrigued?

Me too (- honestly I make this shit up as I go along)

Firstly we have a crawling and clambering (almost) toddler on our hands.. and I mean proper crawling on her knees and everything (as opposed to the funky commando crawling that she was initially doing the like of which I'd only previously seen Royal Marines do under netting). Additionally any piece of soft furnishing or coffee table is now something for my daughter to pull herself up on and stumble along whilst holding onto. Consequently neither the wife or I ave anything like a quiet minute until well after the kiddie-winkies have gone to bed, as Kirstyn is into everything, and everywhere, at quite a shockingly quick pace. It's dazzling how quick she is.

Secondly (as was pointed out to me earlier in the month) I am, bizarrely, enjoying work at the moment and this has rather robbed me of my blogging mojo. Usually it was the incompetence and the frustration of the working day that got me all fired up and angry and ready to rant. So now that I'm pairing, and using TDD, and exciting stuff like interfaces and dynamic mock objects, I feel no need to rant and rave. My thunder was stole you might say.

Thirdly.. Guitar Hero II happened and this is far and away the best XBox 360 game, nay console game, I've ever played (and the wife loves it too). So I've been using a lot of my spare time actually trying to get good at this game so that I might challenge for a couple of places on the leaderboards for this game (even if I am playing against people who seemingly have infinitely more time than I do to play video games).. and it actually takes practice and patience to get good at this game (which means I'm bucking the trend of some of my friends who play games like King Kong and Fight Night 3 which seemingly give gamerscore in the hundreds for sticking the disc in the console the right way up).

Also football has been quite distracting. 'Citing. The Reds are off to Athens! Hurrah.

But I am back (yes I'm back, yes I'm back for good) now and will make every effort to post more often..

..promise..

Come back tomorrow - you'll see