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I still remember the first time I noticed myself thinking in English; I was 14 years old, walking down Friar St in Reading having just left WH Smith and my English pen pal, her friends and me were walking towards McDonalds as someone had passed us and I caught myself thinking about his dress sense. That happened after visiting England only a handful of times and receiving substandard English lessons at school.

When I was 15 I visited some of my distant family in America for just over a month which gave me a very strong American accent and, also due to jetlag, left me unable to speak German upon my return to Germany. As for fixing my pronounciation, well, that took a lot of effort and just over a year.

I lived in the UK for ten months when I was 16 and during that time went to an English school. Despite several other German students attending that school I found myself spending more time with the English students. This time is what I consider the first time I fully integrated not just with people, but also the all important popculture references.

Even though I had a moderately bad time I found myself getting more and more homesick during the following years and found myself visiting London and Reading a couple more times between 2000 and 2003 before finally moving back in June 2003. Initially I struggled enough with English and work and studying that keeping up my German became not only a minor thing, but mostly something I didn’t care about at all.

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I still remember the first time I struggled with my German. It was in late 2007 and caused me to purchase a print subscription to a large German weekly magazine which I pretty much just ignored and flicked through each week promising to myself I’d read it ‘later’. I do to this date read three online publications though.

In both 2008 and 2009 I spent some time in Germany completely surrounded by German people. The only way to carry on using English was on the internet and I carried on thinking in English the entire time, despite having a job in a customer facing job!

Since moving back to the UK last year my German has taken a turn for the worse. Having had to deal with banks and other official channels is a nightmare and more than once I was completely lost for words during phone conversations, especially at one point when I encountered one of the rudest call centre agents of my life and was unable to argue back leaving me with nothing but hanging up passively aggressively..

Writing any German text is a challenge, even if it’s just a tweet of 140 characters which, the other day, took me over a minute as I was convinced the grammar was atrociously wrong. I also found myself automatically replying to two German emails in English and only realised my faux pax over a day later..

None of that is the real problem though. The real problem is that I find myself increasingly unable to read German. I wasn’t aware of this until this week when I read a text in German that uses a large number of idioms and I realised I didn’t know the meaning of many of them and had to translate them first.

Yes, I’ve complained about my problems with English before, but this is nothing compared to the sheer frustration I have with my German. It’s something I should be able to do, but despite still reading German on a daily basis it is getting worse.

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What should I have done differently? Is there anything I could have done differently? Would I be able to reverse time I still don’t think I’d change anything as I do believe that the only reason my English is at the stage it is at now, because I fully concentrated on it versus trying to keep up with German at the same time. I have made an effort ever since I’ve first realised I was facing problems, but it doesn’t seem to be enough and failing to even remember the most basic things is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced and I’m currently experiencing it on a daily basis.

I just feel so powerless.

I feel the crowdsourcing aspect of Twitter would be very useful at the moment, but then there are so many people that follow me on there that I don’t feel comfortable in sharing too much or even share anything which, seeing how much I’ve relied on it in the past, leaves me without being able to use it properly. Add to that a bunch of people I don’t want to unfollow because I’ve been following them for a long time and don’t want to hurt their feelings or be abrupt and it all becomes a bit pointless. Sure, I still get great information out of it and the local Twittervine is brilliant, but having to constantly censor myself is difficult.

I’ve said before that I’ve started to notice certain patterns in my life. Sure, I’ve put a lot of it down to bad karma this year and I have been more proactive about sorting things out, but there comes a point when I’ve realised I’ve done all I can do and it then comes back to making me realise it’s got to be me. There have been epiphanies about my relationship, or rather lack thereof, with my family or certain friendships or just how I generally end up getting myself into certain situations I really should have known better. But then I evidently don’t and every time it seems to be that much more.

What’s left now is to pick up the pieces and this is the part I’m worried about most. I’ve described myself as a bit of a nomad in the past and, if my trackrecord is anything to go by, that sums it up pretty well. Every time things got really difficult I’d move. Moving back to Reading was my attempt at normalising my life, being in the same place, settling somewhere for a length of time and breaking the cycle. The last months it’s been getting more and more difficult to stay in Reading and, with some recent developments, I’m struggling even more. Even a post from a month ago marking my return a year before that already has that coming through.

Looking into staying and making this work is a priority even though I’m not sure it’s actually the solution my nomadic self wants, but it’s better than being in this situation again years down the line.

In the meantime there might be less of me on Twitter or here. Or maybe more, who knows.

Note: Whilst comments are welcome I reserve the right to moderate more strictly, just like with anything else posted in the personal category, then perhaps on the rest of the blog. Thanks!

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How long does a screwtop bottle of red wine remain drinkable once opened? #

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• jhomerston: I’d say about 2 days, 3 if the wine was a very dry red. #
• emmaguy: if it smells like vinegar its probably gone. Otherwise it’s still good ;) #
• GeminiAce: Depends on how many bottles you’ve consumed before it. #
• Anie67: if it’s screw top i’m guessing it’s a cheapish young wine? should last several days with cap on. older wines only ‘last’ about 6hrs #
• FallingBullets: dont know, never seen one last more than an hour… :p #
• PCurd: depends on the quality of the wine but weeks most likely for a cheap bottle. Red tastes like vinegar when it’s off #
• musecrossing: As long as a corked one, if not longer. #
• jszuryn: A week? (unless you drink it a bit sooner than that :) #
• loop_pool: depends how high your standards are! #
• Anie67: have you poisoned yourself on wine? #
• Ankit_Tr: I dont think alcohol goes bad. /Arrested Development #
• LivingDefiance: From what i’ve learn, up to a weak it’ll keep a decent taste #
• Angrythehat: did you leave it open or cork it? #
• sahfenn: about 5 days I think. Any longer than that it’s all gone here anyway ;) #

I actually discovered white wine only a couple of years ago and still don’t like red wine much. This particular bottle was opened some time ago, so long in fact that I can’t remember exactly when! Based on the responses I got I decided to not smell it or anything else and just pour it down the sink!

Thanks everyone!

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I’ve been a bit quiet this week both on here and Twitter. I’ve generally not had a good week from a mild stomach bug at the beginning of the week, generally stress and things to deal with plus no internet at home and dabr, my mobile Twitter client of choice, has been a bit temperamental lately.

I’m hoping things will improve next week though, I could do with a less stressful time!

This weekend I’m planning to do some more knitting as I’m very behind on projects and some more laundry. Realistically though I’ve been getting the urge to go back and complete my 7th KotOR playthrough as I want to play KotOR II again, especially after reading about Nar Shaddaa yesterday.

10 hours. 81 tweets. The Reading hashtag. Most of them about the same thing:

• asilon: Please don’t rain in #rdg; I have a lot of washing to get dry today. #
• parent2: @asilon Sorry! RT @getreading: Flash warning of heavy rain for Reading: http://bit.ly/97vS2h #rdgnews #rdg #
• lortolan: Here comes the rain in #shinfield… RT @getreading: Flash warning of heavy rain for Reading: http://bit.ly/97vS2h #rdg #
• Dani_Sweens: Oh no, here comes the rain and still no marquee! HELP! #raftrace #rdg #
• gavinaldrich: here comes the rain again… #rdg hasn’t it gone dark! #
• getwokingham: Flash warning of heavy rain for Wokingham http://bit.ly/9x0WeE <rain has hit #rdg has it reached #woky yet? #
• devilhat: Raining. Heavily. I think I’ve inherited the #rdg storm. #
• sahfenn: Wow that was a big rumble of thunder in #rdg #
• tomcanning83: I heard about the thunder in #rdg on twitter before real life! #win #
• stevegabb: @tomcanning83 Count the seconds between receiving the tweet and the thunder and it’ll tell you how far away it is. #rdg #win #
• tomcanning83: @stevegabb Is that in imperial or metric? #rdg #
• DanielMcLaren: heavens have opened in #Rdg….. ye gods! #
• getreading: RT @DanielMclaren: heavens have opened in #Rdg….. ye gods! –> Raining like the clappers here in Caversham. #
• Dani_Sweens: The #raftrace event team making the best of the bad weather! #rdg http://twitpic.com/27lcja #
• ab_sw: Just a light drizzle in #rdg .. #
• PaddyCunningham: Wow, thunder, lightening and now stupidly heavy hailstone shower in #rdg, yes people hailstones !!! #
• LouiseJJohnson: Ha! Someone on the #rdg hashtag read about the thunder on twitter before he heard it. There’s a physics exam question in that somewhere. #
• karenblakeman: Flash flood in Star Road RG4 5BE #caversham #rdg http://twitpic.com/27ltcz #
• LuckyHarvey: Blimey – I think those #Rdg hailstones have now hit #woky!! Pelting down. #
• timmorgan: All this rain and thunder in #rdg. Haven’t seen any of it in Basingstoke for a couple of hours! #
• markrfletcher: Rain’s so bad in #rdg that it’s made a puddle in the lawn http://twitvid.com/VMWPT #
• carocat: Enjoying the torrential downpour under the outside cover in Starbucks with @boardyuk. #rdg http://twitpic.com/27lhl3 #
• itsjustyou: That heavy rain in #rdg ? Yeah, I was cycling home during it… #
• DroneRiff: Typical, I brave it and walk home in the rain. It stops half way home! But streets flooded from road to front gardens was impressive #rdg #
• kissmyart: Glad I left work when I did – its tipping it down in paddington! Hope its not raining in #rdg for my walk home #
• krider2010: @LuckyHarvey depends where you are heading; #rdg monsoon like, #bck hardly a drop! #
• kissmyart: #rdg station platforms a little flooded this evening #
• brainwipe: RT @itsjustyou: That heavy rain in #rdg ? Yeah, I was cycling home during it… (me too. The hail stung like buggery!) #
• LAYYYZ: I can’t believe it! (in my best victor meldrew voice) all the rain water has dried up on the roads in #rdg it’s like it didn’t even happen! #

I love the Reading Twitter community!

Gamer Banter is a monthly gaming discussion of multiple bloggers. More info is here and please contact Terry from Game Couch if you wish to take part.

July’s topic is set by Terry from Game Couch: How important is cover art to you?

Not at all.

Seeing how this makes for a very short Gamer Banter post, I decided to take this question to Twitter:

Gamers: How important is the cover art for you? Also, what’s your favourite one? #

• liquidindian: Not at all. I get all my games digital download now. #
• XaosWolf: Not for me personally, as I keep up with gaming news, but for impulse buyers and those looking for gifts, and such, very important. Favourites: Okami and Zelda TP. And most FF games. #
• sahfenn: If I see a good cover it’ll make me look at a review. Favourite cover … Hmm. Mini ninjas on Xbox is very cute. #
• Tapio: Ugly art=No buy..just kidding, I did buy ME2. Super Mario world has best one. Simple and that’s what cover art needs to be. #
• spritesbites: the cover art is important, it is the first thing i see when judging a game. but what is on the back cover is more important. #
• spritesbites: if the cover art shows signs of manga or other similar japanese art, I avoid. I don’t like that style. #
• NeoKubrick: Not much. Most of the games now release generic cover art without it being really ‘art’.
• phil_crabtree: I do like the box art but it’s hard to pick the best one. I liked Batman AA but maybe that’s just because I love the game? #
• chrisbrownsell: It won’t convince me to but a game, but I do like nice box art. Not sure what my favourite is though. I’ll get back to you. #
• PCurd: Game box art shouldn’t be important but it is as is all marketing material. I might be swayed to buy a game I was “umming and arring” about by game art that intrigues me. As for favourite box art, not really sure. I like the Dragon Age one but Fable also sticks in my memory.
• LivingDefiance: I always thought good coverart made or broke some games for me, especially if i was unsure. #
• Zoibie: A good cover art might make me appreciate a game more, but it never influences me to buy a game. Favourite? Resistance 2 EU I think. #
• BladedExpert: Coverart has zero impact on purchases. But I’m usually in the know about new releases. I honestly couldn’t tell you of a favourite. #

I can remember some memorable game covers; some of my favourite ones include the style of GTA games and Voodoo Vince, but I can’t recall much else. Undeniably there are some people arguing that there is some great game cover art, but don’t see the attraction even after following this tumblr blog for months.

Convince me otherwise? What is your favourite cover art?

Read these posts to see what the other participants of Gamer Banter think about games cover art:

• Silvercublogger: Don’t Cover The Art, Unless…
• The Average Gamer: Cover Art
• Aim for the Head: Browsing the Aisles
• SnipingMizzy: In the eye of the beholder
• Extra Guy: On Books and Covers
• Zath: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?
• carocat.co.uk: Cover art? No, thanks!
• Pioneer Project: The game box’s big moment
• Man Fat: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?

As I’ve mentioned before I was part of the volunteer team at Reading’s Race for Life this past weekend.

The weekend was really good though at the same time stressful due to many other things I was doing that weekend, not all of them planned! The weather was mostly beautiful and at least I could improve my tan and do some knitting during the Saturday downtime between races.

Kodak moments included:

• A 94 year old woman walking on the Saturday AM race and completing the course!
• All the costumes, specifically the child in the Doctor Who one even though he didn’t take part!
• A woman who is normally in a wheelchair completing the 5k course in the Sunday race after just under three hours after there were only volunteers and random families in the park left.

Of course there were bad things, too:

• Bitchy volunteers. Yes, they’re volunteers, but at the same time you should never bitch about the people taking part in the race nevermind how prepared they are. One of the reasons Cancer Research needs the volunteers is to ensure the event hasn’t got any major problems, not to bitch about someone forgetting their safety pins to attach their running numbers..
• Lack of activities around the race leading to an empty park when the race was underway.
• And then there was a run in I had with one person who got a bit aggressive when he found out his wife and daughter weren’t able to register on the day as the race was completely full.
• Music. There are some songs I never ever want to hear again!

Pictures:

• Heart Fm Saturday AM and PM
• Nivea

And some of mine:

I’m planning to do volunteer again next year and am also planning to walk one of the races. Are you going to sponsor me?

The 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt was a major police operation in North East England in which armed police officers under the command of the Northumbria Police force attempted to apprehend Raoul Moat, a 37-year-old man from Newcastle upon Tyne who had recently been released from Durham Prison. Moat, armed with a sawn-off shotgun, was believed to have shot three people: his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, her new partner Chris Brown, and police officer David Rathband. Brown was killed, while Stobbart and Rathband remain hospitalised, seriously injured. After six days on the run, on 9 July Moat was recognised by police and contained in the open, leading to a standoff in Rothbury. After nearly six hours of negotiation, Moat shot himself in the early hours of 10 July.

Required background here.

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I have to admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the pursuit during the first few days. I read the random headline here and there, but it wasn’t anything that directly concerned me and the updates came fast and plenty that pretty much planned to just wait until the situation was resolved to read a recap. This changed last Friday when a vast majority of my Twitter stream suddenly contained references to Moat and bad media coverage.

Here are a couple of tweets, tumblr posts and links I posted that evening and the following days:

• Now watching BBC news as I didn’t believe Twitter how bad the coverage of #Moat is. Bad, awful, atrocious don’t quite sum it up.. – @carocat
• “Extraordinary evening with extraordinary, fast unfolding events” #BBCNews #moatwatch What events? Talking to someone on the phone?! – @carocat
• “She could actually see what she believed to be Moat with what she thought to be police negotiators.” – cat on tumbler
• “Gascoigne’s agent, Kenny Shepherd, said: “He’s doing what? I am sitting having an evening meal in Majorca. I’m speechless.” – cat on tumblr
• Raoul Moat’s family: why did police reject our offers of help? – Guardian.co.uk

The coverage was atrocious. For hours the BBC news team stood in very close proximity to Moat filming the police, trying to zoom into Moat lying on the ground and, most bizarrely, phoned up completely random people that may or may not at some point have lived in Rothbury. In fact, @disgraceUK summed it up very well:

I have a friend of a friend whose uncle’s sister’s friend once drove through Rothbury. Shall I go get interviewed? #

I have written about sensationalist media reporting before; last March after a shooting in Germany. Media that is so hellbent on getting the best angle that they aren’t afraid to climb into trees or interviewing the daughter of a woman who is locked into a house near to Moat. Media that happily creates a liveblog for every day. Bad media is bad.

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Moving on the big topic today seems to be just who is at fault and how the general British public should act. A Facebook page was set up for people showing sympathy for Moat and it quickly reached 30k members though I assume a large number of that was due to the media coverage which included this:

David Cameron condemned public sympathy for Moat today and described the gunman as a “callous murderer”. The prime minister said he could not understand “any wave of public sympathy for this man”. Any sympathy should be directed towards Moat’s victims, he said.

Chris Heaton-Harris, Conservative MP for Daventry, suggested Cameron should contact Facebook to ask it to remove the RIP Raoul Moat page. Heaton-Harris said the page contained anti-police statements, which should be taken down. Cameron said he was making a “very good point”

Guardian.co.uk

This was also brought up in last night’s Question Time:

Second question – Is it acceptable for Facebook to have allowed a page worshipping Raoul Moat as a hero? #

From what I saw of it was most of the panelists agreeing that free speech is important yet also disagreeing harshly with the page’s existence with some saying it should be removed as it criticises the police and that it’s disgusting.

I completely disagree.

Raoul Moat asked for therapy whilst still in prison. He mentioned the media in several of his letters to the police. Yes, shooting and killing someone is a horrible crime, but the police and media were not helpful in the last hours of his life. He died because the police fired two tazer shots at him and he pulled the trigger of his gun probably due to reflex. Having sympathy for what he went through is not only ok, but should be given and there is no way the government should step in to remove something that doesn’t break any laws purely because they don’t like it.

I didn’t become a member of the group. Whilst I agree with its existence, I don’t think the members themselves went about it the right way. @Bluraven summed this up:

Wow. The comments feel like something you’d find on a Youtube video. LOL. #

The group was later removed by its creator.

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Freedom of speech should be paramount. The press needs to be investigated about their actions, as does the police. And, just like @mariepercival said in an unrelated post, “we have entered into some sort of political limbo land” and need to actively get engaged with our government.

I’ve long since supported Cancer Research UK with monthly donations and I have in the past volunteered with them, though it never actually came together as the events were either fully staffed already or at times when I couldn’t make it.

A few months ago @chelthan told me that she was taking part in the Race for Life in Oxford which got me interested again. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to find enough people to sponsor me for the race itself so decided to take another look at volunteering.

There are three Reading events this weekend:

• Sat 17 July 2010, 11:00 – 5km
• Sat 17 July 2010, 15:30 – 5km
• Sun 18 July 2010, 11:00 – 5km

More info on this flyer.

I will be part of the admin team responsible for the sign-up and allocation of numbers for all three events which, judging by the weather forecast, most likely means sitting underneath a flimsy tent in the rain hoping that the wind won’t blow it away. Yet strangely I’m also looking forward to it.

Are you going to be there?

One of them was my childhood friend I had known since I can first remember as we lived in the same house and our parents were close which led to us going on holidays together. We went to the same school walking together every day, sitting next to each other and played together at breaktimes. Later I stayed with the family for a few weeks as a we moved and I wouldn’t have been able to attend school from the new location though once we moved we lost touch. We were ten years old at the time. I clearly remember what he used to look like though, judging by his current profile picture, I wouldn’t be able to recognise him even if I’d meet him!

The other one was a friend I had all the way through secondary school. We lived in the same street though didn’t go to the same school and she was the year above me. We had many things in common, like reading, both did voluntary children’s work and spent a lot of time together. She and some friends even came to visit me when I went to school in England for a year when I was 16. We didn’t so much drift apart as ending our friendship on a negative note. We had both changed a lot and with it our priorities and views on life. I disagreed with her shift in faith and her boyfriend she later married and even though we tried to remain friends after I came back to Germany a year later I didn’t fit in with her new activities and, following some arguments, we ended the friendship. The last time I saw her was in 2004 when I was back in Germany for a couple of days and ran into her on the bus where we casually talked, although several mutual friends mentioned her regularly and still do.

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I considered sending a friend request to both of them, but decided not to in the end. Going to England for a year back then changed me a lot which is one of the reasons I found it difficult settling in again when I returned. Their lives in comparison hadn’t changed that much, they remained living at home going to the same school with the same people. retrospectively I realise that neither one of us could see the other point of view well, but that’s too late now. Looking at someone’s profile I last spoke to on the day of my 11th birthday which is afterall 16 years ago didn’t seem like a good idea at all!

The search was sparked in the first place by searching for a picture of one of the children’s events we both did. Combining both our names the result showed, amongst other things, an interview she did for a very local newspaper following her new job. The interview was very selective, she changed details of her past and took sole credit for some of the things we both coordinated.

Strangely that didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I remember the things we accomplished or the things I did with other people. I remember the children I used to work with and also the friendships to the other volunteers and having my name attached to something or being mentioned, even if not by name, in an interview doesn’t mean anything. It is exactly the reason I wouldn’t want to get in contact with her any more though. It has been eight years since we fell out, she has since married a her boyfriend I never liked anyway and she is happy in her jobs and various volunteer things she does elsewhere. She felt the need to change details about her past which makes me realise that there isn’t any point rekindling any form of friendship.

And that’s good, it gives me closure and doesn’t make me wonder about the possibilities in those moments when I get nostalgic.

To say I missed Facebook is overstating it. I missed out on some events as they were advertised on Facebook and people initially assumed I had seen the invitations. I missed out on some birthdays as I forgot to write the important ones down before I deactivated my account and I also missed out on some pictures as people would post them on Facebook and nowhere else. At the same time I was already using Twitter and a German social networking site, so I still had the same social interactions.

I reactivated my account again in April this year as I remembered some pictures on my account which weren’t backed up anywhere else and, after copying them, had a look around. I removed most of my personal information on there, deleted several photo albums and apps and a large number of the ‘friends’. Colleagues I haven’t worked with in seven years? Gone. Friends of friends I’ve met at several parties six years ago? Gone. Housemates from the same amount of time? Gone. People I’m not in contact with in some shape or form? Gone..

I also closed a separate Facebook account I had in order to view a friend’s linked photo album using a secondary email address which, for some strange reason, had 18 friend requests!

Will I use Facebook much? I doubt it. I don’t like what they’re doing with the lack of privacy and Facebook’s integration on other sites which I also don’t like for sites offering a Twitter login, but overall it’s good to stay in contact with the people I do want to stay in contact with.

15 years later the next big disaster happened, 9/11. I remember I had just come home from a friend’s house after school and was on the livingroom floor talking to the same friend and watching some music tv. Flicking through the channels during an ad break I came across the live news report minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I remember mentioning it to her on the phone with something like “oh, there’s been an accident in New York, a plane crashed”. Obviously it later turned out to be much more than that.

Four years later I had left school, moved to the UK and started working for a company in the South East. I remember the day when a supervisor told us what had happened early in the morning and I proceeded to call some friends and family in Germany who never quite understood that a town 20 miles from London isn’t in London. The day itself doesn’t carry many memories, apart from the public transport being delayed by many hours which really wasn’t that surprising.

What I do remember is the time I was at in my life at the time. It was a transitional period having just moved from the first place I had been properly settled in the UK due to finding something with a better location for commuting to work. I also remember changing departments at work and some friends finishing university. Most of all I remember how much my life changed in the last five years, the friends I’ve made, the things that I got interested in and what became important to me.

It’s interesting that it feels like such a long time ago yet at the same time like no time has passed at all.

SatScenes is a collection of photographs taken by people on Twitter from all around the world every Saturday. Participation is optional and only involves sending a tweet to @satscenes with a link to the picture. There are no themes and the only rule is that the picture was taken within the 24 hours of that Saturday.

Every Wednesday all the collected SatScenes are then posted on the blog by @akaSylvia.

My first SatScenes picture was in November 2008:

Since then I’ve taken pictures in three countries and five towns. I’ll be making a full list of them at some point, but for now there are some collected here.

Take part!

Even though I’ve known about V for a while I’ve only just started watching it properly now as Elizabeth Mitchell‘s presence confused me while Lost was still ongoing. And she is also one of the main reasons I’m watching it with one of the other ones being Morena Baccarin.

The general concept is intriguing with 30 alien ships hovering above the major cities of the world and, as shown halfway through the season, hundreds more on their way to Earth. It’s no doubt that the aliens have ulterior motives, but it’s not clear what they want as they could just take over Earth in an instant. Instead they choose to offer free advanced technology to have humanity depend on them for a later advantage in trades. They crack down on any resistance and have had people in many key positions acting as humans for at least a decade.

It’s the hopelessness that I like about it. There isn’t a clearly defined big bad and it’s entirely episodic with the characters mostly scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. Elizabeth Mitchell and Morena Baccarin are brilliant as their respective characters and I can’t wait for them to appear in some scenes together. In comparison the male supporting actors are a little bit disappointing with too little depth, but this will hopefully improve.

Is it as good as Lost? No, but it’s just about intriguing enough to replace it for now.

I’ve been watching 24 over the last few days which I’ve mentioned multiple times on Twitter. Like here and here and here and here. This isn’t the first time I’ve watched it, but despite being annoyed about many things [this list is in no way conclusive!] I’ve decided to rewatch some of it and watch the remaining seasons I’ve yet to watch.

I have season 1-4 of 24 as a DVD boxset and don’t have any real complaints with season 1-3 which feature slow menus, but are overall functional and, most importantly, have the option to play all the episodes on one disc back to back without the studio logos or piracy notices.

Season 4, however, is different. Every disc starts with the ‘Piracy is Crime’ video which is roughly one minute long and unskippable not to mention the awful music.

This is followed by the animated studio logo, some menu intro video and finally no option to play all episodes back to back. It gets worse when selecting the individual episodes though as they show an image taken from the episode. Thanks to those I knew that Debbie was going to die and Tony kidnapped before it happened. Thanks for the spoilers, FoxTVDVD.

As for season 4 itself, it’s even more annoyingly unrealistic than the previous ones. We’re meant to believe that one person organised:

• a kidnapping,
• the spreading of a virus to cause nuclear reactor meltdowns with a handy override device,
• the theft of a stealth plane,
• the crash of the Air Force One,
• the theft of the nuclear warhead codes and a warhead and, finally,
• the launch of a nuclear warhead.

All whilst managing multiple terrorist cells and a large number of replaceable henchmen.

The meltdown of the nuclear reactors across the US would have been enough to not only thwart the further attempts, but also make them pointless as none of them would have had an impact then. If he was so convinced and organised he wouldn’t have made quite so many contingency plans.

Tumblr yesterday announced its new ‘mega-editor‘ which allows editing, tagging and deleting multiple posts at once. That way I’ve been able to delete tweets I had auto imported into tumblr back in 2008 and wanted to remove for a while, but without the effort of doing it one by one.

My tumblr includes a majority of the photos I take and share on the internet [which is roughly about 20% of the images I take] as I post most of them to TwitPic which auto posts them to tumblr.

These are the photos I’ve tagged so far on tumblr:

• Photos I took
• Photos I took in 2008
• Photos I took in 2009
• Photos I took in 2010
• Project365

Having finally got a good tool to look through them is great as I don’t have some of them saved elsewhere and some are duplicates.

In addition to tumblr there are only three other places I have posted pictures to in the past which is this blog, another photoblog I never got around setting up properly and my imageshack.us account which has about 1000 images stored though I presume only 2% of them are actually photos I took. Again, there are probably many duplicates.

It also begs the question if I do want my photos to be in some central blog as my tumblr blog is pretty much just a scrapbook, but I don’t think I’d want something that isn’t automated as I tend to be quite forgetful.

As for the title of this blog post, well, it’s interesting to see how much history some of the pictures carry, even if they just contain everyday stuff. Creating a place that’s somewhere between a diary and a photoblog would also be an option.

I don’t follow many companies on Twitter, as I’m fairly selective with the people I’m following. One of the few companies I do follow is @XboxSupport. I’ve contacted them several times in the past and some of the issues could not be resolved, just like when a friend once contacted them with a straightforward issue and they made him jump through several hoops. I have mentioned this to them directly in their feedback reports and via direct messages.

I have nothing but the highest respect for anyone working in customer support and appreciate the difficulty of only having 140 characters to help customers. Their customer service has improved vastly over time and I’m sure it’ll carry on to do so in the future.

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At the same time I also think that customer service should work and, where it can’t be dealt with on Twitter, should be taken to other communication methods. @BTcare do this exceptionally. This is a brief summary of my interactions with them over a four months period at the beginning of the year:

1. I contacted the Twitter account to ask to be removed from the BT marketing lists. This involved me emailing my landline number and account holder name to their email address. The matter was dealt with in less than a day.
2. I contacted the Twitter account as we didn’t appear to have any service, even though the bill was paid. Based on my Twitter account and the previous interaction they were able to look up my details and tell me that my housemate’s direct debit hadn’t gone through, even though he claimed he had. Matter was dealt with in an hour and one reply tweet.
3. I contacted their Twitter account to get information about changing the account holder. I was linked to information within hours.

Their support works, because they have the database to back it up, something @XboxSupport are hopefully working on.

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Coming back to the game problem. It’s now 24 hours and 47 Tweets from the customer [over half of them soapboxing] later and the issue is finally resolved after standard troubleshooting methods to eliminate causes. Based on the tweets it could have been resolved after 21 tweets or even earlier, but it was dragged out to involve at least four other people over a few hours. Granted, I may be more or less responsible for it as I wouldn’t let it drop.

Twitter is a public platform and often has people that want to further their own agenda and, well, complain about anything. Tonight is just yet another example of someone starting with a support question which ended up getting out of hand with insults and sarcasm.

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What are the differences between the support accounts? There is no need to follow either of them as questions can be answered without it, but the @XboxSupport account actively encourages people to follow it by tweeting about game news and sweepstakes. Moving that to another account, such as @XboxOfficial or something similar would reduce that. This would also reduce the amount of people that see long and public conversation and would overall reduce the internet drama at least some.

I love that companies provide customer service on Twitter and hope that more will continue to do so, even if the DailyMail paints it as something bad whilst completely missing the point as usual!

Over the years I’ve always insisted that I don’t like audiobooks much and have only ever listened to a few which includes Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter, several Patricia Cornwell ones, Stephen Hawking, and the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ which was also read by Rob Inglis. I would include the BBC production of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but that’s more of a play than an audiobook though by no means any less enjoyable.

I do still like reading a lot, but I find it very incompatible with my life. So much time of my day is spent reading or focussing my eyes on something that often I don’t feel too tired or overstimulated to read something. I don’t commute any more and have to actually set time aside to read which clashes with times when I’m knitting or doing other craft projects. Audiobooks are ideal for those situations and seeing there are several things to be knitted for various upcoming birthdays I predict I’ll be listening to a lot more audio books!

Rob Inglis is an amazing narrator. Originally I thought that I would consider no one to be as good as Stephen Fry, but Rob Inglis isn’t just better, he is on a completely different level. He sings the songs, often as set by Tolkien, does the voices and his tone is just right for describing Middle Earth*. I recommend this to anyone, even if they’ve already read the books.

Whilst I never finished listening to the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ as the entire trilogy spans just over 50 hours and I have read the books multiple times before, I’ve never read ‘The Hobbit’ and it’s a mere 11 hours long. I look forward listening to Bilbo’s grand adventure which so far has taken him past the same trolls that Frodo also runs into.

*The entirety appears to be uploaded on Youtube, but the quality is quite bad overall. Still, it’s good to get an idea what it’s like.

Back in the day [oh how I hate that phrase!] I used to write and receive a lot of letters, especially when I went to school in England for a year and later moved back here. It was pretty much the only way to stay in contact with my friends and gave me something to do and I wish I had kept copies of the letters as they are about times I don’t really remember much. It all stopped about five years ago when increased commitments, the inevitable drifting away from friends back home and my inability to use German made it difficult to write them. These days it’s very rare to receive any letters at all, although I do receive more postcards as I’ve made a habit out of ‘forcing’ people to send me one every time they go away!

Pretty much the only person I write letters to these days is a friend from Germany who moved to India a year ago and doesn’t have the internet there. We write to each other in English, even though we’re both native German speakers and have lived a majority of our lives there.

I’ve discussed my problems with both English and German on twice before, strangely enough both posts were related to NaNoWriMo! In the first one I lamented the fact that I can’t write creatively in English and can no longer do anything with German and in the shorter second one I realised a large part of my past NaNoWriMo failures was due to my inability to write dialogue which, admittedly, I always had problems with in German, too.

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Overall I consider both my written and spoken English to be very good. I can form coherent sentences, can play around with words and, most importantly, people understand me. I have made an increased effort in the past months to keep up to date with German which is writing more in German and speaking it on the phone, but it’s difficult. It frustrates me that I can’t use either language to my own satisfaction which, I guess, is where the, normally well hidden, perfectionist in me comes through.

Even though I learned the basics of English at school growing up, it wasn’t until visiting England several times as a teen and later spending a year at school here that I actually learned it by being completely immersed into the language and culture equally. Whilst learning the language at school helped me develop a sense for the grammar, actually living here made me develop my gut feeling of something sounding right or wrong which is what my English is based on these days. It is incredibly frustrating when I chose to ignore my gut feeling as I end up doubting myself just to realise later that I was right in the first place.

Some recent examples that I’ve taken to Twitter:

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English question: Is it possible to use the word ‘verbatim’ when referring to copy someone, like mirroring someone’s gestures? #

The Latin origin of the word is ‘word for word’ so the general consensus was that it should be to mimic instead. I ended up using to mirror as that fit the context better.

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The info differs from/to what X said? #

This actually led to some discussion. Some preferred ‘from’, others ‘to’ and ‘different than’ was thrown into the mix, as well as these two snippets:

strayjohno: If it helps: “similar to, different from” is what I always remember. As in X is similar to Y, or X is different from Y. #

talldavek: To is more British. From is universal and more logical. So use whichever you like. Than is seldom used these days. #

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Obligatory thanks to these awesome people who put up with my English questions on Twitter [though I've probably forgotten some]: cory_grimes, BladedExpert, jamesbmarshall, JoeGizzle, noirem, PCurd, sparc, strayjohno, sulz and talldavek.

Also, I’m shocked by the amount of people that replied to me on Twitter about writing letters. Surely some people still send them?

Talking to @Vinjii on Twitter made me wonder what other films I remember fondly from my teenage years, before I grew up and later became a geek and turned to TV shows. The following is in no particular order and by no means complete:

• Cruel Intentions
• 10 things I hate about you
• Clueless
• Empire Records
• She’s the One
• Addicted to love
• When a man loves a woman
• Sleepless in Seattle
• You’ve got mail
• Notting Hill
• The Mexican
• Die Hard 1-3
• The Rock
• Under Siege
• Indiana Jones 1-3
• Bad Boys 1-2
• Tin Cup
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
• Silverado
• Moll Flanders
• Chocolat
• Cool Runnings

The question is now, what did I miss?

In my continued efforts at procrastination instead of sorting pictures [yes, I know that post is from April and I haven't done much since then, shush!] I’ve decided to tackle the much smaller amount of documents, letters, pdf’s and random notepad notes instead. Only a few hundred uncategorised ones there!

Among random started blogposts, some of which might even see the light of day after all, there were many phone numbers, links, appointments from a year ago, hints for games and this. Now I don’t know who wrote this or where I got it from. By all means I could have written it at some point!

• Best way to catch a fly is to sit on the floor meowing at it. It is obviously far more effective than any other method.
• Just because a cat enjoys being stroked in some place, for example the belly, one day doesn’t mean that will be the case the next one.
• Cats look cutest when they’ve just woken up.
• Tickling a sleeping cat with its own tail will incur the wrath of said cat and it will continue stare until stroked long enough.
• The fight for the sofa or anything else comfortable is destined to be lost by humanity. This also ties in with:
• Whenever any human, particularly owners discover something new, it automatically becomes the most wanted thing for any cat.
• If a cat wants to have attention it is to have attention from the moment it desires.

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It’s been just over a month since Arthur arrived. Having him here has been interesting and full of conflict which isn’t his fault, but more his reason for being here and the obligations that come with it. And his problem with me sleeping isn’t helping either as I generally only get four hours before he either has to sleep somewhere close to my head, play with something loudly or meow.

At the same time he is incredibly affectionate and loving which is something that he’s never done before at his previous house where I’ve known him for years. This is somehow causing additional issues with his owners who are more than a little put off by his behaviour change.

All of the above applies to him perfectly!

Gamer Banter is a monthly gaming discussion of multiple bloggers. More info is here and please contact Terry from Game Couch if you wish to take part.

June’s topic is set by Terry from Game Couch: What was the game that made you a gamer?

When I first read the question I thought it was going to be easy answering it. An older version of my about page from 2007 states: “The game that convinced me to buy an Xbox in November 2003 was Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic which to this day continues to be one of my favourite titles.” KotOR is still my first gaming love and many times I’ve wanted to write a post about it, but couldn’t put it into words. There are at least eight started posts in my drafts and I’ve mentioned the game several times before in other posts.

However, does it mean it is the game that made me a gamer?

I remember playing exactly five games until I was 20 years old. Two of those were Tetris and some Mario game on the original Gameboy stolen from my best friend pre primary school when he fell asleep on the seat next to me during a long car journey from Germany to Italy! The other three were Tomb Raider 2, 3 and 4 which I borrowed from my friend’s brother back in 90′s, although I’m pretty sure I still had them a few years ago.. Out of those games I vaguely remember completing Tomb Raider 2 using the official strategy guide and I don’t recall particularly enjoying playing any of the games, but for some reason I carried on regardless.

I officially got into games in 2003 when I took a job as a gamestester following a mostly fruitless jobsearch after having just moved to the UK. Money was running out, the company was looking for native German speakers and a friend of mine was working there. To say it changed my life doesn’t quite describe the impact that job had on me over the following four years. Yes, gamestesting, or rather playtesting, itself is a boring job. Running into the same wall twenty times or playing with certain test specific game settings to simulate average gamers or playing incredibly broken games isn’t fun. Neither is completing the same game 20 times a week for three weeks or playing a game that’s of no interest which, in my case, is football or puzzle games.

Yet none of that mattered on the 5th of August 2003. My memory being as random it is, I still remember the day as if it was yesterday though, if I’m being honest, probably better!

I had chosen a very hot summer to move to the UK; the terraced house I was sharing with a close friend and some of his friends was unbearable and the week before we had started to camp in the garden. I had moved to the UK just over a month prior to that and spent a majority of the time job hunting. Every shop in town had my CV, I had filled out countless application forms, but was only offered a cold calling telesales job which I quit after three days as the little commission I made didn’t even cover my commuting!

One of my housemates, a Spanish speaking student, had taken up a part time job working as a gamestester and he suggested I should apply for it as well. It took them over a week to require an additional German tester [I later learned they misplaced my application and had been desperate for a native German all along!] and get back to me and I got the phonecall late Monday afternoon asking me to be in at 8.30am the following morning.

The night was yet another hot night and none of us could get any sleep inside or outside and suddenly it was 7am and we had to leave to catch a bus, followed by a train and a 30 minute walk. Arriving at the office there was an introduction followed by the signing of contracts and a far too long and detailed NDA before finally starting my job.

I remember both games I played on that day, both of them sports games taking me completely out of my comfort zone as I didn’t know the rules to either of them! Of course, I was bad at them, even though I quickly learned the rules and after an hour or so I enjoyed them. I got the first couple of wins. There were cutscenes with winning celebrations. Upbeat music. Excitement.

Even though I didn’t realise it at the time I was hooked. Not necessarily hooked on the winning itself or the sense of achievement at completing levels or a game, but hooked to gaming. Games did things I couldn’t even imagine and it was fun which is why I bought an Xbox with five games in November 2003: Halo, Midtown Madness 3, Conflict Desert Storm, Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring and Wallace and Gromit Project Zoo.

So which of the above games made me a gamer? None and all of them equally. I do think the games I played on that first day had a large part to do with it as I ended up buying them at a later point, but there were many more games that had me coming back over and over again.

Are you as curious as me to find out what other people consider the game that made them a gamer? Read their posts:

• Aim for the Head: The Gamer I Am Today
• carocat.co.uk: A Trip Down Memory Lane
• Yuki-Pedia: A Tale of Two Games
• gunthera1_gamer: Early Gaming Experience
• Extra Guy: Ah yes, I remember it well
• The Average Gamer: What Made Me a Gamer
• Sivercublogger: Uncovering Lost Treasures
• Master Kitty’s World: Gaming Through the Years
• Gamer Unit: What was the game that made you a gamer?
• Game Couch: Karateka
• Next Jen: What Made Me into a Gamer

What was the game that made you a gamer?

It was a beautiful day; I was walking along the rather idyllic lake on the Reading University campus with two of my friend’s kids when the unthinkable happened:

Chased by approximately 80 ducks and geese at the Reading Uni lake! [They didn't all fit the picture!] #

Yes, of course they didn’t actually harm me or the kids and according to the groundskeeper I spoke to it’s fairly common for them to follow humans as so many feed them bread. However, having roughly 80 ducks and geese slowly emerge from the water and follow you on an uneven path, making pushing a pushchair difficult, is an interesting feeling. Especially as I’ve seen the film ‘Birds‘ several times!

What I love is how something this simple can create some hilarious Twitter replies:

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• beautifulvenice: @carocat did you have bread on you? why were they chasing you?? #
• beautifulvenice: @carocat scary…. i wont be visiting the devil ducks then!! V Hitchcockian #
• FallingBullets: @carocat heheh, FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD *omnomnomnom* #

• Zyber: @carocat You were chased?? However did you get away unscathed? #
• carocat: @Zyber I talked to them and it sent them to sleep. Y’know, what I do to you all the time! ;) #

• loop_pool: Run @carocat run! #
• carocat: @loop_pool I got to safety [as evident by me posting the picture!]. Running ain’t so easy with a pushchair, who knew?! They were harmless though! #
• loop_pool: @carocat oh that’s ok then – pushchair as shield, small child sacrificed as diversion… #
• loop_pool: “Women & gamers first!!” RT @loop_pool: @carocat oh that’s ok then – pushchair as shield, small child sacrificed as diversion… #
• carocat: @loop_pool @sahfenn I had two of them with me, too! I’m sure my friend wouldn’t have minded if I’d only come back with one of them! ;) #

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And then it came to this:

sahfenn: @carocat there’s a horror movie script there :) #

Some of the film titles suggested, some more may be at the #duckfilms hashtag:

sahfenn:
Mallard 2: Duck Harder
Ong-Quack
Fried Green Ducks at the Whistlestop Cafe

NevilleFenn:
28 ducks later

iglooant:
Quackular

cbryanjones:
Around the Lake with 80 Ducks

loop_pool:
The Duck Hunter
Dawn Of The Ducks
The Incredible Duck
Ducks At A Funeral
Ducks And The City

carocat:
When Ducks Attack
They came from the water
The ducks strike back
Duck Hard 1
A tale of two ducks
Lord of the Ducks – Return of the Duck
Episode 4 – A New Duck

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What other ‘duck’ related films could there be?

I’ve just finished watching ‘We Live In Public‘ and it was one of the most confusing documentaries I’ve ever watched. More4 had been advertising this film to death and the trailers looked quite interesting plus I’ve always been interested in topics about internet privacy and the evolution of the internet in everyday life.

The documentary was about Josh Harris, a guy I’d never heard about and neither did some of the CEO’s he tried pitching a product to at the end of the program which led to a quite embarrassing scene. I’m still not sure what the product was all about as the documentary seemed to be running out of time and suddenly sped up covering whole events and subjects in just a few sentences. Josh is described a bit of a visionary, although I’m unsure whether he made the statement about himself.

I lost interest within the first few minutes when I realised that Jason Calacanis was playing a major role in it and kept giving his opinion on everything. I have never liked anything he’s read or written before and this hasn’t changed my mind. For some reason I find the man truly unlikable. Julia Allison‘s brief appearance towards the end didn’t help either.

20% of Americans consume fast food every day. 50% of Americans consume social networking sites every day.

The entire documentary was a mess. There was no substance, it just jumped all over the place and I found it difficult concentrating on it which is where I briefly switched away during the first hour and watched the end of a Miss Marple film I enjoyed more.

Overall it focussed on what Josh had done and how he was allegedly a visionary about the internet and, I suppose, people in general. At some point in the late nineties he had created some sort of bunker underneath New York City and invited people to stay there with the full knowledge that everything would be filmed. Basically a Big Brother before Big Brother. From the videos it seemed to be a mix between the Stanford Prison experiment and some S&M sex party. Josh was in the middle of it all and his calmness was pointed out more than once, even when there was a seemingly disturbing scene happening right in front of him.

Unsurprisingly police intervened once they found out about it and it led to a confrontation between Josh and some young woman who was either on drugs or drunk or tired when he took her arm to take her out of the building. It was an uncomfortable watch, especially with the voiceover stating that Josh had become bored with the experiment anyway.

Randomly the documentary moves on to his next idea which is installing webcams all over his flat, including his bathroom that would transmit content 24 hours a day without editing. That’s where we learned that he has a phone in the bathroom which also seems to be his favourite place to talk to his mum. All phone conversations are recorded, as well as his entire life and marriage. This only makes him even more unlikable as he ends up having an altercation with his wife which turns violent and leads to her moving out. At least I think so, although they never show it. Perfect timing anyway as he yet again had enough of the experiment and suddenly seemed to be down on his luck.

There was a moment in time where I was worth 50 million dollars, now I’m negative.

He calls up some other unknown people I’m assuming I’m meant to know who also don’t know him and tries to pitch some products to some people about something. He also pitches to the MySpace CEO which led to the uncomfortable scene mentioned earlier.

The documentary moves on to social networking being evil by making random statements on the amount of pictures uploaded to Facebook and making general sweeping statements, everyone wanting their 15 minutes of fame and that we apparently enjoy the attention we receive from targeted ads and all of a sudden we’re in Africa where Josh disappeared to and now drinks tea all day long. His alleged visions the documentary was going on about the entire time didn’t come true or were obvious enough that they would have come true. He is entirely unlikable and violent man who, based on what’s shown in the film, hasn’t done anything worthwhile.

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So what’s the moral of the story? People are bad. Internet is good. People use internet badly. People are bad. There, I’ve saved you two hours of your life. You can thank me later.

So what does everyone do? They take it to Twitter. I think about 20 of the people I’m following are in Los Angeles at the event with another 50 or so watching the live streaming at the moment. And they’re all tweeting about it at the rate of one tweet per person per minute, some of them a lot more. Tweets like:

• Gears3NaoPlz
• Holy SHIT> Gears of War 3.
• Oh no
• this guy is a tank!!!
• meh, Fable, Halo…. yawn.
• Elites are tough!

I love Twitter for news and information and communication and follow each one of them for a reason, but I doubt I’ll ever understand the point in Live-Tweeting something pretty much all your followers are watching anyway. If someone was interested in getting live information they can follow one of the many accounts from gaming sites that have live tweeting with actual content.

What is the point of random shouting like that when no one involved is going to read it anyway as they’re too busy shouting their own stuff and anyone else can’t relate to something they’re not watching?

For what it’s worth I somewhat care about the announcements, but not enough to watch it live right now and am perfectly content with reading about it in a condensed article later tonight. You know, when all the hyping’s calmed down again.

I first joined Foursquare at some point last autumn, because I remember reading about it somewhere and wanted to have a look myself.

I didn’t initially see much of a point in it, but started using it for the same way I originally starting using Twitter for – helping my bad memory by remembering what I’ve done when and where. For example on Wednesday:

• 12:41 PM: Reading Station
• 1:25 PM: Paddington Railway Station
• 1:47 PM: German Embassy – “*crosses fingers*”
• 3:22 PM: Sloane Square Station – “Delays on the District line holding up the Circle line!”
• 3:47 PM: Starbucks – Paddington Central
• 4:34 PM: Paddington Railway Station – “Heading back to Reading on the 16.36. Yey.”
• 4:58 PM: Reading Station – “Definitely foursquare’d too much to day, but it helped keeping my annoyance at public transport in check!”
• 7:34 PM: Glo Reading – “A bit early for the #rdgtweetup. See you soon?”

There have been plenty of other posts about Foursquare, for example this one from @TheSourceress or this one by @JamesBMarshall or this one. James also sums up a lot of the things I dislike about the site itself which is mostly rectified by using the mobile site.

In addition to that there are some other problems I’ve got with the site with the main one being usernames. The site doesn’t use usernames unless connected with a Twitter account so accepting friend requests can be difficult. For example I’ve got a pending friend request from someone called Daniel at the moment. I know many people called Daniel and there is no way I can figure out who he is based on mutual friends.

And then there are the privacy concerns which @PaulCarr has summed up much better than me:

Yet within minutes of the first guests arriving, they were alarmed to discover that all of their privacy efforts were for naught. Their guests – their friends – had used Foursquare to check in at the party, thus instantly adding their address to the service’s growing database of highly specific locations.

From that point on, a simple search on the Foursquare site for the hosts’ name provides their full home address, along with a handy map for anyone who feels like breaking in and murdering them in their sleep. To make matters even worse, as more partygoers checked in – all caught up in the game element of this thing, and hoping to become mayor of someone else’s living room – the information was repeatedly pushed out via Twitter.

I don’t check in at home or at friend’s houses or anywhere I don’t want people to find me. I’m selective on who I accept on there and don’t relay my check in’s to Twitter with some rare exceptions.

Overall it does what I need it for; it tracks my movements and allows me to see if other people are around in town.

You can find me on Foursquare under carocat, but for the above reasons I will only accept requests if I know you.

Why does this make me so happy? This is why..

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I have played many games based on a film or TV franchise including Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lost, Buffy and more. I would even consider some of them to be amongst my favourite Xbox 1.0 games.

Games directly based on films or shows have to be fairly linear to not stray too far from the canon, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be fun. For example I quite enjoyed the game based on Star Wars Episode III when it was released back in 2005. It was nothing groundbreaking and extremely linear, but still fun at the time. Just like the hack ‘n slash Lord of the Rings games released as movie tie-ins. Nothing groundbreaking, but nevertheless fun at the time.

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Today, Slitherine Software [can't say I've heard of them before, but the name is rather awesome!] announced their latest title – The Tudors.

The Tudors is an intriguing and exciting adventure game based on Season 1 of the critically-acclaimed, award-winning television series which air on Showtime in the US. Follow in the footsteps of King Henry VIII at the beginning of his epic 40-year reign or choose the path of Anne Boleyn, and realize your dream to become Queen of England. As the story unfolds, you will meet over 20 characters from the series, including Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Sir Thomas More and roam the corridors and staterooms of the Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of the King.

Full press release.

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Pretty much everyone should be aware of the history regarding the Tudors; Henry VIII and his six wives with four annulled marriages, two beheaded wives after annulment, one dead wife and another one lucky enough to outlive him. Whilst the TV show has taken many liberties, it is still quite correct with the major events and I can’t see anything the game can innovate there. So what is the point?

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Going back to games I have played I remember being very put off when Ubisoft first announced Lost: Via Domus thinking that a game based on a continuity heavy show with all events tied in can’t have anything worth playing as surely the player would effectively just mirror the episodes of the show. However, the game strays from the show’s canon and invents a new character that crashed with the other survivors and interacts with some of them during the course of the game. Overall I very much enjoyed the game. Exploring the island was fun, the mini games decent and it had many things I love about the show from flashbacks to visions and a gripping story.

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The Tudors game has two playable characters, King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn which, granted, appears to add a bit of versatility to the game, however, it still sounds to me like it’s basically an interactive video with clicking through line after line of dialogue to eventually get to the end.

Do we need a game like that? Most likely not.

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I am and always will be sticking to the idea that more people should play games. Whilst I roll my eyes at the mere mention of Farmville, I love the idea it has so many players, especially people that don’t normally game which I’m sure many gamers will agree that it’s only downhill from there!

Regarding a debate about the planned banning of games in Germany following a mass shooting last year I wrote a post on how gaming is viewed by non gamers:

Gaming isn’t a mainstream past time, most people don’t have access to a high end PC or consoles and it is a foreign concept to them meaning gaming has to be explained to them. [...]

It is our [the gamers] responsibility to educate others about our hobby, just like it is the responsibility of many game companies.

FarmVille does that and if The Tudors has a similar effect I’ll be the first in line to welcome it with open arms. Does that mean I want to see more games like it? No, but it will do for now.

Note: This post is entirely based on the press release, trailer video and screenshots linked above. I have not played the game and most likely won’t as I don’t own an iPhone and the game is currently only available on the US and Canadian app stores. However, I would love to hear some feedback about the game though, even if it proves me wrong! If you have a spare $1.99, the direct download link is here and please don’t forget to come back to post a comment with your impressions!

365 days ago I moved back to the UK. So much has happened since then which I’ve already mentioned in other posts, but what surprises me most is that it feels so much longer than just a year. Granted, Reading has always been a home to me, unlike Germany, but moving back has been so simple with no adjustment period.

I’ve had a lot of things to sort out in the last few months and life hasn’t been all that great, especially with some people that aren’t around anymore, but overall the decision to move back has been the best decision I’ve made in a long time.

Here’s to another 365 days!

I have been knitting a fair bit in the last year, even though that’s not necessarily reflected in my Ravelry profile which I’m finding quite difficult to keep updated!

Projects I have completed since October:

• A blue scarf for my housemate as a Christmas present.
• A green scarf as a present for a friend which, as it turns out, is very much like the Starbucks green!
• A red scarf for another friend of mine.
• A pink scarf which I’ve since started unravelling again and started knitting again more narrowly [cutting down from 32 stitches to 16].

Projects I’ve started since October:

• A set of green wristers, though I’ve abandoned that attempt for now!
• A grey/purple staggered scarf.

So there is a distinct pattern there – scarves.

I learned how to knit when I was younger and I don’t know what any of the two stitches I know how to do are called so doing patterns is quite difficult for me. Most of my knitting is because I’m enjoying it whilst doing other things, like talking on the phone to a friend, meeting friends for a coffee or watching TV, so for the time being I’m fairly content with just doing the same thing over and over again, especially as I’ve now started resorting to different colour patterns.

There are some things I’m planning to knit in the future though not necessarily this year:

• Sackboy [Ravelry link]
• Beret [Ravelry link]
• Giraffe [Ravelry link]
• Mouse [Ravelry link]
• Wristers [Ravelry link] or maybe these [Ravelry link] again.
• Coffee sleeve [Ravelry link]

My big project for the rest of the year, however, will be a blanket. In reality I think it will take me longer than just this year to do as I’m planning a 200x150cm blanket with multicoloured squares each 20×20 stitches. Updates on that to follow!

I’ve also finally done something with my knitting page. It includes my Ravelry profile, profile description and various knitting pictures though I will have to take some more of recently completed work.

At the moment I’ve just gotten over my first sunburn in over ten years, a pulled muscle in my right upper arm that’s flared up again, a bruise on my right forearm thanks to a railing I didn’t notice early enough and several small bruises all over thanks to my friend’s children or public transport.

In itself none of that is severe in any case and I wouldn’t be this bothered about it had it not been less than a week ago that I regained my voice again after a particularly bad cold. It really has been one thing following another pretty much since the beginning of the year.

Of course there are several reasons for it. I’m regularly spending time with my friend’s children who pick up their colds and stomach bugs from other people. Continuous colds have left my immune system weakened and I haven’t done enough to combat it. I don’t have 5 a day, I don’t have set meals and I can’t remember the last time I had breakfast, lunch and dinner at roughly the right times.

I am now officially tired of being ill so I suppose there will have to be some changes. I like cooking, but do far too little of it and much rather have bread than cooking or use frozen vegetables instead of new ones. There are many great recipes I want to try yet never get around doing them, because I don’t have all the ingredients or because it’s too much effort for just one person and I don’t see the point of it a lot. But thinking about it that is definitely just a cop out and in no way a valid excuse!

I’m going to aim at cooking at least three times a week from now on and am going to try at cooking enough to freeze it for another time which should get my vitamin consumption up and will hopefully improve my immune system!

As for the sunburn, I’ve yet again realised how great Twitter’s crowdsourcing is:

Having my first sunburn in over ten years and completely forgot how painful they are. What home remedies do you use? #

• HeartbreakRidge: @carocat aloe and whiskey #
• ollieboote: @carocat aftersun does actually work. pic some of taht up. otehrwise. just cold showers. #
• Techslut: @carocat Yogurt. Cold. Smear it on then let it sit there then take a warm shower. Also, same works with aloe gel. #
• Dramagirl: @carocat Best is juice from fresh Aloe Vera leaves crushed; cold tea. #
• Dramagirl: @carocat Just regular tea-pot tea … black leaf … and the actual infused water #
• PCurd: @carocat stay inside. Aloa Vera (sp). #
• bakerleuk: @carocat cold shower it soothes the burn and knocks sense in to u fir for not wearing sun screen. Hope urs isn’t too bad #
• bakerleuk: @carocat plus lots af aftersun to stop peeling #

And @Techslut gave me a brilliant suggestion on how to apply yoghurt and other remedies on my back:

Techslut: @carocat Simple – smear some on a towel. Put it on a bed. Put back on it. #

Of course then there are the truly strange people:

• spritesbites: @carocat just dont do what i saw one woman do and thats use cooking oil #
• carocat: @spritesbites Wow. Why? #
• spritesbites: @carocat she thought it would soothe her sunburn. ffs *rolleyes* at stupid public :-(( #
• carocat: @spritesbites How on Earth is that in any way logical?! #
• spritesbites: @carocat it is not logical, people are just stupid #

Amen!

Ever since ‘Ab Aeterno‘ I’ve tried to mentally prepared myself to be utterly disappointed with the show’s direction to be entirely about mythology and not the characters of the six seasons to date and ‘Across the sea‘ confirmed that. I originally started watching Lost for its characters and how they all seem to have met before or appear to be related, but then there’s also the character development they’ve all gone through over time not to mention some leaving and returning to the island.

Of course there were also brilliant episodes; ‘The Candidate‘ was shocking, even though I expected the end throughout the episode. The deaths were still shocking though. Those were characters I’ve watched love, hate, search for each other for 117 episodes and then they’re dead.

With the finale coming this weekend there are still plenty of questions I want answered though I doubt most of them will be. This is by no means all of them:

• Rose and Bernard. Yeah, I’d like to know if they’re still alive.
• Why did DHARMA ever come to the Island? Why did DHARMA build the stations? How did DHARMA find the island? How did DHARMA transport large things to the island? Why introduce such an important faction if it ultimately doesn’t matter at all? And many more DHARMA related questions..
• What is/was the sickness on the Island and why couldn’t babies survive?
• Walt. Powers yes/no?
• Miles’ powers.
• Hurley’s ability to see dead people.
• Who shot Sawyer et al on the outrigger early in season 5?

Last but not least in terms of happy ever after I’d like to see Hurley and Miles reunited somehow. They have great chemistry!

Gamer Banter is a monthly gaming discussion of multiple bloggers. More info is here and please contact Terry from Game Couch if you wish to take part.

May’s topic is set by Cat at carocat.co.uk: Which game character do you identify yourself with most/least and why?

Today’s entry for the ‘You really shouldn’t do this again as it’ll just be embarrassing’ list: Suggesting a topic for Gamer Banter at the beginning of the month, because I couldn’t get motivated about last month’s topic and then being late with my post, because I’ve not even spent one minute thinking about it due to so much going on in my life. Which I know is just an excuse.

I originally had the idea about the topic not because I already had a post in my mind, but because I wanted to actually force myself to think about game characters and what draws me to some of them and not others. I have always played games for their story and my favourite games tend to be roleplaying games made by BioWare which tend to have very deep character development. Alistair, Carth, Garrus, HK-47, Mira [not a BioWare, but an Obsidian character], Mission, Morrigan and Tali are just some of them I’ve fallen in love with over the years. Some of them for their witty dialogue, others for their excellent voice acting, backstory that perfectly fits with the character’s actions or generally powerful moments.

HK-47: Query: Can I kill him now, master? I’d like ever so much to break his neck. It’s been a long time fantasy of mine…
Revan: Maybe later…
HK-47: Did you hear that meatbag? I will be back!

But it’s not just BioWare RPG’s, there are many more characters I’ve fallen in love with over the years. Some that come to mind now are:

• Pey’j from ‘Beyond Good and Evil’.
• That wise cracking soldier from ‘Full Spectrum Warrior’.
• Leo from ‘Deus Ex Invisible War’.
• The NPC’s from ‘Destroy all Humans’.
• Lady Grey in ‘Fable’.
• Kent Paul from ‘GTA Vice City’
• The grunts from the Halo series.
• Diana from all the Hitman games.
• Rico Rodriguez in ‘Just Cause’. Strangely I didn’t like him so much in the sequel.
• Munch from ‘Oddworld: Munch’s Odyssey’.
• Serious Sam!

I’m glad games are evolving to the standard they are at now. For example Mass Effect 2 [which I still haven't completed!] blows me away every time I play it. The impact decisions of the first game have on the experience are extraordinary guaranteeing different experiences for everyone.

I hope there are going to be many more characters in games to fall in love with!

Have a look at the other Gamer Banter posts. They aren’t as rushed as mine!

• Pioneer Project: The importance of character creation
• Silvercublogger: Will Sing Opera For Italian Food
• Game Couch: Gabriel Knight
• Aim for the Head: Friends Through The End
• Extra Guy: Who I Identify With
• Next Jen: I’d Rather Be Me
• carocat.co.uk: A rushed love letter

As I’ve already mentioned on Twitter I was expecting a new houseguest in the form of cat Arthur this weekend.

After my housemate and the dog moved out at the beginning of April, I didn’t intend to have any pets move in for a long time and this wasn’t planned more than a couple of days. For reasons too boring for anyone uninvolved a friend’s family can’t have their cat for several months due to severe allergic reactions of a child living there for some time and it was causing major issues. The only options were to give the cat away for this time and when asked if I wanted him I immediately said yes.

The thing is I love pets, but I’m not ready for a longterm commitment at this time in my life, so a temporary situation like this is ideal, even if it may last six months or maybe up to a year. Having my own cat or dog is a 15 year commitment I’m not quite ready for as I’m still trying to get settled myself.

Having Arthur around these past few days has been strange. I’ve known him for years yet his behaviour at my flat has been completely uncharacteristically. He’s very affectionate, loving and always comes when called which are all very positive. He has an unnatural obsession with cheese and only drinks water out of the bathtub, even when someone is having a shower at the same time. He is a roughly 11 year old former stray and life is definitely a bit on the slower side.

Will it be easy giving him back? I doubt that, but for now I’ll make the best out of it!

Update: I’ve changed the original picture as it was too dark. It can still be found here.

It’s now far into May and the GOM month is long over, but I thought I’d update with how far I eventually got.

To recap, the Married Gamers Game Over Month is every April and meant to give you a chance to finish old games that are collecting dust on the shelves. I was going to attempt finishing Fable II , GTA IV – The Lost and the Damned, Need for Speed Undercover, The Saboteur, Top Spin 3, Tomb Raider Underworld and Lost.

In my first post on the topic I mentioned I had finished Tomb Raider Underworld. Sadly I didn’t do much more. Here is the remainder of my GOM taken directly from the forum thread:

.

26/04/10

Haven’t played any more since my last update and think I’ll have to leave it with just one game complete.

I did play some more Splinter Cell Double Agent last night though and am very close to having 1000GS on it. Not bad considering I put in hundreds of hours and none of the achievements are boosted!

Only one more map achievement to go! Woohoo!

.

28/04/10

1000/1000 Achievements on SCDA! Only took me 3 1/2 years! Woohoo!

I know it doesn’t technically count in the GOM as I’ve finished the single player mode in 2006, but I’ve only completed all the multiplayer challenges two days ago and I’m very proud of it!

I think this is it for me though, even though I attempted GTA IV’s TL&D yesterday I don’t see myself continuing that in the forseeable future as I need to be in the right mood for it I guess.

Ended up starting GTA Vice City again, a game I’ve completed several times, once even 100%! And yes, I did get the T-shirt of it back in the day!

I should really take a picture of it if I ever complete it 100% though I’m not sure I want to put all that work in again! I think it took me close to two years to get 100%.

Anyways, I digress..

The GOM has been fun, thanks for the idea!

.

.

Thanks again to the Married Gamers for the fun idea. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t get round to playing more old games, but I was playing a lot of SCDA at the time and Splinter Cell Double Agent took up a lot of time.

So did Tomb Raider Underworld which was a lot of hassle and pain to finish. I’m hoping it’ll serve me as a reminder to not buy any of the future Tomb Raider titles no matter how good or rebooted they’re meant to be.

I’ve said a few days ago that I’ve been noticing recurring patterns in my life, something I was quite glad at finally realising as I never did before, though at the same time this realisation hasn’t really helped. I could analyse and watch myself make the same mistakes I made in 2006. Then 2007 and 2008 and, to an extension though much more subdued, last year. And it makes me wonder how it’s possible for me to have the same problems at the same time when my life has been so different each of those times. I’ve lived in four different places with different people working different jobs and have different patterns though they always ended up going the same direction.

All this aside, this year feels slightly different. When I say slightly, I mean I’m not quite convinced by it myself yet. I’m busy with work, even though I was actually working more this time last year; I am fairly content in my day to day life, even though I still feel isolated at times which is entirely my own doing; and I’m generally at least trying to be happy to see the positive side of things which is something that normally comes easy!

Today will be difficult, it’s been 11 years since my mother died and it’s not helped with some of the issues I have with my family which has resulted in no contact on close to a year now. But today is also a happy day or rather it should be as today is also the 13th anniversary of my confirmation a time during which I was very happy.

But I’ll get over it I’m sure and then there are always cute things like this to look forward to:

Note: I realise the post’s rather emo nature and, just like anything else posted in the personal category, is here not necessarily because I’m a hundred percent comfortable with sharing this on my overall online identity, but more because this is the best place to post this mainly for myself. Whilst comments are welcome I reserve the right to moderate more strictly then perhaps on the rest of the blog. Thanks!

Why?

My life is centred around my laptop and, in extension, the internet:

• I work exclusively online and due to the nature of it I can work at any time, day or night.
• I listen to music online, on my iPod or streamed to the 360.
• I watch content online, on my laptop or streamed to the 360.
• I get all my news from the internet. Even though I may occasionally buy a paper or watch the news it’s become too specific for me. Sourcing all my news online allows me to be selective and not having to be subjected to five minute stories on TV that don’t interest me or apply to me.
• My primary communication is the internet. My mobile hasn’t had credit in weeks as I either use Skype to send messages or make phonecalls or resort to emails/tweets.

I don’t have the internet at home at the moment and, after working all week from various Starbucks and other free wi-fi places, I needed a break!

The worst part was feeling cut off. I didn’t read tweets that were posted so I didn’t know what people were up to and couldn’t meet up with anyone as most of the times I arrange meeting up via Twitter. Plus my phone was out of credit. It’s almost like living in a big plastic bubble!

Another thing was the lack of news. World War 3 could have started and I wouldn’t even have realised. Sure, I was watching TV, but would ITV3 and Five US really have cut to news? Again the feeling of disconnect.

As for work, well, it was actually quite postitive. I think putting that into more focus in the past couple of weeks has been helpful as I actually seem to get a lot more done and there’s a lot less procrastinating. This is mostly due to not having the internet at home and having to focus all my work into an eight or so hours day, but regardless it’s been positive. I switch off in the evenings and don’t just do half an hour here and there.

My RSS feed reader has far too many unread feeds. I’ve been trying to catch up with them for two weeks, but with about 2000 new items a day and some issues which left read feeds marked unread that’s been futile. This morning I’ve finally declared feed bancruptcy on my news and German feeds. I do intend to catch up on all my gaming related ones. One day!

TV. Well, TV these days is shockingly bad. This isn’t just adverts, but also repeats, badly placed breaks and just generally rubbish. But yeah, a vast majority of the problem are the adverts. This sheep shearing advert from Specsavers was cute the first couple of times and then just annoying. I couldn’t imagine being exposed to that for weeks.

Online gaming. Yeah, I’m kind of gutted not playing the Halo Reach beta at the moment or Splinter Cell Double Agent, but there are plenty of offline games to be played, too!

On the positive side, I’ve managed to finish reading three books in two weeks which is more than the past five months combined!

As for now I’ll continue trying to be offline in the evenings and weekends and see if it’s something I can get used to longterm.

Good start to a day that ended badly, mainly with my own annoyance at things! Going home to no internet but wine and latest #Lost episode! #

Alcohol *does* solve all problems, correct? #

• Codesleuth: @carocat it does, but it might create new ones? #
• sahfenn: @carocat Three cheers for wine! #
• makirules: @carocat yes..as a great man once said..Alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems #
• Sithefire: @carocat for sure, well untill the morning anyway ;-) #
• radiosilence_: @carocat indeed, especially the problem of sobriety… #
• jhomerston: @carocat Most. :-) #
• mark_r: @carocat if ‘solve’ means ‘removes from view for a while’, yep :) #
• loop_pool: @carocat possibly not, but it does make you worry about them less #
• JoeGizzle: @carocat According to my Simpsons poster featuring several Homer quotes, yes. Yes it does. #

Reminded me of a Twitter conversation about Nutella last year!

One of the most common stereotypes about England is that it always rains. Whilst I’m sure I’ve read in the past that Hamburg has the same amount if not more downpour than England, most people here will still mention constant rain no matter if it’s true or not. It is, however, true for most bank holiday weekends. Most joke beforehand that it’ll surely rain on at least the Monday, but very often it rains the entire weekend.

I decided to make the most of the sunny Saturday by spending a large chunk of my time in the Oracle, sitting in the sun and reading a book. The Oracle, unlike the rest of the towncenter was packed; there were children running around everywhere and all the steps were occupied by people. Not to mention the large number of ducks running over the water and the occasional boat or two. In short: bliss!

Oblivious to the world I suddenly found myself surrounded by a large group of teenagers, maybe 15 years old. There were about twelve of them on the steps near me though they were by no means the only group on the Riverside. Thankfully the quieter one though!

Even after observing them for just a couple of minutes, the order of the group became clear:

• The alpha female. Loudest, brightest clothing and constantly jumping from one person to the next demanding everyone’s attention. She often repeated sentences if she felt no one had heard her and she also jumped from topic to topic. She was the one to dictate where they sat, who sat next to her, who should take a picture of who and when to leave.
• The groupies. Four boys, dressed in the same ‘uniform’ and all wearing a Justin Bieber style haircut. Yes, I know what the Justin Bieber haircut looks like and yes, I’m ashamed of myself enough! They spent a large amount of time trying to either catch the alpha female’s attention or following her ‘orders’.
• The female tag-along’s. There was a large number of girls that either ended up there by mistake, for example through the friend of a friend or tried to unsuccessfully catch the attention of one of the Bieber clones. Several of them seemed very uncomfortable in their dresses or with the way they looked and some seemed downright nervous. They all were mostly quiet apart from agreeing with the alpha female or talking when they seemingly ‘were allowed to’!
• The different girls. Two of the girls clearly attempted to be different to the rest of them. This was displayed through different clothing styles, getting their lunch from Boots versus everyone else’s McDonalds and standing a little bit further away. Close enough to follow the conversation, far enough to not have to constantly massage the alpha female’s ego.
• The outsider. One of the boys was clearly an outsider. He had short hair, glasses, wore mostly black and couldn’t have looked any different to the Bieber clones! He also sat at one end of the group and, when the sun turned, he moved to the other end closer to the alpha female where he was ignored even more. The entire hour they sat close to me he spoke maybe five sentences.

The group dynamics reminded me a lot of some groups I’ve either been part of or observed in the past. Sure, not every group has a set of groupies or an outsider, but every group has an alpha male or female. The patterns are very similar.

Similar patterns is something that I’ve thought about a lot lately. It has taken me nearly 27 years, but I think I’m starting to realise certain patterns in my life. I’ve realised that I only ever do certain things or have certain routines during certain times in my life or moods. The past eleven years of my life can only be described as a constant roller-coaster ride with me moving countries far too many times and generally not being settled. Being settled involves planning the future at least to some extent and it’s always been easier to just move or go away rather than dealing with issues at hand.

I also realised that I seem to have come full circle with my life back in 2007/2008. There are a scary amount of similar routines I have ranging from living arrangements to friends to daily activities and general interests. And judging on a private journal from the time I seem to be having the same daily issues at pretty much the same time of year, some even almost the exact same days which is rather surprising.

Even though the next ten days will be difficult, I know that I’m a different person than I was in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and, especially 2008. It doesn’t matter that I have to keep telling myself that!

So what did I do today?

• Laundry. In the middle of the night!
• I’ve finally registered with a GP. This will make someone very happy!
• I’ve bought a friend’s birthday present which obviously involved spending a lot of time in Waterstones!
• Argued with T-Mobile in town that this and this is unacceptable.
• I’ve tried on a gorgeous dress, even though I have absolutely no occasion to wear it to and I don’t ‘do’ dresses in daily life.
• I’ve sorted through some paperwork that’s been long overdue!
• I’ve spent an hour on the phone with my bank. Fun, I tell you!
• I’ve arranged my passport pickup!!
• I’ve run into @deepwire!
• I’ve started forming some ideas for a site. ‘Cause didn’t you know:

Hey everyone. Please extend a warm welcome to @carocat – PSU.com’s new Community Manager. More details to follow soon! #

• I’ve dealt with ~1000 support tickets in my other place.
• I’ve caught up with the ever lovely @chelthan!
• I’ve done my weekly foodshopping!
• I’ve sorted through another 400 photos!
• I wrote this blogpost. Duh!

And all of that with just three cups of coffee!

Post idea totally stolen from raincoaster!

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past month trying to sort out pictures. Before I started there were roughly 8000 pictures, though a lot of them duplicates, stored in too many places, including two laptops [one of which switches off every 10-30 minutes], two external HDD’s, an iPod classic and online storage places ranging from Dropbox, Picasa, Imageshack and an ancient, largely unused Flickr account.

Collecting all of them in one place took a long time and I only really started organising them last weekend after spending about a week deciding just what I wanted to do with them. A vast majority of them are pictures of friends and locations so uploading them all to the internet wasn’t really an issue, even though some sites do offer complex privacy options. I finally decided to keep them all on Dropbox as I can not only access them from everywhere, but also have a backup and will continue to do a backup every few months to one of my external HDD’s. Dropbox was also a godsend when I realised I deleted the wrong picture and I could go through the deleted ones to find it again, even though that process took me about thirty minutes!

Going through the pictures I started deleting a lot of them as they were duplicates, bad quality or not worth keeping anyway. Left over with approximately 4000 of them I’ve created new folders with events, people, family, locations, trips and the like and renamed the individual filenames to make more sense. For example the above picture is ‘KLM plane at Shiphol going to UK first time May 24th 2009′ as it’ll show up in Windows search next time I’m looking for pictures of Shiphol airport, planes and May. I debated editing the description of the pictures instead, but realised that they don’t show up in the Windows search which is my main method for finding files on my laptop.

I have about 3000 pictures left to sort, but at least I’m making progress!

Fear the CAT‘s final stats:

• Total Games: 4954
• Total Kills: 30658
• Total Deaths: 48714
• Total Assists: 11031

Yes, my K/D ratio sucks, I’ve never claimed to be a good player! I really don’t want to imagine the time I’ve put into it though. Imagining every game to last an average of ten minutes that adds up to about 40 days. Not to mention all the time spent in game lobbies which is at least the same amount of time.

My first game of Halo 2 on Xbox Live [there were plenty of SysLink games before that] was Slayer Pro [Rumble Training] Lockout on 07/10/2005 at 10:22 PM. I placed 2nd with 18 kills and 14 deaths, so I suppose that wasn’t all that bad.

My last game was also on Lockout on 9/1/2007 at 12:44:26 PM though let’s pretend that game doesn’t exist.

There are many, many memories I have to Halo 2 and it’s mostly to do the people I played with. Overall I think there were five groups of people I played with, from this group of German guys I ended up playing with for months to some guys I used to work with. There was all sorts of crazy drama with the only other girl I played with regularly blocking me, because I allegedly lied to her about going offline or XL and other stuff.

Fun times include having a group of guys I played with regularly create trial accounts to match mine, as well as copying the look of mine! Going into games with Fear the CAT, Fear the DOG, Fear the MOUSE and Fear the BIRD was bizarre! Or that one time where.. Well, I’d be here a long time if I were to recount them all!

I sold Halo 2 in 2007 and didn’t think about buying a used copy early enough to play on its last few nights. Now I won’t have the chance to ever play on Lockout, Waterworks, Sanctuary, Relic, Headlong, Ivory Tower, Turf, Terminal or all the other maps I didn’t like. I did like some of the messages Bungie changed for Halo 2′s final days though, for example:

BXR. Yeah, it’s cheating.

I remember the first time I got BXR working in a game. Seeing I used the green thumb control layout which switches melee and zoom, it was a bit more difficult.

So it’s been fun times all around. Thanks, Halo 2!

Duelling Analogs

Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about video games. We enjoy getting together once a month to write about the same subject. You will be amazed at the different viewpoints so many people can have on the same exact topic.

I took part twice:

• Blog Banter: Just how much fun LAN can be! [December 2007]
• Blog Banter: This is Gaming! [January 2008]

I didn’t take part in any further ones as I couldn’t get inspired by the topics chosen and then Blog Banter somewhat slowed anyway..

Terry [@GameCouch] is looking to restart it and this month’s topic is: What franchise shift bothers you the most?

I was thinking of taking part, but couldn’t think of anything to actually write about. The only game series I’ve been disappointed enough lately was Splinter Cell Conviction and I feel I’ve said all I have to say about it at the moment on the demo post.

Sure, there have been other games that didn’t impress me as much as their predecessors, but that doesn’t indicate a franchise shift.

Do read the other Blog Banter posts though:

• Next Jen: X-COM
• Silvercube: Looking For Ingenuity
• Game Couch: Dark Forces

Want to take part? Contact Terry!

This month I’m taking part in the Married Gamers Game Over Month or GOM for short.

Started in 2009, Game Over Month offers gamers that chance to catch up on games that fell through the cracks or got lost in a sea of newer game releases. Games can be on virtually any platform including retro consoles and the PC.

There are some more requirements posted over on their site.

This is how the GOM has been going for me so far, the below is mostly taken from my GOM thread on their forum which I believe is only accessible to those registered:

This is a great idea, there are so many games I’ve been vowing to finish for years yet still haven’t. Damn all these new releases!

Let’s see, games I have sitting here that want to be finished:

• Fable II [Currently on some rather annoying bit sort of towards the end I think]
• GTA IV – The Lost and the Damned [Haven't even started the DLC!]
• Need for Speed Undercover [Don't actually ever see me finishing this one.]
• The Saboteur [Such a great premise, such bad execution, but I'm determined to finish it before trading it in.]
• Top Spin 3 – Might as well add this one to the list, loved the previous two, but couldn’t really get used to the changes in the gameplay.
• Tomb Raider Underworld [I've managed to get stuck on the Thailand level and can't find the way out, even with walkthroughs as I can't even figure out where exactly I am..]
• Lost - Liked this a lot actually though got stuck in one of the levels and never carried on. Should only be a couple of hours left on it, too!

Let’s see how it’ll go seeing I’ve still got Mass Effect 2 to finish and am currently completely engrossed in Just Cause 2′s Panau!

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05/04/10

Well.. I did boot up ‘The Saboteur’ yesterday, does that count?

Not been doing very well, been getting sidetracked with having friends over for Easter and playing too much Live, as usual!

I was actually determined to play one of the games on my list today, but am now finding myself on the third Indiana Jones film after realising I hadn’t seen them for a couple of years!

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06/04/10

I’m determined today. I’ve just woken up, so I’ve still got motivation for things and I’m going to play one of those games today! Probably GTA IV!

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07/04/10

So I’ve started. Put in Tomb Raider, restarted the Thailand level, found a Youtube walkthrough and played through the Thailand, Croft Manor, Mexico and Mayen Island levels. And I’ve realised that I really really really don’t like the game. The puzzles are silly, even compared to past Tomb Raiders and there’s never any indication what needs to be done. I hate playing games with a walkthrough, but seeing that I got frustrated with it makes me glad I had it.

I think I’m close to the end now though, here’s hoping!

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08/04/10

Tomb Raider Underworld – complete!

What a let down of an ending, too!

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09/04/10

Moving on, I’ve carried on with my Top Spin career and seem to finally get the hang of it. Progressed through the Challenger stage and the Junior stage.

Of course there was that moment when I was really impressed with a set I’d done, went to change some sound options and realised I’d been playing the game on easy all day..

I’m surprised at how little I appear to get used to the new mechanics. I’ve put in about ten ish hours I think and whilst I’m winning the easy career tournaments I’m not doing too well on the hard ones [Overall profile difficulty plus two choices each simulated month].

So I’m confused that either I’m suddenly doing badly at a gametype I’m actually really good at [without sounding too full of myself!] or that I’m doing something fundamentally wrong in the game!

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14/04/10

Been extremely busy on the weekend and I’ve been ill since, so there’s barely been any gaming.

Mostly gone back to Top Spin 3 though the tournaments [12 per year, 5 per tournament, 2 sets per match, 3 games per set] are taking a lot longer now. Plus I’m encountering pro’s now, like Maria Sharapova.

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17/04/10

Haven’t really been playing quite as much as I should. I’ve been busy this week and still a bit leftover cold.

Somewhat progressing with Top Spin 3, got two or three tournaments left on the pro career and I’ve had some achievements that didn’t unlock with shop items bought which bugged me a little. Encountering pros seemed like a good idea at first, but playing against Miss Sharapova in every single tournament isn’t quite that exciting as her style is easy to beat..

Played a little bit of Force Unleashed last night, too. Completed the game when I first bought it last summer, but had been meaning to complete it again on a harder difficulty collecting more things. Thing is there are quite a few things I didn’t like about the game. I loved the overall gameplay, but some of the level setpieces just sucked.

This morning I’ve jumped onto Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 which I didn’t list in my OP, because I really despise the game, yet at the same time want to finish it so I can finally get rid of it. I’m at the bit where the entire team’s gone and a game laid out for squad based combat is suddenly just an FPS. Who thought that was a good idea? I’ve managed to get irritated at least five times in less than an hour, yey?

There are many things I love about spring and summer, including sitting outside for long evenings chatting away drinking cider.

It’s 10.30pm on the second warm day of this year so far and I’m:

Sitting in the garden drinking strawberry cider and listening to traffic, ambulance sirens and people walking past. Surprisingly blissful! #

So it may not be more than 9 degrees outside according to BBC Weather and there may be a lot of commotion on the road, but it’s nice to have the option to escape the livingroom again and enjoy the outside.

And yes, this post may have been fuelled by lots of cider! Bring on the summer!

Somehow that’s changed in the last few months with two close friends moving away from Reading and a lot of people being busy with work and other things since the beginning of the year.

And today can almost be described as the end of an era. My housemate moved out yesterday to be closer to his family in Cornwall and even though we didn’t spend all that much time together due to different work and sleeping patterns we still had our routines of cooking together, doing the shopping or Sunday afternoon James Bond sessions, so being in the flat on my own now feels very strange!

Something that’s become clear last night as I kept finding his things everywhere in the flat, for example the tumble dryer, is that it’s the first time someone has moved out from where I am living. In the past it’s always been me moving out or all of the people I’ve lived with moving somewhere else together. And I’m not sure it’s something I want to get used to!

Things I need to look at in the coming months is relying less on individuals as the chance of someone just moving away is too big and more at the big picture. I’ve likened my move back to Reading to moving back into a network of support from friends I’ve known for a long time, but that’s changed now and I need to change with that. Unlike most people I don’t have the family network behind me and every time someone I know very well moves away there’s a gap that needs filling as strange as that sounds.

This all sounds very bitter and it’s not actually intended to be; more some realisations I’ve had last night. It’s a situation I’ve never encountered before and coming to terms with it seems to be much more difficult than I thought!

It’s been over three years that SCDA was released and if I remember correctly Splinter Cell Conviction was meant to be released in 2008, making it 1 1/2 years late. Back then the developers mentioned that they wanted to polish the game which I was happy with as I’d rather have a good game versus a rushed game. Then doubts started to appear as more images surfaced showing a game set in big open spaces and videos showing multiple kills. Yet I kept my faith thinking that the developers knew what they were doing as they had after all already shipped four titles.

The Splinter Cell Conviction demo came out this week and things have changed a lot.

• The controls have changed, crouch is now on the left bumper.
• It’s no longer possible to pick up and hide bodies which was a major feature before. It begs the question how found bodies will impact on the overall alert and rating.
• It’s no longer possible to switch the camera angle behind Sam’s body when having a weapon equipped forcing the player to use the coversystem.
• Climbing pipes has become more automatic; jumping on a pipe causes Sam to automatically pull up his legs.
• Sam feels lighter and faster, pretty much like the spies in SCDA’s multiplayer mode. This makes it easier to just go on a rampage versus having to carefully plan ahead.
• Enemies drop ammo. A lot of ammo.
• Some lights cannot be shot out, as in Sam won’t shoot if a certain light is targeted. This made the second part of the demo a bit annoying as I could have avoided all the enemies in the big room by climbing through the window, shooting out the light and sneaked past them while they were confused.
• It’s very light altogether, though that could just be the location in this demo.
• The indication on whether Sam can be detected has changed and been replaced by some generic shooter-like circle whenever he is seen by guards.
• Game information, such as new mission objectives is now displayed on the side of buildings or walls. Shiny, yes, but it completely takes any immersion away.
• Also taking away immersion is the constant reminder on every freaking box and low wall and railing that I really should be pressing A to jump. I don’t want to jump over it, I just want to sneak in the shadows, thanks.
• It’s now possible to build up some kind of ‘look at me, I’m pretending to be a super spy, yo’ meter by doing hand to hand kills which can be performed on enemies pretty much in front of other enemies without anyone caring. Building up the bar gives the option to mark enemies and kill them in some slow motion thing. Cause nothing screams super spy more than leaving hundreds of bodies behind, right?
• Unlimited pistol ammo. What?
• No night vision?!

So yes, I’m disappointed. I love the series and this is a game that’s got nothing to do with the original series apart from cashing in on the name. It’s a third person shooter that reminds me a lot of the Bourne films, but it’s not Splinter Cell. Splinter Cell is all about hiding in dark shadows, observing guard paths and then either sneaking past them or taking them out silently before hiding their bodies somewhere.

Sure, there are some interesting changes, for example the interrogation sequence with the videos playing on the side of the wall at the beginning was interesting, but at the same time there was more blood than the scene needed.

I understand that the series has to constantly evolve, but it’s clear that it’s moved on to allow more casual players to pick it up and play. It seems too easy and all the stealth elements have been taken away. Even storywise the game had to move on, but they could have taken and modified SCDA’s engine and taken the HQ missions for something else, like walking through the park meeting informants which the first screenshots indicated.

Also, I agree with this demo review:

For fans of the series, you’ll be in for a very different experience. I think Conviction may gain as many new fans from this change, as it loses. To be quite honest, this doesn’t even feel like a Splinter Cell game to me – it’s that different.

It’s a shame that any existing Splinter Cell fan will have to wait for a reboot of the series to come out in about ten years. Until then I guess I’ll be playing the others again.

I’ve finally completed Dragon Age Origins and overall it’s the first BioWare game I’ve mostly not enjoyed, despite wanting to like it all the way through. The last three hours were painful and, although final bossfights tend to let me forget how much hassle they were moments after beating them, I still can’t forgive DAO after half a day and feel I’ve wasted far too much time on this game.

So wasting another 40 minutes on a spoileriffic post that shouldn’t be read by anyone who hasn’t completed the game yet [@PCurd, I'm looking at you!] to allow me to vent, seems perfectly reasonable to me.

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First the good things:

• The writing is brilliant which is to be expected from BioWare.
• The voice acting is good, especially with Kate Mulgrew and Claudia Black.
• Morrigan, Zevran and Alistair are great characters.

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Onto the bad things:

DLC. I hate that the game gave me conversations with people for missions that could only be played if I’d pay and download the content. I get that you want to make money, EA, but that’s low. A Mass Effect 2 like Cerberus network on the main menu would have been much better.

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I hate how the game has messed me around with the party members. This is actually my biggest dislike of the game. Overall the game sucks if not playing it as a rogue. I wasn’t playing as a rogue, but instead as my default female warrior and by the time I realised the error of my ways I was past the beginning part and in no mood to go back. I also never had some of the more popular characters for various reasons:

Characters I didn’t have:

• I never met Leilana. I heard she is an amazing character, a great rogue and whatever else. Even though I spent hours in the first town and thought I’d explored everything I never found the tavern/pub and never met her. By the time I was told where to find her, the place was overrun by orcs darkspawn and I couldn’t get her.
• I couldn’t find Wynne after originally telling her I didn’t want her to join me just that moment after completing the Mage’s tower, even though both her and the internet told me she’d hang around there in case I change my mind. She didn’t.
• I started the game when I didn’t have the internet and never remembered to download Shale after that.

Characters that abandoned me:

• Zevran. Turns out my approval rating wasn’t high enough and I didn’t just lose my only rogue, but also an unstoppable archer and pretty much the only one, except Morrigan, with any ranged attacks. Losing Zevran made me stop playing the game back in November.
• Which brings me to Morrigan. My only witch and the only character I’ve used consistently since the beginning. Her entropy spells were brilliant and something I relied on, especially since Zevran’s death. Alas she left just before the last few hours of the game.

Characters that were in the end:

• Sten sucks and even though he was one of the remaining characters, I didn’t choose him for the final battle. I built up his two handed fighting early on, but no matter which tactics I chose he still couldn’t kill a fly.
• The dog/Hawkes was actually better than Sten with fast attacks. I still can’t believe it.
• Gimli or whatever the dwarf was called. Never thought much of him, he didn’t seem to die all that much though.
• I tried developing Alistair as a tank early on, but never quite succeeded. He died often and early, even if trying to deflect some of the attention to my main character with threaten or other talents.

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Other things I didn’t enjoy:

It’s just like Lord of the Rings:

Before I started playing the game I was sure that I’d like any game that positively reminds me of Lord of the Rings. After all, I like books, the films and, especially the soundtrack. Here are some reasons why it didn’t work for me with DAO:

• The score, whilst definitely listenable in its own right, feels too much like a bad copy of Howard Shore’s excellent Lord of the Rings score. This is particularly obvious during the orcs darkspawn sequence at the end of the intro story.
• Orcs. I know they’re called darkspawn, but they look just like orcs! Half the enemies look like this charming fella.
• Gimli. Maybe I’m discriminating against dwarfs, but the companion looked just like Gimli. And sounded similar.
• Ents. There’s this part in this forest doing this thing for this elven clan [I played it in November, so shoot me for not remembering or bothering to look it up!] and there’s a talking tree. A slow talking tree talking about tree things. Come on, couldn’t you have picked a bush or a waterfall or something instead, BioWare?!
• Not remembering all that much about it now, but I recall the cutscene at the end of the prologue copying one of the LotR battles almost verbatim with rain, build up of tension and the first mistaken arrow fired by the good side. I think I’m thinking of Helm’s Deep, though again it was back in November that I played it.
• The clichéd ‘look, here are your secretive dwarfs, your reclusive elves, your humans that think they’re all that that’. Would mixing the formula up a little really have hurt anyone? As far as I’m aware, though correct me if wrong, DAO is based on a whole new universe not based on any other canon? It’s like handing someone a carte blanche and they just copy something that’s already there.

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As evident by now most of my frustration with the game stems from the inability to pick up characters, good and developed characters I’d learned to rely on abandoning me without any option to change that and the fact it felt just like a cheap version of Lord of the Rings to me. That isn’t all though.

The Fade: I have never been fond of dream sequences in games or anything that randomly changes the game dynamics for no reason at all. Jade Empire did this by having the main character die and fight through the afterlife back to life. Cue a lot of messed up blue swirls and generally randomness. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 had me stop playing at a point where it took away my entire squad for a mission. This is a game I’d spent five or more long levels playing it as a squad based shooter just for them to turn around and change it. I’m all for innovation in games, but don’t change the dynamics for just a short strech just because you can.

Orzammar: This isn’t so much criticising the dwarf place, but rather long sequences in general. Entering Orzammar starts a billion and one quest leading through three main maps and countless houses and pubs with more quests up to the point where I lost the will to live or rather play the game. But oh, that wasn’t it, no, there’s a whole lot more to go in some deep underground roads that lead to even deeper underground roads and, you guessed it, even more underground roads. Due to the mission layout it wasn’t actually possible to leave the deep roads once starting the quest and I ended up spending several days in identical looking caves relying on my map fighting some dragons and darkspawn. Mass Effect 1 kind of did the same, the bits on Noveria and Feros were too long with no option to return and do some sidequests in other locations. If I know that the game will just dump me at the same place for many hours it makes it difficult for me to come back to it.

The final fight: After doing this and that and so on and so forth, the game cuts to the Landsmeet, the evil guy gets killed [at least he did in my game] and then the endgame starts. This is where I lost interest in the game. Morrigan left and voila, I was without my strongest character just as I’m about to fight all ogres known to exist and what seems like all the orcs ever made. For hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. This is where I lost interest in the game. Thanks to IM conversations I actually know how much time I spent on the end:

• 2.10am – Morrigan leaves me.
• 2.20am – I start fighting in the first area after choosing my final companions. Bye bye Sten, hello Hawkes [the dog], Gimli and Alistair.
• 2.40am – Got bored of fighting. Already.
• 3.40am – Changed the difficulty to casual after dying on my fourth attempt to defeat the first of two of the orc generals I had to fight in the market of Denerim.
• 4.02am – According to an IM convo I was on fire at this point. As in literally. Which greatly amused the person I was talking to. Also at this point I was surrounded by about five ogres.
• 4.14am I finally enter the castle. Cue another three floors of the same stuff I’ve done before. It did make me wonder though, how did the ogres ever make it through the castle doors?
• 4.26am – I hit level 20. I’m playing on easy. I’m majorly struggling.
• 4.39am – Rooftop, cutscene, dragon, final boss, yey.
• 4.41am – I’m dead.
• 4.43am – I’m dead.
• 4.45am – I realise I have no chance on Earth of defeating the final boss with the characters I have.
• 4.47am – Google reveals there’s a glitch, huzzah!
• 5.16am – Game completed after 26 minutes of firing a trebuchet dealing 47 damage with a five second reload at a boss with 4100HP. That was.. fun.

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The obvious question is, why did I keep playing it if I didn’t like it? Well, initially I waited for the game to get better, but then I reached the point sometime after the Fade where I realised I’d invested too much time into the game to not finish it. I like to complete games and after 32 hours [which is where Zevran left] it was simply too late to just ignore it. There are things I enjoyed about it, mainly the writing and the different ways the story is influenced, though it did make my game so much more difficult as I was missing vital characters.

I’d want to play it again just to see what would be different, but I don’t think I can.

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last played Mass Effect 2 and yet it feels much longer. I don’t really have any valid excuses either, though there was the annoyance of losing two hours of gameplay when my housemate picked up the game to “I’m not doing anything, just walking around talking to people” and being ill. After that I barely had any quiet time with my housemate off work, a friend staying with me for nearly a week and other things. Plus then there was Splinter Cell multiplayer to be played, too.

Tonight I’ve got the flat to myself and from Friday onwards I’ll be here alone, so it’s about time to start playing this again to avoid having anything else spoiled!

Now, where was I? Oh yes, there was that whole saving the galaxy thing.. Based on my last post I was just off to the Krogan homeworld to hopefully see Wrex and to complete some of the missions there. I’ve also got a lot of mining in front of me, as I want to fully upgrade the Normandy and my weapons. Mining is just too cumbersome to be real fun.

I’ve finally landed on Tuchanka. Krogans really are a friendly bunch, aren’t they? Overhearing a conversation between two of them reminded me of a post about the voice acting in games on the Guardian website today. Mass Effect 2′s voice acting is spot on and I could feel the emotion behind it, even though the two Krogans were just standing there motionless.

“You look well for dead, Shepard. Should have known the void couldn’t hold you.” – Wrex.

All the Krogans I’ve encountered so far are extremely bitter, though they clearly have enough reason to be with the genophage and general council politics. The conversation between the two Urdnot Krogans re their children and families was interesting though. All in all they remind me a lot of Klingons though which makes Michael Dorn voicing Grunt a stroke of genius.

“Takes me back to the old days. Us against the unknown, killing it with big guns. Good times.” – Wrex.

The Krogan Rite of Passage can only be described as boring. The first two waves were far too long and the Thresher Maw at the end was just the plain old ‘shoot it with everything you’ve got while strafing’. Would have liked to have a bit more of a challenge there.

Decided to do the Tali loyalty mission and I can’t believe it’s taking me to the Flotilla! I’ve been wanting to see the Flotilla since I’ve first heard about it during the first encounter with Tali in Mass Effect 1! I liked seeing the trial, though it was quite predictable. I didn’t share the information found on the Alarei and instead defended Tali using her past of saving the Citadel.

“It’s fun watching you shout.” – Tali.

Other missions I’ve completed were the Jack loyalty mission which wasn’t that impressive, though the confrontation between her and Miranda certainly was [Thanks to @CooperHawkes and @HeartbreakRidge for advising me to not immediately do it after Miranda's to keep the loyalty of both, although it could have been due to my high paragon], and a ship that was taken over by the geth and needed to be repaired within a few minutes which also wasn’t all that impressive on its own, but fit in well with the whole game.

Loyalty missions left are the ones for Thane and Samara. There’s also one more squad member to get, but I’m not sure where to find him or her. Stats: 54 hours playtime, 345GS and a whole lot of mining still left to do..

UNO: This was actually the most pleasant game to watch him play. He didn’t fully know the rules of UNO, but picked them up within a minute and came close to winning a few times.

BioShock: Watching him play BioShock was downright infuriating. The random movement of looking up and down almost made me dizzy and every enemy took about ten to twenty bullets to be killed on easy difficulty. Not to mention great quotes like the one in the title of this post referring to a security bot or the following referring to a female splicer:

Friend: Why isn’t it dying?
Me: ‘Cause you’re not hitting it.

Kingdom of Keflings: By all means KoK is a very easy game to pick up for non-gamers. The tutorial covers most of the things needed to progress and the overall gameplay is mostly stress free. There were a couple of issues there to do with finding a tool necessary to harvest crystals. The main annoyance for me in watching him, however, was that he made so many errors, or rather, that he missed things, like extra Keflings or didn’t manage them meaningful.

I’ve never really enjoyed watching other people play games though, with the exception of watching my housemate at the time play Condemned on the PC and we both got scared the entire time through.

Watching my friend play some games made me think about gaming in general and how it is and will be a niche for quite some time longer. It’s been seven years that I got into gaming and since then have played games a lot and I seem to have forgotten how difficult gaming can be for those that don’t regularly do it. By no means am I perfect at games or the best game player, but I could pretty much pick up every game and play it. My aim is more or less steady and I can figure out objectives based on previous experiences with games of which I undoubtedly have a lot.

I’ve mentioned before that gamers have should an obligation to educate non-gamers on the content of games, but now I think that needs to be extended to the actual gameplaying, too.

My mission for the next few months is to convert one of my friends into a gamer! Wish me luck!

Iron Man: I tried to watch this a while back and ended up turning it off after about ten minutes. Sadly, it doesn’t improve. I’ve never particularly liked Robert Downey Junior, though his acting was infectious in Sherlock Holmes. Iron Man seems to center far too much on action and shiny CGI graphics and not enough on the actual characters and a decent story.

Ronin: This film had always been one I wanted to watch, yet I wasn’t actually able to follow the story properly. Characters were introduced and removed all over the place and I ended up losing interest halfway through the film. I was told that the film is along the lines of ‘The Sixth Sense’ and improves on subsequent viewings, but seeing I didn’t pay attention to the latter half I don’t think I want to watch it again.

Galaxy Quest: This is one of my all time favourite films, though I seem to regularly forget the film exists! It’s highly quotable and has a brilliant story with references to Star Trek and other Sci-Fi shows. Not to mention the excellent acting from Enrico Colantoni, Alan Rickman and Tim Allen!

The Banger Sisters: My housemate’s choice and far too superficial for me. Not to mention predictable.

The Pelican Brief: John Grisham used to be one of my favourite authors and I remember reading The Pelican Brief multiple times. I like the film for its consistency with the book though it does make it a bit too long. Julia Roberts portrays Darby Shaw well and she was always what I imagined the character to be like even before I knew she played her. Denzel Washington’s character, however, isn’t anything I imagined and it takes away a lot of enjoyment. That’s the curse of books made into films though..

Die Hard 2: This is still my favourite Die Hard film and one of my favourite action films altogether. I’ve recently realised why I don’t like most action films of the last decade and Die Hard is a perfect example. Yes, it’s an action film and the action is a big part of it, but the scenes aren’t perfect and overdone with CGI. There’s more than just a smidgen of blood, the clothes look like they’ve been through hell and Bruce Willis’ acting is up to scratch, unlike say the annoying guy from Transformers. Most of all though, the dialogue is witty.

The Sweetest Thing: *sigh* Another suggestion from my housemate. I found this extremely unwatchable and irritable.

Die Hard: With A Vengeance: Not quite as good as the second one, but Samuel L. Jackson is brilliant in it. He is a great actor and it shows. The overall story is far too contrived though, not to mention certain catchphrases becoming almost painful to watch.