As I’ve mentioned in my last post I met Garrus and the conversation has been brilliant. Upon returning to the Normandy, Shepard smiled which is one of the first times Shepard has smiled all together and it was quite nice seeing it reflected what I was thinking, too. It is nice to see Garrus and more so seeing him alive and well. All the interactions with the crew and former squad members such as Joker, Doctor Chakwas and now Garrus have been great. True, some seemed a bit too much reminiscing about the good old times, but perhaps that’s just because I’ve been playing Mass Effect 1 so much lately.

“Some women find facial scars attractive. Mind you most of those are Krogan.” – Garrus.

“Hey, Commander, we got Garrus back! That’s great, because he was totally my favourite. With that pole up his ass.” – Joker.

“There’s something about him. I just want to hold him close and whisper, “It will be all right”. – Kelly [about Garrus].

“With barely contained terror: You drive a hard bargain, human.” – Harrot [after convincing him to let the Quarian set his own prices].

The prison ship was interesting yet very short. I expected to be double crossed the minute I spoke to the guard, though I expected a full blown prison riot instead. The concept of having a prison ship for prisoners of all worlds for a fee is an interesting idea though as it allows each respective government to ignore what is really happening.

Exploration would have been nice though; the two side characters presented on a silver platter at the beginning were interesting, but there wasn’t enough.

“Shit, you sound like a pussy.” – Jack.

I’m not sure what to think of the combat so far. I miss the Mass Effect 1 combat and leveling system and this seems very limited. It’s a shame the squad members only have limited abilities and I can’t have a mixture of Liara/Tali and several biotic or tech powers each. I’m also not all that sure that I’ve understood the equipment menu, but seeing that I’m not struggling against enemies, I guess I’m all good?

The game does seem very easy, or at least the combat is. It’s shifted from enemies already present in a room and lack of cover to having cover coming out of your ears and being rushed constantly which I don’t think is varied enough. I’m playing this first playthrough on normal [which I always do with new games] and the only time I’ve had a little bit difficulty, which is to say I’ve died once, was closing the shutters in Garrus’ hideout, but that was only as I rushed to the switches expecting enemies to come at me for the end of time.

The options don’t seem to work that well either. Just like Mass Effect 1 I’ve set my squad to use only their defensive powers and abilities independently, yet they always use Overload which I would class as an offensive power.

“Ok, Shepard, glad you’re back, but keep an eye on that last one. We can only hold so much crazy.” – Joker [about Jack]

“It seems like Garrus has finally worked that stick out of his butt, but now he’s trying to beat guys to death with it. I can’t believe I like the old Garrus better.” – Joker

The first genuine dilemma occured on a Cerberus assigned mission to locate and secure an imprisoned Cerberus’ agent. The agent was interrogated and the information saved in a computer. EDI informed me that “the information could adversely affect Cerberus if it were ever circulated publically” and the options available were to upload the date to the Alliance or to Cerberus or keep it for myself. One would assume that the order is ‘good’, ‘without consequences’ and ‘evil’, yet whilst I wouldn’t have hesitated to help the Alliance as much as I can in the first game, I’m not sure it is something I’d fully support now as there have been plenty of changes I don’t particularly agree with. Yet on the other hand Cerberus has been helpful bringing me back from the dead and giving me a ship, but I’m under constant surveillance by EDI and clearly not fully in charge. Keeping the information to myself could prove useful in the future, perhaps using it to gain information from Aria or others.. After deliberating it for a while I decided to upload it to the Alliance.

Upon completing that mission, I received a message from someone called Billy. Who is Billy?

“A stubborn enough person can survive just about anything.” – Zaeed.

“‘Citadel’. A film by Risa Uvardsen.

“Why don’t you just go to Fishdog Food Factory. Ask for their Tummy-Tingling-Tuchanaka Sauce.” – Turian shopkeeper.

One of the things I would have loved to have seen at least a snippet of in Mass Effect 1 was Francis Kitt’s theatre production of Hamlet featuring an all Elcor cast designed to let the viewer judge Hamlet on his actions rather than emotions. The Elcors are quite fascinating, although perhaps a little bit too reminiscent of HK-47 minus the desire for constant killing. My wish has been fulfilled! One of the advertisment stands in the Citadel had a short advert on it, including this Elcor quote:

“Insincere endorsement: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice of Elcor.”

I have started endorsing stores on the Citadel and I’m already getting the feeling that this is going to be a problem later on with me endorsing every store. Also curious why every endorsement gets me paragon points!

“I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favourite store on the Citadel.”

“You look out there and sometimes it’s just like… you know, there’s all this… it’s like… you know?” – Joker.

A little while ago I’ve finally met Kaiden on ‘Horizon’ and we parted ways on rather bad terms. The conversation with him sort of echoed that dilemma I had earlier whether or not my loyalties lie with the Alliance, Cerberus or myself and I found myself trying to explain that there’s a bigger picture to everything whilst knowing that’s a standard excuse.

It’s interesting how the game makes me think about good or bad and that there’s not really an ideal way. Yes, the Illusive Man orchestrated the attack on Horizon, but civilian losses aside it gave us a chance to explore it and the Collectors would have most likely attacked another colony instead anyway.

I’ve also been thinking about the choices that carried over from Mass Effect 1. Side characters aside, I’ve had conversations with the council, seen the arguments between Udina and Anderson and met Kaiden. Had Kaiden died would I have seen him as a picture at the Normandy crash site instead of Ashley? Saying that, it did bug me a little seeing her picture there. The Normandy crash site mission was beautifully done, yet she didn’t die in the attack on the Normandy but months before that on Virmire. As for the council, would Anderson or Udina have put a new one in place? Who would have reinstated my Spectre status?

“I’ve been around. Ran with ganges, wiped out some gangs, joined a cult. Kept the haircut. Murder, assault, kidnapping, drugs, stealing, arson. Done it all. And that’s the boring shit. Piracy, theft of military craft, destruction of a space station and vandalism. That was a good one. There is no reason I should be alive but I am. You know why? Instinct. It’s worked for me so far and I’m not going to change.” – Jack.

I am now on about 23 hours playtime and I’ve got Zaeed, Mordin, Garrus, Miranda, Grunt, Jacob and Jack on my team. Achievements stand at 210GS. Time spent mining is about an hour. Next up: Recruiting Tali! Fingers crossed I’ll get to see the Flotilla, even though part of it was detroyed by Cerberus.

I finally started playing Mass Effect 2 Saturday evening and so far I am loving every second of it!

Just over two hours in and I am in love with #masseffect2. I already don’t want it to end!

So far I’ve done very little fighting and a lot of exploration. The following are some of my thoughts and they’re completely spoileriffic, obviously.

.

• The first cutscene was great. Seeing the Normandy in action for the first time and seeing familiar faces like Doctor Chakwas [such a great voice!] and Navigator Pressly was an added bonus.
• Playing the first part on the Normandy was intense, especially going from the loud noises to the part where the hull was broken with nothing but the sound of breathing.
• The awakening sequence and the part that followed getting off the station felt very similar to the beginning of KotOR II on Peragus, including being guided by a voice and figuring out what happens. I hope that Miranda doesn’t turn out to be like Kreia.

“Is this a volunteer job or am I being volunteered?” – Shepard.

• Armor modifications are great, although I had to resist the temptation to use pink armor!
• ‘Freedom’s Progress’ was interesting, but seriously, what are the chances to run into Tali there of all places?! Surely the galaxy is huge enough?
• It’s great to see Joker again, although with all of Cerberus abilities of the Lazarus project, why couldn’t they fix Joker’s condition to make him more resistent in case something happens to the Normandy v2?

“What can I say, I’m a people person.” – Kelly.

Like some creepy kid staring at the back of your head in comp sci you just want to punch him but he’s “special” and sets fires or something. – Joker.

• I like the new Normandy a lot, it’s got toilets, crew quarters, a cook and real beds! Mass Effect 1 almost had me believe that real beds were outlawed in the future!
• I’m very suspicious about Jacob. He comes across as being far too nice.
• Getting drunk with Doctor Chakwas was great. Gives it a more realistic feel and her mentioning her possible inappropriateness then was a great touch.
• Conversations have received such a big overhaul, characters move more or even stand up and sit down during conversations. So far I’ve especially liked the animations during conversations with Miranda on the ship.

“We’re off to kick the collectors right in their daddy bags. That’s enough for me.” – Ken.

• Love the references in the news to Toombs, Kahoku, Chairman Burns, the Shepard foundation.. Almost sad hearing Ashley mentioned.
• I bought a space hamster!! And it squeaks! I knew about the fishtanks, but didn’t expect that. Also bought some fish and both of the Mass Effect books released so far. Great little detail!
• The personalised advertisements on the Citadel are scary, although I assume it’s a lot like Google ads.. Interesting how the five I’ve watched all told me to get a job though!
• Shame to hear Chora’s Den is closed, although to be fair that place was dodgy anyway with Fist running it, C-Sec investigations with undercover staff and a full on assault.
• I can’t believe my favourite non-approachable NPC from Mass Effect is back! And he’s still trying to get a replacement after over two years! One would have thought that he’d ignore it by now what with the near destruction of the Citadel and all..
• I loved the Krogan discussing the fish in the Citadel. Felt pretty sorry for him when I dashed his dreams by telling him there aren’t any fish in the Presidum lakes!
• Pretty disappointed that I can’t explore the Presidium area. I would have loved to see what, if anything, has changed. I believe that also means that I won’t get to see Sha’ira again, unless the news reports are true and she is leaving the Presidium for another area before the game is over.
• Buying drinks in certain bars isn’t a good idea. Especially when said bar is called ‘Afterlife’!
• Shepard’s dancing has definitely not improved!
• Hello Fist! Hello Helena Blake! Whilst I appreciate running into Mass Effect 1 characters to give the game the ongoing story, it makes the galaxy seem a lot smaller. Having just a handful of previous NPC’s with others perhaps referenced would have been better. And I believe the woman with the unborn baby in Mass Effect 1 was also in one of the shops on the Citadel still arguing with her brother in law.
• I can’t believe I have to buy fuel!
• Getting used to the new mission layout and the completion screen at the end of each will take a while longer getting used to, just like the revamped hacking system which reminds me a lot of another game I’ve forgotten the name to.
• The game feels very overwhelming at parts. The Citadel is full of flashing images, sound and while it feels a lot more real, it’s also a bit too much. And then Omega is just taking it that step further! I don’t even think I’ve seen half of that station so far! The bars and clubs on both stations are crazy, especially the ‘Afterlife’ with the fires as decoration!
• Garrus!!

So far I’m about nine hours into the game with 105GS unlocked and four squad members: Miranda, Jacob, Mordin Solus [The Professor] and Zaeed. I’ve just met Garrus [Archangel] and I’m about to shut the blast doors to prevent the mercenaries from invading via the basement. Seeing and talking to Garrus has been absolutely delightful so far, I’ve really started to like him in my last Mass Effect 1 playthrough which was the first time I’ve used him properly.

Knights of the Old Republic is the game that got me into gaming. I remember playing it at work [in Spanish!] not understanding a word and not really knowing what was going on. All I remember is walking around in a beautiful environment talking to people and completing missions. Shortly after its release I bought an Xbox with the game and played it for about a week until finally completing it. I remember being stuck on Korriban [that freaking pillar!!], dancing on Taris and the big twist. A rainy Sunday afternoon that’s forever in my memory. The game had such an impact on me that I also watched Star Wars for the first time as I’d never been exposed to it as a child.

Jade Empire and Fable were the next big role playing games. The dream sequence in Jade Empire initially made me angry until I realised how well it worked with the story and I didn’t know anything about Fable beforehand either apart from Peter Molyneux’s promise of ‘growing a tree’ and ‘decisions that will impact the world’ neither of which were actually in the game. I still enjoyed every minute of it though.

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords on the other hand was spoilt for me early on. Prior to the game’s release I knew who the main bad guy was and whilst I still loved the game [Yes, I love both KotOR's equally!], it wasn’t the same experience as being able to experience everything myself.

Mass Effect came out in 2007 and I tried my hardest to stay away from any videos or articles about the game, until I caved two days before its release and ended up watching all the videos Gametrailers had of it which was quite a lot! I saw how the different classes affected the gameplay [not that it matters seeing I always play a soldier anyway!] in an area I now know to be on Virmire shortly before encountering another beacon and every time I get to the area I think about watching the videos, even on my just completed sixth playthrough.

I’ve mentioned how many things I know about Mass Effect 2 so far in this post and there are only a few more things I’ve read on Twitter about it, such as a character called ‘Subject Zero’, loyalty and crew missions and how annoying the mining is. Of course I have heard how everyone loves the game, but I didn’t expect anything else!

As I am typing this, the second Mass Effect 2 disc is installing on my 360’s HDD. I’ve completed my sixth Mass Effect 1 playthrough a few hours ago and finally have the character I want with all sidemissions bar those pesky collection ones completed.

Ciara Shepard, Earthborn level 60 paragon soldier with Assault/Sniper Rifle specialisation and sole survivor of Akuze, although based on a later sidemission that is obviously not true. Her love interest is Kaiden Alenko and Ashley Williams died on Virmire having been with the Salarian troops when the last geth staged an attack. Decisions made:

• Allowing Fist to live.
• Sympathising publically with aliens several times.
• Letting the Rachni Queen escape.
• Convincing Wrex to destroy the facility on Virmire.
• Refusing to hand over Cerberus files to an agent of the Shadow Broker.
• Convincing Helena Blake to abandon her gang.
• Saving the colony on Feros and convincing the ExoGeni rep to rebuild it.
• Saving the trapped scientists on Asteroid X57.
• Having Chancellor Burns look into legislation for biotics.
• Convincing ‘Father Kyle’ to surrender.
• Saved the Council.
• Suggested Captain Anderson as the Human Council member.
• Suggested to the fan he might be better suited staying at home with his wife.

I’ve also found the shifty looking cow twice!

Time for Mass Effect 2!

Just like my previous post I’ve again reached the point where my Firefox is slowing down due to the high number of open tabs with things I’ve been meaning to blog about in ages! Most of these are gaming related this time.

In no particular order:

iPhone Sleep Cycle: my nights with a strange bedfellow [Guardian]: Sounds like a great iPhone application. That and some games make me really want an iPhone. Damnit!

Cutting to the choice [EDGE]: Great post about multiple choice in gaming.

New Xbox Live Indie Game explores Office Politics [Joystiq]: This post pointed out Indie games to me and I’ve played many great ones since. Office politics is simply brilliant. Tumblr post one and two.

The player: cheat codes [Guardian]: A post that’s proved controversial in the comments. Personally I think it’s up to everyone whether they want to use cheats or walkthroughs. I’ve only ever used cheats a handful of times, but regularly rely on walkthroughs or internet searches.

Oblivion: RolePlaying [UESP.net]: Found in the comments from the previous Guardian post. I’ve used uesp.net myself plenty of times and I’ve posted about Oblivion a lot. This is taking the game to a whole new level though!

Eat three meals a day at the appropriate times (or less if you are poor). Breakfast should consist of grains, rice, bread or fruit. Lunch can be more bread, fruit, and vegetables. Save the meat and potatoes for dinner, along with your character’s preferred alcoholic beverage.

A post from the producer of Splinter Cell Conviction regarding the lack of a multiplayer versus mode [Ubisoft forums]: I am really disappointed with that. Whilst I’ve always liked the single player of Splinter Cell games, like SCDA, it’s the multiplayer that’s always shone through. Yes, a co op mode is great, but is that going to keep me playing for months or even years after it’s release? SCDA was released in 2006 and it still has a fairly active community and I’ve played it almost daily since last November due to it being different. Very unhappy about their decision and it’s made me reconsider if I really want the game day one.

Gamesradar’s Assassin’s Creed 2 review and guide: Loved this game a lot and I’m very much looking forward to the DLC, although that will have to wait until after Mass Effect 2!

Assassins Creed 2 glitch [GameSpot forums]: As much as I liked Assassins Creed 2, this nearly turned me off the game minutes after it started. Thankfully that was the only major glitch I encountered and was fixed with a simple reboot.

Blood sugar sex magik: examining Dragon Age’s Morrigan [Destructoid]: Great post!

I was never quite sure how to feel about her — and I mean that in the best way possible. She’s extremely useful in combat, but she’s also the most unrepentantly amoral character in the entire game. Her sarcasm and occasional (and very, very brief) moments of goodness makes her strangely likable, yet I never, for a second, trusted her.

Chasing Alistair [EDGE]:
It’s no secret that I love Alistair and this column makes me realise I’m definitely not the only one!

I don’t know how it’ll work, or what I’ll do with it when it comes. But I do know one thing: I’m in love with the next king of Ferelden, and before this is over, he’s going to make me his Queen. Or he’s never getting his armour back.

Space Cow and Shifty Looking Cow [Mass Effect wiki]: Came across the space cows randomly during one of the sidemissions and googled it just to find out what they are. Made it my mission to find the shifty looking one and was successful after over thirty minutes! Time well spent? I don’t know.. However, I absolutely love this description from one of the designers on the official Mass Effect forums:

I love the history of the Shifty Cow easter egg. When the character artists designed the space cow with two extra arms, Preston, our lead designer, was a little creeped out. His comment was “You can’t trust any animal that can milk itself.” Those extra little hands look so… grabby. So Preston came up with the idea of Shifty Cow. Turn your back on him, and those creepy little hands are going to go to work. Kiss those credits goodbye.

Progress made, now down to only 14 tabs! Back to Mass Effect I go!

It’s only eight days to go until Mass Effect 2 is released and due to it including a character import I’m playing through the first one again to create the ‘perfect’ save. Ideally I want my character to be a female level 60 soldier with paragon alignment and all sidemissions [bar the planetary collection ones, but including the party member ones] complete. In addition I would also like to complete the game on hardcore and insanity difficulty which means it’s even going to take longer.

I’m currently on my fifth playthrough since the game’s release, although only the second one on this 360 as I sold my original one back in 2008 and had to delete the saves. I still love the game as much as I did when I first played it and when I first completed it, but there are a few things I would like to see improved in the second one. Perhaps some of these improvements have been announced before, but I haven’t read or watched anything about the game since last summer due to not wanting anything spoiled with the exception of the ‘fishtanks’ article, the one announcing the celebrity cast, the news that Jack Wall will again be scoring the game and the save import.

In no particular order:

• A better use of the A button. Currently the A button is both run/sprint and interact and more often than not I find myself running just to trigger a conversation or look at a sign.
• Fewer doors that are just scenery to give the impression of a much larger area. Noveria is a particularly good example for this. The main administration section has at least four doors that are just part of the scenery and inaccessible. Don’t show me areas I can’t access, it takes away the realism.
• The inability to talk to some people. Sure, many people in the game don’t have anything to talk about or repeat a set number of phrases, but some, again especially in Noveria, can’t be highlighted in the first place. Why let me highlight this ERCS guard yet not the one ten metres away?
• Only being able to talk to party members on the Normandy. Of course people would rarely consider the heat of battle to talk about their problematic upbringing or the imminent death of their entire species, but there’s plenty of downtime on planets in between missions. Time that could be spent with a little chat here and there to break up the constant collecting and fetching. Dragon Age Origins had a good system in allowing some private chat on missions with only the very private and intimate ones in camp.
• Too many weapons upgrades. Yes, customisation is awesome, but there are limits. Too many different bullets/heat sinks/combat sensors/barrels/combat optics/stabilizers for every single weapon and party member. Talking about items..
• Too much loot. Of course realism would dictate that every killed person drops an assault rifle, a shotgun, a pistol, a sniper rifle and their lunchbag and even though Mass Effect doesn’t enforce this a hundred percent all the time there are still far too many items. That’s excluding storage containers and wall safes.
• Money is worthless. Due to the game having far too much loot and the shop items rarely being better than items already equipped money is entirely useless. In my current playthrough which is about 40% into the second one with this character I have over 8.8million credits and I wouldn’t even be able to gamble that all away!
• The hacking/overriding system. I like the button sequencing, even though I don’t tend to be a big fan of Quick Time Events or the like, but seeing the game drops far too much loot and there’s no point in selling it, it’s too easy to just convert it into Omni-gel and use it to bypass all the hacking and overriding.
• Inconsistent gameplay settings. I’ve just realised that for some reason unknown to me my difficulty setting has reverted from hardcore down to veteran. I’m not sure when it happened, but even completing this playthrough will not unlock the higher difficulty. Why did the setting change?
• Party members weapons selections. So Wrex has this ability with the shotgun which obviously means he never uses the shotgun. If I want him to use it, I first have to get him to switch and only then can activate it. This is only a few seconds, but when pausing/unpausing during battle surrounded by multiple enemies it’s a few long seconds.
• Thresher Maw’s. I still can’t stand them..
• This. BioWare, please elaborate.

It’s week two of my Project365 and another week featuring mostly pictures taken in and around the flat. The few times I have left the house I didn’t come across much worth taking a picture of and twice I nearly forgot to take one alltogether which explains the pictures of whatever I was watching or playing at the time!

The next few weeks will be busy with several things going on in my life and I’m hoping I’ll still remember to take the pictures!

The images and additional explanations of them can also be found on cat on tumblr:

• #8 – Will I ever read this book?
• #9 – In which there’s plenty of mulled wine! [also a SatScene]
• #10 – Splinter Cell Double Agent
• #11 – What’cha lookin’ at?
• #12 – Rats! They’re everywhere!
• #13 – It’s 1vs100!
• #14 – 360 controller

Project365 is an attempt to chronicle my life in 2010 by taking pictures for every day of the week which I already attempted in 2009, but didn’t progress beyond day 19. Weekly updates will be posted here using the Project365 category and all new pictures are uploaded to my tumblr using the Project365 tag. If you want to find more pictures by other people, do check out the @365_Project Twitter account.

A while back I’ve had a conversation on Twitter with @PCurd and @jamesbmarshall:

PCurd: @craigyd I bought Torchlight in it off your recommendation :) Also Kotor as I’ve lost my pc copy. #
carocat: @PCurd KotOR again?! Aren’t your saves on the Xbox though? #
PCurd: @carocat I have saves on 1.0, 360 and pc. Can never remember which is most advanced but I was playing on pc before I lost the disks. #
carocat: @PCurd That’s just insane. Question is just if you’ll ever finish it! #
PCurd: @carocat I think it’s unlikely. I don’t finish games, as a rule. #
jamesbmarshall: @PCurd @carocat One of the only games I’ve ever actually finished is Metroid II: Return of Samus. It took me about 2 years. :$ #
jamesbmarshall: @PCurd @carocat I’m amazed I completed Metroid tbh. Most games fizzle out about 3/4s of the way thru for me. They become ’samey’. #

Surprised by their answers I thought I’d ask the rest of Twitter:

First up the answers I expected:

• Assassin10k: I would say at least 1000 or so.
• DjDATZ: Played too many of them. I’d reckon about 40-ish on the 360?
  DjDATZ: I wouldn’t say much more than that… 50-60-ish? (includes the PS2 & PS1/X)
• citizensparks: I’ve finished every game I’ve ever owned (aka about 70) bar the metal gear solid games; I get to the last level and just fail them.
• Gazimoff: I used to be religious about finishing games, but now I have a stack that I’m waiting to get through!
  Gazimoff: played to completion around 50 or so. Currently have about 30 on Wii, xbox and pc waiting for me to finish
  Gazimoff: that’s old school though – mega drive/gameboy and old pc stuff
• Goon360: From start to finish, prolly around a thousand. I’ve been gaming since I was 5.
  Goon360: On NES alone I owned about 200 games and finished a good chunk of them, and I’ve owned every console there is.
• JoeGizzle: Oof, that’s a tough one. I’ve played most consoles and handhelds starting with the NES, so I’m guessing a couple hundred?
• Mr_Marty: 100%’d, not many. But storyline completion is about 70% on my Xbox and PS3 games. =)
• olliboote: um 100% perhaps 1 maybe two, as for completing main story line (i pretty complete all games I play in that sense) so I’m saying 50.
• Phoenix8424: I think I’ve completed around a hundred, give or take. Since the very beginning!
• Peterocc: Between Odyssey, Intellivision II, NES/Super NES, Genesis, Sega CD, Xbox, PS1, PS2, Xbox 360 & PS3… I’d have to say over 100+.
  Peterocc: On Xbox 360??? 10-12 since launch, only 1 GS/Achievement completed (XBL Arcade Game). PS3? 1 (Killzone 2)
• strayjohno: I’m actually quite good at cleaning up games. Apparently I have 7 with a full 360 GS, for instance. If I had to guess how many? ~30
  strayjohno: Some of my proudest: Sonic & Knuckles, because it had no save points, and Baldur’s Gate II, because it took me bloody ages!
• spritesbites: Shit the bed! How the hell am I supposed to guess that? It must run into many hundreds.
• _Tugsy: Over one hundred I would say…
• Zyber: More than a hundred. Probly past 2 hundred realistically.

Followed by some answers that were different to what I expected:

• Esko: Have completed 15 titles for all of the achievements. Fallout 3 is probably the favorite that I have 100% on.
• GeminiAce: In my entire gaming “career”? I’m gonna say maybe 15 or 20.
• MacP_: About 10-15. The most memorable being all MGS series and GTA series.
• TimmyTenga: 10 maybe? Not very many considering how many games I’ve played.
  TimmyTenga: Actually, that’s wrong. Probably more like 25.

And then the really surprising ones:

• cornellfinch: Three. All tony hawk’s skateboarding games on the PS2.
• Dreamsthedream: 3-4, with my lifestyle games generally don’t get finished due to lack of time lol
• FallingBullets: About 2 maybe, if I was allowed cheats.
• noirem: One: Final Fantasy 7. Even Portal I watched the end of on YouTube (’cause I couldn’t play anymore).
• PCurd*: Duck Tales, Fable, Halo, Halo2, Call of Juarez 2, COD, COD:BRO, HalfLife, Another Code. I think that’s it.
• sarahfenn: 3 games: Dizzy the Egg (speccy 128k), a racing game on the super nes, & Super Mario World.
• talldavek: If by completed you mean got to the end and beat the boss, 5 or 6. If you mean get *everything* in game 2.

*[Yes, I know he said earlier he doesn't finish games as a rule, but who am I to judge his changes of mind?!]

Well, and then there was this reply!

• PMSHarlequin: I was going to respond to your question but got distracted by your super cute colorful fluffy wallpaper!

—

A few days ago I finally finished a book I spent months reading. I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I hoped I would, but I couldn’t just ignore it. Partially because I kept hoping for it to improve, but mostly because I need to finish books and dislike half finished stories. The same with TV shows, films and games.

I’ve played a lot of games in the past few years:

• There’s the long list of Xbox games out of which I’ve completed about a third.
• My favourite Xbox games which I’ve mostly completed at least twice in some shape or form with the exception of two.
• On the 360 I’ve completed about 40 games.
• And another 10 games on other platforms/PC.

Yet it never seems enough. My aim for 2008 was to finish a bunch of games and I didn’t get around enough of them to this day. Looking at my current games collection I count around 20 games that want to be completed which doesn’t even include Xbox Live Arcade games! And I’m pretty sure that I will complete them at some point even if that’s going to take me a few more years.

I wrote a blog post in November last year which summed up a few reasons on how my usage of online media has changed over the years due to necessity rather than by my own wishes [which was also linked to with a great post!]. It received several comments which I didn’t reply to at the time as I didn’t want to basically repeat my post and wanted to see if I could get any more inspiration from the comments.

Here are some of the comments and thanks to all the commenters!

From @Pewari:

It’s a tough dilemma, and it is THE main reason why I no longer blog. The problem is, how do I then maintain my online friendships? The most important ones I keep in contact with via IM and Twitter, but certainly the level of communication is much less.

That is one of the main problems I’ve got as well. I’m missing the interaction and the useful tips, especially when it is something personal and I could get a second opinion that way.

From @sarahfenn:

I know totally what you mean about Twitter. My neighbours have a young baby that cries constantly. I can’t complain on Twitter because my tweets auto populate my Facebook status. My neighbours don’t follow me on Facebook but friends of theirs do. Complicated, but I have remember to self censor.

Perhaps that’d be a good Twitter tag-line, ‘remember to self-censor’ ;)

I really want to say don’t worry to much though. We’re all human. There are things we’ll say that people will love and things people won’t like at all. You are you and you’re loved BECAUSE of the way you are. Don’t hide it too much. Don’t be ashamed of things you thought/said in the past. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to self-censor. Be yourself. There’s a reason you make new friends from your tweets and blog posts :)

I like that, thanks!

From Jennifer:

The real-time, location-based stuff gives me the creeps. I wish there was a way to set a time delay before it goes “live” somewhere.

I’m very conscious of all the times I publically mention my location. Tweeting about where I am going for coffee is fine provided I’m with a group and I’ve only got close friends on services like Foursquare which also hides my location from others.

From EllaElla:

Excellent post and some real concerns and consequences. I’ve gone so far as to create free email accounts to give to people I know in real life who don’t know about my blog and I don’t want them to know.

I’ve been thinking about doing that for a good couple of years now for the same reasons and I do have various different email accounts. However at the same time I’d like to be found by some people I may have lost touch with over the years.

From sulz:

someone i know who uses her blog as a place to vent said if you don’t like what i have to say here then don’t read it. to a point it does make sense… celebrities are in the tabloids all the time and reading some interviews it seems that after a while they train themselves not to read the papers anymore.

but we’re not celebrities and though we have a right to express ourselves, is it fair to hurt the people we write about? i guess blogging is like journalism to a small extent – you have to be responsible for what you write for and back it up with facts in order to have a clear conscience!

otherwise, one can always master the art of vague remarks that doesn’t reveal too much. then again, it doesn’t make you feel like you vented properly too!

Just the other day several people reacted apruptly to one of my posts on my tumblr. People I only know via the internet. My first thought was that it doesn’t matter to me and they should just stop reading it as it’s a scrapbook/place for me and not anyone else. At the same time I realised I had over 500 followers on there and really didn’t care about it.

I wish I could adapt that mentality to my real life friends as well, but most of them don’t use the internet much or don’t share anything and see this only as an affront to them which obviously it’s never intended to be. I would never post anything that could possibly identify them either.

—

One of the reasons behind the original post was to gather ideas on how other people manage to balance their internet versus their real life activities and based on feedback I’ve read here and on other places I’ve posted excerpts at, it doesn’t seem there’s much solution apart from just avoiding sharing things on the internet alltogether.

Surely there has to be a better solution out there?

It’s the first week of 2010 and it’s been snowing for most of the time which has left me unable to leave the house due to living on slopey road and appreciating both my life and intact bones!

The images and additional explanations of them can also be found on cat on tumblr:

• #1 – F.A.R.T.
• #2 – The clean living room of giants! [also a SatScene]
• #3 – Diner Dash obsession!
• #4 – Clean clothes!
• #5 – Food shopping!
• #6 – Cup!
• #7 – The GTA achievement!

*Snowmagedon stolen from @chrisbrownsell!

Project365 is an attempt to chronicle my life in 2010 by taking pictures for every day of the week which I already attempted in 2009, but didn’t progress beyond day 19. Weekly updates will be posted here using the Project365 category and all new pictures are uploaded to my tumblr using the Project365 tag. If you want to find more pictures by other people, do check out the @365_Project Twitter account.

#In2009 is a hashtag that’s been popular on Twitter the past few days and it’s been interesting to see what other people have done in 2009. I posted a tweet as well, but feel like I want to elaborate a bit more. My tweet:

#In2009 I moved back to Reading #rdg and realised a lot about myself. I think I’m finally growing up! #

There are a few more things to mention, but they’re all a bit more detailed:

• In 2009 I spent the first half in Germany and the second half in England.
• In 2009 I worked in a variety of jobs, including a cafe [with some rubbish coworkers!] and web based support.
• In 2009 I realised that the town I’ve chosen to spend most of my adult life [Reading] is the best place to move back to. And it was the right decision.
• In 2009 I made some decisions which weren’t easy yet had to be made. At the end of the year I’m still finding myself struggle with some.
• In 2009 I reconnected with some old friends I hadn’t had much contact to in years due to moving around and job changes. It’s all been part of the ‘growing up’ process and realising what I wanted most in life. Now, months later, it’s definitely been the best decision. New friends are great, but old friends know you better.
• In 2009 I went through highs and lows with some friendships and some are continuing to be hard work. I’m grateful for some new friends helping me with those.
• In 2009 I briefly moved back into a houseshare I still consider the best one to date. I then moved out and one of them moved in with me. And the dog.
• In 2009 I somewhat mixed internet with real life even more than I had done the years before which brought and continues to bring its own problems with it. *sigh*
• In 2009 I met many great people in Reading via the Reading Tweetup [#rdgtweetup] and the Reading Twestival.
• In 2009 I attempted NaNoWriMo again. And failed. Of course that’s not the only thing that I didn’t finish/continue. Remember TwitLight? Yeah..
• In 2009 I won quite a few things, including games and vouchers!
• In 2009 @leocomerlato made me an awesome video for my birthday!
• In 2009 I was strugggling getting a new passport. I still haven’t got it!
• In 2009 I got angry with some people in the gaming community. There are several repercussions that event had for me, including wishing I had started my own site many moons ago and not wishing to interact with any communities any more. I’ve since stayed away from other gaming communities as I can’t be bothered with all the OMGinternetDRAMA any more..
• In 2009 I saw people on stilts dressed up in medieval clothes!
• In 2009 I read some books.
• In 2009 I played some games.
• In 2009 I knitted some things.
• In 2009 I took some photos.
• In 2009 I tumblred much more than I blogged!
• In 2009 I watched some TV, too. Including 24, The Apprentice and Law and Order UK. Not to mention all the shows I didn’t post about!
• In 2009 I got very angry with the German Killerspiele debate which spawned three posts. One, two and three.
• In 2009 I realised a lot about the music I’m listening to.
• In 2009 I realised just how brilliant Twitter can be. For example with setting up an iPod or random exchanges about Nutella! Not to mention all the things I’ve yet to post about that are sitting in my drafts..

And I also just realised that I really will need to blog more frequently to make these things easier. My memory isn’t all that any more!

On to twenty-ten!

BioWare’s writing has always been brilliant and Dragon Age is no exception. In addition the voice cast is the most divers and almost best out of all their games. It would have been the best if Raphael Sbarge [Carth Onasi, Kaiden Alenko] had a part, but I digress..

Apart from the well written main quest and the conversations and the general tone, there are conversations between different party members along the way. KotOR did this and Mass Effect tried to make the long elevator rides more bearable.

Alistair early on seemed interesting and quickly became my favourite character, although he’s fairly useless in battle next to my warrior. The best party conversations so far have all involved him, however, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on them, even though I still don’t fully like his actual voice.

Talking to the witch:

Alistair: “Why do you always go on about how stupid I am? I’m not stupid, am I?”
Morrigan: “If you need to ask the question…”
Alistair: “Because it hurts my manly feelings you know. All one of them.”
Morrigan: “Then I’ll be sure to write you an apology once all of this is over.”
Alistair: “I was educated by the Chantry. I studied history. They don’t make stupid templars.”
Morrigan: “Then I must have been mistaken. I’m very impressed.”
Alistair: “No you’re not. You’re not even listening to me.”
Morrigan: “My, you are smarter than you look after all. Your Chantry must have been very proud!”

—

Morrigan: So you met this sibling of yours?
Alistair: Half-sister, but yes.
Morrigan: And she turned out to be an insufferable hag?
Alistair: You’d have liked her. You two have a lot in common.
Morrigan: And you let her berate you? Without punishment?
Alistair: It’s moments like this when I truly appreciate the difference between you and me.
Morrigan: (Scoffs) ‘Tis moments like this when I truly wonder at the difference between you and a toadstool.

—

Morrigan: You… do not truly think I look as my mother does, do you?
Alistair: Have you really been thinking about that all this time?
Morrigan: I am simply curious.
Alistair: And not insecure in the slightest, I’m sure.
Morrigan: I think I look nothing like her.
Alistair: I don’t know. Give it a few hundred years and it’ll be a spot-on match.
Morrigan: I said that I look nothing like her!
Alistair: All right. Got it. Totally different. I see that now.

—

Chatting to the dwarf. Think Gimli, just drunk:

Alistair: What? You’re… you’re drunk, aren’t you?
Oghren: Eh? Was that a question? It didn’t sound like a question.
Alistair: How in the Maker’s name do you manage to be constantly drunk? Are we even carrying that much alcohol with us?
Oghren: Jealous, huh? (Laughs)
Alistair: A little, yes. Why can’t I be drunk all the time? I never get to be drunk.
Oghren: You know, if you drank more wine, you would whine much less.

—

Talking to Zevran, the guy with an Antonio Banderas’ accent:

Zevran: So are you a very religious man, Alistair? I am curious. I believe I heard you say you were raised in an abbey?
Alistair: I was raised in a castle. I was schooled in the abbey. As far as being religious… I don’t know. Not especially. What about you? Not in your line of work, I expect.
Zeveran: Why do you say that? I happen to be quite devoted, in my way, as most Antivans are.
Alistair: Truly? But you kill people. For money.
Zeveran: And I ask forgiveness for my sins from the Maker every chance I get. What manner of monster do you think I am?
Alistair: But… you ask forgiveness and then you go right on with your sinning?
Zeveran: The Maker has never objected. Why should you?
Alistair: I… have no idea.
Zeveran: Well there you go. Perhaps you ought to think about asking for a little forgiveness yourself, hm?

—

And after ‘experiencing the thrill of romance with Alistair’:

Oghren: So. With the boss, aye?
Alistair: Pardon?
Oghren: You and the boss. Rolling your oats.
Alistair: I don’t know–
Oghren: Polishing the footstones.
Alistair: –what you’re–
Oghren: Tapping the midnight still, if you will.
Alistair: what are you going on about?
Oghren: Forging the moaning statue. Bucking the forbidden horse. Donning the velvet hat.
Alistair: Are you just making these up right now?
Oghren: Nope. Been saving ‘em.

—

Zevran: Might I offer you a bit of advice, my good friend Alistair?
Alistair: I like my hair the way it is, thank you.
Zevran: Truly? As you wish… though my advice is regarding something else completely. It has to do with your recent… exertions with your fellow Grey Warden that I overheard.
Alistair: My…? Oh.
Zevran: It did seem as if you just got going when all grew quiet. You are… feeling all right, yes? Perhaps you are tired?
Alistair: We aren’t talking about this, are we? Did I hit my head?
Zevran: I have some roots from home that you may chew if you need energy. As for volume, perhaps you ought to try arching your–
Alistair: Whoa! Whoa! Awkward!
Zevran: You Fereldans are so finicky. How will you ever learn how to pleasure each other unless you talk about it?
Alistair: not listening! La la la la la!

—

And then there’s this..

Alistair: Do you really know what’s going on here? The Blight, the civil war… I really wonder how much of it you understand.
Dog: (He wags tail happily.)
Alistair: We’re all special… big parts to play. Even you. Especially you, in some ways. You are the mabari. You guard one of the most important people–
Dog: (Excited Bark)
Alistair: What?
Dog: (Excited barking!)
Alistair: You… you want to play? But I’m talking. Why doesn’t anyone want to hear me talk?

I’ve been blogging on and off since 2003 when I moved to the UK for good. That blog didn’t survive very long and I’ve deleted its content in 2004 when I realised I wasn’t all that comfortable with it any more. Having had a very bad experience with a colleague who proceeded to almost stalking me I wasn’t comfortable with sharing many personal details on the internet and although that blog wasn’t revealing in a negative way it was obvious some of the posts were written rather naively.

Somewhere in late 2003 I moved away from the previous online pseudonym which now only has 4,500 Google results compared to carocat’s 28,900. carocat isn’t the only handle I use these days, but it is how I define myself on the internet; it is who I am unlike the others which are created for specific purposes intended not to be linked with me altogether.

Moving on to 2006 and I again embraced web 2.0 or what’s now called ’social media’. By God do I hate that term! I started this blog late in 2006 and originally it was also a personal blog, although there are several posts that are now private or that have been hidden from view as I’m again not all that comfortable with them any more and the overall focus has shifted a little bit to a less personal ‘What I’ve done today’ blog. There were other accounts; Flickr, Picasa, del.icio.us and so on.

Twitter and its clones came along in 2007. First there was Pownce, then Jaiku, then identi.ca and Ping and whatever else they were all called. The only one I stuck with was Twitter.

I started a tumblr blog in 2008.

Up until 2008 no one I knew in real life was aware I had any of those. Sure, I met many people through blogging and many people through forums that I ended up meeting at events, but there was always that distance in the sense that if I met them it was only ever for a very short time and a large majority was just internet friendships [for want of a better term]. Of course in some ways those can be more beneficial than others. I’ve mentioned this great post before, but it deserves another link.

Having never used my very unusual full name on the internet – a Google search won’t link me to any of this which is something I’ve been very careful about from the beginning, especially after reading Engtech’s guides to digital anonymity – there was never really a chance of someone stumbling on here accidentally. I didn’t follow all of the recommendations though. carocat is, or at least used to be, pretty much just me on the internet. Recent searches have revealed several other people using it, but they’re not very active and it’s not on Google’s first results page and far outside my interests to be confused with me. Apart from that pesky Korean kid that stole carocat on Xbox Live!

And then it all blurred bit by bit in late 2008. First I’d mention on Twitter where I was going to in detail and tweeting where I was, then I’d start giving details of events or trips. Started taking more pictures and posting them making it possible for someone to stalk me online which thankfully never happened. I sent and received christmas cards from some fellow bloggers, won a contest here and there and mentioned long hours at work or delayed public transport although never actually mentioning the part of town I lived at or where I worked. Fear of work discovering my Twitter account even made me protect it for a few months when all I mentioned was long hours and wanting to find the person that coined the term ‘crunchtime’. I’m still looking for you!

People I knew in real life started mentioning they read my blog after linking them to a post months before and specifically discussed more recent posts. Real life friends or former colleagues started following me on Twitter and some people I met were using Twitter and we mutually added each other. Some even only joined Twitter, because I mentioned it and once I’d moved back to the UK early summer this year I met a large number of local people through Twitter and continue to do so at Tweetup’s and outside of them. Photos are being taken, tagged with my name unless I remove those which I’ve done at some times and there are videos I’m on. My Twitter account has had a picture of me for a long time now.

Nowadays a lot more of my life is public mostly on Twitter which means anyone following me there can click through to my blog and most likely read this post as I’ll be posting a link to it there. And that’s not a bad thing. I’m not any different online than I am in real life.

—

But then there’s the doubt. I have to be more careful about what I allow other people to share of me. Videos, photos or even, once foursquare becomes more common, a more detailed account of where I’m at.

My name will remain off this blog/Twitter, but what if someone tweets it which happened the other day? Though thankfully they removed it within minutes once I asked them to and as far as I’m aware no one else I know follows them.

—

And now coming back to what was meant to be the original point to this post. What happens to me? I have lost all my online outlets where I could write to gather my thoughts without friends being able to read it as it might have been about them with their names obviously omitted or about things in my life I didn’t necessarily want everyone of them to know about. Do I want people I meet infrequently to know that I’ve had a few rough days because of x, y or z? Clearly not.

The first eye opener was a year ago when someone mentioned in an argument what I had written about an incident involving them, although it will never be obvious to anyone else that it was that person. Or with another person reacting negatively to a purely passive-aggressive Tweet which was even hashtagged as such. Or venting about a housemate to find out they’ve been reading it.

Yes, I owned up to those and apologised, I probably shouldn’t have made those in the first place and I can imagine being irritated if someone was to do this to me, but at the same time, what else am I meant to do? I’ve been using the internet to vent and gather my thoughts for years and what would be the alternative? Call someone up? That is gossiping or even worse plain old bitching and much less constructive than a tweet could ever be.

So what’s the solution? There’s always the option of having a new, anonymous place, but that’s not the solution. Or to not share online which leads to this.

Time to ponder..

Started talking about this on MSN and seeing that Harry Potter films seem to come up in conversation far too often, I might as well copy it to here and link to it in the future. Saves the lazy me having to type it again.

• First one is good for being a happy/cheery kids movie. Magical really, especially with the introduction of the awesome John Williams score.
• Second one was ok, it’s always been my least favourite book, but the character of Myrtle was captured well enough for me to not dislike the film completely.
• Third one was too arty. Far too obvious it’s a different director and set and some of the parts, like Lupins changing into the werewolf after they leave the Shrieking Shack and Sirius attacking him felt cheap. Could have been the lighting. I did like how they did the time travel and the evolution of Hermione’s character though.
• The fourth one concentrated far too much on the bloody Triwizard tournament and wasn’t faithful enough to the books. That dragon egg sequence seemed to last forever and it wasn’t clear on how the world’s opinion of Harry changed. Plus Dobby is even more annoying than the books!
• Fifth one, Umbridge, was good and my fave one. Showed change and how no one believed Harry and it replicated the overal powerlessness I felt when reading the book. And it introduced Luna which is such a brilliant actress.
• Last one changed far too much to the book and shows how some actor may have been miscast. Like Ginny Weasely who has zero chemistry with Harry or Ron/Hermione who also don’t really have much going for each other. Plus I disliked how they changed the end with Snape killing Dumbledore which was entirely different in the book.

The title says it all and some of these have been open in Firefox tabs for months!

Can you predict review scores? - I can’t believe anyone thought this was worthy of a company! Maybe I should start a company like that and make money!

Stop Telling Me What To Do – Lengthy [and I mean very long] yet wellwritten column about games and that they should stop displaying tutorials. I’ve been getting annoyed with Fable II continuously reminding me to press A to perform an action. I’ve been playing it for over 30 hours!

EatLiver – Avoiding all the wrong pictures, the site has about 50% funny content. Spent a good hour one day going through the archives.

Star Wars Name Generator – Does what it says on the tin, great place when in need for a random fictional name or two. Like NaNoWriMo which I shall not mention further!

Liberty City Map – Perfect for hunting those pesky rats!

You Can’t Go Home Again? – 1.01 and 1.02 “The Pilot” - Brilliant Lost post with many, many images on the foreshadowing of the pilot Lost episode to mythology and twists later on. Includes so many details I’ve missed even on repeat viewings, like placing of scars which could be significant or the frequent occurence of black and white.

Connecting the Dots – 1.16, 1.17, 1.18 and 1.19 “Outlaws”, “…In Translation”, “Numbers”, “Deus Ex Machina” – Another great Lost post on the connections between events that weren’t obvious during the first viewing, such as Locke’s fall from the building during a Hurley centric episode. Highlights many of the ‘coincidences’.

Halo Legends – The Babysitter Today Only – Starting to get annoyed by things only being available for limited time..

Star Wars KotOR Quiz – User generated KotOR quiz that I scored FAR too high in! 39/40! Although technically it would have been full marks, but one of the questions is wrong. And yes, I know what the ‘Unknown Planet’ is called; what planet the main playable character originates from; and what the sharks on Manaan are called!

FSR Halo 2 Song Rap – A not quite SFW and quite bizarre song written about Halo 2 including video. Catchy though and I remember first listening to it back when I started playing it in 2005!

Orthographic diacritics and multilingual computing – A great article on how the Latin alphabet isn’t enough, how it’s been extended in some languages with letters like the German umlaut and what can be done in the future.

I’m Belle de Jour – I watched the TV show because of Billie Piper and read the book because of the show. It’s interesting how she’s decided to finally reveal her true identity after all these years, although I do wonder if she’s not just a decoy.

‘You’ve been very, very naughty’ – Lately I’ve gotten quite into watching Supernanny and this article linked via the program’s Wikipedia page definitely leaves a bitter taste.

Dear Every Site That Paginates Articles – Something particularly bad on gaming articles.

Xbox gamer ‘gutted’ after cut off – Tough cookie.. Muppet.

Hairfinder.com – Want that hairstyle!

[FWIW, this post would have been posted several hours ago would it not be annoying to assign categories on wordpress.com..]

Unsurprisingly NaNoWriMo isn’t going as well as I’d hoped, although at the same time I’ve already accomplished more than my past two attempts. I’m currently on 3644 words and should be on 6667 by now [yes, today is the fifth day, but seeing that it's 3am in the morning, I'm not counting it!].

I started off slow with 300 words, but then wrote in the night to the second day until reaching 3061 words and I was fairly pleased with not only the progress, but also the way the story was unfolding. I even shared the story with some people which makes it the first bit of creative writing I’ve shared since school! Feedback was generally positive, although I’m sure some people were just being nice, but instead of taking that on board and carrying on I felt that I’d written myself into a dead-end and didn’t carry on until earlier today, day 4.

Sometime this afternoon I realised that it was due to my inability to write dialogue that sounds natural and is flowing. My written dialogue tends to sound very wooden and nowhere near actual spoken dialogue. Trying to force myself to carry on with dialogue hasn’t helped and I’ve now changed my story to not describe events as much at the time they’re happening, but rather look back at them at the end of the day. Not sure if that is really working out all that well as I’ve only written 600 words since then!

Also thinking about making my character mute or deaf to avoid most conversations!

Back to it..

Another year of NaNoWriMo and I’m determined to complete my novel this year!

So far I’ve written 300 words in the past twenty minutes and am now stopping for tonight to gather my thoughts. I’m not sure where I want this novel to go or even it’s most basic plot outline, but I’ve started with a general description of some places. The following is an excerpt of one of the central planets featured. At least I think it will be a central planet!

Asteria was both a shining example and a dark mark on the galactic parliament. It was never an important planet with merely fifty million inhabitants on the small sphere, most of whom were honest and kind. Its gravitational pull was stronger than the galactic average and reliant on the seasons of which it had twenty-two, all with their own celebrations. Landing ships was only possible during eight of them and it even affected ships passing the planet on their routes in neighbouring systems. The citizens of Asteria were used to the conditions, they treasured the ritual change of seasons and enjoyed not having visitors all year round despite being located near the centre of the galaxy.

Obviously first draft and incomplete.

I have to go to London next Wednesday, Nov 4th and seeing I don’t go to London often and have to be there early in the morning for a passport appointment that shouldn’t last longer than a couple of hours at most, I’m looking at spending the whole day there.

I am thinking about seeing Mousetrap which I’ve been wanting to see for over ten years and never got round to, but apart from that I haven’t got any plans.

I posed the question on Twitter earlier and had many suggestions already which is yet another reason why Twitter works for me [insert all those social media guru buzzwords here].

So far I’ve got:

• wysiwygjt: London Walks!  I <3 London! I’ve done 2, Jack the Ripper and Unseen London, both were great. 4 Knitting
• ChiverstheCat: See the Montezuma exhibish at the British Museum & treat yourself to lunch in the restaurant there!
• NevilleFenn: Have lunch at the S & M Cafe – best food ever! As Agent Cooper would say, ‘good food, reasonably priced’ – 50’s cafe style too. :-)

Any other suggestions are more than welcome!

I went shopping today and can’t remember the last time my feet have hurt this much.

I’ve only ever had two other dressing gowns, one as a child and another one some years ago in a far too bright blue. I didn’t intend to buy it today, but once I felt it’s softness I couldn’t resist!

Truth be told I nearly forgot it’s this time of year again. I will be attempting to post a picture containing anything pink each day.

#1 – The candle edition:

It doesn’t particularly look pink in the photo, but it definitely is, including the candle wax. I have an obsession with candles and tend to have between two and five lit every evening with at least one being an aromatic one. Currently most of my candles are thick, churchlike ones, other times I’ve had small ones in glasses.

In the past months I’ve noticed Gmail’s spam folder containing several real emails so I’ve made it a habit to check it every other day. At the moment I get about ~200 spam mails a day across twelve different accounts and some are just hilarious. Curiously there is quite a lot of them that don’t contain any links or phone numbers and only have maybe one or two sentences in them.

Here’s a list of some of the better ones, unedited:

• Dld you know all lt takes ls a phone and the wllllngness to share some lnformatlon wlth others to see around 1500 to 3500 weekly sometlmes even dally. Call the lnfo llne for more detalls.
• You have frequent convulsions? Time to stop it!
• We are glad to have seen again.
• Purify, Clense, Look Better, Feel Better.
• Feel power and strength of your ancestors when you drilling your woman.
• We teach you the art of becoming.
• Best oil for pork motor.
• Aging steals male strength! V. booster returns it!
• If something’s out of tune in the Music of your Love, our Male Pilules will return harmony!
• Lets’ make it again, darling?
• Even the most shy girls will moan and groan under your meat press!
• “My husband and I tried the program and our energy level increased immediately! After 3 weeks now I have noticed even more changes. My bowel movements have improved and I feel so hydrated and healthy.” Cindy – Nashville, TN

I sure am glad for Cindy from Nashville!

I’ve also received some longer ones which are posted over on my tumblr and are well worth a read:

• Yey, I’m getting an inheritance from someone who has died in the tsunami!
• I’m advised to stop dealing with non officials in my bank and get an ATM card to withdraw lots of money from!
• A corrupt bank employee from Ghana wants to give me money!
• And Ms Angela telling me got rich by travelling to Nigeria!

They all seem so legit!

Not to forget about Vishenka, Veronika and Princess from Russia!

And then there was this winning entry:

Vishenka and Veronika were already interested and now Princess comes along, too!

Dear friend,

It can be so that you do not know me but i will introduce myself.

I am … I think … i will keep my name in secret. Let it be Princess.

I am a small Princess. I am from Russia. I am so upset. I am
beautiful and cute girl but so upset at the same time.

I want to find handsome guy with whom we will have a long life.

I do not know what to do. I want to change everything in my life.

I suppose you are smart boy and can be my prince.

Please, reply me back when you get this letter cause it can make me
feel better. I will not be alone. And who knows we can be nice
friends.

Reply Longhair7838@rambler.ru to this e-mail.

Best wishes
Princess.

So she’s got long hair then?

Today has been a fairly unremarkable, yet really good at the same time. I was looking after Bella this weekend and Ian came round today to pick her up again. We had planned to spend the day together as he had promised to cut the grass in my garden for me which really needed doing!

Of course, having not specified when Ian would come round, he turned up at 11am when I was still asleep, but as we lived together for several years he knows it takes me quite a bit to wake up in the morning! Ended up watching him cut the grass before playing some chess, checkers and dominos!

• Chess: I won, twice.
• Checkers: Ian won, once.
• Dominos: Ian won, three times! I still think he cheated as I definitely know different rules!

Decided to go food shopping spending far too much money, as usual when I’m out with Ian, followed by dinner, a ‘Come dine with me’ marathon and ‘Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour’.

As I said, unremarkable, yet we had such a good time. Really did a lot to lift my mood which hasn’t been all that great lately!

Went to see Gamer tonight and wasn’t all that impressed [hated it!], but there were a few things that I liked/recognised about gaming:

• During the first few scenes there’s a ‘teabagging’ bit which made me laugh.
• The cocky gamer.
• Society, the Second Life game in the film which, just like SL is very much about sex.
• Escaping in the car reminded me a lot of some of the Halo ‘hog chases I’ve done in the past.

Some of the things I didn’t like [too many to include them all!]:

• The awful, awful stereotypical characters: Obese gamer, girl that helps him with dreadlocks, reporter that changes her ways throughout when she realises how bad it is, etc.
• The violence. It was just too much.
• The random characters that didn’t make sense, like the crazy guy.
• The pixelating flashes.
• The camera angles.
• The story. It just didn’t make sense. Like how did the girl get to him in prison? How did they get the alcohol in? How on Earth did he suddenly end up in Second Life? What? Why?

Some other things:

• I wish e-sports had such a large gathering.
• They should have just kept the actual gaming parts as FPS, like they did for maybe five seconds once. That’s the only thing I liked about the Doom film when that came out..

This film has no replay value and isn’t worth watching just for the achievements..

Just realised that I missed the third birthday of this blog which was on September 4th. Come to think of it, I believe I may have missed the 1st and 2nd birthdays, too..

I’m not around on here as much as I’d like to be these days, but I will definitely carry on using it in some form or another and even if it’s just a record of things I’ve done in the past. Over time some posts have been deleted or modified, for example removing information which retrospectively I didn’t want to share publically any more.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and commented!

Here are some stats:

Total views: 280,953
Busiest day: 3,501 — Saturday, July 21, 2007
Posts: 553
Comments: 4,207
Categories: 202

And the first post as well as the design history and a list of all the posts on this blog.

Here’s to another three years!

So where is this ominous Internet Dating Agency that keeps sharing my email address with desperate Russian women?

And I thought Hola was Spanish, what is hello in Russian?

Hola my friend!!!

This message sent to you from Russian Internet dating agency ^^Land of Love^^.
This is not spam or other bad things. So, please, answer to me!!!

I am Veronika. I am 27 years old.
I live near Moscow. I suppose you know it.
I man from other country for or love.
I am single and have no children.
I do not smoke and do not drink alcohol.
I am really fed up with my boring life and I want to find new man in my life to improve it.
This is my photo. I hope you can look it and you also like it and you will give an answer to me.

Please, answer to my e-mail address : Cutegirl3023@rambler.ru
I am waiting for your message impatiently.
Best wishes,

Yours Veronika.

Sometimes spam mail doesn’t get filtered properly and ends up in my inbox.

Sometimes the emails are hilarious:

Greetings from Russian Federation. I am a girl of 28 years. My name is
Natalia. My hometown is Vishenka.
Its 30 km from St. Pitersburg
I would like to find a freind from the USA. I got your e-mail via the
Internet dating agency.
I believe that you will answer me and we will try to launch our
relations with you. Hope you are not against of it.
I have no children. I ve been never married before.

My height 165 cm
My weight 55 kg
Age 27
I am slim

Please, if you want to talk to me,write

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

Welcome to the TGI Friday edition of #TwitLight and it’s participant @chrisbrownsell!

I first came across @chrisbrownsell a couple of months ago when I was looking for people in Reading. He plays a lot of Halo 3, is obsessed with Star Trek and is generally a geek all around!

In this TwitLight he talks about gaming, Firefly and asks an interesting question!

Welcome @chrisbrownsell!

1. Where are you from?
Originally from a town called Blyth, just north of Newcastle Upon Tyne, but currently reside a few miles outside of Reading.

2. How old are you?
24.

3. What do you do for a living?
Currently not much. I used to be a Software Tester for Electronic Arts back in the day though.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
It’s my name. My parents gave it to me, so I can’t really take credit for coming up with it. All I did was shorten it, and remove the space to create the alias. It’s not massively original, but it seems to suit me well enough.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Every kid wanted to be an astronaut surely? That would have been awesome. I do remember when I was younger I was massively into Dinosaurs (Dinosaurs are cool). After seeing Jurassic Park with my Dad all I wanted to do was be a palaeontologist. Quite advanced for a nine year old. I’m impressed that I could even say it properly. Sadly that didn’t happen.

Although I would still like to be an astronaut. NASA, if you’re reading this, come find me.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
I’ve had The Staunton Lick by Lemon Jelly running through my head all day. A few friends were talking about Lemon Jelly earlier on another social networking site that shall remain nameless, and I remembered they had a tune in the last episode of Spaced, so I looked it up on Youtube and now it’s been running around my head all afternoon.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
I do not, but I do have a Spotify account. Does that count?

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Currently reading the novelisation of Metal Gear Solid by Raymond Benson. It’s not great so far, but it’s Metal Gear Solid, and I’m a sucker for anything Metal Gear. Hell, I bought my PS3 just for Metal Gear Solid 4. Now that is dedication.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
I’m playing through Fallout 3 again, mostly to pick up the achievements I missed during my first play through. It doesn’t have the same feeling of wonder that it did during my first playthrough, but I suppose that’s to be expected since I know what to do with the game now.

I’m also trying to play through Oblivion for the first time. I’m finding it hard to get into it properly, although I suspect that has to do with me playing Fallout 3 before Oblivion. To me it just feels like a gimped version Fallout 3 in a fantasy setting.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Sunny with some cloud. Fortunately it’s not too warm. I’m not a massive fan of the heat. I tend to get quite grumpy when I’m too hot.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
I’ll probably end up playing some more Fallout and watching some more Deep Space Nine. Might even break out the Firefly Bluray. Nothing like a major geek-out when you have nothing to do.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Probably James May. He may get some grief from Clarkson and Hammond on Top Gear for being Captain Slow, but he gets to do some seriously awesome stuff. A few weeks back there was a programme where he got to fly in a U2 spy plane, which can fly at altitudes of 70,000ft. That’s almost to the edge of space. That would be seriously cool.

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Well, ideally it would be Captain. Failing that, Tactical Officer. Knowing my luck though, I’d end up being a TOS era Red Shirt and get killed by some silly looking alien on my first away mission.

Although, I have to ask, which Enterprise? There have been a few.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
I’m fairly grumpy at the best of times, never mind first thing in the morning. So unless you could deal with mild grumpiness most of the time, I’d probably make a pretty poor flatmate. I do have an awesome collection of video games and a love for sci fi though, so that might count as a positive.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Emails from an Asshole. Some of the stuff on there is pure comedic gold.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
Well, I’ve had my account since January this year, but didn’t really start using it until later in February. I’m not sure if I’m totally sucked in by it yet. If I haven’t got anything I want to say or moan about then I won’t say it. I don’t yet feel the need to tweet my every waking thought.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
I like to play video games. So, PC. Not that I have anything against Apple though. I love my iPhone.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Ice cream. But only if it’s Mint Choc Chip.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am wandering the Capital Wasteland looking for new places to explore and I will probably spend hours doing just that, but I need to sort things out in the house, because I’m the only one in to do them.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I’m not sure where to begin with this one. I guess one thing I could say about myself is that I’m really not very good at describing myself. (I think I dodged that one quite well don’t you?)

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
Getting 100% notes hit on Gimme Shelter on Expert difficulty Drums in Rock Band.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

I can be found on Twitter as @chrisbrownsell.

I also have a gaming blog. It hasn’t been updated for a little while, but I’m sure I’ll find something to write about soon.

And finally, I’m on the staff over at the Green Hill Zone forums. It’s quite a small gaming community that splintered off from another forum a few years back. Come and say hello.

23. Any more comments?
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, do the other trees still point and laugh?

I think by the time the trees have realised what’s happened there will be people around to hear them. Plus I’m sure they’d be much more interested in talking about the consistency of squirrel droppings! Thanks for taking part, Chris!

Some time ago @gamedigital, otherwise known as the retailer GAME, asked their Twitter followers to vote on a charity they were considering to support promising a £100 giftvoucher drawn randomly to those replying.

Well, as it turned out several weeks later, I was the one winning the voucher and it finally arrived this week plus it’s one featuring ‘Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’!

@Gamedigital: Thanks to everyone who voted for our charity partner and congratulations to @carocat who has won the £100 voucher! #

Thank you very much!!

I have so far used £28 from it to buy the Mass Effect special edition [which makes it the third version of Mass Effect I've owned!] and the FallOut 3 expansions pack disc. Suggestions on what I shall spend the rest on?

I seem to have been quite lucky with the competitions on Twitter lately! Here’s hoping this trend will continue!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

It’s TwitLight Wednesday and today it’s all about @SFX_LADYJ!

She has her plans for world domination all laid out and is well underway with the community site SFX-360 she co-founded. She’s funny, obsessed with Twitter and loves gaming! Read on to find out which job she would take on a spaceship, her obsessions and a generally entertaining read!

Hello @SFX_LADYJ!

1. Where are you from?
Fort Lauderdale, FL.

2. How old are you?
Old enough to play games until 4am in the Morning WOOT WOOT!

3. What do you do for a living?
I’m the founder of SFX360 and I’m the Florida Sales Rep for GameJuice! and Part Time Designer.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
Lets see I’m a Lady and my name is Julie so Shazzam! LADYJ!

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Well when I grow up I would like to be a World Dominator, I hear the benefits are off the rocker!

When I was a kid growing up in NYC I use to spend hours drawing buildings and my father said that one day I will be an Architect. I pursued my dream of being an Architect but once college was over and I entered the real world of Architecture things changed. After 6 years of working for a firm I decided it was just not for me.

So World Domination here I come! ShamWow!

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
“Don’t Say Nuthin” The Roots.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
I didn’t have one but now that you mentioned it my curiosity took me to the website and now I have another thing to obsess over! THANKS ALOT!

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Well I try to read about every game news out there! You should see my Google homepage OY VEY! As a daily ritual I read all the posts on SFX360 forums! Gotta give love to our members!

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
Fallout 3 is my current poison and I have to admit I didn’t think I was going to like it. I can’t put it down even though it gets me in this dark depressing mood lol (don’t ask) I can’t stop playing it! God only knows how many times I have vowed not to play it anymore but I’m hooked! DAMN YOU BETHESDA!

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Wow it’s picture perfect! The sky is blue the water is crystal clear all the beautiful people are on the beach and life couldn’t be better!

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Well if I manage to escape from Twitter then I’m off to drop off some dry cleaning (what did we do before dry cleaning?) do some groceries then come back home. Then wrestle with laundry (I’ll probably lose!) walk Rocky (my chihuahua) sit in front of the computer and work on getting carpal tunnel. Do some World Domination work and get dinner ready for my Hubby :)

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
OMG OMG I love this question! I would totally take over Heidi Klum’s place on Project Runway! She has no game! She needs to be more Diva when she says “Your in or you’re out!” I would totally be all over that job and say “Listen Fabric Jedi you need to get cutting cause your either IN like Gucci or OUT like Wal-mart” SNAP! SNAP!

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
The counselor of course! I get to sit back and look pretty with a badass outfit and I’ll probably make up an accent just for the hell of it. I’ll probably advise the captain to pimp up his ride. Let’s see talk all day and not really give out advise hmmm sounds like my life already!

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
You would love me as a flatmate! I’m like a ninja in the morning you won’t see me nor hear me so it would be a great mix!

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Wow this is really tough because this is the part that I would totally plug my website! LOL but really there are so many out there that I couldn’t just pinpoint to one! I want you to know that I wrote this answer like 10 times and erased it 10 times and finally came down to the answer that I just gave you! LOL.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
March 19, 2008 according to Twitter we will celebrate next year with chocolate covered strawberries and champaign! At first I really didn’t think much of Twitter and thought it to be a waste of time but then 3 months after I finally realized Twitter is the tool for World Domination! So I’m Hooked!

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
Mac and PC I go both ways! LOL (dirty minds)

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
CAKEEEEEEEEEE! with Ice Cream?!?!?!?

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am fabulous and I will finish this questionnaire, but number 15 was tough , because there are so many sites I love.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I’m a pretty laid back kinda gal but I work hard to achieve my goals. I will open my heart and home to you if you are a sincere person and I will treat you like family. I’m a true believer that life is full of consequences and it’s up to you to choose your path. I don’t give out advice but I can be someone who will really listen to you and help you if you need it.

I have a great understanding that we are all human and our first instincts is to be selfish and that doesn’t bother me. I know life can be crazy at times and worrying about other people is a gift not many of us have. I will worry about those who are part of my life as well as those who I just met. I like to find that special something in each individual and make you feel like the world is in your hands!

I will always be a positive energy and never a negative one. Life is too short to be bitching all the time, so why bother?!

My Motto! “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
I spent the day with my parents helping them with their errands it made me feel proud to be that close to them and have them as parents.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

Well you can join my other stalkers at Twitter, SFX-360.com and Xbox Live!

23. Any more comments?
I would like to thank you for letting me participate :) Carocat FTW!

Thanks so much for those entertaining answers! Good Luck on your world domination!! ;)

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

It’s yet another Monday and it’s about time to cheer you up with the latest TwitLight! Today’s TwitLight is all about @DjDATZ and I can’t actually remember how I came across him first, but I do know it’s been way over a year!

He is obsessed with fast cars, an avid Formula 1 watcher [although he tends to watch the races weeks later with his dad], loves gaming and has a very strange taste in music with Tiësto! When I say that he loves gaming I actually mean to say that he’s completely obsessed with it! And don’t ask me to pronounce his surname! ;)

If you’re not following him already you shoud do so right now! Of course, only after reading his TwitLight in which he elaborates on some of the things mentioned above!

It’s an honour to present @DJDATZ!

1. Where are you from?
Originally, I was born in Croatia, which is a small-ish country in Europe. Most of my family is back there, we moved here when I was 3. Only my parents and my brother are here in Canada.

Currently, I reside in Toronto.

2. How old are you?
22, turned in July…

3. What do you do for a living?
I do 3 chief things in my life right now that have a direct impact on my living: I’m a 4th year Commerce student at UOIT (my last exam is next Saturday), I’m a lab coordinator for Manulife/John Hancock, and I’m an associate editor for 360Sync.com.

Love the job at Manulife and writing for 360Sync, and since school is going to be done VERY soon, I can’t complain.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
It’s really easy actually. The Dj part comes from some toying around I did with sampling of mixes and making one of my own, and the DATZ part comes straight from my initials.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Hmm, I always wanted to be a fighter-jet pilot or a race car driver. (F1 or anything with fast cars and nice tracks not NASCAR because NASCAR is not really racing to me, it’s simply “turning left.”) Well, I can’t be a fighter-jet pilot cuz I don’t have 20-20 vision, and as for a race car river, well, you definitely need to start early on that. So neither of those came to fruition.

My next goal: getting paid to play and write about video games! Almost there!

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
I don’t usually think. I wait.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
DjDATZ37, the 37 is added on there because it’s my favorite number. I was kind of really late to the last.fm party, so someone beat me to the DjDATZ username. I’m thinking about looking into getting it from them…

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Truth be told, nothing really. I don’t read much, I prefer playing my games instead.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
Right now, mostly some achievement friendly games. Recently I got ‘Splosion Man, so I’ve been creeping through the co-op campaign in that, played some Halo 3 to pick up the last 2 achievements I needed of all the available ones and playing some Gears of War 2 with friends like @Esko, @Goon360 and @Sedington86 [read his TwitLight!] to pick up some more of the achievements in the game. Also, I’ve been racking up my kills in Gears of War 2 towards the Seriously 2.0 achievement and I’m currently at 84,000.

Dream bike

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
We just had a massive rainstorms this weekend, but other than it being very dark, it didn’t really do much. This morning things seem much more calm.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Finish up with work for the day and recording our overdue podcast with Shane. (We’ve been trying to get together since Thursday and things on both ends keep throwing our schedules out of whack.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Am I allowed to replace an F1 driver in an F1 race? :D

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Never really followed Star Trek, so I can’t say.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Kind of, mostly because I hate mornings, and if I have a choice, I make them non-existant by sleeping through them. My girlfriend hates me for it as she’s an extremely-early riser.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Twitter, Facebook, and 360Sync, each for it’s own reason.

Twitter for being like a massive group chat, Facebook for me being able to connect to people I haven’t seen in ages, maybe even over a decade, and 360Sync, well for obvious reasons.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
I joined in April of 2007, according to my TweetStats. (What?! It’s been 2 years already?!). I got sucked in in December 2007 when I realised how awesome it could be, and how many people I could connect with.

I think it’s also partially responsible for getting me this sweet writing deal at 360Sync.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
I’ve always been for PC, but I cannot stand Vista. We still use XP on all of the millions of computers in my house. (Or at least it seems like that.) With the release of Windows 7, I believe Microsoft can recapture their customers.

As for physical hardware, recently I’ve been reading and hearing more on how awesome Macs are and I’ve been wanting to “Jump In.” (See what I did there?)

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Ice cream FTW. Unless it’s ice cream cake.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am rested and I am grateful for the gf’s birthday surprise on Sunday, but I am sad more people couldn’t come out, because the weather was slightly crappy.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I’m what you would call a “nice guy” and I’m all about instant gratification. I love my games, especially racing. And this all stems from my love for speed. Yes, I love my exotic cars and luxury cars, but more than that I love my sport bikes. I’ve got my bike license, but no bike as of yet.

My favorite three game genres (in order of preference) are racing, sandbox and shooters.

Gaming setup. Click image for bigger picture and notes on flickr. I bet you don’t know what’s in that bottle!

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
A presentation I did a couple weeks ago for a massive 4th project I did with a group of 6 other friends. I pretty much did the whole powerpoint behind the presentation, which took a total of about 8-10 hours, and it came out amazingly. I would love to share it with everyone, but we signed a confidentiality agreement at the beginning of the project. If we break the contract, they break our mark.

A couple things as of late: finishing up my course and consequently my Bachelor of Commerce (well, I’ve only got to do on final exam, and I only need to get 2/50 multiple choice answers right on that for the course to count for my Bachelor, so I’ll consider the course “finished”), getting my gamertag back and the start of our podcast over at 360Sync.

Regarding my gamertag, here’s the short form of the story: when my account was reverting from Gold to Silver, there was a glitch in the system, and Xbox Live couldn’t tell what membership I had, and wouldn’t let me sign into Xbox Live (via my 360) nor recover my account. After 2 weeks of regular support not helping, @jamileh was helping me out on a 1-on-1 basis, and actually fixed my account herself. Props go out to her!

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

*sigh* You just had to do this to me didn’t you. I am all over the interwwwebz.

• A personal page with links to where you can stalk me
• 360Sync (author link)
• 360Sync Forums (user link)
• RHRiders (recently defunct)
• Gamertag (via MGC)
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• IntenseDebate
• Blogsmith (comments on blogs like X3F [recently renamed to Joystiq Xbox] and Joystiq)
• Halo 3 Service Record
• Flickr
• Last.fm
• Wikipedia
• Digg
• 360Voice

I’m sure there are way more, but you can find those if you like stalking me. I can’t make your life TOO easy.

I’ve got both AIM and WLM, but you’ll have to ask me for those…

23. Any more comments?
Thanks for an awesome survey! I tried to have as much fun with it as possible!

Thanks for taking part, it’s been awesome! And if any of the people mentioned in this TwitLight want to take part in a future one, just let me know!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

Welcome to Friday’s edition of TwitLight and who is better to beat the old Friday blues than the one and only @raincoaster?!

I have never seen anyone as obsessed with blogstats, although with the hits she gets on a daily basis it’s probably quite hard not to get obsessed with them! She’s not doing too bad with comments either; her most commented on post ‘mummified fairy remains found!!!‘ has, at the time of writing this, 1651 comments of which about 20 or 30 are from me.

Some of her other posts include some very long post about Viggo Mortensen, a post about Canada’s most well known serial killer Willy Pickton and she was one of the first to post the Chris Crocker ‘Leave Britney alone!!’ video.

She’s helpful, too, with thousands of posts in the wordpress.com forums which is where I first came across her back in 2006.

If you haven’t come across her on the internet before, then you must have been living in a hole. Follow her now!

I give you @raincoaster!

1. Where are you from?
I was born in Marville, France, on a Canadian Armed Forces Base, and the government subsequently refused to recognize my Certificate of Foreign Birth. I try not to take it personally, and repeatedly point out this does not actually PROVE I’m an alien.

2. How old are you?
I COULD tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

3. What do you do for a living?
I blog, but you could hardly call it living. I rock the monitor tan something fierce.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
It means where I live. There are two other raincoasters in the world: some chick named Helen who snagged the name on Skype before I got it, and an amateur porn actor and nudist in Abbotsford who has a MUCH hairier back than I do. And I’ve got the tentacles, so it’s easy to tell us apart.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
“Grow up…” please explain?

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
This horrible “Don’t Call Me Baby Anymore” song that the internet cafe plays Every! Single! Time! I come here.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
Nope. But according to photographers, I have an outstanding profile. The left one.

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Duh, this questionnaire. Is this a trick question?

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
I don’t play video games, but I’m fat right now, so I want WiiFit and Dance Dance Revolution.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Blustery, cool, and scatttered rain. It will continue this way in Vancouver for approximately the next ten thousand years.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
I have one more blog post to do, then I walk home, toast a good business decision with some Tuaca, which a friend recommended on Twitter, then watch a DVD (Meet John Doe with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck) in bed and go to sleep.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
I would only do that if I could replace them with myself, and then I’d replace either the highest-paid person in television OR the lucky nobody who gets to sit next to Simon Cowell every week on American Idol. Le sigh. What can I say, I have a bit of a thing for assholes.

There was no chance in hell I’d put Simon Cowell here!

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
CAPTAIN, BITCHES!!!

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Yes, because I would kill anyone who was obnoxiously cheery in the morning. But I never clean up. So we could split the work that way.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Fimoculous.com

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
I registered last August, but only started doing things with it in October. It didn’t take long to get hooked; I think it depends on hitting that magical Follow number, to make the tweets interesting enough to pay attention to. Less than 100 isn’t interesting enough.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
Macs are better, PCs are cheaper. But Macs just work, right out of the box.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Ice cream, of course.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am broke and I turned down a job, but I feel great, because there’s no amount of money that would be worth taking that amount of crap from a so-called collegue.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
Well, the Facebook Dr Phil personality quiz pretty much sums it up:

Others see you as someone they should “handle with care.” You’re seen as vain, self-centered, and who is extremely dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you, but don’t always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
Making the hard decision to turn down some easy money for peace of mind and the chance to concentrate on growing my business, raincoaster media, which uses the power of the digital revolution to bring about personal and social change. Social media for social change, basically.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

Google, silly. I used to comment a lot more, especially on Gawker blogs (I have been recognized in Vancouver because of my comments on Defamer.com) but since I started reading RSS feeds instead, I’m not commenting so much anymore. And that’s hurt the blog, no question.

My personal blog is raincoaster.com, my social media/community blog is raincoastermedia.com, my parenting blog is Teenymanolo.com, my gossip blog is Ayyyy.com, my making fun of celebrities blog is Lolebrity.net, and my literary group’s blog is Shebeenclub.com which is currently in limbo.

23. Any more comments?
Yeah, that’s too many questions! Twitter users have short attention spans!

Some say it’s too short though! Thanks for taking part!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

It’s Wednesday and time for another TwitLight!

Today I’d like you all to meet @ernmander. I first came across him sometime at the end of last year via Satscenes or other Satsceners, like @akaSylvia, @ingridf or @Pewari. He’s about as addicted to Twitter as me which I’m not sure is a good thing! ;)

In this TwitLight he talks about keeping promises, his Twitter addiction and Pokemon!

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet @ernmander!

1. Where are you from?
England.

2. How old are you?
40.

3. What do you do for a living?
IT Technical Support Manager, wannabe Vlogger and Blogger.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
Ernmander. It is a cross between Ernie and Charmander. I made up Pokemon names for a group I worked with a few years ago.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
I wanted to be Spiderman, that still has not changed.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
Sense by The Lightning Seeds.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
No.

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Mac Format.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
KillZone II and well not as good as I thought it was.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Cloudy and a little cold.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
As it is a little late I plan on reading some blogs and Twitter.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
I don’t really watch that much TV apart from factual shows really

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Science Officer (Spock).

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Yes as I am an anti morning person.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
AudioBoo.fm

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
I have been on Twitter roughly 7 months and was sucked in from the first day. look at how many updates I have done, you will see that I am still hooked.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
For me Mac, but the choice is yours I believe what ever one you are comfortable with is the one to go for.

I think the PC/Mac argument is childish. It is an individual choice and others should not force their point on you or berate you for the choice of computer you have made.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Arctic Swiss Roll cause it has both in it hehehehe.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am writing and I will finish, but did enjoy, because I like to keep promises.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I would suggest they come and find out. What we tend to write down in descriptions of ourself are not what people think of us.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
My Twitter and blog coverage for The Longest Pull.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:
Just type in Ernmander into Google, you’ll see :)

23. Any more comments?
Enjoyed it Cat :)

Glad you did and thanks for taking part!

There are several things that I’ve been meaning to blog about in a long time, but the bookmarks have been sitting there for months gathering dust, although I’m not all that sure how that’s actually possible on the internet..

Either way, one of the things that I’ve been meaning to blog about was the video @leocomerlato did for my birthday back in May. Really amazing!

I know I’ve said it before, but thanks again @leocomerlato, @starcade, @GeminiAce, @kari_shma, @tromboneforhire, @Wriggy and @Zyber. Much love!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

Welcome back to another Monday which surely is brightened up by the return of TwitLight!

Today I’d like you all to meet @sulzdotcom who I have known from blogging and wordpress.com since 2006 which, in internet times, is actually a very long time!

Her blog, Bloggerdygook, has been around since New Year’s Day 2006 and it’s been extremely interesting to see some of the changes she’s gone through in that time, for example the way she sees herself and every post of hers has a lot of commenters, something most other bloggers can only dream of! She’s also reached out to people off the internets and I loved the souvenir she sent me in April!

It’s my pleasure to introduce you all to @sulzdotcom!

1. Where are you from?
Kuala lumpur, Malaysia!

2. How old are you?
24.

3. What do you do for a living?
Working as a marketing executive in a bookshop.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
It’s derived from my chinese name. A friend came up with it and it stuck. :)

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
I’d like to have my own family. failing that, I’d like to travel the world. Definitely caught the travelling bug, as i went to Bangkok 4 months ago as my first full-fledged overseas vacation!

I think I wanted to tread the family path when younger, though like now I wonder if ever will.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
None in particular. I’m more into books.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
Nope. My computer speakers are broken!

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
‘A thousand splendid suns’ by Khaled Hosseini – reading it much too slowly for my liking but it’s not very gripping! Also reading Sophie Kinsella’s ‘Remember me’ for a book review.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
I don’t play video games… I play Facebook apps though, does that count?

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Sweltering hot! Hate it, bah.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Go to work and try to survive the rest of the day, sigh.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Err i don’t think i’m TV material – not pretty enough, haha. Probably some reality TV contestant.

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Not into Star Trek, sorry!

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Maybe. I’m actually a morning person but I don’t speak much in the morning, unless you talk to me first. In the mornings I like to go online and be by myself for a bit.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Colorquiz.com – sorry I’m a sucker for quizzes!

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
I started my account last year. I’m on a blogging break for a month so have been on Twitter quite a lot recently. Not totally sucked into it still.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
i heard mac’s so much superior. i haven’t really used one yet though.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
CHOCOLATE!

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am dreading to go to work and I am itching, but I have to go to work because I have to clean up the mess I made.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
When I’m really comfortable with someone I can be just about as quirky and lovable as a TV character. before I reach that level with someone, I’m totally lame and uncool.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
Can’t really remember, sorry.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

• My Blog
• My Twitter
• My Postcrossing

23. Any more comments?
Why are there only 23 questions?

Thanks for taking part, sulz! And there are only 23 questions as I thought people might be less inclined in taking part if there were more!

Yes, after a far too long period of inactivity, it’s finally coming back!

If you’re new to following me or can’t remember something that was a few months ago, allow me to refresh your memory. It all started on a rainy Sunday afternoon all the way back in March and is a Twitter Spotlight featuring one person at a time answering 23 more or less random questions.

Interesting revelations so far have included eating slugs, surprising book endings, love for Deanna Troi, some great pictures, crazy hair, some crazy guy, the love between brothers and sisters, a Marine and much, much more.

There have been many published so far and I hope there will be many more as there simply are too many interesting people on Twitter and 140 characters just aren’t enough!

Want to take part? Contact me!

And take a look at the TwitLights to date:

• @FrustratedFury
• @MelissaBianco
• @CooperHawkes
• @ingridf
• @AlabasterC
• @akaSylvia
• @thewilleffect
• @Pewari
• @Assassin10k
• @SirenAssassin
• @sedington86
• @kari_shma
• @Zyber
• @tartanink
• @GeminiAce
• @phoenix8424
• @reighvin

A while back, on a Friday afternoon, @Gamezine [site] held a Twitter competition which also included this question to win FUEL PC:

How many square miles is FUEL’s game world? #

I didn’t know the answer, but luckily Wikipedia’s article on the game pointed me towards this Kotaku post:

“Largest playable area in a console game: The largest playable environment in a console game is 5,560 square miles (14,400 km²), and is featured in FUEL (Codemasters, 2009). The area features rivers, deserts, forests and mountains and was demonstrated at the offices of Guinness World Records, London, UK, on 20 May 2009.”

And luckily no one else answered before me as I ended up winning it!

This is the fourth time I’ve won a game via Twitter. Over a year ago I won a code for ‘Rocketmen: Axis of Evil’ from @360Sync, in March I won F.E.A.R from @360Junkies and around that time got a code for Banjo-Tooie on XBLA from @trixie360.

Either way, I’d recommend you’re following @Gamezine and have a look at their site which has a very nice and easy to read layout.

Thanks again for the game, you guys rock!

As of 28th of June 2009 I am without any form of valid ID as the passport I had expired. Not only am I currently unable to leave the country, but I also can’t provide ID when prompted in banks or similar places. For example I was unable to trade a game for money the other day as that required ID.

As I am no longer registered in Germany I cannot apply for a ID card as that typically carries the German residence on the back and is only available for people registered in Germany. My ID card expired in 2008.

When I was in Germany for several months this year I was unable to apply for a new one as this was only granted to citizens registered in Germany which I neglegted to do as my stay was only ever intended to be a short one. In order to apply for a passport the applicant has to be registered for a minimum of two months at a single address making a quick registration for the sake of the application impossible.

So yes, as silly as it sounds even though I’m a German national I am unable to apply for a passport in my own country.

Upon my return to the UK at the end of May I contacted the embassy and set up an appointment at the earliest time – 12th of July. I contacted the registry office in my hometown for a copy of my birth certificate as I had never had a copy of it.

July12th came and went and no birth certificate was to be seen. “It must have gotten lost in the mail” which, judging by my excellent track record, is actually fairly likely..

I requested a new one, but was told there was a two months break between applications, presumeably to stop people from wasting the resources. Sure, this is something I can understand IF I had actually received the thing in the first place!

Two months later and my planned trip [although nothing yet booked, thankfully!] to PAX is edging ever closer. However, the two months block also expired, so today I have:

• Called the German embassy in London to request a passport application appointment. Time spent in the queue: 6:08 minutes. Earliest appointment secured for next week. Told that I will also need an additional piece of paper stating I have de-registered in Germany. This is something they have neglected to mention on all previous calls.
• Sent an email to the registry office in my hometown in Germany requesting two new copies to be sent out to me.
• Called the registry office in my hometown in Germany to make sure the email would get read speedily. Duration of call: 2:03 minutes, cost of international mobile call: £3.75.
• Called the registration office in my hometown in Germany to obtain a copy of the sucessful de-registration as I had lost it and at the time couldn’t imagine I would need it again. Was told today’s mail had gone out already. At 10.30am.. Asked to email details. Duration of call: 4:23 minutes, cost of international mobile call: I don’t even want to know..
• Emailed the registration office in my hometown.
• Called the registration office in my hometown to be told there is a fee that has to be paid in cash. Explained my situation until she probably had enough and waived the fee ‘just this one time’. Thanks!

The speediest passports from the German embassy [apart from an emergency one which would not grant me entry into the US] take ‘two, but most likely three weeks’. Passports are only received by the German embassy in London on Tuesdays. My appointment is on Monday, the 10th. The earliest date I could have my passport is the 25th. The likely date is the 1st.

So technically, if all goes to plan, I should have my two forms of ID on time before Monday. Technically everything could go smoothly with the application. Realistically I think I might as well give up on PAX..

—————————–

Update 06/08/09:

I’ve now had emails from both places confirming it’s being sent out today/now. Hope? #

Update 08/08/09:

Mail arrived late and it only contained a letter for the previous tenant. That’s it then..

Update 10/08/09:

Birth certificate arrived this morning, including a request to pay 60Euros for it. Makes me feel even better!

I have been on the internet for about thirteen years now and quite early on I’ve realised the importance to ‘managing’ my online identity and keeping it in sync and recognisable. Googling ‘carocat’ in most cases leads to an online profile of me somewhere and I tend to use the same avatar in most places including as a favicon on most of my online blogs.

There are some exceptions, of course. My Twitter avatar has been a changing picture of myself since Summer last year and I use changing avatars on some of the forums I’m on.

I try to keep my Xbox Live avatar consistent, too, but didn’t realise quite how consistent until the other day. Whilst looking at my 360Voice profile I discovered a link to 360vui [360 voice user info] which provides a ton of stats. And I do love stats!

Gamertag: Fear the CAT (is the ninja cat)
Gamerscore: 21517
Achievements: 998
GS Increase from yesterday: 0 (Best: 1085 on 6/29/2009)
Achievements gained yesterday: 0 (Best: 31 on 7/6/2009)

Date joined 360voice: 7/23/2006
Days a member of 360voice: 1092 days
Gamerscore first recorded by 360v: 895
Average daily gamerscore since joining 360voice: 18.88

It also gives a breakdown on the gamerpictures used and, more importantly, how long each gamerpicture was used for.

This is a list of all the gamerpictures I’ve used to date:

I bought my 360 sometime in March 2006 and this was the first gamerpicture I used. It’s one of the default ones available. Used for ~100 days.

I remember dismissing the idea of ever paying for trivial things, such as gamerpictures or themes [I've purchased four themes so far, all to show support to BioWare/Bethesda/NinjaBee/Ctrl+Alt+Del], however, I still had MS points left over after buying the Lego Star Wars characters set for ‘Lego Star Wars’ and how could I resist Yoda!? Used for 276 days.

This was an unlockable in NinjaBee’s brilliant ‘Band of Bugs’ and how can I not use a ‘NinjaBee’ as an avatar. Of course I also changed my motto to ‘is the ninja cat’ which it still is today. Used for 142 days.

There was a time I religiously read the Ctrl+Alt+Del webcomic until, well, I guess I just moved on. I do still like Lilah as a character though and, just like the NinjaBee avatar, it was a quite rare one on Xbox Live which appealed to me. After all, who doesn’t like to stand out of the crowd?! This avatar was also active in the last year when I didn’t have a 360, but I already used it before I sold my 360 for ~150 days. Used for 565 days.

Of course once I got another 360 I fell in love with the avatar options available, even though they are quite limited, especially relating to hairstyles and none of them looks remotely like me which is why I chose to take a close up picture of my avatar. So far used for 44 days.

And to show what I don’t really look like, this is my avatar. I was quite content with the similarity based on the limitations until a friend asked me the other day who that was meant to be.. Guess not then!

What gamerpictures have you used?

*smacks hand to forehead* Forgot to actually publish this. It’s now a day later!

As I’m typing this I’m alone in my flat for the first time which is quite surprising seeing I’ve been here for over 48 hours so far!

Yet again I’ve moved houses for the umpteenth time in the last six years and I am again attempting to live on my own, although I’m seriously considering getting a housemate. Past experiences considering of crazy Chinese people [I lived with four that were called Ching, Chang, Ying and Tong!], a very dysfunctional family and a group of bitchy hairdressers to just name a few have taught me that it’s not always easy finding the right people to gel with. The only time in the past years I’ve truly enjoyed living somewhere was for two and a half years with a couple that’s become very close friends.

My past houseshares:

• Moved to the UK in 2003 and stayed for three months with a friend and some of his friends in a student houseshare. It was a very intense summer, probably fuelled by the heatwave which forced us to sleep in tents in the garden for weeks as the house became unbearable hot!
• Moved out as the contract was only for three months and the student whose room I’d been renting returned for another year at uni. Ended up in a houseshare via an agency with two Chinese students who went to sleep at four in the afternoon and a Polish woman who was in the country illegally. She also had her boyfriend move in which was great fun as he kept coming onto everyone else in the house. Came home after work one evening just five months later to find the locks changed as the landlord wanted to have his daughter move into my room instead. Nice to give notice..
• Found a room with a, as it turns out later very dysfunctional, family within 24 hours and lived there for a year. The family members were bearable individually, but impossible combined and Christmas that year was definitely memorable! I did meet their daughter though and we became close friends.
• With the traffic in Reading as bad as it is, I decided to move closer to town centre to minimise my commute, although it only chopped about thirty minutes off my total journey which was three hours per day originally. But, thirty minutes was still better than nothing and the garden of the house seemed like an oasis. Shame that the same can’t be said about the housemates which were two bitchy hairdressers, a Canadian who had about ten girlfriends at once and an English girl that didn’t like me for whichever reason. I made the mistake of admitting my Molluscophobia to them and found a nice present outside my room door on the landing one morning..
• Unsurprisingly I was very excited when a colleague mentioned that him and his partner had a free room in their house as their current housemate moved out just days before and I moved within days. Stayed with them at the first house for ten months.
• We moved to the second house together where we were joined by another housemate. I stayed for sixteen months in that house which seemed doomed from the start with everything breaking constantly!
• Decided to move into my own house which seemed like a big step as I’d never lived on my own before. At the time it wasn’t the best idea as I clearly wasn’t ready so I only stayed there for six months. Parts of the problem were also that it was quite out of the way and a trip into town took a good twenty minutes on a quite irregular bus service.
• After staying in various places with friends and Bed and Breakfasts for several months, I moved to Germany to stay with my grandparents for a couple of months.
• Moved back to the UK to the outskirts of London as I found a job near there. This didn’t work out due to some crazy housemates and a ridiculous landlord who showed people round the room before giving me notice while I was in bed asleep. Great fun..
• Stayed in Spain for month.
• Stayed at my dad’s in Germany for a month.
• Stayed several months at my grandparents. Again.
• Came back to the UK beginning of June this year and stayed for a month back at my friends in the doomed house initially to housesit their dogs and house while they were on holidays and then staying on until my flat became available.
• Moved into this flat a couple of days ago..

Many people have been quite surprised that I’ve not only decided to move back to the UK, but more so that I’m back in Reading. I’m not back in Reading for the town itself as there are far too many ‘ghosts of the past’, but it is effectively my hometown as it’s where I’ve chosen to spend the majority of my adult life so far. In total I’ve spent over seven years here since I was sixteen and as much as I dislike the town sometimes [all the times?!], I know my way round.

Truth be told, I didn’t plan on it though. I came to the UK for a few days at the end of May to catch up with friends and decided to look at some flats just to see what’s available. The minute I saw this flat I fell in love with it and even though it’s more expensive than I wanted to pay, it has many advantages, including only five minutes walk to town and the possibly nicest landlords I’ve come across so far. It’s nicely decorated with wooden floors throughout, has a decently sized garden which is just for this flat and did I mention how close it is to town centre yet?

The minimum contract is a year and it’s definitely something that made me consider it for a while as a year can be very long, but perhaps it is finally time to settle down and figure out what I want from life? Only time will tell, as they say..

And how can I not fall in love with this?!

I’ve finally been playing Fable 2 in the last few days and whilst I haven’t yet made up my mind if I like it, I did giggle at my Google search history earlier. This is a set of questions I had when I was playing it on Sunday and wasn’t quite in the mood for actual quests and just spent time exploring Bowerstone, the cusomisation options and interaction with NPC’s. In the order searched:

• How to donate to the temple of light in Fable 2?

It appears standing in the middle of the room as the game indicates you does nothing, instead it’s the hidden away and inconspicious thing on the sidewall. Obviously.

• How to accept a gift in Fable 2?

It’s by pressing the A button whilst highlighting the villager wanting to give a gift funnily enough.

• How to manage a shop in Fable 2?

Why did no one tell me I don’t even get a discount if I own a shop!?

• How to lose weight in Fable 2?

Apparently just by eating celery. Does this also work in real life?

• Marry two villagers in Fable 2?

Hey, what can I say, I made the wrong choice of husband! Well, actually I married him to get store discount, but little did I know that marrying him would turn him into an ungrateful househusband? This is leading to the next question:

• How to get divorced in Fable 2?

Yes, I know I could just kill him, but that would be evil, right? Divorcing him gives him half my money/estate however, so that isn’t an option. Plus, I should probably wait for the kid to grow up. That kid has been a baby for a long time. I wonder..

• When do children grow up in Fable 2?

It appears they don’t unless a certain mission’s done in Fable 2. Seeing I don’t want anything spoilt I stopped reading there.. Coincidentally that point was soon moot when my husband left me. Yey. Shocked I was to discover, however:

• Fable 2 child gone!

Apparently they go to the Orphanage once there’s a divorce. There must be a lack of child minders in Albion.. Also:

• Where is the orphanage?

According to the official Lionhead forums it was taken out of the game. I’ll never get to see my little Steve and Adam grow up! Yes, the game chose those names!

Stats so far:
Husbands: 2
Wives: 1
Left by partner: 3
Children: 2
Children taken away by social services: 2

As for the matter of that drunk guy in Bowerstone that is madly in love with me and must have an obsession with Seafood, well, that’s for another time..

You may have already noticed that I haven’t posted any new TwitLight’s this week which up until earlier today I really did have the best intentions to. However, seeing how bad my week was I’ve just not had the chance to wrap my head around getting them written up.

It’s also another thing that I don’t really feel all that comfortable at posting real life problems on this blog any more. It’s strange that I feel more comfortable over at Twitter, but perhaps that’s due to this blog being more searchable. Some of the things that annoyed me this week are here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

Not to mention the ton of things I didn’t mention on Twitter throughout all of Monday for example where I hesitated with each tweet realising how emo I’d sound and ended up not posting any.

So yeah, look forward to next week when TwitLight will be back on Monday with a great one from @cory_grimes and if you’re already suffering withdrawel symptoms, have a look at the ones to date:

• @FrustratedFury
• @MelissaBianco
• @CooperHawkes
• @ingridf
• @AlabasterC
• @akaSylvia
• @thewilleffect
• @Pewari
• @Assassin10k
• @SirenAssassin
• @sedington86
• @kari_shma
• @Zyber
• @tartanink
• @GeminiAce
• @phoenix8424
• @reighvin

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

I cannot believe it’s Saturday already and I’m not sure what happened to this week. All day yesterday I was deeply convinced it was Thursday which is why this TwitLight is sadly a day late. It’s not the first time this has happened and it most likely won’t be the last time either!

Moving on, I vividly remember the day when today’s TwitLight participant started following me. Actually, that’s a lie, but I do remember looking at his profile thinking why the hell he’d follow me. That’s something I ask myself with a vast majority of followers and as yet have not found an answer to it!

Turns out @reighvin is the husband of @trixie360 or rather at the time was her fiance and I remember seeing their Hawaiian wedding via live video stream:

He’s also a marine who can type [his words, not mine!], pretty passionate about videogaming and has a great common sense. He will soon be the father to @BabyTrixie and I fully expect her to take part in a future TwitLight, just like you, @trixie360, if you are reading this!

All in all he’s an allround nice guy that you should follow if you’re not already!

Meet the Marine: @reighvin!!

1. Where are you from?
From? Shit, start with a hard question, don’t you. Well, lets see. I was born in Ukiah, California, but didn’t live there for long. I moved to Mississippi, England, Maine, back to California, North Dakota, and then Colorado. From there I joined the Marine Corps. Sooooo….I guess I will claim Minot, North Dakota since that is where I graduated high school.

Do I win a prize for having the longest answer to the first question?

2. How old are you?
21, with 13 years of experience. Or 34. Take your pick.

3. What do you do for a living?
I am an aviation electronics tech for the United States Marine Corps. I know, I know, electronics and Marine Corps is not the first combination of words that comes to mind, but I’m a walking talking oxymoron. Smart. Marine.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
I love the stuff Edgar Allen Poe wrote, especially “The Raven”. I am also a fan of wrestling, and the wrestler “Raven”. I came up with my take on it back in 1996/1997 when I first got on the net, and stuck with it.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Who says I want to grow up? Who says I have to? Well, if you insist, then I think I want to be a teacher. Math, science, english, phys ed. Who knows.

When I was little, I wanted to be Spider-Man, so I guess you could say it changed. Of course, in my spare time I keep microwaving spiders and letting them bite me, so who knows. Maybe dreams do come true.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
“To Be Loved” by Papa Roach. Gotta get pumped for Monday Night Raw. That’s right. 34, and I still watch wrestling. Been watching since I was 8, and I still love it.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
Sure don’t. Sorry.

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Kevin Mitnick.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
Actually, my 360 crapped out the other day, but before then, I was playing Burnout Paradise. Just something about driving fast and crashing hard that is addicting as hell.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Sunny, clear skies, in the 60’s. No, wait, rainy and windy. Never mind, sunny again.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Let’s see, I’m sitting in my cell, typing this, and watching America’s Next Top Model. Looks like another night of underwater basket weaving it is.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Replace somebody on TV? With me? Sweet! Spongebob Squarepants! How cool would it be to live under the sea? And that squirrel? Yeah, she’s hot. I’d hit it.

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Hmmm…science officer? Yeoman Johnson? I’m a pretty lazy bastard, so I’d want to be the Captain. Just have to sit around and make decisions. Sounds good to me. :-)

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Fuck no. I wake up early as hell in the morning, and am ready to go from the moment I wake up. However, I would make breakfast and dinner for you to make up for it. :-)

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Scubaboard.com, but only because I have decided to get certified this summer.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
Originally got online to find out what was going on at MacWorld 2008, but really got on it around March, April of last year. Took about 2 weeks for me to be totally sucked in to the twittervoid.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
PC, duh? I understand why some people use Mac’s and they have a valid reason. But all the people that buy Macs and then boot into Vista are just idiots. What do you want to do with the computer? That’s what I thought, cheaper to go PC.

And don’t even get me started on all the douche’s that think they are soooo cool to say M$ all the time. Hello? Yeah you. We were doing that in 1997 when it WAS cool. Now you just show how much of a retard you really are. We get it. You are uber-cool because you use M$. Thanks. Now go back to your Mom’s house because I think I hear your Mom calling. Sounds like dinner is ready.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Cake, definately. Bithday cake ice cream is pretty good too, but nothing beats birthday cake.

HOWEVER, while in Germany, I watched naked chicks wrestle in cake on TV. Why would anybody ruin good cake like that? I mean, there was cake in some unmentionable places.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am your master, and I command you to obey, but I won’t make you doing anything sexual, because you look like you got hit upside the head with a bag of hot nickles.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
Wow, what makes me tick. I’m 5′11″, 190 pounds, and I love to laugh. I am always trying to get a laugh, even at the expense of my own self. But that’s just me.

And to think, I am a little bit shy at times too. I met my wife over twitter and facebook, and when I met her, I realized what I was missing in my life, and finally feel happy and at peace. We have a little girl on the way that is due in July, and I can’t wait to meet the new addition to our family. My wife is fantastic.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
I am currently 3 weeks without smoking, and have lost 18 pounds at the same time.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go?

I don’t have any web sites except my Facebook and Twitter stuff up and running. However, I am in work on a site based off a food I love so much. :-) Hopefully soon, it will go live.

23. Any more comments?
Yeah. Like me or don’t like me, I don’t care. I’m not here for your approval. I’m here for myself, and to enjoy my life. If I happen to entertain you along the way, then so be it.

Thank you for one of the most entertaining TwitLights to date. You’ve been awesome!

There’s a phrase in German that I’m not too sure exists in English:

Every task takes 90% learning and 10% skill you cannot learn.

In a way that’s true, although everything needs common sense in addition to that.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog I’m currently working as a temp in a cafe/bar/pub and as I’ve mentioned on Twitter before several times another temp started shortly after me.

The new temp is giving me shit/knows everything better, yet it’s her second day and has never worked in a food/gastronomy/pub before. Mmmkay. – 18 days ago.

Well, this other temp at work was giving me grief, so now I’m letting her do all the work! Apart from that nothing much! – 18 days ago.

Yes, new temp, who annoyed me last week already, referring to me in derogatory terms is the way to go seeing I’m good friends with the boss. – 12 days ago.

I’m a temp myself but I’m competent and come to the cafe on days off. She doesn’t even say hi to customers! – 12 days ago.

Just spent the last couple of hours on the terrace chatting to a customer. Asked annoying temp to bring me a drink, she messed up 4 times.. – Today.

@garymurning LOL, yeah. I mean, yes, I’m a temp myself, but she has ZERO common sense.. – Today.

Seeing I’m still on break for the next 1 1/2 hours I’ve asked the other temp to make me food. It’s anyone’s guess how much she’ll mess up! – Today.

It is truly frustrating working with her and at the same time it’s even more frustrating watching her work which I’ve had plenty of chance earlier seeing I was on a four hour break.

The drink I ordered earlier was a glass half/half with Fanta/Sprite and ice which really isn’t that complicated at all. All you have to do is get a glass, some ice, unscrew the bottles and fill the glass equally. It doesn’t matter which drink is poured first. This is what she brought me after I complained each time for obvious reasons:

• Fanta with still water and ice.
• Sprite with sparkling water and no ice.
• Apple juice and Fanta with ice [which is one of the most disgusting things I've ever tried!].
• Fanta and Sprite [yey!] with no ice..

I also ordered some food, a cheeseburger menu which here is a cheeseburger in a bun with salad/sauces/dried onions, fries, added salad and curry powder sprinkled above it all.  Plus a choice of soft drink for which I again chose Fanta/Sprite, but asked her to not pour it until later seeing I had only just received the other glass.

I explained to her what I wanted: A cheeseburger with no salad/sauces/onions/curry and she should give me a shout when they’re cooked so I’ll put on the sauce myself. So effectively just a burger with the meat and the fries with nothing else. I got her to confirm this to me several times. Should be simple, right?

This is what I got: A cold hamburger with gherkin swimming in a sea of ketchup and burgersauce, salad, onions and everything sprinkled with curry. And a drink.

Really, where did it go wrong? There’s not even the excuse that she was busy as it was only me and one customer sitting with me and already had his coffee.

Some other things she’s done in the past weeks either on my shifts or when I was in the cafe anyway:

• We use special Lavazza hot chocolate which needs to be made with hot milk. She makes it with boiling water, even though she’s been told many times by several people.
• Customers ask to pay and she takes a half empty [or half full!] glass and pours it into the sink.
• She doesn’t normally take down the chairs until an hour into her shift. Once it was two hours.
• Her Latte Machiato doesn’t actually contain any foamed milk.
• She never greets customers as they come in.
• Making a coffee takes her about five minutes. It’s about 30 seconds for everyone else..
• She doesn’t ask customers what they want when they come in. As I was sitting on the terrace with the regular earlier she looked over from behind the bar several times, but never came outside. Seeing I just came off a ten hour shift and only had four hours break before the night shift I didn’t get him his coffee and he cheekily ended up calling the phone inside to order. ‘Twas quite funny, but completely unprofessional on her behalf.
• She outright says she can’t make cocktails to any customer asking for one. That’s fine, she should just pass them on to me or whoever else is on her shift. Curiously she said in her interview that she could..
• She doesn’t know how to turn on the stationary PC’s we’ve got in a corner for internet even though it’s just a button. To keep things equal she also can’t issue voucher codes to hotspot/laptop users from a machine that only has three buttons labelled 30mins, 1hour and 2hours.. Rocket science, I think not!
• All her food is abysmal. She can mess up frozen pizzas somehow..
• She spent about ten minutes earlier messing up the bar stools by randomly moving them around for absolutely no reason!
• She spent about an hour reading something while I was on my break instead of preparing for football. Preparation means ensuring the fridge/freezer are stocked so people don’t have to run into the basement all the time, to roll up cutlery in napkins and to just make sure everything’s handy. So once I came off my well deserved break nothing was done and she just moaned that it was so quiet and she had nothing to do. Gee, I wonder why..
• At least every third drink is either for the wrong person or not what they asked for..

Reading through this it really sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m probably missing half of the stuff. I really don’t understand.

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

Truth be told I actually initially planned a different TwitLight today, but seeing the love between the two siblings I asked myself how I could not post @phoenix8424’s! I’m sure you’ll all agree with me!

Ooooh, doing questions for @carocat for the TwitLight. Take that @GeminiAce! .

@GeminiAce Nobody cares about your TwitLight. .

@phoenix8424 Deep down I know you’re right. *fights back tears* .

I found this to be boring and offensive. LOL. Just kidding. Love you brother! Even thou you didn’t mention me…. :P Link

Yeah, in the part that said, I realy hate my family. I dream of stabbing them. :SOB: Link

Back some time ago I listened to the first episode of the Uncanny Gamers podcast, but for some reason didn’t realise she was on Twitter and so we only followed each other since Monday when I posted @GeminiAce’s TwitLight.

In this TwitLight she mentions her brother, her husband and, of course, gaming!

Ladies and gents, meet @GeminiAce’s sister, the amazing @phoenix8424!

1. Where are you from?
Fort Worth, Texas.

2. How old are you?
24 years young.

3. What do you do for a living?
I am a replacement Rural Carrier. That means I work for the regular postman on his day off or vacation out in rural areas. I also sell Mary Kay on the side and am fairly new to that business.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
Well, my favorite X-man character is Phoenix and I always loved the dynamic relationship between her and Wolverine and her dark side. The last part I came up with several years ago, the 8424. I was born in 1984, and I knew one day I would be 24… And this is that magical year it all comes together! At the time I was 20 and nobody got the connection. n00bs.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Well when I was little I wanted to be a vet, an author, a comic book writer. I knew I loved computers and took some classes, but today a college education doesn’t mean everything. I enjoy delivering the mail, but never thought I would end up doing that in a million years.

When I grow up I just hope I have a good job I enjoy, be a good wife and mother who can school her kids in video games.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
I’m thinking of the new 311 song Hey You. It makes me think of my podcast listeners. Hey you!

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
Why yes I do!

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
I was currently reading my Twitter updates and my new OXM.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
Before my Xbox 360 got the “open tray” error, my husband and I were trying to get all of the jewels and BSAA symbols in Resident Evil 5. I was pleasantly surprised at how much we love Resident Evil 5. It’s the perfect co-op mulitplayer. You have the guy and the chick, perfect for couples. There is plenty of teamwork but also room to customize to your own style.

It’s hard to find really great 2 player games if you’re a married gaming couple who share one Xbox, and RE5 hit the sweet spot. (The box to fix my Xbox should be there on the 6th, so hopefully I will be on XBL again soon. Send me a FR – Phoenix8424 or my husband – KBB7769)

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Dark and cloudy, looks like rain!

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
The rest of the day I might stream some Netflix movies, clean the house a bit, nap, work on painting the laundry room and I have a Mary Kay meeting this evening.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Kate on Lost because she doesn’t do much, gets paid to look confused, and gets to be around Jack and Sawyer. Oh, is Hugh Jackman on any T.V. show? Because if he was I would so be anybody near him. :)

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
I would be the girl in the back who yells things. Like “Watch out!”, “Klingons ahead!’”, “Our shields are low!”, “Beam the Captain down!”.

Not much, just enough to get noticed but not enough to get myself killed.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
I’m not very happy in the morning either. I like to make my coffee and then play on the computer a bit. Then I’ll be happy. So if you stay outta my freaking way and don’t drink my coffee or eat my snacks, I won’t shank you.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
There have been several. The best one yesterday was measuring your e-penis.

I also am in love with Last.fm. Free music FTW!

I regulary visit Achieve360Points.com to feed the acheivement whore inside of me.

I always love new listeners to my podcast Uncanny Gamers and of course Twitter.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
Well, I haven’t been on Twitter very long. I have over a thousand updates but I want to say I’ve been on here 6 months to a year.

I realized I was sucked in when I stopped using my phone to text my brother and we “followed” each other thru Twitter. No need to say “what’s up?” when his life is smeared all over teh internetz. Unlimited messaging plan? Useless.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
I had a Mac for a bit when I was younger, and I remember returning it. PC’s are just better. More adaptable. That’s my opinion.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Both! Or actually, the best ice cream is Birthday Cake. The sprinkles. The icing. The cake chunks. Heaven.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am sleepy and I need to do things, but won’t do as much as needed because it’s my life dammit!

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]

As I said earlier I am a 24 year old female from Texas. I recently got married about 2 months ago. My husband and I took advantage of the forclosure market and bought our first house last February and we haven’t lost it yet!

I work for the Post Office which is frustrating and patriotic and unstable.

In our free time we enjoy fishing and playing lots of video games. I like to garden, surf the internet, walk our 4 dogs, and cook. Some of my favorite games include anything Tomb Raider, Viva Pinata, Command and Conquer, Resident Evil 5, The Sims, Gun, X-Men Legends, Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Army of Two. I love unlocking achievements and will play anything once.

My favorite band is Cake, but I also enjoy Chris Cornell, Audioslave, Matchbox 20, 311, The All American Rejects, Weezer and Live.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
Well, there have been lots of things. I guess the biggest thing was purchasing our house all on our own and deciding to spend my life with a good man.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go?

• Twitter
• MySpace
• Podcast – The Uncanny Gamers
• Other Podcast – Animal Crossing Friends
• Photos on Flickr
• LastFM
• YouTube

23. Any more comments?
I have a nice family, including TwitLight alum GeminiAce. He’s an awesome brother and we have a blast podcasting. Here he is with me!

Great to have you on here, thank you!

Believe it or not, but I’m a very peace loving person and detest arguments and drama. Some have called me passive aggressive, but that’s a different thing!

Over the past years I’ve seen a lot of internet drama which, seeing everything on the internet always has to be so goddamn serious, has destroyed entire sites or friendships between people. Sure, I have been involved in some and in retrospective I wish I hadn’t been and wish things would have turned out differently, but it’s difficult distancing oneself when things are kicking off. In the past year I’ve mainly stayed away from most sites and left before drama was about to take place or didn’t join sites I knew were going to be involved in drama which so far has served me pretty well.

I don’t need to mention again how great Twitter is as I’ve done it ad nauseum before and the TwitLight series shows just how much time I spend on there. It allows people from different groups to have casual contact and works great as a tool between different communities and interests. And that’s precisely why it’s never nice seeing a Twitter fallout like it was on Monday involving @Trixie360 and @Haymaker360J [now renamed to @POLMGamer], as well as to an extent 360Junkies.

Here’s what you missed:

Haymaker360J: wonders what XBOX has for an answer now about the codes… .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 any word on the amazon code screw up? .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j I handed you off to the peeps who can help. It’s not something I can do anything about beyond that, sorry. .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 oh ok oh well looks like I wont get an answer *shrugs* everyone handing it off to someone else .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j no need to be snotty. I pointed you in the right direction and had your problem escalated. I CAN’T do more than that. .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 so you are saying you cant go to that department and say hey whats up with this? forget it thanks for the help! .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j I DID that. I’ve done it several times. Next time I won’t help at all. It’s not my job. .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 you did? then silence is golden I suppose? since I only heard from you 1 time .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j omfg! I exchanged like 5 emails with you trying to help you out. Do YOU do every task at your company? .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 5 emails. the last one giving 1 update, and I could probably do every task at my company .
Haymaker360J: sad part about it is that the people actually lay down and take it up the ass from MS and like it. I am not one of those people .
Trixie360: i think i’m done with the Internet today. People fucking suck. .

Yes, the situation wasn’t great and I think @trixie360 did a great job trying to sort it out, even though it really isn’t her job in the first place. I have the utmost respect for her as a community manager. I can also understand @Haymake360J’s frustration, although I firmly believe that he shouldn’t have snapped that way and accepted the fact it’s nothing she can do and that she DID try and sort it out. She didn’t have to after all.

Overall, that was a rubbish exchange, but it’s not the main reason I’m writing this blog post. Twitter being what it is meant that hundred if not more people were able to follow the dialogue in real time and more later on when the repercussions were still ongoing and some of the things being said were shocking to say the least.

On with the situation, 360Junkies quickly demoted and distanced themselves from the situation:

I apologize on behalf of @360Junkies for what happened, especially to @TriXie360. He is no longer affiliated with us. No more douchebaggery. .

Overall, I can see where @seeson is coming from, but it does make me wonder if that move didn’t just serve cause more drama. I do think @Trixie360 can differenciate between a site and an individual and nothing during her original argument led me to believe that it was 360Junkies speaking instead of @Haymaker360J himself. Loosing the site he had put so much work in in the last months could only serve to fuel the fire and if I was in his situation I would have been annoyed, too.

Nothing, however, explains the behaviour of some members of the gaming community on Twitter.

A selection of Tweets I made during the fallout that I still believe are valid:

@Haymaker360J You really should step away from Twitter for some hours. You’re not doing yourself any favours with @trixie360 & everyone else .
@Haymaker360j *shrugs* It’s all your decision, but a Twitter fallout’s never been good. .
@seeson Dropping him from 360J seems a little drama inciting and harsh though? .
@leocomerlato All I’m saying is that yes, he’s out of line, but all the crap from people on Twitter ain’t better. It’s like everyone’s.. .
@leocomerlato ..trying real hard to get their best/funniest insults in. You know, all the people that never showed problems before.. .
@leocomerlato And sure, his behaviour is out of line, but to drop him from staff so early on seems wrong to me. .
@Haymaker360j Fair enough, I won’t bother to help then. Take care .
@leocomerlato Not really. You’ve got to give people like @trixie360 more credit than that! 1 ‘bad’ staff doesn’t make 1 ‘bad’ site. .
@leocomerlato I said ‘bad’. ;) Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes it’s better talking about things than publically removing from staff. .
@leocomerlato I don’t get the penguins thing? But all I mean is this is AFTER he was dropped meaning it pissed him off even more. .
@leocomerlato All this OMG drama should’ve been reduced early on, but so many people on Twitter just seem to pile on. .

I’m just going to link to some of the tweets here and here and here and here and here and the search for ‘@Haymaker360J’ on Twitter.

A large majority of the Tweets doesn’t show up on search, probably because the accounts are protected, but really, people, was there any need for those comments? We are a community and overall we all want the same things and to pile on with insults when something’s already happened isn’t the way to go.

Yes, @Haymaker360J’s behaviour was way out of line, especially after all that happened, but you all egged him on and didn’t let it rest. Is it that hard not adding your two cents after it all happened and just ignore him?

A related post by @mdk2002 explains things much better than I ever could, even though it’s on an unrelated subject. Some excerpts:

1. Be professional
2. Be polite
3. Don’t demand anything
6. Treat people like you want to be treated also known as the Golden Rule.
7. Use tact, which means, you can intelligently get your way without cursing or pouting.
11. No one is a god by any means; everyone is human and should be treated as such.

When did we go attacking people and to what means? THINK before posting and treat people with respect, even if there’s an argument. We are one community and there is no need to break apart at regular intervalls.

Note: Even though I’ve pointed out specific people and sites in this post, I do value every one highly and I’m only commenting on this situation, so don’t take this the wrong way. And I still think 360Junkies is a great site, even after differences and that’s not just because I got a free game from them!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

It’s Monday which means it’s time for TwitLight and seeing I’ve spent most of the day reading a book, this is posted a little bit late..

Today’s TwitLight is someone who takes no prisoners, has plenty of attitude, but is also a real nice guy. Well, mostly, anyway! It’s @GeminiAce!

I came across him sometimes last year as we both followed the same kind of people and both liked Gamehounds podcast which reminds me, have you read @CooperHawkes’ TwitLight yet? He’s a generally funny guy with a good sense of humour, he’s great on Twitter and I suggest you follow him! Oh and in case you wanted to know how long his e-Penis is:

I measured @GeminiAce’s e-Penis on http://www.epenis.nl and his e-Penis is 16cm! Is that good? #

Maybe I shouldn’t tell him mine’s 18.1cm! ;)

Please stop what you’re doing and meet @GeminiAce!

1. Where are you from?
Fort Worth, Texas.

2. How old are you?
33 until May 22nd.

3. What do you do for a living?
As little as possible. No, seriously (is this thing on?) I work as a contractor for BNSF Railroad. I’m in the Asset Management department. I’m essentially a glorified data entry operator. Wow, that sounds boring.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
Well, I’m a gemini, so that part was easy. When I was playing a bunch of Crimson Skies on the Xbox, I added Ace to it since I was a flying ace. When it came time to make a gamertag, I used Gemini Ace and the rest is history. Super-interesting history.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
I’ve never known what career I wanted. I’ve always just wanted to do stuff like play games, read comics, or write. Unfortunately, I don’t have any idea how to monetize those things.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
Phantom Planet is playing right this minute. I love their latest album, Raise The Dead.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
Do I?! Uh, yea. Link.

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Reading PlatformNation.com at the moment.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
I just recently finished Halo Wars. It was as good as I had hoped, albeit a little short. I still need to finish the Gears of War 2 campaign, not to mention SFIV and Rock Band 2.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
I assume it’s sunny. I got no windows.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Finish work, then go home and unpack. We moved recently and I can’t find anything!

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Probably Jerry Seinfeld because he dated some really hot chicks on his show.

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
I would wear a red shirt and hope for the best.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
I think I would. I’m no ray of sunshine in the morning either. Unless it’s Saturday and I can sleep in.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
I follow @Bikini_Beat on Twitter and love the site. It’s safe for work and helps my day go by.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
I know it’s been over 2 years. Might be closer to 3. I didn’t really get it at first. Then I started following cool people like @JVB and @Avid_X. Probably took 6 months for the full addiction to kick in. Now I can’t shake the habbit. Help me, @DrDrew!

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
PC. Mac’s are too expensive. That being said, I wouldn’t know how to live without my iPhone.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Cake. Ice cream is too cold!

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am tired and I want to go home, but can’t because I gotta get paid.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I love my wife, my family, and my dogs. Most everything I say is a joke and shouldn’t be taken seriously (except that…and that…and that…).

My wife and I have a son on the way. She’s due in June.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
I’m proud of the new place we moved into recently. It’s really nice and should be great for the baby.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go?

Where do I start? Ok, here goes…

• My blog is at GeminiAce.com.
• My podcast is at UncannyGamers.com.
• I write for PlatformNation.com.
• I’m on Twitter (of course) as @GeminiAce.
• I’m on Flickr at GeminiAce.
• My YouTube channel is at GeminiAce.
• Xbox Live as Gemini Ace.
• PSN as GeminiAce.
• MySpace is at rizzane.
• Facebook me.
• My Blip.fm is here.
• My Mugshow is here.

I think that’s it. I sign up for everything because I’m dumb. lol!

23. Any more comments?
I’d hit it.

You’re awesome, thanks for taking part!

It’s been a long week that, judging by today’s sleep marathon, has really taken it out on me. I’ve worked long hours at the cafe and in addition to it agreed to take on projects outside from that, such as setting up a WordPress blog from one of the regular customers there.

Friday night was one of the very long nights, a colleague, his friend and me stayed there until 4am, drinking, had the world’s slowest cabdriver ever and when I finally got home at 5am I just had two hours time to sleep until I had to leave for work again. I think I had about 18h sleep from Monday morning until Saturday evening.

Of course I’m not complaining, really, I’m not. This is probably the easiest job for the most amount of money I’ve ever had and I will definitely be looking to do it for a little while longer simply because I have practically no expenses and the job is actually kinda fun! Plus it allows me to buy new tops, many of them!

Last night was an event in town I had been planning to go to with a friend and even though I wasn’t convinced it would be a good evening, I still was surprised on how much worse than my expectations it was. The even was meant to be a large open air venetian style masked ball with orchestra, acrobats, gondolas and what not. The orchestra wasn’t all that bad, admittedly, but even though the weather was brilliant and the event had been advertised for months everywhere there really weren’t all that many people around.

I guess it shows how memorable the evening was when the highlights involved the self serving till at the supermarkets and finally being back home and able to sleep!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

In addition to today being May 1st which is a public holiday in many countries, it is also Friday which brings us to yet another edition of TwitLight and the chance for all of you to meet @tartanink!

Sometimes it’s strange how the internet works and how you get to meet people. Back in February I came across a post by @garymurning in the WordPress.com forums about Twitter and, after some comments on his post we followed each other on Twitter. Some weeks later during #followfriday, he recommended both me and @tartanink and we ended up following each other.

At our recommendation she moved her blog from Blogger to WordPress.com and I exchanged some emails with her trying to get it all set up. And here we are, some chance meeting via someone I only met by chance, too. She takes amazing pictures as evident by the woodland picture below.

So wait a bit more with the partying or whatever else you have planned today and meet @tartanink and considering today is Friday or rather #followfriday, why not follow her?

1. Where are you from?
South West Scotland.

2. How old are you?
Eh, Fifty … wish it was less, but that’s what time seems to do to you.

3. What do you do for a living?
Trying to be a writer, as in … a published one.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
Tartan-, as in Scottish, and -ink for the writing.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
I did want to be a vet, but I can’t stand blood!

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
Catalyst by Anna Nalick.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
Yes. I prefer Deezer, when it works right, but have also igned up to Spotify.com.

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth. I’ve also got the monsterous 1237pg Ken Follett to get round to some time. Think I need to find a desert island first!

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
None – only Tetris on the web which is addictive enough.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Sunny actually, for a change. It is Scotland after all!

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
To keep working on my blog – and fit in ‘normal’ things.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Don’t have aspirations in that department I’m afraid, I’d be best somewhere behind the scenes organising their scripts or something!

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Eh, don’t know – see above in a similar sort of way – something where I could organise things in an admin way I suppose. I’m good on lists.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Yes def. My husband says it’s best not to talk to me in the morning. And, I’m happy to just be left on my own for a while to do my own thing … usually a cup of tea and a book.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Well, other than Twitter, definitely DeviantArt.com. It’s an inspiration.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
From the beginning of Feb this year. But I didn’t really get the concept of it until the beginning of March, and then it sucked me in.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
Has to be PC as I’ve never used a Mac.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Def ice cream, preferably with crumbled flake mixed in.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”
Today I am tired and I was frustrated, but now I’m contented, because it all turned out alright.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I am primarily a writer who is desperate to find an agent with a view to being published – that’s the dream anyway.

I’m getting into gardening again after a lot of years away from it, and trying to grow my own vegetables.

I also like to take lots of digital photos. I don’t really know why, as they only end up as my screensaver. I’ll put some on my blog, that’s a good place for them.

When I’m writing I like to stay up late, when everyone’s gone to bed. I get the headphones on and a playlist up. Although I do have my ‘mellow’ moments, see song above I also, surprisingly given my age as some might think like a good heavy bass beat Like some of Gigi D’Agostino, who I discovered on Deezer.

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
Telling people I’m going to be a granny soon oh no, that sounds so old!

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go?

As I’ve already self-promoted, my blog, Facebook, except I’m hardly ever on it now, and Twitter of course as @tartanink.

23. Any more comments?
I think this is a brilliant idea and look forward to learning a lot of interesting facts about people I might just go on to follow, well done you for thinking it up.

Thank you very much for taking part!

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve told @Xelis how awesome he is. He is one of the most talented graphic designers I’ve come across, he’s made me many signatures for forums and headers so far, including the one that’s currently on my blog.

Oh and he also came up with a brilliant phrase:

Guns don’t infract people, mods do.

Some sig examples:

As well as this one when I took a break from a forum:

Anyways, knowing his awesome photshop skills I asked him to design a banner for #TwitLight that will be attached to every post and this is what he’s come up with:

At this point a shoutout to @thewilleffect who also designed a banner several weeks ago, but I am pretty much in love with anything Xelis’ does, sorry! As a consolation, please check out his site and TwitLight, folks!

Thank you, Xelis, yet again! <3

It’s been about a month since I’ve started temping at the cafe and I really like it so far. I have never met as many crazy people in one place before, but this is made up by some of the amazing staff, one of which I have met several times outside of work. The early hours are early [6am early!!] and there are some songs I really can’t stand to listen to any more, but it really is worth it, especially sitting outside in the sun.

—–

This is still not resolved, but edging ever closer which is at least something.

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My ‘Books‘ page is finally up to date, the others should follow at some point! I really need to update the ‘Archive‘ somehow. And import more posts from my tumblr blog as I got bored quickly last time.

I am somewhat annoyed with Twitter, or rather was yesterday which could’ve been due to my overall bad mood. I feel like there’s too much advertisement on there these days and too many community sites are using it purely to have contests involving members to send out spam links. Of course that’s quite hypocritical seeing I constantly mention TwitLight and the handwriting project on Twitter..

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The response to TwitLight has been amazing. There have been 13 TwitLights to date and there are 14 pending and 11 that I’m still waiting for. There’s a large gap between the male and female responses, however. Only four of the pending ones are from women and only one of the ones I’m still waiting for is from a woman, although it’s anyone’s guess when she‘ll finally send hers back!!

So any woman reading this: I need you! The only prerequisite is that you are a somewhat active Twitterer and are following me. Follow the instructions to take part!

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Equally impressive is the response to my call for handwriting samples and I have 18 samples so far of which most are from people not in my immediate online circles. I’m planning to make a post next week, so please send me yours if you haven’t done so already!