Hmm. Been mostly offline for a while - well I've been on Twitter (@narshada,) and Facebook via my iPhone but my Macbook Pro has been wigging out. Took it for a Genius bar appointment in town (I know, the irony eh,) as I'd tried everything I could think of & it wouldn't connect to Wi-Fi at home. My iPhone & PS3 will connect no problem, but the Macbook - nada.
So I take it in & sure enough, it works perfectly.
So I take it home and, nope, won't work. Took it in to work & it worked fine, but then we set up a router & put a password on it & nothing. So it looked like it wouldn't connect to any secured Wi-Fi network. Meaning I would have to have a new wireless card, which after spending £116 on two new front tyres, I can't afford this month.
So I've been using my iPhone for simple online stuff - Twitter, Facebook, email etc and then tonight, just for the hell of it, I thought I'd see if it had magically fixed itself.
It has. Tch.
We'll see if it remains fixed.
So, what other news? I'm on day 3 of 5 days off work as we were told we needed to book all our remaining holiday off before Oct. I had a look & I had 23 days to take. The others were in similar positions, but most of them have taken a week or more off, so I think I had the most to take. It came at a good time, as I was getting worn out & needed the break.
I had my best friend & her hubby visit. We walked up Cheddar Gorge, got sunburned and Jeff managed to sing "Jizz in my pants" at two elderly walkers. Much fun was had.
I'm up to level 52 on MW2 on PS3, (Narshada on PSN if you want to add me. Let me know you're from SG though please so I know not to ignore you!) and although the game gets me very angry sometimes and I invent new swearing combinations when I play, I love it. First online game I've really gotten into, although I have been playing Left 4 Dead on 360 online with friends from work & had a brief stint on Red Dead Redemption co-op, but I have to say that was pretty hard.
Big news is that I now write for www.thenewreview.net and my first review of Rolo Tomassi's 'Cosmology' can be read here. Go check it out, particularly if you're into metal & that sort of music & leave comments please. Ta.
Had 3 lovely days off with the wife, mostly watching season 2 of Dexter. We start season 3 tomorrow. Also, how awesome was Doctor Who?
Shall we do Apps & pics? Why not.
Apps:
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 (£2.99): You remember playing this on the Playstation/PS2? Go buy it.
Robot Unicorn Attack: (£1.79): The classic Adult Swim game comes to iPhone and it's slightly harder than the online version. If you've never played it, you really haven't had a full life. Is it worth the money when you can play online for free? Well, yes frankly. To be able to see a robot unicorn leaping from platform to platform, trailling rainbows and dashing through stars before succumbing to a fiery death is something worth having on the move. Simple as.
Godfinger (free): You get a little planet with worshippers and you can do stuff. Like make it rain, or make the sun shine, build buildings etc. You earn gold by getting your followers to farm for you and Mana by getting them to worship around a totem. You then level up by achieving tasks set for you. You can also add friend's planets & enchant their followers to make gold for you. It's actually very addictive and a lot more fun than I've made it sound here & for free, it's an essential purchase.
Guitar Hero (£1.79): It's Guitar Hero. Better than Tap Tap, (who must be mightily pissed off,) they've added some strum and slide gameplay mechanics that really work. Range of songs that come with the app is rubbish, (6) and I've yet to see much new content for download & what there is tends to be about £1.79 for 3 tracks, which is the same price as the game. Fun to play but the tracks should be cheaper to d/l imo.
Words with friends (free or £1.79): It's Scabble, let's not mince words about Words With Friends. Turn-based Scrabble against mates & it's good fun. I got the free version, but I'm thinking of upgrading as the ads are full screen after every go and also small ones during play.
Engadget (free): Up to date tech news. To be honest I still prefer Mashable, but sometimes it offers an interesting counterpoint.
Foursquare (free): Location based check in 'game', similar to Gowalla. Check in at places, earn badges, become the 'Mayor' of places you check in a lot. Orwell must be spinning in his grave at the thought of people volunteering their whereabouts and what they're doing at all hours. I love it but I have no idea why. I prefer this overall to Gowalla if I'm honest, but Gowalla has better integration to Twitter & Facebook for those that want it.
Spell number (free): I only got this so I could use emoji's (little emoticon type pics,) for my folder names.
Pics:
Hello Hitler cake. We had to buy it for a friend's birthday.
So I take it in & sure enough, it works perfectly.
So I take it home and, nope, won't work. Took it in to work & it worked fine, but then we set up a router & put a password on it & nothing. So it looked like it wouldn't connect to any secured Wi-Fi network. Meaning I would have to have a new wireless card, which after spending £116 on two new front tyres, I can't afford this month.
So I've been using my iPhone for simple online stuff - Twitter, Facebook, email etc and then tonight, just for the hell of it, I thought I'd see if it had magically fixed itself.
It has. Tch.
We'll see if it remains fixed.
So, what other news? I'm on day 3 of 5 days off work as we were told we needed to book all our remaining holiday off before Oct. I had a look & I had 23 days to take. The others were in similar positions, but most of them have taken a week or more off, so I think I had the most to take. It came at a good time, as I was getting worn out & needed the break.
I had my best friend & her hubby visit. We walked up Cheddar Gorge, got sunburned and Jeff managed to sing "Jizz in my pants" at two elderly walkers. Much fun was had.
I'm up to level 52 on MW2 on PS3, (Narshada on PSN if you want to add me. Let me know you're from SG though please so I know not to ignore you!) and although the game gets me very angry sometimes and I invent new swearing combinations when I play, I love it. First online game I've really gotten into, although I have been playing Left 4 Dead on 360 online with friends from work & had a brief stint on Red Dead Redemption co-op, but I have to say that was pretty hard.
Big news is that I now write for www.thenewreview.net and my first review of Rolo Tomassi's 'Cosmology' can be read here. Go check it out, particularly if you're into metal & that sort of music & leave comments please. Ta.
Had 3 lovely days off with the wife, mostly watching season 2 of Dexter. We start season 3 tomorrow. Also, how awesome was Doctor Who?
Shall we do Apps & pics? Why not.
Apps:
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 (£2.99): You remember playing this on the Playstation/PS2? Go buy it.
Robot Unicorn Attack: (£1.79): The classic Adult Swim game comes to iPhone and it's slightly harder than the online version. If you've never played it, you really haven't had a full life. Is it worth the money when you can play online for free? Well, yes frankly. To be able to see a robot unicorn leaping from platform to platform, trailling rainbows and dashing through stars before succumbing to a fiery death is something worth having on the move. Simple as.
Godfinger (free): You get a little planet with worshippers and you can do stuff. Like make it rain, or make the sun shine, build buildings etc. You earn gold by getting your followers to farm for you and Mana by getting them to worship around a totem. You then level up by achieving tasks set for you. You can also add friend's planets & enchant their followers to make gold for you. It's actually very addictive and a lot more fun than I've made it sound here & for free, it's an essential purchase.
Guitar Hero (£1.79): It's Guitar Hero. Better than Tap Tap, (who must be mightily pissed off,) they've added some strum and slide gameplay mechanics that really work. Range of songs that come with the app is rubbish, (6) and I've yet to see much new content for download & what there is tends to be about £1.79 for 3 tracks, which is the same price as the game. Fun to play but the tracks should be cheaper to d/l imo.
Words with friends (free or £1.79): It's Scabble, let's not mince words about Words With Friends. Turn-based Scrabble against mates & it's good fun. I got the free version, but I'm thinking of upgrading as the ads are full screen after every go and also small ones during play.
Engadget (free): Up to date tech news. To be honest I still prefer Mashable, but sometimes it offers an interesting counterpoint.
Foursquare (free): Location based check in 'game', similar to Gowalla. Check in at places, earn badges, become the 'Mayor' of places you check in a lot. Orwell must be spinning in his grave at the thought of people volunteering their whereabouts and what they're doing at all hours. I love it but I have no idea why. I prefer this overall to Gowalla if I'm honest, but Gowalla has better integration to Twitter & Facebook for those that want it.
Spell number (free): I only got this so I could use emoji's (little emoticon type pics,) for my folder names.
Pics:
Hello Hitler cake. We had to buy it for a friend's birthday.
4 days off work, woohoo! Just done 6 days straight, with a 14 & 1/2 hour stint on my first of those 6, due to a rather large product launch you may have heard about.
Had a massive quest to find a copy of Red Dead Redemption a week ago on my day of prior to those 6 days. Nowhere in Bristol had a copy. I tried HMV, Game & John Lewis in the Mall I work in (It's called The Mall, so don't give me crap for Americanising ok?
). Then I tried Argos, Comet & Morrisons near the Mall. Then I tried the 24 hour Asda & Tesco near me at midnight, thinking they may have replenished stock & I'd get one while everyone else was sleeping. Nope. Then I went into town & tried Game there, which had a hand written "Out of stock, sorry for the inconvenience" sign on the window. Then a few other places & finally went into a Gamestation, where the manager was returning his copy due to it being an impulse buy. His loss. It's a very good game. Like GTA: Wild West essentially, but that's no bad thing & to be honest I think it outdoes GTA in several areas. The facial animation is so good, for example, I reckon you could turn down the volume & lipread the characters.
Anyway, haven't done any more running since the 5k, partly due to long shift as mentioned, but I might do some tomorrow if I get up early. I did sign up for some kickboxing classes today though, oddly through seeing an advert to Bristol Martial Arts Academy on the Kung Fu bear video from YouTube that Tragique had posted on her Facebook page. Funny old world... I should be having my first lesson with them on Wednesday next week in 'the biggest training hall in europe', which I have to say looks very impressive & Pinklet is going to come & try it out (for free,) too. It's been 12 years since I was training to go for my black belt in kickboxing, at which point I went to uni at the ripe age of 23, and between travelling 35 miles to uni & working evenings to help pay for it all, my training fell by the wayside & I sadly never achieved it. Maybe this time.
Right, on with the usual guff about iPhone apps & Hipstamatic pictures:
Pocket Legends (Free): An MMORPG for iPhone & it's free! You get to choose between 3 anthropomorphic races: The Avian (Eagles, Archers,) The Ursan, (Bears, Melee,) and the Elves (Cats, Mages,). Now I can't help feeling the cat race should have been called the Felin or Felis, but the artwork does show them as more Elven than the in-game models. It's pretty fun, but mostly consists of "kill zombies, open chests," to the point of being a bit monotonous. Perhaps playing with others would improve things, but so far I've been on my own. It does have a realm called Fnords though, for which I love it.
Crazy Hamster (Free temporarily via OpenFeint app): You always know when the word 'crazy' is used, it's usually an attempt to cover up the fact that actually it's pretty dull & not in the least actually madcap or zany, or god-fobid, genuinely crazy a-la Spike Milligan or Monty Python. Hamster walks, you tap on icons to build bridges over drops and put out fires in his way with an extinguisher. Glad I didn't pay for it.
Instapaper Pro (£2.99): I liked Instapaper's "Read Later" feature for saving links from tweets etc, that I decided to go Pro. This gives me folders, saves my position in an article if I need to come back to it later, unlimited saves, dictionary lookups, tilt scrolling & pagination, dark mode for night reading & send to Tumblr & Twitter features. One of those apps I'm not really sure how I got on without it before. Essential.
That's been about it recently for apps. So, pics:
(Ugh, right click & choose 'view image' for the massive ones. Sorry, 'bout that, got no Photoshop (still,) to resize them with.)
For some reason, the next image makes me feel really calm & think of California. I'm not sure why.
Mutton chops ready for tomorrow's Moustache party!
Previous beard:
And they say the whole "pets look like their owners" thing is a myth:
Had a massive quest to find a copy of Red Dead Redemption a week ago on my day of prior to those 6 days. Nowhere in Bristol had a copy. I tried HMV, Game & John Lewis in the Mall I work in (It's called The Mall, so don't give me crap for Americanising ok?
). Then I tried Argos, Comet & Morrisons near the Mall. Then I tried the 24 hour Asda & Tesco near me at midnight, thinking they may have replenished stock & I'd get one while everyone else was sleeping. Nope. Then I went into town & tried Game there, which had a hand written "Out of stock, sorry for the inconvenience" sign on the window. Then a few other places & finally went into a Gamestation, where the manager was returning his copy due to it being an impulse buy. His loss. It's a very good game. Like GTA: Wild West essentially, but that's no bad thing & to be honest I think it outdoes GTA in several areas. The facial animation is so good, for example, I reckon you could turn down the volume & lipread the characters.Anyway, haven't done any more running since the 5k, partly due to long shift as mentioned, but I might do some tomorrow if I get up early. I did sign up for some kickboxing classes today though, oddly through seeing an advert to Bristol Martial Arts Academy on the Kung Fu bear video from YouTube that Tragique had posted on her Facebook page. Funny old world... I should be having my first lesson with them on Wednesday next week in 'the biggest training hall in europe', which I have to say looks very impressive & Pinklet is going to come & try it out (for free,) too. It's been 12 years since I was training to go for my black belt in kickboxing, at which point I went to uni at the ripe age of 23, and between travelling 35 miles to uni & working evenings to help pay for it all, my training fell by the wayside & I sadly never achieved it. Maybe this time.
Right, on with the usual guff about iPhone apps & Hipstamatic pictures:
Pocket Legends (Free): An MMORPG for iPhone & it's free! You get to choose between 3 anthropomorphic races: The Avian (Eagles, Archers,) The Ursan, (Bears, Melee,) and the Elves (Cats, Mages,). Now I can't help feeling the cat race should have been called the Felin or Felis, but the artwork does show them as more Elven than the in-game models. It's pretty fun, but mostly consists of "kill zombies, open chests," to the point of being a bit monotonous. Perhaps playing with others would improve things, but so far I've been on my own. It does have a realm called Fnords though, for which I love it.
Crazy Hamster (Free temporarily via OpenFeint app): You always know when the word 'crazy' is used, it's usually an attempt to cover up the fact that actually it's pretty dull & not in the least actually madcap or zany, or god-fobid, genuinely crazy a-la Spike Milligan or Monty Python. Hamster walks, you tap on icons to build bridges over drops and put out fires in his way with an extinguisher. Glad I didn't pay for it.
Instapaper Pro (£2.99): I liked Instapaper's "Read Later" feature for saving links from tweets etc, that I decided to go Pro. This gives me folders, saves my position in an article if I need to come back to it later, unlimited saves, dictionary lookups, tilt scrolling & pagination, dark mode for night reading & send to Tumblr & Twitter features. One of those apps I'm not really sure how I got on without it before. Essential.
That's been about it recently for apps. So, pics:
(Ugh, right click & choose 'view image' for the massive ones. Sorry, 'bout that, got no Photoshop (still,) to resize them with.)
For some reason, the next image makes me feel really calm & think of California. I'm not sure why.
Mutton chops ready for tomorrow's Moustache party!
Previous beard:
And they say the whole "pets look like their owners" thing is a myth:
Been trying to get around to writing this for ages. Hope I have time before I go to work in 25 mins.
Sticking with the apps/pics updates for now, but here's a brief roundup of news:
I ran 5k - 4.15k of it while injured. It was for a Nike+ challenge through work. I did it in 34.24 and I'm quite proud of myself as I'm unfit. I will try to keep going for a run when I can.
We had the in-laws over for a few days. As always, great fun, if only to see Pinklet get very stressed and start bossing everyone around.
We're hoping to go on our honeymoon this year, but the way things are looking between money & ash clouds... it might end up being for our 1st anniversary! Oh well.
Apps:
The Guardian (£2.39): Very slick. Exactly what a news app should be - take note The Independent, because yours is shit. Very customisable and worth the money. My only gripe would be that a while back it kept crashing when trying to open, so I ended up restoring my phone, thinking it was an OS issue. It was their problem however, but they did acknowledge and apologise & I got a personal tweet from someone from the Guardian to say sorry & tell me how to fix it. Fair enough.
Twitter for iPhone (free): It's Tweetie 2. Twitter bought them. Not much has changed, although the way retweets are shown is different - they now look like a tweet from the original poster, with "retweeted by (x)" at the bottom. This means if you retweet it as well, you don't get a list of everyone's names taking up space out of your 140 characters, just the OP's name. I prefer that. The new icon is a bit arse though. If you used Tweetie 2 before, it's much the same. If you didn't, it's now free.
Diner Dash (£1.79):
Cooking Dash (was on offer for 59p):
Very similar games. You run a restaurant/diner. Customers come in & you have to seat them, take their orders, deliver their food, give them the bill and clear away their dishes. Sounds simple & it is in essence, which is the mark of a good game. They've cleverly added layers of complexity, like customers who eat slowly, or customers who don't like to be seated near other types of customer, colour bonuses for matching customer's clothing to seat colours, the ability to serve drinks/snacks on the fly to make customers happier... anyway I'm pretty addicted to both of them. There's also a Wedding Dash & Parking Dash apparently, although I've not tried them. I tweeted about it a while back & a game maker followed me & sent me a message about BarStar, where you run a club, serve drinks etc, in a similar vein, so I might have to check that out too.
Instapaper (Free, although there is a paid 'pro' version): Save web pages for later (& offline) reading. Integrates with Twitter. Very handy.
OpenFeint (Free): Odd name for a game network. Lots of games integrate with Openfeint, which keeps your scores & allows you to play against others, much like xbox live or the PSN. This app offers a free game every day, of varying quality, but hey, free games!
Mah Jong: (59p) Simple, tile based game like I used to spend hours playing on Shackwave.com. Relaxing.
Aqua Forest 2 (Free through OpenFeint): Guide raindrops over leaf/petal based obstacle courses to a collector by tilting the phone. Essentially a marble-in-a-maze tilt game. Fun for a couple of minutes but not really my sort of thing.
That's it for now. Pics!
Pudding from our friend's pre-wedding meal.
Roses left on a bridge. This sort of thing is why I love Bristol.
Victorian ghosts. (At our friend's wedding.)
First dance.
Sticking with the apps/pics updates for now, but here's a brief roundup of news:
I ran 5k - 4.15k of it while injured. It was for a Nike+ challenge through work. I did it in 34.24 and I'm quite proud of myself as I'm unfit. I will try to keep going for a run when I can.
We had the in-laws over for a few days. As always, great fun, if only to see Pinklet get very stressed and start bossing everyone around.
We're hoping to go on our honeymoon this year, but the way things are looking between money & ash clouds... it might end up being for our 1st anniversary! Oh well.
Apps:
The Guardian (£2.39): Very slick. Exactly what a news app should be - take note The Independent, because yours is shit. Very customisable and worth the money. My only gripe would be that a while back it kept crashing when trying to open, so I ended up restoring my phone, thinking it was an OS issue. It was their problem however, but they did acknowledge and apologise & I got a personal tweet from someone from the Guardian to say sorry & tell me how to fix it. Fair enough.
Twitter for iPhone (free): It's Tweetie 2. Twitter bought them. Not much has changed, although the way retweets are shown is different - they now look like a tweet from the original poster, with "retweeted by (x)" at the bottom. This means if you retweet it as well, you don't get a list of everyone's names taking up space out of your 140 characters, just the OP's name. I prefer that. The new icon is a bit arse though. If you used Tweetie 2 before, it's much the same. If you didn't, it's now free.
Diner Dash (£1.79):
Cooking Dash (was on offer for 59p):
Very similar games. You run a restaurant/diner. Customers come in & you have to seat them, take their orders, deliver their food, give them the bill and clear away their dishes. Sounds simple & it is in essence, which is the mark of a good game. They've cleverly added layers of complexity, like customers who eat slowly, or customers who don't like to be seated near other types of customer, colour bonuses for matching customer's clothing to seat colours, the ability to serve drinks/snacks on the fly to make customers happier... anyway I'm pretty addicted to both of them. There's also a Wedding Dash & Parking Dash apparently, although I've not tried them. I tweeted about it a while back & a game maker followed me & sent me a message about BarStar, where you run a club, serve drinks etc, in a similar vein, so I might have to check that out too.
Instapaper (Free, although there is a paid 'pro' version): Save web pages for later (& offline) reading. Integrates with Twitter. Very handy.
OpenFeint (Free): Odd name for a game network. Lots of games integrate with Openfeint, which keeps your scores & allows you to play against others, much like xbox live or the PSN. This app offers a free game every day, of varying quality, but hey, free games!
Mah Jong: (59p) Simple, tile based game like I used to spend hours playing on Shackwave.com. Relaxing.
Aqua Forest 2 (Free through OpenFeint): Guide raindrops over leaf/petal based obstacle courses to a collector by tilting the phone. Essentially a marble-in-a-maze tilt game. Fun for a couple of minutes but not really my sort of thing.
That's it for now. Pics!
Pudding from our friend's pre-wedding meal.
Roses left on a bridge. This sort of thing is why I love Bristol.
Victorian ghosts. (At our friend's wedding.)
First dance.
I'm going to continue with the photo/app updates for now. Life trundles on as ever and while it is all going extremely well, there's not a lot to say about things in general. Go to work. Enjoy job for the most part, come home see wife, love her - rinse, repeat.
I decided that one of my New Year's Non-Resolutions (I don't like the pressure of resolutions, so mine tend to be just ideas.) was to learn to play guitar a bit better. The wonderful Kristoph has loaned me a guitar and a friend at work has loaned me a practice amp.
So, the next thing was to download some iPhone apps!
Gibson guitar toolkit (Free): I was going to shell out about a fiver for the Ultimate guitar toolkit, but the Gibson one has pretty much everything in it anyway for free. Not sure if I've mentioned this app before but anyway, it's relevant to the topic. It has a tuner - either a needle-on-a-gauge type or a simple version with the guitar head & you can pick a string & it will play the note. I've not had much luck with the needle version. Could be down to the mic. It also has a metronome, Chord database and some sample lessons. All in all pretty fucking good for free.
Ultimate guitar tabs (£1.79): I'm always a little wary of anything that proclaims itself as 'ultimate' but fuck me if this doesn't live up to it. Search for bands, songs or both and access a massive database of guitar tabs. I tried to find several of my favourites - Alexisonfire, which there were loads for. Not really surprised, but it also found songs by Rolo Tomassi and even Shai Hulud, which I was very impressed by. The only band I haven't found on it so far is McRad, but a google search turned up a tab for one of their songs on the Ultimate Guitar Tabs forums!
Pocket Guitar (59p): Gives you a small onscreen fretboard and a section to strum. Essentially plays like a guitar and there are options to add gain, distortion and other effects, which you can layer two at a time. There are also options for what type of guitar, (accoustic, electric, muted etc,) to give a whole range of sounds & I have to say I got a pretty nice sound by playing with the settings.
Amps & Cabs (59p): Kind of like Hipstamatic in a way. You have different amps & cabs, which you slide to change. There are three of each and the option to buy more if I remember right. You can then strum your (real,) guitar & the mic on your headphones will pick it up & pay it through the amp & cab combo you have selected. Great idea, but so far I've only got one combo to really work, but that's playing an electric guitar without amplification into a headset mic. The guys who make this are making a lead to go directly from the guitar into the iPhone...
That's it for guitar apps...
Marvel (free): Made by the same people who make the "Comics X" app, but just for Marvel stuff. As with Comics, it's very slick and easy to use & the panel transitions look great. It has crashed a few times though.
Baby Scratch (free): A cartoon deck with pre-made samples to scratch. There are 3 background beats that you can have playing in the background & you can even record your own samples/voice/sounds/whatever & scratch them. Surprisingly good fun.
Battle Bears (Free): Interesting mix of 3D shooter and tower defence game. You're a brown bear, in a fortified position, shooting hordes of pink bears that come tottering over the hills. Hit them and you get splats of multicoloured 'blood'. Headshots result in a rainbow spraying forth from their necks. Awesome fun.
Birdstrike (59p): Twang a little blue bird upwards from a telegraph wire, then steer with the phone to guide him to rockets to gain altitude. Loads of obstacles along the way from washing on lines, toxic clouds, balloons, blimps and constructed girders that you need to grab a helmet to smash through. Get all the way to the top and a UFO zaps you, at which point you begin to fall with the instruction: "Smash stuff!" Good fun.
Writeroom (£2.99): I wanted something a bit better than notes if a flash of inspiration hit (I'm half way through the third chapter of my short novel,) so I bought this. I'd looked into the Mac version a while back & it was between that & Scrivener, which I recently got free through work. Anyway the iPhone writing apps are surprisingly thin on the ground, but this does what it needs to. It synchs your writings online and you can tailor the view to your liking (full screen writing in green on black is good.).
Mill colour (free): Another colour grading app for photos. This one is made by the famous post-production house The Mill & is pretty good. Select a pic, then you can either go for pre-tailored 'looks' or you can get into the nitty gritty yourself with controls for gain, lift, gamma & saturation, most of which you can separate out by colour channel or affect all RGB channels. For free, this is excellent.
On this day (free): Info about famous events/people that happened on the day. You can pick the date too, if you want to look up what happened in history on your birthday for example. Interesting.
IMDB (free): It's IMDB on your phone. Settle all those "weren't they in (x) film with (actor y)" arguments down the pub.
WRC 2010 (free): World Rally Championship info. Videos, leaderboards, info on drivers & teams... You get the idea. Another very slick app.
RPSLS (free): Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. Anyone who's watched the Big Bang Theory will know this. It contains the rules, (directly transcribed from Sheldon's explanation,) Play vs. Computer & a hand generator - shake it to randomly select a... thing. It then shows you what that shape beats. Obviously this is a simple implementation of multiplayer.
And now... the gallery:
I decided that one of my New Year's Non-Resolutions (I don't like the pressure of resolutions, so mine tend to be just ideas.) was to learn to play guitar a bit better. The wonderful Kristoph has loaned me a guitar and a friend at work has loaned me a practice amp.
So, the next thing was to download some iPhone apps!
Gibson guitar toolkit (Free): I was going to shell out about a fiver for the Ultimate guitar toolkit, but the Gibson one has pretty much everything in it anyway for free. Not sure if I've mentioned this app before but anyway, it's relevant to the topic. It has a tuner - either a needle-on-a-gauge type or a simple version with the guitar head & you can pick a string & it will play the note. I've not had much luck with the needle version. Could be down to the mic. It also has a metronome, Chord database and some sample lessons. All in all pretty fucking good for free.
Ultimate guitar tabs (£1.79): I'm always a little wary of anything that proclaims itself as 'ultimate' but fuck me if this doesn't live up to it. Search for bands, songs or both and access a massive database of guitar tabs. I tried to find several of my favourites - Alexisonfire, which there were loads for. Not really surprised, but it also found songs by Rolo Tomassi and even Shai Hulud, which I was very impressed by. The only band I haven't found on it so far is McRad, but a google search turned up a tab for one of their songs on the Ultimate Guitar Tabs forums!
Pocket Guitar (59p): Gives you a small onscreen fretboard and a section to strum. Essentially plays like a guitar and there are options to add gain, distortion and other effects, which you can layer two at a time. There are also options for what type of guitar, (accoustic, electric, muted etc,) to give a whole range of sounds & I have to say I got a pretty nice sound by playing with the settings.
Amps & Cabs (59p): Kind of like Hipstamatic in a way. You have different amps & cabs, which you slide to change. There are three of each and the option to buy more if I remember right. You can then strum your (real,) guitar & the mic on your headphones will pick it up & pay it through the amp & cab combo you have selected. Great idea, but so far I've only got one combo to really work, but that's playing an electric guitar without amplification into a headset mic. The guys who make this are making a lead to go directly from the guitar into the iPhone...
That's it for guitar apps...
Marvel (free): Made by the same people who make the "Comics X" app, but just for Marvel stuff. As with Comics, it's very slick and easy to use & the panel transitions look great. It has crashed a few times though.
Baby Scratch (free): A cartoon deck with pre-made samples to scratch. There are 3 background beats that you can have playing in the background & you can even record your own samples/voice/sounds/whatever & scratch them. Surprisingly good fun.
Battle Bears (Free): Interesting mix of 3D shooter and tower defence game. You're a brown bear, in a fortified position, shooting hordes of pink bears that come tottering over the hills. Hit them and you get splats of multicoloured 'blood'. Headshots result in a rainbow spraying forth from their necks. Awesome fun.
Birdstrike (59p): Twang a little blue bird upwards from a telegraph wire, then steer with the phone to guide him to rockets to gain altitude. Loads of obstacles along the way from washing on lines, toxic clouds, balloons, blimps and constructed girders that you need to grab a helmet to smash through. Get all the way to the top and a UFO zaps you, at which point you begin to fall with the instruction: "Smash stuff!" Good fun.
Writeroom (£2.99): I wanted something a bit better than notes if a flash of inspiration hit (I'm half way through the third chapter of my short novel,) so I bought this. I'd looked into the Mac version a while back & it was between that & Scrivener, which I recently got free through work. Anyway the iPhone writing apps are surprisingly thin on the ground, but this does what it needs to. It synchs your writings online and you can tailor the view to your liking (full screen writing in green on black is good.).
Mill colour (free): Another colour grading app for photos. This one is made by the famous post-production house The Mill & is pretty good. Select a pic, then you can either go for pre-tailored 'looks' or you can get into the nitty gritty yourself with controls for gain, lift, gamma & saturation, most of which you can separate out by colour channel or affect all RGB channels. For free, this is excellent.
On this day (free): Info about famous events/people that happened on the day. You can pick the date too, if you want to look up what happened in history on your birthday for example. Interesting.
IMDB (free): It's IMDB on your phone. Settle all those "weren't they in (x) film with (actor y)" arguments down the pub.
WRC 2010 (free): World Rally Championship info. Videos, leaderboards, info on drivers & teams... You get the idea. Another very slick app.
RPSLS (free): Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. Anyone who's watched the Big Bang Theory will know this. It contains the rules, (directly transcribed from Sheldon's explanation,) Play vs. Computer & a hand generator - shake it to randomly select a... thing. It then shows you what that shape beats. Obviously this is a simple implementation of multiplayer.
And now... the gallery:
Continuing on the iPhone tip here's some more quick app reviews:
Flight control (59p): Simple concept & starts easy enough, but gets fiendishly difficult. Has that 'one more go' thing.
Camerabag (£1.19): Photo app, similar in some ways to the wonderful Hipstamatic. On the plus side, you can add the effects to photos you've already taken, but on the downside, there's a limited range of effects & they don't feel as organic as Hipstamatic.
C64 (Was on offer, Free): A Commodore 64 on your iPhone. The bundled games are a bit crap, but there are more to download, (both free & paid for if I remember right,) including some classics.
National Trust (Free): Planning a trip? See where there is to go of interest.
This is the biggie - from the makers of Hipstamatic, comes Swankolab (£1.19): An old school darkroom where you mix chemicals to get different effects. Select your photo, add your chemicals. The order you add them matters & you have limited slots to add them to. Most chemicals take several slots. Then you turn on the safe light and agitate your image in the solution and finally view the finished image in a drip line type scenario, which you can then save or send out.
This is another awesome iPhone app from these guys and for another £1.19 you get a lifetime subscription to any new chemicals that come out! Adds 9 additional chemicals to start with.
Great fun to be had experimenting with combinations and there is even a notebook so you can name and save your favourite formulas!
Pics!
Hipstamatic first:
& now the Swankolab ones (original pics were all taken on my old N95 I think.):
And finally, one from CameraBag (again, old N95 pic.):
Flight control (59p): Simple concept & starts easy enough, but gets fiendishly difficult. Has that 'one more go' thing.
Camerabag (£1.19): Photo app, similar in some ways to the wonderful Hipstamatic. On the plus side, you can add the effects to photos you've already taken, but on the downside, there's a limited range of effects & they don't feel as organic as Hipstamatic.
C64 (Was on offer, Free): A Commodore 64 on your iPhone. The bundled games are a bit crap, but there are more to download, (both free & paid for if I remember right,) including some classics.
National Trust (Free): Planning a trip? See where there is to go of interest.
This is the biggie - from the makers of Hipstamatic, comes Swankolab (£1.19): An old school darkroom where you mix chemicals to get different effects. Select your photo, add your chemicals. The order you add them matters & you have limited slots to add them to. Most chemicals take several slots. Then you turn on the safe light and agitate your image in the solution and finally view the finished image in a drip line type scenario, which you can then save or send out.
This is another awesome iPhone app from these guys and for another £1.19 you get a lifetime subscription to any new chemicals that come out! Adds 9 additional chemicals to start with.
Great fun to be had experimenting with combinations and there is even a notebook so you can name and save your favourite formulas!
Pics!
Hipstamatic first:
& now the Swankolab ones (original pics were all taken on my old N95 I think.):
And finally, one from CameraBag (again, old N95 pic.):
I got to see one of my favourite bands!
I got an email from some band who for some reason have my email address saying that they would be playing, along with 3 other bands that night, all supporting Shai Hulud. I was working until 9.30pm, but managed to make it down there after work to see about 4 tracks from the last support band, (who were pretty good,) before they came on. I'd got the email in the morning & so had packed my Shai Hulud t-shirt in readiness.
The turnout was really disappointing, but not many people have heard of them. There were probably abobut 12-15 people in total & some of them were from the other bands. There weren't even enough people to form a mosh pit! Despite that, it was a good show. They played some older stuff, which I screamed myself horse to. The singer spent most of the time on the floor with us, (it was only a step up to the stage anyway,) passing the mic so we could holler out the lyrics.
After the show I bought the new CD & a couple of stickers & got talking to the guys, who were really nice. They were impressed with my t-shirt as only 2 of the band members recognised it - fuck yeah, old school! I tool some pretty crappy pics & the guys even agreed to pose for photos with me, although the light in the bar was crap so they're hard to make out:
I bought a few more CD's last week: With Teeth by NIN, Crack the Skye by Mastodon and As the Palaces Burn by Lamb of God. With Teeth is excellent, with the exception of the title track & one or two others, Crack the Skye is more melodic than Mastodon's previous ones, (I still think Leviathan is my favourite,) and As the Palaces Burn is pretty good but not a patch on Ashes of the Wake.
A while back I bought Absence of Sanity by McRad - a hark back to my younger, skateboarding days which has some of the best skate punk to be found anywhere (seriously, listen to "My Weakness") but intersperses it with some of the most cringeworthy white-boy reggae ever.
I also found a backup CD with loads of good stuff on it as I realised that for some reason I didn't have Refused in my iTunes library & quickly rectified that and added in Raging Speedhorn's We will be dead Tomorrow, (I only like a couple of the tracks - Iron Cobra for one,)Senseless Things, (one of the best baselines ever in "Hold it Down" - it's up there with "This Indecision" by McRad.) Sparta's Wiretap Scars and a shitload of Pantera for good measure.
Oh yeah a few months ago I picked up the Rarities and B-Sides from Deftones, which is pretty good, but you can tell why some of them may have been relegated to the B side.
I also listened to a load of metal on YouTube last night. It started with a post in SGUK about Arch Enemy, (not bad but they're no Walls of Jericho,) & I ended up checking out Amon Amarth, As I Lay Dying, Cannibal Corpse, Messhugah, Behemoth, The Agonist and Napalm Death. Can't say I was overly enamoured with any of them aside from Messhugah, The Agonist and Napalm Death were pretty good. Also, Skinny Puppy's Pro-Test was one of the most entertaining videos I've seen in a long while.
What else? Oh yeah I managed to give myself a papercut on my eyeball!
Well, not really a papercut I guess, but I was carrying a box with some folded paperwirk in it & in trying to get out of someone's way I moved & jammed the edge of the paperwork into my eyeball & scratched it. Fucking hurt I can tell you. About as much as the time about 10 years ago when I friend's cat scratched my other eyeball.
iPhone app roundup:
Gowalla - check in at places & earn... I dunno, stuff. I kind of like it but it bugs me that you can't override the GPS. If I'm sitting in a shop I should be able to say I'm there, even if the GPS shows it as 400 meters east.
Did I do Mashable last time? Anyway, tech & social media news in one slick app.
The Independent - News. Bloddy awfull icons though, needs a makeover.
Bump (free) - I've had this for ages but they've added a lot of functionality recently, including the ability to send multiple email addresses, multiple photos and even multiple contacts in one bump. Also you can friend request for Facebook right within Bump.
Alexisonfire (free) - Really? They brought out an app? Yes they did and they totally showed everyone how it should be done. Photos, discography, tour dates, but also a complete social network with a wall for people to post on & loads more. Very slick & well done app.
Plants Vs. Zombies (£1.79) - One of the best games out there. Enough said.
Angry Birds (59p) - Kind of like Crossbows & Catapults. Fire a bird from a catapult into a tower with a little pig inside. Collapse the tower, kill the pig. Good, physics based fun but I'm still surprised it was the top grossing app for a while.
Skater Nation (On offer, 59p) - Essentially Tony Hawk on the iPhone. Not bad, but TH is coming soon, so it may replace this.
Blades (On offer, 59p) - Essentially Soul Caliber on the iPhone. Pretty good.
Dungeon Hunter (On offer, 59p) - Essentially Diablo on the iPhone. Worth a play, especially as it was on offer for 59p (ends yesterday, sorry,)
Comics (by comixology, free) - the main comixology app is to tell you when new comics are out & I think you can catalogue your own collection. I generally buy graphic novels , so I don't care, but Comics is like a comic e-reader, with the ability to buy, (or download for free,) loads of titles & even complete series'. Like Stanza for comics, it's really well done & has an interesting way of handling panel transitions, rather than showing you the whole page at once, (although that is an option,) but I'd like to see Stanza's page turn incorporated into this, rather than just clicking on the left or right to go forward or back.
Gibson Learn Guitar (free) - I aim to buy a guitar this year & learn to play. I can play a bit. I was going to look into Guitar Toolkit, which is very highly rated & £5.99 but Gibson brought this out, which seems to be the same thing for free. No contest. It has a metronome, tuner, chord library & sample learning videos.
Skateropolis (lite - free, normal - £1.79 ) - Skateboarding videos collected in an easy app. There's also a group & wall. There is a paid version with extra features, but I just wanted it for the videos, so the freebie is fine.
Vouchercloud (free) - search for offers for various places - food, travel etc, based on your location. I'll be checking to see if there's anything on there for Subway tomorrow.
Sleep Cycle (59p) - put the phone on your bed & this app monitors your movement & uses that info to find the optimal time within a 30 minute period to wake you, based on how deeply or lightly asleep you are. The more deeply you're asleep, the less you move. yet to try it out, but it sounds clever.
Day off tomorrow!
I got an email from some band who for some reason have my email address saying that they would be playing, along with 3 other bands that night, all supporting Shai Hulud. I was working until 9.30pm, but managed to make it down there after work to see about 4 tracks from the last support band, (who were pretty good,) before they came on. I'd got the email in the morning & so had packed my Shai Hulud t-shirt in readiness.
The turnout was really disappointing, but not many people have heard of them. There were probably abobut 12-15 people in total & some of them were from the other bands. There weren't even enough people to form a mosh pit! Despite that, it was a good show. They played some older stuff, which I screamed myself horse to. The singer spent most of the time on the floor with us, (it was only a step up to the stage anyway,) passing the mic so we could holler out the lyrics.
After the show I bought the new CD & a couple of stickers & got talking to the guys, who were really nice. They were impressed with my t-shirt as only 2 of the band members recognised it - fuck yeah, old school! I tool some pretty crappy pics & the guys even agreed to pose for photos with me, although the light in the bar was crap so they're hard to make out:
I bought a few more CD's last week: With Teeth by NIN, Crack the Skye by Mastodon and As the Palaces Burn by Lamb of God. With Teeth is excellent, with the exception of the title track & one or two others, Crack the Skye is more melodic than Mastodon's previous ones, (I still think Leviathan is my favourite,) and As the Palaces Burn is pretty good but not a patch on Ashes of the Wake.
A while back I bought Absence of Sanity by McRad - a hark back to my younger, skateboarding days which has some of the best skate punk to be found anywhere (seriously, listen to "My Weakness") but intersperses it with some of the most cringeworthy white-boy reggae ever.
I also found a backup CD with loads of good stuff on it as I realised that for some reason I didn't have Refused in my iTunes library & quickly rectified that and added in Raging Speedhorn's We will be dead Tomorrow, (I only like a couple of the tracks - Iron Cobra for one,)Senseless Things, (one of the best baselines ever in "Hold it Down" - it's up there with "This Indecision" by McRad.) Sparta's Wiretap Scars and a shitload of Pantera for good measure.
Oh yeah a few months ago I picked up the Rarities and B-Sides from Deftones, which is pretty good, but you can tell why some of them may have been relegated to the B side.
I also listened to a load of metal on YouTube last night. It started with a post in SGUK about Arch Enemy, (not bad but they're no Walls of Jericho,) & I ended up checking out Amon Amarth, As I Lay Dying, Cannibal Corpse, Messhugah, Behemoth, The Agonist and Napalm Death. Can't say I was overly enamoured with any of them aside from Messhugah, The Agonist and Napalm Death were pretty good. Also, Skinny Puppy's Pro-Test was one of the most entertaining videos I've seen in a long while.
What else? Oh yeah I managed to give myself a papercut on my eyeball!
Well, not really a papercut I guess, but I was carrying a box with some folded paperwirk in it & in trying to get out of someone's way I moved & jammed the edge of the paperwork into my eyeball & scratched it. Fucking hurt I can tell you. About as much as the time about 10 years ago when I friend's cat scratched my other eyeball.
iPhone app roundup:
Gowalla - check in at places & earn... I dunno, stuff. I kind of like it but it bugs me that you can't override the GPS. If I'm sitting in a shop I should be able to say I'm there, even if the GPS shows it as 400 meters east.
Did I do Mashable last time? Anyway, tech & social media news in one slick app.
The Independent - News. Bloddy awfull icons though, needs a makeover.
Bump (free) - I've had this for ages but they've added a lot of functionality recently, including the ability to send multiple email addresses, multiple photos and even multiple contacts in one bump. Also you can friend request for Facebook right within Bump.
Alexisonfire (free) - Really? They brought out an app? Yes they did and they totally showed everyone how it should be done. Photos, discography, tour dates, but also a complete social network with a wall for people to post on & loads more. Very slick & well done app.
Plants Vs. Zombies (£1.79) - One of the best games out there. Enough said.
Angry Birds (59p) - Kind of like Crossbows & Catapults. Fire a bird from a catapult into a tower with a little pig inside. Collapse the tower, kill the pig. Good, physics based fun but I'm still surprised it was the top grossing app for a while.
Skater Nation (On offer, 59p) - Essentially Tony Hawk on the iPhone. Not bad, but TH is coming soon, so it may replace this.
Blades (On offer, 59p) - Essentially Soul Caliber on the iPhone. Pretty good.
Dungeon Hunter (On offer, 59p) - Essentially Diablo on the iPhone. Worth a play, especially as it was on offer for 59p (ends yesterday, sorry,)
Comics (by comixology, free) - the main comixology app is to tell you when new comics are out & I think you can catalogue your own collection. I generally buy graphic novels , so I don't care, but Comics is like a comic e-reader, with the ability to buy, (or download for free,) loads of titles & even complete series'. Like Stanza for comics, it's really well done & has an interesting way of handling panel transitions, rather than showing you the whole page at once, (although that is an option,) but I'd like to see Stanza's page turn incorporated into this, rather than just clicking on the left or right to go forward or back.
Gibson Learn Guitar (free) - I aim to buy a guitar this year & learn to play. I can play a bit. I was going to look into Guitar Toolkit, which is very highly rated & £5.99 but Gibson brought this out, which seems to be the same thing for free. No contest. It has a metronome, tuner, chord library & sample learning videos.
Skateropolis (lite - free, normal - £1.79 ) - Skateboarding videos collected in an easy app. There's also a group & wall. There is a paid version with extra features, but I just wanted it for the videos, so the freebie is fine.
Vouchercloud (free) - search for offers for various places - food, travel etc, based on your location. I'll be checking to see if there's anything on there for Subway tomorrow.
Sleep Cycle (59p) - put the phone on your bed & this app monitors your movement & uses that info to find the optimal time within a 30 minute period to wake you, based on how deeply or lightly asleep you are. The more deeply you're asleep, the less you move. yet to try it out, but it sounds clever.
Day off tomorrow!
Not tons to report. Life is good.
Been writing some & that's going pretty well. I've continued the misanthropic detective story I started in November for NaNoWriMo. It's at just over 10,000 words at present.
I've been playing Fallout 3 a little, (Pinklet is on her 3rd run through - I got stuck on a late part on the xbox & haven't played it as much on the PS,) have almost finished Uncharted 2, which is excellent, played some Bioshock 2 (online multiplayer too, for one of the first times,) and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is also good. Can anyone tell me if it's normal to do the ice-climbing, base-infiltration mission twice? Bit confused about that.
A few iPhone apps I've gotten recently:
Worms - A great port & just as much fun as ever, especially in multiplayer.
Plants Vs. Zombies - another great port. Defend your home against zombies with defensive & offensive plants. Best tower defence/strategy game out there.
Earthworm Jim (Lite) - Classic platform action, pixel perfect.
Bejewelled 2 (Particularly Bejewelled Blitz,) - The master of time-suckage & the 'one more go'.
Angry Birds (Lite) - Physics based Catapult game.
Mashable - all your social media & tech news in one slick app.
AlexisonFire - How band apps should be done. Great that my favourite band understand what an app should be. Loads of info.
2Do - A great to do list app. My attempt at getting organised.
Moneybook - Personal finances app. Keep track of your money & spending easily. My attempt at managing my finances.
Stanza - Ebook reader. Like Kindle, but with better interface (imo,). You can download books right from within the app, unlike Kindle, which launches a separate site in Safari.
Webcomic reader - keep up to date with loads of webcomics, from the one app: XKCD, PVP, Sinfest, Cyanide & Happiness, Penny Arcade & loads more, but PLEASE someone get them to update their Questionable Content feed!
Last, but probably most of all - Hipstamatic. A camera app that gives you 3 vintage-looking lenses, 3 films that affect the borders and two flashes to achieve a variety of looks. More lenses, films and flashes are available to buy in packs at pretty reasonable prices.
I love the looks you can get from these lenses, as well as the old school camera interface and especially the warming-up noise you get if you turn the flash on. I've been going photo crazy:
I even used it to take pictures of Shai Hulud the other night:
who played a blinder to a crowd of about 20 people, some of whom were either crew or in the other bands. The singer spent most of the set on the floor with us, passing the mic for us to scream out the words. I have partially lost my voice today, my ears are still ringing & my trapezius muscles hurt like hell, but I got to hang out with them a little after the show (I got the honor of having a Shai Hulud t-shirt so old, only a couple of the members even recognised it!) & they were awesome guys who even agreed to pose for a couple of photos: (That's me in the middle.)
Been writing some & that's going pretty well. I've continued the misanthropic detective story I started in November for NaNoWriMo. It's at just over 10,000 words at present.
I've been playing Fallout 3 a little, (Pinklet is on her 3rd run through - I got stuck on a late part on the xbox & haven't played it as much on the PS,) have almost finished Uncharted 2, which is excellent, played some Bioshock 2 (online multiplayer too, for one of the first times,) and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is also good. Can anyone tell me if it's normal to do the ice-climbing, base-infiltration mission twice? Bit confused about that.
A few iPhone apps I've gotten recently:
Worms - A great port & just as much fun as ever, especially in multiplayer.
Plants Vs. Zombies - another great port. Defend your home against zombies with defensive & offensive plants. Best tower defence/strategy game out there.
Earthworm Jim (Lite) - Classic platform action, pixel perfect.
Bejewelled 2 (Particularly Bejewelled Blitz,) - The master of time-suckage & the 'one more go'.
Angry Birds (Lite) - Physics based Catapult game.
Mashable - all your social media & tech news in one slick app.
AlexisonFire - How band apps should be done. Great that my favourite band understand what an app should be. Loads of info.
2Do - A great to do list app. My attempt at getting organised.
Moneybook - Personal finances app. Keep track of your money & spending easily. My attempt at managing my finances.
Stanza - Ebook reader. Like Kindle, but with better interface (imo,). You can download books right from within the app, unlike Kindle, which launches a separate site in Safari.
Webcomic reader - keep up to date with loads of webcomics, from the one app: XKCD, PVP, Sinfest, Cyanide & Happiness, Penny Arcade & loads more, but PLEASE someone get them to update their Questionable Content feed!
Last, but probably most of all - Hipstamatic. A camera app that gives you 3 vintage-looking lenses, 3 films that affect the borders and two flashes to achieve a variety of looks. More lenses, films and flashes are available to buy in packs at pretty reasonable prices.
I love the looks you can get from these lenses, as well as the old school camera interface and especially the warming-up noise you get if you turn the flash on. I've been going photo crazy:
I even used it to take pictures of Shai Hulud the other night:
who played a blinder to a crowd of about 20 people, some of whom were either crew or in the other bands. The singer spent most of the set on the floor with us, passing the mic for us to scream out the words. I have partially lost my voice today, my ears are still ringing & my trapezius muscles hurt like hell, but I got to hang out with them a little after the show (I got the honor of having a Shai Hulud t-shirt so old, only a couple of the members even recognised it!) & they were awesome guys who even agreed to pose for a couple of photos: (That's me in the middle.)
Hmm. 2nd attempt at this. I tried to drag a photo into the attach thing below & it just displayed it in this tab. Hit back & presto - no blog!
We had a week off to visit family & give out xmas presents. Normally I don't do xmas, but... whatever.
We visited Pinklet's lot first. My father-in-law likes to break out the booze, (particularly whiskey,) & get me drunk. I enjoy letting him. We also caught up with Pinks' sister & her fiancee & several friends & watched Freddy vs. Jason (my choice - stupid but fun,) & played Singstar (I ruled "Easy Like Sunday Morning".) & treated everyone to a viewing of our wedding pics. (Some had been there but not seen pics, others hadn't made it.)
I got a Lego Viking keyring & my in-laws bought me a remote control indoor quadricopter & a snap together Darth Vader's Tie fighter. How fucking awesome?
Then we went to see my Dad's side of the family, including my Dad, Grandma, Aunt, Uncle, cousin & her BF. My other cousin was absent, but my Aunt still teared up at having us all together. Bless.
We showed wedding pics (again,). My Grandma is starting to look frail, but at 92, after a bad fall & with diabetes... well she's not doing so bad.
Than we got a call from my mum saying my stepdad had been rushed into hospital with breathing difficulties. He's been bad for a while & has a problem involving emphezema (sp?) & other issues, on top of ashtma. We visited him & I could see he was really embarrassed at us seeing him like that. Knowing the best he can hope for is not to get any worse... It was scary. He's raised me more, than my Dad & even though I've never called him Dad (at his request I've always called him by his first name,) that's how I think of him.
I don't really know what to say. I can't really think about it too much but then I feel guilty for not thinking about him.
Anyway we did some other cool stuff. I made Space Invaders out of the jellybean hearts on the table at my Aunt's.
& we got a cool new shower curtain:
& we picked up the copy of Bioshock 2 that Pinks pre-oredered. Cool so far but definitely more difficult than 1. I had a go on multiplayer tonight & got my ass handed to me, (bottom 3 or so every match,) apparently by 12 year olds from the voices of a couple of them. I don't play online much & I think this is probably why.
I sincerely hope all is well with you & yours.
We had a week off to visit family & give out xmas presents. Normally I don't do xmas, but... whatever.
We visited Pinklet's lot first. My father-in-law likes to break out the booze, (particularly whiskey,) & get me drunk. I enjoy letting him. We also caught up with Pinks' sister & her fiancee & several friends & watched Freddy vs. Jason (my choice - stupid but fun,) & played Singstar (I ruled "Easy Like Sunday Morning".) & treated everyone to a viewing of our wedding pics. (Some had been there but not seen pics, others hadn't made it.)
I got a Lego Viking keyring & my in-laws bought me a remote control indoor quadricopter & a snap together Darth Vader's Tie fighter. How fucking awesome?
Then we went to see my Dad's side of the family, including my Dad, Grandma, Aunt, Uncle, cousin & her BF. My other cousin was absent, but my Aunt still teared up at having us all together. Bless.
We showed wedding pics (again,). My Grandma is starting to look frail, but at 92, after a bad fall & with diabetes... well she's not doing so bad.
Than we got a call from my mum saying my stepdad had been rushed into hospital with breathing difficulties. He's been bad for a while & has a problem involving emphezema (sp?) & other issues, on top of ashtma. We visited him & I could see he was really embarrassed at us seeing him like that. Knowing the best he can hope for is not to get any worse... It was scary. He's raised me more, than my Dad & even though I've never called him Dad (at his request I've always called him by his first name,) that's how I think of him.
I don't really know what to say. I can't really think about it too much but then I feel guilty for not thinking about him.
Anyway we did some other cool stuff. I made Space Invaders out of the jellybean hearts on the table at my Aunt's.
& we got a cool new shower curtain:
& we picked up the copy of Bioshock 2 that Pinks pre-oredered. Cool so far but definitely more difficult than 1. I had a go on multiplayer tonight & got my ass handed to me, (bottom 3 or so every match,) apparently by 12 year olds from the voices of a couple of them. I don't play online much & I think this is probably why.
I sincerely hope all is well with you & yours.
