I'm pretty sure I've written this before, but the time has come for me to get back to the gym. At my best I was reasonably fit, not greatly by any stretch of anyones imagination, but reasonably. But now not so much.
My body has a habit of conspiring against me, things break, wear out, etc quite easily it seems, and I do have a problem with my knees at the moment which has been stopping me. I'm currently waiting for an apointment with a physio at my lovely local NHS Hospital to help strengthen them, but I thought I may as well carry on. What's the worst I can do?
This year I intend to do the events I missed out on last. Last I was intending to do the Swansea Bay 10k (3rd time) and Cardiff Half Maraton (2nd time) but alas not. So I'll hit the tredmill after work tomorrow and see what I can do and where I'm at. I'm not a moron, if I get pain I'll stop, but with a bit of luck I'll be able to get at least some distance behind me so I can begin to get better.
Oh and cats with thumbs? WTF is that all about?
Friday, 11 March 2011
Monday, 7 March 2011
Collapse into Now, Mrs Browns Boys and pointless HD
Collapse into Now... what a stupid name for an album. No doubt it's clever on a level that I don't get, but to
be, it sounds a bit stupid. But a stupid name does not a bad album make.
Of what I heard prior to the release of new the REM album I wasn't overly excited, but they are my favourite band by a distance ,so I clicked buy on iTunes (no CD sniff sniff) and got ready. I had an approx 45 min car journey out of Cardiff back home so it seemed destiny.
It began, with discoverer, which I'd heard before and didn't overly like. Nothing really changed there, I still don't really like it, maybe it's a grower. But it gets better, much better! By the 3rd song, Uberlin it's going well, the acoustic guitar on this riff is excellent, Oh My Heart lacks a little in the chorus but nips along nice and generally the same can be said for the whole album. There's allot of repeated simple chorus' but.. it's REM. That Someone is You and Blue are outstanding.
Thinking about it a few of the songs have... expressive titles, but they hold together well enough.
I'd heartily recommend the album to anyone, it's not their best, it's maybe not as good as accelerate, but good. Though I am a little biased.
I also quite fancy Elbows album, also out today, but funds say no I'm afraid. If anyone from the band reads this (what??) and wants to send me a copy I'd happily take it! Oh and 2 tickets for the CIA gig would be cool. But this is a blog not a review centre, so other things:
On an unrelated topic, I just saw Mrs Browns Boys on BBC HD on my sisters recommendation. Well I can say, 100% honestly, what a piece of shit. That's among the worst programs I've had the misfortune to sit through in a while, and I've seen Dancing on Ice.
Some Irish bloke dressed as an old woman, reeling off predictable one liners and witty responses to a cast of stereotypes. I felt like it'd feel dated on Dave. I watched it in HD as mentioned above, but it's one of the vast majority of programs that gains absolutely nothing from the upgrade. It feels quite heavily that HD is quite gimmicky at the moment, yes the potential is there and I may as well use it, but I can't say it's 'redefining television' or any of that kind of crap that PR people spout to make themselves sound more interesting.
No doubt programs will adapt and grow into new technology, but at the moment I don't feel I'm gaining an awful lot by watching Richard Hammond grin and present awfully on total wipeout in HD.
be, it sounds a bit stupid. But a stupid name does not a bad album make.
Of what I heard prior to the release of new the REM album I wasn't overly excited, but they are my favourite band by a distance ,so I clicked buy on iTunes (no CD sniff sniff) and got ready. I had an approx 45 min car journey out of Cardiff back home so it seemed destiny.
It began, with discoverer, which I'd heard before and didn't overly like. Nothing really changed there, I still don't really like it, maybe it's a grower. But it gets better, much better! By the 3rd song, Uberlin it's going well, the acoustic guitar on this riff is excellent, Oh My Heart lacks a little in the chorus but nips along nice and generally the same can be said for the whole album. There's allot of repeated simple chorus' but.. it's REM. That Someone is You and Blue are outstanding.
Thinking about it a few of the songs have... expressive titles, but they hold together well enough.
I'd heartily recommend the album to anyone, it's not their best, it's maybe not as good as accelerate, but good. Though I am a little biased.
I also quite fancy Elbows album, also out today, but funds say no I'm afraid. If anyone from the band reads this (what??) and wants to send me a copy I'd happily take it! Oh and 2 tickets for the CIA gig would be cool. But this is a blog not a review centre, so other things:
On an unrelated topic, I just saw Mrs Browns Boys on BBC HD on my sisters recommendation. Well I can say, 100% honestly, what a piece of shit. That's among the worst programs I've had the misfortune to sit through in a while, and I've seen Dancing on Ice.
Some Irish bloke dressed as an old woman, reeling off predictable one liners and witty responses to a cast of stereotypes. I felt like it'd feel dated on Dave. I watched it in HD as mentioned above, but it's one of the vast majority of programs that gains absolutely nothing from the upgrade. It feels quite heavily that HD is quite gimmicky at the moment, yes the potential is there and I may as well use it, but I can't say it's 'redefining television' or any of that kind of crap that PR people spout to make themselves sound more interesting.
No doubt programs will adapt and grow into new technology, but at the moment I don't feel I'm gaining an awful lot by watching Richard Hammond grin and present awfully on total wipeout in HD.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Voting!
Right now, there are thousands of people all over the world fighting for the right to live in a democracy, to vote. I like to think we're very lucky in the UK that we already live in one. Yes democracy relies on the people and people do indeed make mistakes, but at least they're our mistakes. I don't feel anyone should be rules by a self appointed leader who they may not approve of. So, why oh why oh why when Brits (us Welshies in this instance) get a chance to vote, do we not bother.
Yesterday, Wales had a referendum on giving our assembly more law making powers. All cool, it's a yes or it's a no, you've hardly even got to worry about which box to tick! However a massive 64.8% of people waived their hard earned vote and decided to sit on their arses instead. In my locality of Merthyr Tydfil, we were the 4th worst turned out area with 30.1% of our proud 55k contributing. But why?
In my opinion, both campaigns were poor, partially thanks to the 'no' campaigners not taking up 'lead' status, meaning no funding and no allowance for a 'yes' campaign, meaning lower visibility of the points from either side. In all honesty except one leaflet through the post, you had to go look for any information yourself. Not ideal for reaching those people not typically all that interested in politics. On the other hand, it did save some public cash.
Maybe people haven't realised that this'll affect them. No doubt if there had been a line in there saying, 'vote yes and benefits will rise in wales' turnout in Merthyr would have been 90%, with another 5% turned away for being to drunk. But as we can't even get to 60% for a general election laziness may be a factor. (I mean honestly people, a little difference last time and Merthyr would have been under Conservative rule now, via Cleggs brown nosing.)
I'm all for compulsory voting (go Australia), obviously if you have a valid excuse, fair enough, but I'd imagine the majority of no shows wouldn't. Yes making people vote may be unpopular, or seem like forcing an opinion where there is none, but people can always abstain. At least their voice is then heard. Would any winner really accept a seat if their votes were superseded by abstentions?
Overall, I think the 35% who did show made the right choice, I'm not 100% sure the assembly members themselves are altogether ready for more power, but we'll now have a great chance to find out. It'll just always stick in the mind that the decision was ratified by only 20-odd% of those available to vote.
Mainly I'm gutted that the no campaign was called true wales, not the same as in '97.
Just Say No...
Just like Zammo
Yesterday, Wales had a referendum on giving our assembly more law making powers. All cool, it's a yes or it's a no, you've hardly even got to worry about which box to tick! However a massive 64.8% of people waived their hard earned vote and decided to sit on their arses instead. In my locality of Merthyr Tydfil, we were the 4th worst turned out area with 30.1% of our proud 55k contributing. But why?
In my opinion, both campaigns were poor, partially thanks to the 'no' campaigners not taking up 'lead' status, meaning no funding and no allowance for a 'yes' campaign, meaning lower visibility of the points from either side. In all honesty except one leaflet through the post, you had to go look for any information yourself. Not ideal for reaching those people not typically all that interested in politics. On the other hand, it did save some public cash.
Maybe people haven't realised that this'll affect them. No doubt if there had been a line in there saying, 'vote yes and benefits will rise in wales' turnout in Merthyr would have been 90%, with another 5% turned away for being to drunk. But as we can't even get to 60% for a general election laziness may be a factor. (I mean honestly people, a little difference last time and Merthyr would have been under Conservative rule now, via Cleggs brown nosing.)
I'm all for compulsory voting (go Australia), obviously if you have a valid excuse, fair enough, but I'd imagine the majority of no shows wouldn't. Yes making people vote may be unpopular, or seem like forcing an opinion where there is none, but people can always abstain. At least their voice is then heard. Would any winner really accept a seat if their votes were superseded by abstentions?
Overall, I think the 35% who did show made the right choice, I'm not 100% sure the assembly members themselves are altogether ready for more power, but we'll now have a great chance to find out. It'll just always stick in the mind that the decision was ratified by only 20-odd% of those available to vote.
Mainly I'm gutted that the no campaign was called true wales, not the same as in '97.
Just Say No...
Just like Zammo
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Dead Island
OK, yeah I'm a bit behind, but I've just got around to watching the Dead Island trainer (which can he found here), for the last few days I've heard numerous accounts of how disturbing it is, how it's plain wrong and should be banned... all the usual random stuff from people who are desperate to desynthesize everything to the content of Miffy and Friends.
However, deciding not to let people form opinions for me, as I very rarely do to be fair, I watched it. I can only say it was very effective, the setting of a family making a last stand against the fairly standard zombie enemies was very good. It gave it more of a sense of familiarity in it's setting than normal game trailers and to be 100% honest there was a hint of emotional reaction on my part, which doesn't happen often.
However, clearly it's been set out to do this, to try and get a reaction from the, everything must be PG brigade, to try and evoke a response and use the inevitable Internet banter to build hype and generate publicity. There's no possible way the developers could have thought featuring the death of a small child in the trailer (who was clearly already a zombie) would invoke any other kind of reaction. My reaction to this is, do they lack confidence in the game itself to get good reviews and build it's own hype.
The style of the trailer is somewhat unlikely to be indicative to the actual game play (haven't seen that much in action yet despite having a quick nose round youtube for a few videos), which will doubtless be a fairly standard FP, zombie slasher type game, and to be honest the trailer hasn't done much to get me excited or interested. My rule of thumb is if you need that much publicity, you probably don't deserve it.
I'm of course ready to be proved wrong by amazing reviews, but you wont find me holding my breath.
However, deciding not to let people form opinions for me, as I very rarely do to be fair, I watched it. I can only say it was very effective, the setting of a family making a last stand against the fairly standard zombie enemies was very good. It gave it more of a sense of familiarity in it's setting than normal game trailers and to be 100% honest there was a hint of emotional reaction on my part, which doesn't happen often.
However, clearly it's been set out to do this, to try and get a reaction from the, everything must be PG brigade, to try and evoke a response and use the inevitable Internet banter to build hype and generate publicity. There's no possible way the developers could have thought featuring the death of a small child in the trailer (who was clearly already a zombie) would invoke any other kind of reaction. My reaction to this is, do they lack confidence in the game itself to get good reviews and build it's own hype.
The style of the trailer is somewhat unlikely to be indicative to the actual game play (haven't seen that much in action yet despite having a quick nose round youtube for a few videos), which will doubtless be a fairly standard FP, zombie slasher type game, and to be honest the trailer hasn't done much to get me excited or interested. My rule of thumb is if you need that much publicity, you probably don't deserve it.
I'm of course ready to be proved wrong by amazing reviews, but you wont find me holding my breath.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
It's all about standards!
Whatever happened to taking pride in your work. Feeling happy with your end product and knowing when you show the world you'll have something to be proud of? Some places still have it, however, in the world of games development, not a sign of it.
Ever since patching PC games was a possibility, people have become more and more reliant on it. The situation worsened when the same became possible for console games, now iPhone games can be 'updated' the can be the worst.
For years it's been quite common place to avoid Football Manager games for the first few months as they are always broken on release. Usually they are simple obvious things 1000s of players find within hours of playing, so I ask myself, how did the teams of playtesters who test the game miss it? Or did they think, "Umm deadlines coming, bang it out and we'll fix it later. We'll have to do database updates anyway, so 2 for 1!" Probably the latter of the two.
It spread to consoles, the biggest example of it being Fallout: New Vegas, with it's literally dozens of graphic glitches, quest problems. Yes it's a big game so catching everything would be hard, but some bugs are so obvious and almost unavoidable. Don't get me started on the lip-sync on the intro, the compulsory can't skip me plot laying out intro, to Fable 3.
But there is a further type of breed, the "Ooooh let's add more stuff to our existing and slightly surprisingly popular stuff to push it to new people, quick" people. Step forward Stick sports and their iPhone app Stick Cricket.
Stick Cricket is a addictive excellent, slightly frustrating, game, the full upgrade is a snip at £1.79. I bought it and enjoyed it. Then stick sports decided to update it with a new game mode to make it more attractive by adding a quick easy graphics heavy as broken as the rest of it World Cup tie in game, so more people would upgrade. They screwed up royally.
The game became buggy and broken, it would crash to the home screen randomly, if you won a game it wouldn't recognise this and leave you hanging where the only way out is to forfeit the game. Generally, due to what can only be an absolute zero of testing, they destroyed it and essentially wasted my £1.79. The company don't respond to tweets, comments through iTunes but only put a note on saying for people not to update it. No good if you already have. No sign of a further update, don't even know if they're trying, iTunes doesn't do refunds, so I can't see anything would rush them as clearly high standards and good service are way down low on their agenda.
What this has done for me is destroy that company's reputation. Stick Sports have spent years online with reasonable browser games, and I respected that, hence buying the app, but now to me I think of them as shoddy chancers, who are unwilling/unable to fix their errors. They don't test their product and just bang it out unusable.
The app is still available for download (can't say I'm recommending it) and as far as I know every new download is as broken as mine. Oh and they also use the worst mechanic in the world, the 'please rate me message after EVERY game, that's the gaming equivalent of a spoilt child begging for praise every time they so much as fart.
If you own the app, contact iTunes, say fix it or refund us! Maybe if they're hurt financially they may just do something about it.
Ever since patching PC games was a possibility, people have become more and more reliant on it. The situation worsened when the same became possible for console games, now iPhone games can be 'updated' the can be the worst.
For years it's been quite common place to avoid Football Manager games for the first few months as they are always broken on release. Usually they are simple obvious things 1000s of players find within hours of playing, so I ask myself, how did the teams of playtesters who test the game miss it? Or did they think, "Umm deadlines coming, bang it out and we'll fix it later. We'll have to do database updates anyway, so 2 for 1!" Probably the latter of the two.
It spread to consoles, the biggest example of it being Fallout: New Vegas, with it's literally dozens of graphic glitches, quest problems. Yes it's a big game so catching everything would be hard, but some bugs are so obvious and almost unavoidable. Don't get me started on the lip-sync on the intro, the compulsory can't skip me plot laying out intro, to Fable 3.
But there is a further type of breed, the "Ooooh let's add more stuff to our existing and slightly surprisingly popular stuff to push it to new people, quick" people. Step forward Stick sports and their iPhone app Stick Cricket.
Stick Cricket is a addictive excellent, slightly frustrating, game, the full upgrade is a snip at £1.79. I bought it and enjoyed it. Then stick sports decided to update it with a new game mode to make it more attractive by adding a quick easy graphics heavy as broken as the rest of it World Cup tie in game, so more people would upgrade. They screwed up royally.
The game became buggy and broken, it would crash to the home screen randomly, if you won a game it wouldn't recognise this and leave you hanging where the only way out is to forfeit the game. Generally, due to what can only be an absolute zero of testing, they destroyed it and essentially wasted my £1.79. The company don't respond to tweets, comments through iTunes but only put a note on saying for people not to update it. No good if you already have. No sign of a further update, don't even know if they're trying, iTunes doesn't do refunds, so I can't see anything would rush them as clearly high standards and good service are way down low on their agenda.
What this has done for me is destroy that company's reputation. Stick Sports have spent years online with reasonable browser games, and I respected that, hence buying the app, but now to me I think of them as shoddy chancers, who are unwilling/unable to fix their errors. They don't test their product and just bang it out unusable.
The app is still available for download (can't say I'm recommending it) and as far as I know every new download is as broken as mine. Oh and they also use the worst mechanic in the world, the 'please rate me message after EVERY game, that's the gaming equivalent of a spoilt child begging for praise every time they so much as fart.
If you own the app, contact iTunes, say fix it or refund us! Maybe if they're hurt financially they may just do something about it.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Inspiration! Or lack of it!
I'm usually full of ideas, other people would say full of quite a bit more too, but for now I'm sticking with ideas. These ideas are great until typically I try and do something with them, once I enter the practical stage things go tits up.
Sure, I come up with solutions for things regularly enough in work, but that's work, it's what I'm paid for and if I didn't come up with suggestions, I'd no longer be paid for it quite soon. I assume the sense of necessity helps drive the process.
However, when it comes to recreational stuff, I quite often draw a blank. My latest idea that I've done bugger all with is to set up some kind of website to handle satirical stories, either by myself or through submission, and lets face it that's one amazingly unoriginal idea, but I'd be good for my somewhat rusty and failing HTML/General design skills. Easy you may think, well so did I.
What point got me? What point did I find insurmountable? Naming it. I went to google sites and couldn't think of ANYTHING to call it. So my enthusiasm died and nothing got done. Pathetic!! I honestly sat there looking at a tint tiny text box that anted the URL that it'd use and froze. Hmmm...
I once wrote a shortish story, it wasn't great, the plot was painfully contrived but it wasn't the worst thing I ever read. What happened to it? I typed up half of it, maybe a little less before just stopping! No idea why, to this day (which isn't long, I wrote it about 6 weeks ago) the last 50%+ of the story only exists in an A4 pad I carry back and fore to work (did I mention I miss my netbook?) and will no doubt be lost/damaged before it ever gets saved onto hard disk forever. Not that anyone would want to read it anyway!
I did finish and put out (via this blog) a different unrelated, much shorter story which I quite liked, but thats personal bias no doubt. About 15 people read it and were generally positive though!
(Wow I just linked to myself, how sad)
I'm not really sure what causes this level of half arsed-ness in some of the things I do, but it happens!! Maybe I'm pushing a topic I can't be bothered with, but honestly I don't think so.
Maybe I'm just lazy!
If that site ever does get put up, I will of course let you know.
Sure, I come up with solutions for things regularly enough in work, but that's work, it's what I'm paid for and if I didn't come up with suggestions, I'd no longer be paid for it quite soon. I assume the sense of necessity helps drive the process.
However, when it comes to recreational stuff, I quite often draw a blank. My latest idea that I've done bugger all with is to set up some kind of website to handle satirical stories, either by myself or through submission, and lets face it that's one amazingly unoriginal idea, but I'd be good for my somewhat rusty and failing HTML/General design skills. Easy you may think, well so did I.
What point got me? What point did I find insurmountable? Naming it. I went to google sites and couldn't think of ANYTHING to call it. So my enthusiasm died and nothing got done. Pathetic!! I honestly sat there looking at a tint tiny text box that anted the URL that it'd use and froze. Hmmm...
I once wrote a shortish story, it wasn't great, the plot was painfully contrived but it wasn't the worst thing I ever read. What happened to it? I typed up half of it, maybe a little less before just stopping! No idea why, to this day (which isn't long, I wrote it about 6 weeks ago) the last 50%+ of the story only exists in an A4 pad I carry back and fore to work (did I mention I miss my netbook?) and will no doubt be lost/damaged before it ever gets saved onto hard disk forever. Not that anyone would want to read it anyway!
I did finish and put out (via this blog) a different unrelated, much shorter story which I quite liked, but thats personal bias no doubt. About 15 people read it and were generally positive though!
(Wow I just linked to myself, how sad)
I'm not really sure what causes this level of half arsed-ness in some of the things I do, but it happens!! Maybe I'm pushing a topic I can't be bothered with, but honestly I don't think so.
Maybe I'm just lazy!
If that site ever does get put up, I will of course let you know.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Txt Spk
Before I start, I'm quite a lazy person. I'm sure anyone I know will happily back me up on that fact. However, I still do fine the energy to type 1 maybe 2 extra characters into words to make them from gibberish to some kind of legible language everyone can understand. (OK occasionally on twitter I'll shorten, but that's due to the 140 limit. Sue me) However, increasingly my Twitter feed, Facebook news feed is taken up but streams and streams of borderline illegible shite.
I ask myself, why do they do it? Does dropping a vowel from a word save some amazing amount of energy? Does it cover up such poor English language skills that they wouldn't be fully capable of spelling the word correctly?
Regarding the energy, I'm fairly sure the amount of time/effort/energy saved by these... 'interesting' spellings is so low it would take 10000s of words to even get near the amount of energy I use out of pure frustration every time I see one. So straight away they're hurting the energy balance of the entire world.
I've made a decision anyway, from now on, if I get a post on any social media network that can't be bothered typing things out in proper English. I can't be bothered reading it, or any future posts by that person. Acronyms are fine, twitter shortening I can live with if it's to bring it in under limit. But I'm 'neva' going '2' 'rply' '2' 'ne'shite I 'c' '4rm' shortened word using people.
Just learn to spell for Gods sake, I know you didn't pay attention in 'skool' 'cos' you were to 'kool' but really, I don't give a fuck, yes I said fuck not 'fuk' or 'fk'.
I'm not saying I everyone needs to write by my standards, people can write what they like how they like. I'm saying I can't be arsed getting my English>Chav dictionary out to read someone it turns out I wasn't interested in anyway. I don't want perfect English, there must be people out there who find my grammar offensive (how many 'that's are in this piece alone??)
To be honest for all the intelligent well thought out stuff that comes across it, I'm tempted to bin my Facebook completely. Honestly, I can live without it, it wasn't for the photos on there I'd do it now. I'm fairly sure I have enough backups anyway. Actually yeah, I'm going to do it now!! Maybe.
Being more positive, Newsthump have used a few of my things of late woo-hoo must be getting better (remember look for the stuff 'by Andrew Driscoll' including the current headline). Also, I'm working on a plan to try my hand at my own site, it's been a while since I did HTML, but it's all good fun.
I ask myself, why do they do it? Does dropping a vowel from a word save some amazing amount of energy? Does it cover up such poor English language skills that they wouldn't be fully capable of spelling the word correctly?
Regarding the energy, I'm fairly sure the amount of time/effort/energy saved by these... 'interesting' spellings is so low it would take 10000s of words to even get near the amount of energy I use out of pure frustration every time I see one. So straight away they're hurting the energy balance of the entire world.
I've made a decision anyway, from now on, if I get a post on any social media network that can't be bothered typing things out in proper English. I can't be bothered reading it, or any future posts by that person. Acronyms are fine, twitter shortening I can live with if it's to bring it in under limit. But I'm 'neva' going '2' 'rply' '2' 'ne'shite I 'c' '4rm' shortened word using people.
Just learn to spell for Gods sake, I know you didn't pay attention in 'skool' 'cos' you were to 'kool' but really, I don't give a fuck, yes I said fuck not 'fuk' or 'fk'.
I'm not saying I everyone needs to write by my standards, people can write what they like how they like. I'm saying I can't be arsed getting my English>Chav dictionary out to read someone it turns out I wasn't interested in anyway. I don't want perfect English, there must be people out there who find my grammar offensive (how many 'that's are in this piece alone??)
To be honest for all the intelligent well thought out stuff that comes across it, I'm tempted to bin my Facebook completely. Honestly, I can live without it, it wasn't for the photos on there I'd do it now. I'm fairly sure I have enough backups anyway. Actually yeah, I'm going to do it now!! Maybe.
Being more positive, Newsthump have used a few of my things of late woo-hoo must be getting better (remember look for the stuff 'by Andrew Driscoll' including the current headline). Also, I'm working on a plan to try my hand at my own site, it's been a while since I did HTML, but it's all good fun.
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