Where does time go….?

So this has probably been the worst stint of blog keeping ever, and I have several good excuses lined up! First is the omni-present GTA IV. This is the first game in ages that Ive played where I dont really feel the need to progres through the main story. Im walking aorund, buying clothes, helping passers by, and beating the be-jesus out of folks that cuss at me. Its just so fascinating to hang around one spot for a a few hours, see the weather change, the sun drop in the sky, over hear all the different conversations that go on…..etc… you get the idea. You can litterally waste hours and not do anything - its like a black hole of time! So thats one excuse down.

Excuse 2 - Ive been busy trying to sort out my car getting fixed. After much hassling via phone and beating my head against a wall, it looks like my car is finally being sorted out by the guy that hit it, on his insurance. I actually got a call from the repair shop today that I may have to drop my car in to them as early as tomorrow, so thats a weight off my mind. Got a poo-ey Hyundai Getz as a courtesy car, but hey….at least I GET a courtesy car.

Excuse 3, and this is probably the most prevalent one. We’ve been hugely pre-occupied with house inspections, getting a mortgage sorted and spending an-holy amount of time on real estate websites. The last 2 weekends have just been frittered away on walking for miles, investigating the surrounding areas and attending house inspections around the clock. Its been both physically, and mentally exhausting. Every place we’ve seen so far fails to tick all of the right boxes. They either have no carspace, no outdoor area, have a poor kitchen, have no character, are too expensive or have all kinds of weird and wonderful rules and regulations that inhibit buying them. We saw 7 last weekend, saw 6 this weekend, already got 2 lined up for midweek and am waiting to see what crops up next weekend. Saying that, we’ve both got our heads screwed on and are not settling for anything less than…well…..what we want.

So there you have it, 3 perfectly reasonable, legitimate excuses. Its not just blogging that has suffered though. Weve got a crapload of downlaoded TV, and recorded TV that we just havent had time to see yet. Not been for a relax on teh beach in a while either. Im just thankful that excuse 1 serves as a bit of escapism from excuse 2 and 3, or I’d be going mad right now! Saying that Ive just watched Match of the Day, and its been some of the most thrilling TV Ive seen in a while. Been a great Premiership this season, with it going right down to the wire. I just wish some of the Aussies here could have seen it, to ween them off the crapness of gAy.F.L.

Rubbish Australian Mongrels!

So, Ive not been posting recently - due to GTA IV eating up a shocking amount of time, being back at work and being tired, and well, me being crap. SO I’ll give you the short versions of whats been going on.

1, - GTA IV and UEFA 2008 are both extremely good.

2, - The friend count is going up with me meeting up with a Manucunian to watch the PROPER footy.

3, - Some twat has hit my car while it was parked up on the street. Nice big dent in the front passenger side panel and in the door. They left a note thats scribble, and has a fake phone number on it. So its going through MY insurance, having to pay $450 excess for something that was nothing at all to do with me. Bloody marvellous! Be glad when we have our own place and off road parking. Im paranoid now at how many other shitty drivers are going to run into my car, but there not much I can do about it.

Thats the short version anyway, theres been so much more minutia, but the post would be several page long and would take me more time to type it than all the people that would read it. So, I’ll be more frequent, especially as I have annoying stuff to speak of.

No Work Update Below….

….as there is no significant change, so its just going to be a recap on non-work related stuff that ive been up to. The weather has been fantastic here over the past week, despite the fact that its the end of September, in northern hemisphere terms. Its been almost consistently 23/24 degrees, each day with the sun going down about 5.30, so it IS in fact close to UK sunrise/sunset times. But Ive been making the most of it, going along to St Kilda pier most afternoons, taking my book with me then having a cake and a cuppa at the cafe at its end. On Thursday, we even saw one of the often mentioned/never seen St Kilda penguins, that nest in the breakwater. I always thought that there were penguins there ONCE, but with the influx of tourists, they’d gone elsewhere. However, we’ve seen them now with our own eyes - it was great!

For the second day on the run, we’ve gone for a bit of a drive in my new car, roof down, soaking up the sun. Today we took a drive down to Sandringham, and had a quick look about. Its a very affluent area, with lots of posh cars and big houses and a huge, deserted beach. I have no idea why folks chose not to spend time here, as it was lovely - you couldnt hear anything other than the waves lapping against the shore. Ive added a few photos to my Photoshop Express page, which Ive put a permanent link to on the right……here——->

In other news (videogame haters, skip the next couple of paragraphs) Ive had a rethink on Mass Effect and got right stuck into it, with overall positive results, but with a small number of reservations. First the good points. The story line and character development is top notch, with me actually getting attached to certain members of my squad, having my favourites to accompany me on missions, based on nothing more than if I liked them or not as people! It sounds messed up but Bioware really did a great job of making these people actually seem real, with coherent individual agendas, without going down the cliched videogame route of hideously over-egged stereotypes. the games environment too deserves a mention, with it actually feeling like you were engaging in a large space opera spanning multiple systems, with each story mission having a distinct feel to it. However, there are down points, specifically to do with the environments too. The side quests arent too hot, with most of them being identikit versions of the last, the only difference being this ones on a snow planet, this ones on a desert planet, etc…. Right down to the space ships and buildings, all of them are the same, with just different crates inside. This really ruins the brilliant job that Bioware did with the rest of the games universe, as it takes you out of the realms of fantasy and the shoddy game design pokes through and ruins the illusion. The other area that Mass Effect isnt too good at is with the purchase/managing of weapons and items. I dont think I bought one single thing in the whole game, rendering the entire money system useless. You get far more powerful stuff by searching through enemy lockers and crates, but this has its own negative consequence. Your inventory can only hold 150 items, which include all your weapons, your armour, grenades and biotic amp, each of which have up to 3 upgrades on each item, making managing what you have a lengthy procedure. None of which is helped by there being no “convert all” button, and when you DO select an item from the list to get rid of, it resets the list and puts you back at the top. It really does sound like Im picking flies, but when you have to do as much inventory juggling as you do in ME, then it really does start to annoy. Other larger scale niggles include the games length. Im on the last mission now, and it didnt take me long to get there. I now this game is the first of a trilogy, but thats no excuse to shorten it deliberately. Compared to Oblivion, both in terms of game size and amount hours invested, ME is minuscule. It also sometimes feels like it holds your hand too much, telling you exactly where to go, what to do and what your next step is. A more open ended approach may have been better. However, thats not to say I didnt enjoy, I did. Im on the last mission now, as well as mopping up a few side quests and its been hugely enjoyable. The story really does hook you, especially me being a sci-fi nerd, and having just recently finished a great book (more later) I found I just couldnt put the controller down. I had to see what happened next. So far, the game gets a solid 8/10.

In other game type news, Im going to have a bit of a clear out. Out goes Assassins Creed (ace game but Ive done everything I wanted to do with it), Sega Tennis (again, god game, but multiplayer is borked and single player gets ridiculously difficult on the last “bonus stage”, and Frontlines (crap singleplayer, but brilliant multiplayer, ruined by lack of support and not many folks playing - plus Battlefield and Quake Wars are nearly out, both being similar and being part of already established franchises). In comes Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 (got it cheap off Ebay) and GTA 4, which Im really looking forward to now. The more I read about it, the more impressed I am with it. Opinions to come on Tuesday.

Enough with the games, and onto books, which is pretty rare for me! I finished Iain M Banks new book, Matter recently (thanks to my St Kilda pier adventures!) and I was impressed with it. The last book I read of his was Inversions, which was too dull for my liking, and I missed The Algebraist, which seemed good, but not much to do with the Culture universe of its predecessors. However, Matter is right back into the Culture setting, but through clever use of technology, intertwines the fantastic futuristic setting, with a more medieval story line, which I initially was sceptical of, but the more I read it, the less of an issue it became, and eventually, both storylines meet and continue as one. Its typical Banks, with sprawling galaxies, battles, many distinct and interesting characters and all with his trademark attention to detail and descriptive nature. My only complaints are the books loss of purpose in its middle section, with it getting bogged down in the journeys of both sets of protagonists, and its abrupt ending, right when its hit its stride. On the strength of this, I started up Mass Effect (above) which isnt to dissimilar to Banks writing, and Ive got a Peter Hamilton book to get into now. This is a 1000 pager though, AND part of a trilogy so no reports anytime soon of how THIS book is!

Well, Im sorry for the long post, but I didnt think it woudl go on for this long. Future plans include going to an out of town shopping centre tomorrow, and then for a few drinks with a work colleauge. Oh, and probably nothing else too strenuous as Crooks coming down with a cold. Better not give it to me! Anyway, Im going to end this now before it gets any longer.

Work. Games. Car. (In that order)

Howdy! Well this is another short update, as…well….we havent been up to much due to the turbulent work situation. No work = no money = no going out. Everything is the same as when I last posted, and after speaking to folks today, its still in full effect. Frustrating, but Im not upsetting anyone this early into my Boeing career. Anyway, i dont really want to say anymore about it on here so I’ll zip it!

This break in working life has let me catch up on my gaming hobby, allowing me to revisit Forza, Gotham Racing and Halo 3. Halo has actually finally got me hooked on its multiplayer component. Its just so well balanced and for want of a better word, fair. Compared to a few frustrating rounds I played of Frontlines (spawn, dead, spawn, dead, spawn, dead, sp….you get the idea) its simple to pick up but takes a long time to get good at. Ive had my ass handed to me on several occasions by people of a much higher skill, but Ive done my fair share of killing too. Strange, on some rounds Im just cooking on gas, then the next round Im as flat as a pancake. Still, I was the same with BF1942. Im continuing to plug my way through Sega Tennis and Burnout, with the former becoming quite frustrating. Not sure how much milage I’ll be able to squeeze out of it as online, as its bloody awful, suffering from terrible lag. Your opponent is able to return your strokes, even when theyre 6 foot away from the ball. I’l see how many achievements I can get out of it, then trade it in, probably for GTA IV, which Im increasingly looking forward to. Not long to go now…..

Finally, my money has FINALLY come through successfully, so I’ll be going to the Mazda garage tomorrow to pick up my car. Hopefully anyway. Last I heard the garage wanted a heads up on when Im collecting it, so it can be valeted and the guy Ive been speaking to wasnt in today. Also got to get my insurance sorted for tomorrow too, but that shouldnt be a problem. Im excited but its a bit scary. Ive never driven over there before, and Ive never driven on my own, let alone in a new car! Oh well, Ive got TomTom Jane to help me out, at least thats what I think she’s called! I’ll keep you updated on what happens anyway.

Right oh, must dash. My thai take out isnt going to choose iteself!

Ups & Downs

A quick update to let you know whats going on, and that all is NOT well. Im personally ok, but work isnt. I dont want to write anything huge about it on a public blog, but go here for details.

I had written a big speel about me buying Sega Superstars tennis, but WordPress screwed up and I lost the text, and Im not writing it all again. Short version - If you like tennis games, buy Virtua Tennis. If you like Sega, fun, or read UK Resistance, you owe it to yourself to buy this game. My opinion, 8/10.

I may also be able to pick my car up this weekend. Cutting a long story short, my money is due in my Australian account tomorrow, so if I do a same day transfer to the dealership, I could be quids in to pick it up. We’ll see.

Im sure more stuff has happened, but Im pretty tired so I’ll post more tomorrow, when hopefully I’ll have more to say. come to mention it, I think Im going to end the daily posting business. If Im honest, if i put myself in some of my friends/families positions, I wouldnt particularly be interested in reading about what other people had for tea, or the fact that they did nothing at the weekend. I can understand that folks may have been interested during our honeymoon period here, when everything was new, strange and exciting, but now day-to-day life has set in, it doenst make for a particularly thrilling read. So I will probably be posting every other day, or every 3 days from now on. I would say let me know your thoughts, but seeing as only my Mom comments/emails me about it, I wont bother as I know its a fruitless exercise.

Friends, Food and Frontlines

Firstly, yet again, sorry for the lack of posts. Been due to us actually having a social life, tiredness and well,,, lazyness I suppose. Will do my best to not let it happen again!

So a quick recap on days gone by. On Friday, we met a friend from work in a pub up the road for food and beers. After that we left to go to a local venue to see CSS. Once again, strange Australian band times were in effect with doors opening at 8.30 and the CSS not actually coming on stage until 11.30! Was a good sized venue and Im looking forward to seeing Architecture in Helsinki there. CSS were…well….they were OK. Nothing remarkable but fairly competent anyway.

Saturday we slept in real late, probably until gone 1pm. The week just caught up on us, plus we had a late night on Friday to contend with too. Popped into St Kilda for a mooch about, then just came back and read the papers/played games. Went out to meet more friends from work for post birthday drinks, and got invited to one of the guys, sisters birthday party in the CBD. So we went along to a nice bar, had some, or many drinks then left in time to get the last tram (1am). Was a real good night, as we met and talked to some nice folks. Hopefully the first of many get togethers.

Today we’ve been proper lazy. Clocks changed so we had an extra hour in bed, which also meant that we didnt wake up until 10 (doesnt sound so bad that way!). Did some food shopping and just “done stuff” during the day. Ive really enjoyed myself, as I had some Star Wars Lego for my birthday, so spent the afternoon watching the 1st episode of the new series of the Gadget Show, with a cuppa and a desk covered in Lego bits and instructions. Reminded me of how much we used to love building stuff out of it when we were kids. Unfortunately it could turn out to be a rather expensive hobby, as the latest Lego kits are pretty pricey. Theres a limited edition Millenium Falcon Lego model on Ebay for $800!!!! Ouch! But if you do a bit of research online, folks have made custom models for pretty much everything. From Aliens models, to tanks, to Johnny 5, all of which are fantastic and predictably, expensive to make. Oh well, I’ll keep my eye on Ebay for cheap kits - was a real treat to get back to it though!

As the picture in the post may suggest, we have struck veritable gold! You CAN get Marmite in supermarkets here!!!! And its not ridiculously expensive UK imported Marmite, its bonafide, produced over here, cheap Marmite. Except its called “Our Mate”. Woo Hoooo! On the subject of food, I had a good, tasty cumberland sausage with mash last night at the pub -  was a welcome change from horrific soapy australian beef sausages. Becca’s made a superb homemade pie this afternoon. Pickled onions, steak, lots of wine, puff pastry with a side of mash - god damn it was good! Cant wait to have it again, so we can both make pigs of ourselves…..again!

Games wise, its been more Burnout, more Forza, and Ive really got into Frontlines. I was all set to trade it in on Saturday, but gave it another bash online, and this time there were quite a few games in progress, so I joined the 1st one and had a blast! Lots of weapons, equipments and levels that arent in the singleplayer. The team and kit balance is brilliat with no uber-class that out performs everything else. Its kit structure is also pretty novel - youve got your standard, assault, sniper, anti-armour etc… but then you can pick a role to play. For example, I can pick anti-armour, with a ground support role. Now the more points I get, the more XP I earn towards 3 upgradable “perks” such as perk 1, a blow torch to repair vehicles, perk 2, a deplyable mini-gun and perk 3, a deployable automatic sentry gun. You can vary your role selection, as well as your kit selection each time you spawn so you can really tailor your loadout depending on how youre going. If youre doing some heavy defending, sentry guns, and EMP beacons are the way to go. Attacking you can go for air strikes and remote drones. It really adds a huge degree of depth to the proceedings, with the rock-paper-scissors style of balance contributing to an vast, open and ever changing battlefield. So, ultimately Ive changed my mind on trading it on (and Im sorry Andy, but Mass Effect is still going). Dont misunderstand me though the singleplayer component of Frontlines  is pretty poor, and boring. Its the multiplayer that keeps this game from sinking and should do me nicely until BF:BC comes out anyway.

So there you go - its been hectic, and lazy at the same time. Above everything else, its been fun. The weather has picked back up again too, although I hear the UK has gone the opposite way and has had a fair bit of snow! Haw……and indeed….haw!  It was hazy all day yesterday and been sunny all day today, with temperatures reaching about 22 degress. The week ahead looks good too, with it reaching a high of 28 next Friday. This all bodes well for me picking my car up next week. My money didnt trasfer from the UK in time for me to be able to get the car weekend just gone, but will definitely have cleared for next weeked. As for other plans, Im badminton-ing tomorrow, seeing a comedian on Tuesday (I forget who exactly!) and seeing another comedian on Friday, by the name of Ross Noble. Cant wait for this one!

I’ll duno when I’ll post again, becasue of above committments, but I’m going to see how it goes making more frequent, short posts rather than infrequent mega-posts like this one. The time I spend doing links to stuff seems pretty pointless too as I can see from my admin page that nobody clocks them, so I can at least keep posts nice and simple. Let me know through comments what youre opinions are, as I either you guys dont know how to use them…or nobody can be arsed leaving comments. I can see I get a fair ammount of traffic per day, but no comments are left - what gives! Anywhow, Im off to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who. Nighty night!

Birthday Post!

Another year older, and I dont think a year has gone by when I could have imagined so much change, both good and terrible. I can only be thankful that all the thing we have planned, or are planning have turned out,well, and just hope that the next year is….well…..less turbulent, at the very least and has no more sickening shocks around the corner.

 

Anyway, enough of the pensive, thoughtful stuff….its my birthday goddammit! Got up early so I could A, open my presents before work, and B, watch the Liverpool vs Arsenal match (I was hoping for a Gunners loss, but 1-1 is a pretty good result for the ‘pool). I got choccies, a t-shirt, book, toys, nick-nacks, a cap (yes it DOES fit Anne - cheers!), a DVD and a few cards. Id already had my main present off Becca (comedy festival gala tickets), and still have a  couple stuck in the post, winging their way to me as we speak. Considering we dont know many folks here, its not a bad haul for my first birthday away from friends and family.  Its also my first Birthday Ive ever worked, but it was better than moping about at home on my own. Plus I treated myself to a huge bacon and egg roll, and a lovely chocolate orange cake - fatty fat fat fat. Was meant to be going out for meal later, but the more I sit here, the more that takeout becomes a more attractive proposition. Im dead tired and just dont think I would appreciate the full meal “experience”. Got The Apprentice, the Gadget Show and Traffic Cops downloaded from UK TV so will probably watch those later, as well as a few games online…

 

…speaking of which - games. Had a bit of a mooch through my collection and can feel a clearout coming on. I bought Frontlines, mainly as a bit of a Battlefield substitute (I didnt have the BFBC beta when I bought it) so seeing as I had completed it, and wouldnt be ruining any new weapons or vehicles if I took it online I decided to try it on multiplayer. It was then I discovered that I could only find 2 games in progress, 1 with 1 player and the 2nd with 3 players. Out of 24 possible players. Hmmm! If this is the level of community around this game, its being traded in. On top of this, the BFBC beta makes it look like a NES game - so damn drab and dull. Dont get me wrong, its a competent game, its just completely un-spectacular. Next on my list was Mass Effect. I know some might object (you Andy!) but I just cant be arsed to get back into it. The inventory system is broken, the micromanagement of your squad/equipment is unnecessary,  and its one of those games that doesnt exactly do anything to help you understand its conventions or controls when you start from scratch, let alone when youre halfway through a mission. So thats added to the trade in list. In contrast, I had some enjoyable times online with Forza 2 last night, with some people of about equal skill. Made for some real tense races, and makes the game so much more interesting knowing that people stuff up sometimes, which the AI opponents never did. Burnout is still enjoying some of my attention too, as is, bizarrely, Pacman Championship Edition. I was never a fan of Pacman by any stretch of the imagination, but this remake, has lovely jazzed up visuals, and far more interesting play modes than just “eat stuff, get a high score”. I dont know whether to give Bully a shot, as Ive heard it is meant to be hugely enjoyable, but with the imminent release of GTA IV, I dont know if it will tire me out of sandbox games before Ive even played it. Who knows!

 

Weather here yesterday was crazy - super super strong winds - we had 95km/h in Melbourne, with other regions in Victoria getting up to 130km/h! The kind of wind that really did push you off your feet. Today has been more representative of typical Melbourne weather. Its been sunny, warm, windy, rainy and mild - makes life more interesting.

 

Plans for the next few days…..tomorrow were off to the pub with a fellow Boeing engineer, then off to see CSS, and Saturdays plans may have changed. Im still waiting to receive my trasnferred money from the UK so its unlikely I will be able to pay for my car this week, so will have to wait until next week. Annoying I know, but nowt I can do about it.  Saturday evening will be out in the CBD with work chums and we’ll see where that takes us. So there you go, not exactly an exciting, rollercoaster ride of a birthday, but an OK one non-the-less. Here’s to the year ahead……cheers!

Be Kind, Rewind and Stuff

Once again, sorry for the tardiness of this post. Yesterday I was shockingly tired from badminton and today has been pretty busy. Had a bunch of stuff to sort out at work, and had a meeting with a mortgage guy right after work. The short story is that we CAN get a mortgage for the range of house prices we’re after (in fact we could get a loan for nearly DOUBLE what we want!) and its more a matter of how much we can afford to pay each week/month than how much can we get a loan for. The options open to us are both vast and complicated, but the guy did show us a scenario in which it could be possible for us to repay our mortgage in 10 years! Shocking, but all his sums seemed right - will have to give it some serious thought.

 

Secondly, we went to our local cinema which is the George theatre on Fitzroy St. Its a nice litle 3 screen cinema with a bar, hot drinks and cakes, so will soon become our cinema of choice I reckon. No annoying kids, lots of beer and cuppa’s! We decided to go see Be Kind, Rewind starring Jack Black, Mos Def and Danny Glover. Its basically a film about 2 guys who accidentally erase all the videos in their store and remake them all themselves. Now, Im not generally a fan of Jack Black, but he’s not too overbearing in this perfectly amusing, popcorn movie. Its not going to reinvent the wheel, or cause a big stir, but its good at what it does, with the Ghosbusters remake being my favourite (especially the whole “how do we shoot it at night” scene!). Gets a bit cheesy at the end, but like I said, it does what it says on the tin admirably. If you want to see a light hearted, charming, throwaway comedy, you could do worse than see this film. 7/10.

 

Not much else gone on. Not got to play Xbox for a couple of days due to tiredness and lack of time, but should hopefully sort that out tomorrow. Really getting back into it in a big way now, after a short hiatus playing solely on Wii, thanks in no small part to Burnout and Battlefield Bad Company. Ive even gone as far into planning ot get back into COD 4 online, once the BF:BC beta ends in a few weeks. Ah, on second thoughts, that will only be a couple of days before GTA 4, and I can see that eating up a lot of my time, so maybe I’ll give COD another go this week.

 

Plans for the rest of the week….nowt for tomorow (except aforementioned gaming), Thursday we’ll be off out for Birthday food, and Friday we’re having a a few drinks with the guy who’s training me at work then off to a gig (CSS at the Prince Bandroom). For once a busy week, full of excitement, thrills and beer! And me being a year older :o(

Battlefield Bad Company

Sorry, but this post is mostly as the title says. Its all Ive been playing for 2 days now. I have probably put more hours into this beta than COD 4 and Halo 3 combined….and I have the full games of those! this is just a fantastic game - Im not sure if its just me, loving the Battlefield series as I do, but it just feels more of a team game than COD 4. Less snapshot kills, in the way that whoever see’s who first in COD is generally the winner. Its slower, more methodical, and you get rewarded well if you move in groups. A medic to heal, a support guy to drop ammo, a special ops guy to “paint” heavy targets, anda  recon guy to call in an airstrike. When it works, and people decide not to rambo it, but team up, its a joy to play. Got 2 knifey knifey kills too, with the nice touch being when you knife somebody, you collect their dogtags, which can be viewed like a trophy room in the awards section. Has some really good stats tracking and medals behind the scenes too, which sounds kind of corny, but it acts like achievements - you end up REALLY trying to get specific medals and rewards. 

 

Granted it doest look as slick as COD, but you can blow up buildings with your grenades in COD. Most other FPS’s are good, but once you try and play them after BFBC (as it shall henceforth be known) they seem static and rubbish. Like playing Half Life 2, then going to play, I dunno, something where everything is glued to the floor and you cant interact with the environment at all. It ends up feeling like half an experience. I had a great moment today, when I was trying to shoot a guy hiding in a building today, failing, so I dropped off my sniping point, bought out my nade launcher, fired a couple in the enemy buildings general direction, then ran towards his position with the nades still in the air. As I ran against the wall of the building he was hiding in, the nades hit and his corpse flew out of the building onto he floor in front of me, still with ragdoll limbs flailing. Cant wait to unlock some new weaponry and equipment. ANd I cant wait until June, when it should come out. 

 

Other things Ive been up to today……messing around with the recently released Photoshop Express, which is an entirely online photo album and editing package. I am mightily impressed with it, as it read Facebook albums, is quick at uploading your own and for a Flash program is quite adept and basic photo manipulation. Is all I will ever need anyway. If you use any image editing software, or subscribe to one of these online photo hosting sites, I would certainly give PSE a try. At the moment its in Beta (like most good things right now!) and is totally free, so what have you got to loose!

 

Plans for tomorrow - go over to Brighton to have a butchers at this car Im after. Scary as I am going to have to haggle, and take it out for a test drive, which is scary as it will be the first time Ive been out in a car without somebody shouting instructions at me. And I dont know the area! Shoudl be…….interesting. If I can get him down to the right price, I may even put a deposit down on it, until my money comes through from the UK. Is all very exciting, and scary at the same time.

 

Weather was still cold (18 degrees cold anyway) and Im sitting here with my fleece on and the aircon on “Heat” mode! We’ve turned intolerant of anything below 20 degrees since being here….wimps! Oh well, I see its about 10 degrees in Birmingham so we’re still warmer than the UK - god knows how I would be coming if we were still in Kings Heath!

Short and Sweet….Not at all like me then!

Just a short, brief post to let you know what Ive been up to, but not in much detail. Its 11.37pm, which means its precisely 17 minutes past my bedtime. But a promise is a promise and I said I wouldnt leave it more than a couple of days in between posts, so here I am.

 Been to see 2 comedians tonight - Reginald D Hunter, and Kristen Schaal, both of them excellent, and both with totally different styles of comedy. Hunter was a straight talking, very funny American dude with traditional observational comedy, whilst Schaal did a kind of geeky, nerd like performance and the humour was very odd. Definitely an acquired taste, and definitely to OUR taste!

Before that, I downloaded and was playing the hell out of the Battlefield Bad Company beta for Xbox 360. Damn….what a fantastic beta - its invites only, multiplayer only but it gives a really good impression of what the final product will be like. Best thing about the game……you actually can blow up, pretty much anything. No cover (bar the fortress on the 2nd map) is impenetrable. Pesky sniper in the barn? Blow a hole in the side wall or roof! Enemies the other side of a very large, very long wall? Punch a hole in it and stroll through. It adds SO much to a very crowded, tired genre. Plus the fact its classic Battlefield at its best. Helo’s, tanks, jeeps, boats…. Its also stolen some of the niceties from COD 4 such as the whole ranking and unlock system. Increases in score/rank allow you access to new weapons and equipment. I’ll post more details after I have a proper sit down with it tomorrow.

Oh, I bought a sat nav before going to the town hall tonight too - TomTom XL - got a good deal on it. Planing on going to see the car Im after this Saturday and dont want to get lost. Been getting tips at work, on how to handle the guys at car dealerships too, in order to get myself the best possible price. I dont particularly like or relish the thought of haggling, so its going to require a lot of effort on my behalf. Still….if its gets me a few $1k off the price, it will be worth the discomfort.

Not much else to say…in detail anyway. Except the worm has finally turned here and the weather is pants. Raining all day, and despite it being 18 degrees, it feels like its -10 - bloody freezing. You really do become accustomed to the heat. We’re both sitting here in thick jumpers and drinking lots of tea. Have to keep reminding ourselves that at least its not UK cold…….yet! I’ll do a more in depth post either tomorrow or on Saturday. Ciao for now, you big fat cow!

Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty…..

Howdy. Firstly, apologies for the no post over the past few days. Thursday I was tired from badminton, Friday I was lazy and Saturday…well……we’ll come to that. Either way, I should have posted soemthing, but its beginning to dawn on me that I may not post everyday from now on. On a routine day, not a fat lot happens other than I go to work, and come home, which doesnt really make for good reading. As a consequence, If I dont post on a set day, I’ll post on the next one from now on. I dont want to let the blog slide, but I dont want to bore everyone (even more!) with talk of nothing. Anyway, I digress.

 So Thursday we played badminton, and I lost every game, mainly because of the lack of sleep the night before. My heart wasnt really in it so I hope for better results next week. Friday….I went to work despite it being a public holiday but got a shitload done so it was well worth it. The overtime loading will be nice in next weeks paycheck too!

On Saturday we went to Chadstone shopping centre and came back with quite a lot of new stuff. Becca got a couple of tops and some girls stuff, while I came away with a portable mouse for my notebook (more later), an ipod speaker dock, a new ninja fast, ninja quiet kettle (sounds stupid but you could hardly hear yourself talk over our last kettle!) and I traded in 3 games (Rainbow 6, Conan and Command & Conquer) to get……..

……Burnout Paradise…..and while I was sceptical at the time, seeing that I was trading in so many quality games for “just another Burnout Game”, after several hours of play I feel totally justified in my choice. Burnout Paradise is one of THE best arcade style racing games Ive ever played. The sense of speed is incredible and when you crash it really does make you wince. There is great feeling of the kinetics of the world in the sense that you really do feel like you have a tangible physical prescence within the city. The new open world format, while annoying to some is pleasing to me. The fact that you cant just retry a race if youve just failed doesnt bother me as it was the same in Test Drive Unlimited. It feels like there is a huge amount of things to do, as well as the “main missions” within the game, there are a multitude of other sidelines to keep you busy. Each stretch of road has its own time trial and crash mode target to beat. You can find all of the car parks, ramps, jumps, and billboards to smash through all over the map. There really is a lot to get on with and Im only just scratching the surface with what I tell you here. Its also pretty tasty using the wheel instead of a controller too - I feel a lot more in touch with the car than I ever did with the pad. In short, if you like racing games of any variety , you owe it to yourself to check out Burnout. 

The only reason I got the mouse was to help me with Adobe Illustrator. Ive taken to having a play around with it on the strenght of a DIY t-shirt website. Ive not seen any purchase-worthy T shirts around for a few months and its been annoying me that all tee’s seem to be either flouro related, or crappy vintage prints, none of which I go for. So the website in question allows you to make your own tee, with your own designs, as long as you send them a decent image to put on it. And since you need a decent dpi jpeg file for it to appear unpixellated, a vector image is prefered. Now I wont go into the pro’s and cons of vector and raster images but Ive never produced any before, and today Ive had quite a bit of fun with Illustrator and got some pretty decent results. It was just impossible to get a decent amount of control with a trackpad, so this mouse was essential. I wont show you anything Ive done yet as it still work in progress, but I’ll let you know how it pans out. For all I know, that site may just print your picture onto a rubbish iron on transfer!

Today we’ve done nowt (well, ive played my game and messed around with Illustrator) and we’ve gone for a walk around as its been a nice 27 degrees kinda day. We went to a new ice cream place thats opened up on Fitzroy St and got some very ….different…ice creams. Its gimmick is to let you pick your ice cream of which there are all sorts of fancy flavours (peanut butter, ferrero roche, strawberry trifle, etc…) then you pick some bits and pieces to smush into your ice cream (smarties, gummi bears, bounty bars, M & M’s, etc…). I had a cone and it was fupping huge! I plummed for white chocolate ice cream, and had a snickers bar, and some peanut M & M’s mashed into it - bloody lovely. You leave with all kinds of crazy combinations and flavours popping around your mind and I cant wait to go back. In the evening we went to see Stephen K Amos as being part of the comedy festival - a very funny guy. We have a lot more tickets booked, but I cant remember all of their names for now, but I’ll post about them just before we see them. We also bought tickets today to see Architecture in Helsinki and CSS at a local venue in St Kilda - should be good!

 Right, thats more than enough typing/reading for 1 day. I’ll post next when something exciting happens. May not be tomorrow but I will DEFINITELY post on Tuesday, to let you know how my driving test went.  

More evil than a pound of mashed up Dundee cake!

No post yesterday as :-

•  We didnt do anything spectacular
•  We were both ill

We both ate a frozen quiche last night, that must have gone off or something, as later on the pair of us endured hideous stomach cramps, sweats then the inevitable bum gravy. Very unpleasant indeed. the stomach cramps kept me awake way past bedtime last night, so I rang in late so I could catch up on lost sleep. Neither of us have eaten all day, but we are both feeling better now. Last time I buy a quiche from Safeway!

In other news, Becca starts her job next week, after Easter. Im not sure if Im repeating what she’s said on her blog, but there is is anyway. What have I been up to…..er….. working, watching TV, and thinking that this time next week, I will either have a Full Victoria Driving License, or crying into my pint and booking another test ASAP.  

Played a bit more Frontlines, but the kill-a-thon is wearing a bit thin now. I reckon I pushed myself to get back in the FPS saddle too quickly. Nevermind, I’ll just press on with Metroid.  The 360 really isnt doing it for me at the moment. Ooooo….the moment I typed that I checked a gaming news site and found that Forza is getting more cars tomorrow, one of which will be the Maserati Gran Turismo - DEFINITELY be getting that.  Im also more surprised than anyone that last night I actually chose to read my book over TV and gaming!!!! I never thought Id see the day! On saying that, it IS an extremely good book though, and easily as addictive as a good game. Just one more chapter……..

So there you have it, pretty uneventful really. Better decide what we’re having for tea. Nothing too volatile thats for sure! Oh, and 10 points for recognising the post title reference (Andy’s not included ;o)

My New Babies! Oh, and something about a Grand Prix-thing???

So, as you can see, Ive changed things around a bit. I was getting a bit bored of the old look, and it felt a bit “Windows-ey” so Ive gone with this theme. I think it looks more fresh, and clean, but post a comment if you think otherwise, or have problems with it. 

I’ll also have to apologise for the lack of posts over the past 2 days. On Friday (you may or may not be aware) we were celebrating Becca getting a job! Wooo hooo! Working at a lab over in Clayton (East Melbourne) doing science (though not with GLADOS - sorry nerd reference). She is starting next week I think, but will know more details soon. So, to toast this news, we went out to a fabulous restaurant, right on the sea front, and managed to get a seat on the balcony overlooking the setting sun - it was lovely. And Im not sorry to say that the food matched the view - it was bloody stunning, and I reckon we’ll be going there revisiting it extremely soon. Strawberry and apple crumble topped with macadamia nuts - yum!

Saturday was spent in and around St Kilda at house inspections. We visited some really nice places, and one, which was simply stunning. Right on Marine Parade (sea front) with huge rooms, walk in robes and a patio with doors from the front room AND the bedroom. However, it was a bit out our price range, but its not hurting anyone to have a nose around.Today was driving lesson (last one before my test!) and more house inspections. The one we went to today was a really nice unit, with a massive amount of storage a great bathroom and a really nice kitchen but wasnt really in a great area. Much further from the beach than Id like, but at least we know what else is around.  After that, I went down to the beach to catch the flypasts by several FA18’s fighter jets and a rather low flying Qantas 747 - was mighty impressive, but what the photos (on facebook and webspace, page “oz photos 4″) dont show is the noise, speed, and just how low these things were. Like I say, impressive. The Grand Prix itself has been pretty good from our pespective, although I dare say if I lived up in Albert park itself I probably wouldnt say the same. Lots of eurotrash hanging around, dressed in awful, ill fitting clothes and being brash and noisy. Despite us being about a mile from the circuit itself, the noise coming from there was pretty loud. We were both really surprised at just how much we could hear the cars bombing around. 

Finally, a quick game update. Metroid 3 is damn good, feeling atmospheric and tense. The control scheme takes some getting used to, but once you adapt to how unusual it is, it becomes second nature. Much more like using keyboard and mouse than a standard console controller. I just cant help wonder how much grander it would have felt if the Wii had a bit more grunt under the bonnet.  Some moments are just aching for more grandiose graphics and effects, but on the whole its a great game. More details to follow - Im only just off the 1st level. Frontlines again, is a good game. The presentation isnt anything spectacular but it has solid gameplay. The FPS aspect of it is never going to challenge COD4 or Halo 3, but there are a few aspects where it excels. The open ended levels are truly opened ended, with more than just 1 avenue of attack, and multiple choices on how to tackle the same objective. The other area that plays out well is the variety in the gameplay. You can run around on foot, get in a  tank, a helo, a plane, or just hide in a corner and control a plethora of RC tanks and helo’s to shoot, missile or just kamikaze the enemy.  Single player seems short, but I guess its just a warm up for the multiplayer, which I havent tried yet. I think I’ll get myself proficient with everything before taking it online. Oh, and Im still slugging through the rest of the levels in Mario Galaxy. I cant seem to put it down, despite having “finished” it. 

The week ahead is not shaping it too badly. Going to the Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala on Wednesday night, Becca should start her new job next week, and its Easter weekend coming up. I think I’ll be working it, but only if the company want to pay for taxi’s there and back - no buses up there on public holidays.  Then its driving test next week - gulp! Been 40 degrees today, and the forecast for tomorrow is 39 - damn its hot - first time I’ll ever be going to work in shorts! 

Haircuts, Trainers, Tests, Gig’s & Games

Phew - a been a lovely hot day, full of nice things. I’ll start last night.

Went out late (about 9-ish) to see Maximo Park at the Billboard, which turned out to be a club, but with a stage and stuff for bands. The venue was pretty good for bands, as it had several raised levels as you went further back from the stage so you had a good view of the band no matter where you were. The atmosphere was brilliant and the crowd loved the band and the music, which surprised me as I didnt imagine they would have a big following over here. They played out of their skin and got a great reception, with the only downside of the night being the price of the beers. $16 for 2 pure blondes! So thats about £3.50 each for a bog standard bottled beer! Oh, well I’ll know for next time. We got back around 12.30am so Im glad I had booked the following day off, as Otherwise it would have meant only 4.5 hours sleep.

As it turned out, I got close to 12 hours kip and didnt wake up until 11.30am!  So aquick shower then down the new hairdressers. Im always wary of going to a new place, as its always a worry that theyre going to butcher you, and Ive had some bad cuts from some terrible scissor merchant before. However, I was really impressed with this place. the girl who did it was talkative and seemed to love bringing me tea. I was really pleased with the “do” and will definitely be going back.

On a high from a good haircut, I went into the trainer shop near our road, and had a squizz at a new pair of Adidas they had in, which were REALLY nice……so I bought them! The guy in there was a bit of a trainer nerd like me, and also a fan of Adidas like me, so we had a good chat, and a moan about horrible flouro trainers!  I’ll make sure my new babies have pride of place on my next post - my camera battery is on charge right now. 

Went straight from there to Carlton for my hazard perception test for driving. hte journey there was more of an ordeal than the test itself as the Grand Prix has slowed things right down. The tram goes right past the course and you can guarantee a shitload of euro-trash will get on it at Middle Park and be load and annoying. The Grand Prix, as it turns out, is both exciting, and annoying! Anyway, I digress.  The test itself seemed more like pot luck more than skill. YOu got presented with a picture, taken from the drivers perspective saying htat your driving forward, or whatever. You then got a prompt saying, “you want to slow down” or “you want to turn right” then the video plays and you have to click the mouse when you think its right to do so. Except that you only have about a 0.5-1 second window to do so safely. This led to it being rather sporadic, and you didnt really know if you should clock the mouse when you actually thought it was the correct time, or try to second guess the random computer time which judged you had selected correctly. Regardless of any of this, I passed with 71% (pass mark was 54%) so the next step is the practical test in just under 2 weeks time. 

On a second high from passing the test, I went into town, and met Becca, who informed me that her interview went well. Seemed like a good job, with decent prospects and only 4 other applicants. The place said they would let her know by Monday at the latest so keep your fingers crossed.  Went a got a lovely fresh made smoothy then on to JB Hifi where I got Frontlines for my 360 (I know its another kill-a-thon game, but its more BF1942 than Call of Duty, and it was on offer this week for $79) and got Metroid 3 on Wii second hand for only $69. Even better than that, the woman who served me at the till gave me a brand spanking new copy of the game instead of a pre-owned version. Bargain! Not played either of them yet and not sure if I’ll get chance tonight, but you can be sure I’ll post my thoughts on both. I wanted to get Zak and Wiki, as again it was on special, but its sold out. Hope they get some more in before the offer runs out.

So there you go, its been a thoroughly enjoyable day off, with a lot of things purchased, and accomplished. On to tomorrow, where they reckon we could be on for another 40 degrees celsius day, so I hope they got the air con on in the factory. I think Ive remembered everything thats gone on, but if not….tough!

Games, Games and er….Games!

Been a very hot day today, with temperatures up to 37 degrees again, but it cooled off in the afternoon. The exchange rate is getting better minute by minute (was $2.12 per £, now $2.17 per £), and we’ve got some tasty stuff while at the supermarket. However the honey/soy sauce we bought to eat with out beef stir fry wasnt very nice - too vinegar-ey.

 Anyway, enough with frivolities. We decided to spend some of our day at the ACMI “Game On” exhibition, which was basically a history of videogaming.  They had over 120 playable demo stands inside ranging from old Game & Watch handhelds, through to Megadrives, right up to arcade games. Speaking of which, they had a free-play cabinet of Scud Race there so had a race or too on that, and to be perfectly honest….I wish I hadnt. Dont get me wrong, it still plays well, and the tracks are trademark Sega, but in my head, it looked like a dream, and had detail dripping from every pixel. In reality, it wasnt anything like that. If youve played any of the recent generation of racing games, Gotham Racing, Forza, Burnout etc….. they all look better than Scud Race. Shame - I’ll learn not to revisit past loved games unless I want to be disappointed. But thats not to say I had a crap time, on the contrary, it was great. Seeing some old consoles, playing on a few I never had, and got to have a quick go on Gran Turismo Prologue and well….meh! Looked pretty, but after getting used to Forza and Gothams handling, GT’s  felt a bit poo. It also felt lifeless as I played it on the non-rumble PS3 controllers, which really were poor, offering no kind of feedback when drifting, braking etc…. Ideally, Id like to give it another go on a force feedback wheel, but thats not going to be for a long time yet, so calm down. The track I played it on was also straight out of Forza so the challenge had already gone. Oh, I also got to see folks playing on Steel Battalion on the Xbox and I was mightily impressed. The custom controller was huge ,and had all manner of cool little switches, and buttons on while the game looked pretty neat too. Annoyed I missed out on it when I had my Xbox. 

I also, unfortunately finished Mario Galaxy last night. I say unfortunately as I just wanted it to go on forever. Its not a game that has awesome stand out set pieces, or specific high points, its quality runs through it from start to finish. Its 100% persistent smiles, and Im upset its over. Saying that, though, while the story mode is totally finished, the game itself still has a lot of life left in it. Ive finished 63 of the stages, and still have 57  more to go, so just over half way through!  

No more news other than that. Work and (hopefully) Badminton tomorrow so dependent on how late I finish, I may not get to post again. I also may be shockingly achy. However, I ahvent heard from my mate that was supposed to make the booking, so it may be postponed until Thursday. We’ll see!

Less Ache. More Mario. More House.

Well for once, a fair amount has happened since my last post. On Saturday, we spent most of the day in and around St Kilda, looking for houses, and going to inspections. Its all good practice for when we do come to buy a place, and it also gives us more of a feel for which areas are good, bad or indifferent. Went to a lovely place on the seafront that is within our price range, but it (and nearly all of the places we visited) all have their auction dates pretty soon, so we probably wont be able to bid. However, thats not the point of the exercise. What is heartening is that the sellers seem to be getting jittery about a the poor market conditions, and are knocking money off properties. Im sure when we looked a few weeks ago there was very little in our price range, but now theres a ton of stuff. All nice 2 bedroom properties in decent suburbs, and most of them would be up for consideration, had we the finances to bid. Its what we’ve sent most of today doing too, taking in 3 properties in the area. Very nice. Although its been 35 degrees hot so walking around has been energy sapping. 

Went round a mates house from work yesterday after our house hunting, for a few drinks and a meal. It was all very sophisti-ma-cated with high brow banter and everything. Very posh! Had some nice wine and some tasty beer and got to give his dog a fuss. Didnt drink too much though as I knew I had to be up early for my driving lesson this morning. All went well, which is good as I thought I may have been a bit rusty after no lessons for 2 weeks. To be brutally honest it was a bit boring. We just drove around for 90 minutes, not really learning anything. i shouldnt moan really, as its all good practice for my actual test. 

Played a  lot more Mario Galaxy today and it really is one of my favourite games of the past few years. Its just so much fun, its really addictive and you always want to see whats on the next level. Its unabashed merriment and I dont care if its seen as a bit childish. I think ive pretty much had it for now with realism in games. Fun is where its at, and as such, I’ll probably take my Brothers advice and buy Beautiful Katamari for 360 too. No bloody deaths, no “gritty urban environments”, no frustration, no “fiendishly clever A.I.” just pure unadulterated fun. 

Plans for the week…..I was going to go into work tomorrow but after looking at the bus timetables, I find that there is NO publice trasnport going anywhere near Boeing, so Im going to have to give it a miss. Maybe next public holiday, if they want me to work, they can pay for a taxi - we’ll see. Not sure what we will get up to tomorrow though. Becca goes to her volounteer work on Tuesday, Ive got more badminton on that day too, Wednesday we’re seeing Maximo Park, Thursday Ive got off, got a haircut and got my hazard perception test. Crook has a job interview (fingers crossed), then and Friday the chaps from work have a social thing going on in Port Melbourne so will get to meet some more people from work.  After that, its another solid weekend of inspections - should be really good. Ive thoroughly enjoyed this weekend, as its always good to look round other peoples places! 

As a parting shot, have a look at this video. Thanks to B3ta for bringing it to my attention, and for making me laugh my arse off at it! Enjoy! 

Aching. Badminton. Houses. Mario.

No prizes for noticing I didnt post last night, because as anticipated I was VERY tired after badminton. Id forgotten how much of a physical workout playing is. I was sweating as much, if not more, then 30 mins on a treadmill, and this was a LOT more fun. The guy I played with was probably on an even footing with my skills, which made for a really enjoyable match. My past 2 badminton partners have been either poor or outstanding, so this was much better. The place where we went to play was huge, and mighty impressive. Custom built for when Melbourne hosted the commonwealth games. I felt really invigorated after our game, but that quickly turned to tiredness, and aching. I still feel achy, and I reckon it will be worse tomorrow, but you have to go through this every time you let exercise slip and start it up again. Hopefully next weeks game won be so bad. 

This weekend we’re starting the whole house search thing off, in a big way. Got almost full days of viewing for tomorrow, Sunday and even stretching into next weekend. There are a lot more properties to have a look at if you want to go for 1 bedroom places, and while the some of them may not be what we’re after, it gives us a good idea of what to expect. Sunday will be my penultimate driving lesson before my test (unless I am REALLY rusty after a 2 weeks away from it). Scary. Only 17 days to go. Booked my hazard perception test booked for this coming Thursday too.

I was going to have Monday off as its a public holiday here (Labour Day) but I dont really feel the need for a day off, and they need help getting stuff sorted (and overtime rates all day will be nice!) so Im going in, and having Thursday off instead. Got a late night at a gig on Wednesday night, and as I mentioned, my hazard perception test is on Thursday afternoon and I need a haircut too, so its going to be a useful day off. And Im looking forward to a lounge about the house too.

Still loving Super Mario Galaxy. It is so nice just to listen to jolly happy tunes, watching bright green grass and blue skies roll past the foreground. Its just so much fun and brings memories back of the first time we played Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive. Who’d have thought I wouldnt even touch my 360 for a whole week!  

I may not post tomorrow night as we’ve been invited around the house of one of my colleagues at work. A very dry, and amusing Scot who lives just up the coast in Albert Park. Should be a good night, with beer consumed, so I’ll post on Sunday night instead. Have fun!

The Mega-post!!!

Right - if you get bored easily, dont bother with this post. Ive got 2 days of catching up to do so its going to be a long slog until the end of the post. Firstly, the boring stuff. Work has been good, with it getting a little busier every day so I hope it doesnt reach melting point soon. Either way, at the moment, Im actually enjoying going to work. The weather is fantastic here at the moment too, with it being 28 degrees today and its due to peak tomorrow at 32 degrees. Mad when you think it is now the equivalent of being September in the northern hemisphere. I dont ever remember it being 32 in September in the UK. 

Right, now thats out of the way I can write about other things that we’ve been doing/mulling over. Yesterday, we went into Prahran to have a look about and just to get a change of scenery from Melbourne, and really enjoyed it. Popped into a great antique/vintage shop and saw many millions of dollars of stuff that we wanted, and things that bought a tear to the eye, as fond childhood memories came flooding back. They had a pristine, mint condition boxed Starbird, in all its sound-effect and lightshow glory. You remember that Andy? Even had the little detachable ships on each wing - awesome! On our way around, I picked up some HD leads for my Wii and 360, as well as Super Mario Galaxy, but more on that later. We managed to abstain from blowing  a small fortune in the Playboy shop, as Becca found some great looking baby-doll style heeled slippers, and I saw a great looking suit. Both far too expensive though. Settled for tapas on our way home from the restaurant just up the road, which was damn nice. I usually measure the quality of a tapas joint by the tastyness of its patatas bravas, and this place didnt disappoint - an 8/10! 

Before we visited “Pu-ran” yesterday, we decided to go and have a look at an inspection, pre-auction on a property thats next door to us, and in our price range. Thought it would be good to experience just what we’ll have to go through in a few months time.  This is the property (dont forget to click the links Mom!) we went to see, which looks huge on the photos, but seemed smaller in real life but the view was more spectacular in the flesh. We had a look at the penthouse suite in the same building as it was avaiable for rent (but quite pricey) and it was lovely. Built in robes, an even better view, big bedrooms and a nice bathroom. Trying to make an appointment to see another unit tomorrow too, just to have a “stickybeak”! Good to have a nose and see what we should be expecting even if we arent in the market right now. I went back to that place up for sale this morning to sit in on the actual auction. It was a pretty slow affair and seemed like trying to get blood from a stone for the auctioneer, as nobody really wanted to pay a lot. The opening bid was for the asking price of $510k, and it finally crept for $530k, which isnt too bad for a property with that view. We’ve spent a lot of today mulling over our options, trying to predict market conditions, should be rent for a year, how much is it going to cost us to get furniture, beds, appliances etc….. and we havent really got anywhere. Renting and buying right now, have so many pluses and minuses for and against each option, and as such its like hitting your head against a wall. In the end, we decided the best thing for us to do was…..wait. We’re in this place until July, we need exchange rates to improve, we need interest rates to drop and more properties to appear on the market. We can continue to monitor whats going on without making a rash decision that will end up costing us in the long run. The property market here, and the economy, cant carry on at the levels they are right now, so its got to slow down, or burst pretty soon. We just have to wait until then and jump in!

Right, onto games. Despite it being a bumper period for games in general, with a crapload of A+++ games being released, and another quality period around the corner, Ive been getting slightly sick of it all. Bored of killing people in Assassins Creed. Killing more folks in Halo 3. Killing more folks in COD4. Killing more folks in Mass Effect. Killing more folks in Tomb Raider Anniversary. I know theyre all very different games, but I cant help feeling theyre all quite generic when considered as a whole. All are very realistic, all are very tense games and all are fiercly competitive. I feel like Ive been playing them because theyre there, rather than playing them for enjoyment, or escape. Its been fun for a while, but that fun has turned into monotony, and Ive not looked forward to switching my 360 on for a week or so.  So that has ended now and after reading countless rave reviews I bought Super Mario Galaxy, and the found the reviews were not wong. Its bloody fantastic! Really does get back to the roots of what makes a good game. Its not realistic, its not gritty, its not got lifelike textures and environments. In its place is escapism, fun, colourful, no-stress adorable gaming at its best. Even the way Mario runs put a smile on my face! If youre sick of the whole generic real-world, shoot/stab-em-up style of gaming that infests every weeks release schedule, I urge you to try this. Its bloody amazing! As a result of this I intend to change my whole perspective on buying games. Ever since 360 was released, I tended to buy a game I was fairly interested in on its release day, rather than if I actually WANTED to buy it. For instance, in the coming weeks theres Army of Two, Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and a couple of others that I acant remember which were orignally must buy games for me. On reflection, “post Mario”, I really cant be arsed with any of them. Theyre just more of the same generic gubbins I mentioned before, so I’ll be leaving them well alone. Hopefully, I’ll be able to hunt out some original, fun games to get on with instead. 

Ive also realised that I am far more into driving games than I thought. Forza 2,  PGR 4 and DIRT have all really got “my motor running” (pun intended) and I just want more of them, especially with the steering wheel setup. As a result of this, I may be about to commit a terrible, terrible sin. Well, at least in the eyes of UK Resistance (and possibly my Brother). Playstation 3. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Force Feedback Wheel. Three items which have me considering a purchase of Sony’s George Foreman grill. I knew I would end up getting one at some point, for God of War 3, maybe Singstar for Becca, and Little Big Planet also looks pretty special. However, I dont realy want to get one before the control pad has rumble reinstated so I wont be buying one immediately. I dare say I’ll be even  more keen to buy one in a few days as I intend to visit the Melbourne Motorshow on Tuesday evening, which is joint sponsored by GT5, and has demo units galore inside. If it actually plays half as good as the videos Im seeing, it will be very hard to try and persuade me not to buy one! 

And on the subject of buying things, my mind is thrown into even more confusion by news of this game. Battlefield Heroes. While it may just seem like a WW2 Team Fortress ripoff, it looks superb. I can tell you I played Battlefield 1942 more than any other videogame before it, or since, so the prospect of a highly styled, great looking, FREE update of it sounds ace. Only problem is, its PC only. No Mac, no 360. If I buy a MacBook Air, it wont be powerful enough to run it. A MacBook Pro will easily powerful enough, but I aesthetically, it looks like a crock of shit, and has the ugliest keyboard Ive seen in a long time. I know aesthetics arent everything, but they are if youre me and use your laptop every day of the year.  However, there are distant rumours of the next MacBook Pro update in June, which will hopefully make it look prettier too. If this happens, Im quids in, but if they dont, I dont know where I stand. I guess, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it I suppose, but up until then, its yet another waiting game. 

So there ends the largest post Ive made yet. Its taken me over 45 minutes to type, and is currently at 1493 words. Jesus! I wrote University essays shorter than this! Dont fret though, normal service shall resume tomorrow.  Now, its time for Match of the Day, and a beer…….

Old School Game, Old School Annoyances…..

Routine kind of day today. Woke up, went to work, came home. Nothing really of note to talk about in depth. Oh, except Becca made a fantastic croissant/cream/wild turkey desert thingy. Kind of like bread and butter pudding, but with croissants, and wild turkey, strangely! Bloody gorgeous!

My major talking point to day settles with Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the 360, but it could just as well be any platform I suppose. If you dont know, this is a remake of the original Tomb Raider for the original Playstation (and about a million other formats), and I find myself getting extremely frustrated with it. Whereas the last Lara Croft game (Tomb Raider: Legend) had a pretty decent story, and had some good puzzles, this game kills you. Lots of times. Lots….. It does have puzzles, but theyre so dumb the answer practically beats you over the head (king midas statue turns stuff to gold. you collect lead ingots…..slots on the wall only accept GOLD ingots….hmmmmm?!?!) Its not the puzzles that frustrate, its the perfectly reproduced spectacle of pixel perfect jumps. I know I have to jump from here to there. I know what to do, but I dont have the willpower, or patience to watch onscreen Lara plummet to her inevitable doom every 20 seconds or so. It really isnt conducive to my improving the longevity of the game, and I just end up switching it off. Collision detection is also a another area where there are problems. Trying to navigate a room with spikes that pop up from the floor with a constantly moving camera is damn hard. If Lara grazes the edge of spikes that are already raised from the floor, which are a good foot or 2 above your head, then you warp 2 feet into the air and “onto” the spikes and its instant death.What also isnt helping is that according to the in game stats, Im 43% of the way through the main game, and if you check out my gamercard on the right, you’ll see that this feat has earned me a whopping 10 achievement points. Wow. So now I have FIFA 08 which I dont play as it gets me mad, Tomb Raider which gets me mad and a couple of 1st class FPS multiplayer games that Im generally too tired to play. Oh well, I’ll have to re-learn the story and controls for Mass Effect. Thats the only problem with RPG’s…..if for whatever reason you stop playing htem half way through, youre screwed when you go back to them .Not a clue what to do, who to see and where to go. I may just crack open the Wii this weekend and buy Mario Galaxy. I feel as though I need my faith restoring in gaming at the moment, and from what I read, even in the most fickle of gaming magazines, this is hailed as a revelation. Getting games back to being fun, and not hyper realistic, hyper challenging anger sessions. 

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat……

Well, what a FANTASTIC day its been. I feel so content and all warm inside! Firstly, the temperature has been perfect today - sunny, and a cool 29ºC all day. Secondly, work has been great. Just the right amount of stuff to do, learnt a lot of new stuff, had some good chats with the other engineers, and got thanked by our boss for doing a good job - its just fantastic! Thirdly we did what we always thought we would be doing here on a work day. Having a tough/tiring day at work, coming home, putting your shorts on then going for a stroll along the beach. Only for us, we went with a mission…..to go to the end of St Kilda Pier to get a photo of the Queen Victoria liner, thats in Port Melbourne for a day, then is shooting off in….. oooooooo…. 10 minutes or so. In fact, I’ll stop typing for a bit now as its leaving under a hail of fireworks, so I’ll be back soon (but due to the miracle of blog posting, as if by magic, no time will have passed for you……oooooo….spooky!). 

 Ok, just back from outside (where its still quite warm), and while the ship did leave half an hour late, the fireworks show was pretty good. The first time Ive seen a firework go of in a shape (of a heart) and I havent a clue how they did it - mighty impressive. Anyway, back to my good day. Rewinding about 4 hours, we’d just finished  our walk along the beach, so decided to get a bite to eat at a near stove-baked pizzeria, and boy, was it a good pizza! Becca had marinara, and I had proscutto, mushroom and anchovy, which may sound odd but it was one of the best pizzas Ive had ever, and was a good size - just enough to fill you up and not leave you yearning for more. All that and fireworks too - a regular thursday has never been so good! Ive took pictures but my camera is on charge now so I’ll host them tomorrow. 

I dont really know what else to say - Im just really content, and smiley. And to round the day off, Ive just noticed they’ve announced Gears of War 2 for November release this year. Im going to go now before I jinx the remaining few hours…..