I haven’t written anything in a while, and I have realised why: I’m always bloody tired lately.

Have you noticed that my last post was around the time that I was starting back at uni? Well, if you didn’t, just to inform you, it was.

This is because since then I have barely had much time to sit down and think about what I am going to post and I was/am fed up of posting just random rubbish, I would like my blog to mean something to the people that read it (even if those people just encompass me (bad English I know, but, I’m Welsh so I’ll bastardise English all I want, all my other countrymen seem to do it so why can’t I?))

Since I last posted a lot has gone on. Here is a quick summary of what has happened with me:

• Started back at Swansea University for my second year of Computer Science
• Took up Ultimate Frisbee (they got the name right, I love this sport) at uni, I’m now one of the Swansea Ugly Ducklings!
• Went for many job interviews (Sainsbury, Game and Staples come to mind firstly)
• Accepted jobs in Sainsbury and Game
• Started working in Game
• Bought Saints Row 2 so have been playing that a lot since I bought it
• Went to a Ultimate tournament in Plymouth
• Uni work in general
• Living with 5 other guys and the few others who are always here (not a bad thing)
• Trying to keep my girlfriend happy while she avoids staying at her own house)

Long time no see guys! Well, it hasn’t been that long, but still, I have missed you.

The reason for this hiatus is simply my lack of internet connection. I have moved into my shared student house in Swansea and I’m enjoying it a lot. Even though we had no internet for just over 2 weeks it has been a good laugh and I can see I have made the right choice in house mates.

Strangely, the lack of internet was a good thing. Male bonding (not bondage) and all that.

The lack of internet is a great segway onto why I am posting.

Basically, we chose Virgin Media as our ISP with the nice fiber optic 20Mb/s connection (which is rumoured to be going up to 50Mb/s soon). We signed up, paid the installation and everything was installed fine. Hunky-dory then? Almost.

With the Virgin internet package we get a free wireless router, a nice Netgear one not unlike the one I have back in Newport. Sounds good eh? It is. Sort of.

See, Virgin have installed their own firmware on the router for some reason (I can’t see the point of this) which is locked in and is un-upgradable.

We had a browse to see if we could unlock it but no dice. Seems odd to me that an Internet Service Provider wants to stop their users from benefiting from security updates that they don’t provide and therefore don’t really have to support but can be of great advantage to more advanced users.

Moral of the story: you get what you pay for.

Firstly: I have kinda stolen this from Digg as it appeared on my iGoogle this morning, but i thought to myself I should share and share alike because I think it is definately worth a look.

If you have been reading (I still have the feeling that no one comes here, but the page views seem to go up, so thats good news for me), you will notice that I am quite an avid Batman fan. It may also be known that I wasn’t a big fan of Heath Ledger’s protrayal of the Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight (I don’t care what you say, it just wasn’t for me!).

But after noticing this little tid-bit on my Digg gaming feed this morning my admiration for the Clown Prince of Crime has been restored.

Take a look here to see what the Joker’s comedy Bang! flag gun fatality looks like (the ‘video’ is a gif so it may be a bit jittery at first, so give it time to load…).

If, like me you like both DC and MK this game sounds like something you may buy if it was £20 and there was nothing else around, but other than that doesnt really seem worth full PS3 price for a fighting game… They are just too repetitive and although the shiny graphics are very nice, I would rather play a MK game with someone else (who bought it) that go out and buy it then play it single player.

Anyway, click the link (here it is again incase you missed it) and have a good laugh and see how the joker should really be done!

This post probably seems very random when you think that it is the second half of 2008 so that means that there is the next installment of FIFA that must be on its way, at the very latest in time for Christmas.

But its not. Over the summer, I have been kinda of stuck in due to me not having a car anymore and wanting to earn some money for uni in September, so as you are probably aware by now, I trundle off to work 9-5, Monday to Friday, and I don’t really do much then after work for the above reasons (and the fact that only me and my girlfriend were only people who really moved away from our other friends so they don’t seem to bother with us much since we left last September). Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Stef and I agree that graphics are certainly not everything when it comes to playing games. Our friend Matt doesn’t agree, unless the game is in HD with ‘bloom‘ effects everywhere and even the tiniest graphical options turned up to the point his laptop melts or his PS3 catches fire, he won’t even consider playing it. He is what is know as, in our circle at least, a graphics whore.

No, he doesn’t sleep with people for money, and no, he doesn’t sleep with people for graphics even though that’s what this moniker may suggest. He just likes high-spec graphics in games a lot. This often surfaces in our chats about gaming (hey, we are computer science students, what do you expect us to talk about? Girls? pfft.) as the phrase “Yeah, but just look at the graphics!”.

Sometimes this is him proclaiming his love for the “realistic” people on screen and sometimes this is him brushing away these games like dirt off his shoulder.

More fool him I say.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been toying with the idea for some time now. I love reading fantasy novels for their escapism and the “if only” feeling that these other worlds bring when exploring them in your mind.

Whilst at uni, I used to get my fix from a great little shop called Bookends in Swansea town centre. The maximum book price i ever saw in there was £3.50 for a huge hardback novel that would easily wedge the door open on a windy day.

Sadly, I am back in grey Newport which, surprisingly, has its own Bookends store (which for some reason also has a sex shop upstairs - odd business model, I know). As soon as I realised this, I was in there and digging around in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section to find some other great bargains, but to my horror all of the books were… NORMAL PRICE! Noooooo!

So, I might just write my own… Read the rest of this entry »

It is here!

If you visit quite regularly (you have too much time on your hands), you will notice that I usually post every 2-3 days. Yet, I have had something that has kept me busy for the last few days. You guessed it, my new phone.

Read the rest of this entry »

In relation to my previous post, I have stumbled upon an old website for the cartoon; Batman: The Animated Series.

While the website is quite basic and poor by today’s internet standards it gives a glimpse of what my reason for getting up on a Saturday morning was like.

Have a browse and buy the DVDs!

I have finally changed mobile providers. I have been with O2 ever since my trust old Nokia 3310 (back in the day when O2 was still called BT Cellnet) and I think it is time for a change. Read the rest of this entry »

I can see why there is a huge hype behind Batman: The Dark Knight, the Sequel to Batman Begins. The first was good, this one looks even darker and I don’t really want to delve too much into Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker as many more-respected reviewers can probably do him better justice than I can (especially since I am yet to see the film). But, as always when I write here, I feel something is being over-looked. Read the rest of this entry »