5 posts tagged “iq771”
Yep, it's Christmas. Lovely, lovely Christmas! As I get older, the allure of presents fades but the main reason for Christmas - the Christmas Dinner! A plate full of wholesome food is a world away from the crap I usually shovel into my gaping maw. My older brother used to be a commish chef and he is normally the guy who helps craft the meal with an impressive gusto. He hates to be thanked though - I feel sorry for him because ever since Dad got carted away, he became the surrogate Dad of the family trying to keep Mum's boyfriend out of the house. He deserves good things to happen to him though as with many things in life, good things don't always happen to good people. Still, I'm umming and arring whether or not I should go home tomorrow morning or Friday morning. I love travelling on trains though not when they're full of people so I need to judge it. I could be really gimpy and not sleep tonight, zip off in the very (very) early morning and be there. Then again I could stick around here tomorrow and spend all day lazing about and doing the things I've missed from all the overwork I've done.
Shindig!
The Midway Christmas Shindig was a surprisingly civilised affair - one which took place in Aspers Casino in Newcastle. It's located in a very strange location called The Gate which is basically a shopping mall where the malls are either nightclubs or pubs. You do get a very bizarre mix of people and atmosphere when you visit there - classy (ahem) ladies and groups of have-a-go white shirts drifting from concrete opening to concrete opening. We had to queue to get in and there was ten minutes of getting membership to actually get into the casino, but once in there we ended up in a place called Lady O's which was a downstairs closed bar. It was pretty classy to say the least and a lot of co-workers were smartened up for the occasion. I came all smartened up too...
It's nice to get a suit, shirt and tie every year - I've got a bit of a collection going since last year and one day I may hope to use them to entertain a member of the female persuasion in a shared moment of face scoffing at a fancy restaurant. A man can dream, can't he? A malformed myopic man? Actually, I've cut down a bit on chocolate bars and candy and I feel slimmer although it's a bad time to start this kind of crusade - especially with Christmas around the corner.
Is This PC Finally Fixed?
I'm not sure. Or maybe I am. After all the crap I had to put up with getting this computer working as it should have been, I decided to e-mail HP Total Care after a programmer mentioned that my laggy mouse and keyboard could be down to a dodgy BIOS. He was right! Total Care agreed and pointed me in the direction of a BIOS update which was a lot less hassle than it should have been. Last night the symptoms were still there (although Vista loaded up quicker) though today it's much better. I am typing this with the flap of the Connection Center open as I'm charging my iPod so that might have something to do with it. I've had zero blue screens since moving from Explorer to Firefox (hmmm.. telling) and I've been slowly grabbing back things which were second nature to me on XP. Should I have got an iMac? It's debatable, though now I think I'm ready to rock and roll so I'm ready to begin crafting 365 proper in InDesign when I come back from home home! No, not this home. Home home. The home that matters.
Some Interesting Facts About My Home Home
I live in a place called Hoylake which recently hosted The Open Golf Tournament. It's on the Wirral next to Liverpool, though many people still consider Hoylake to be part of Liverpool. This is wrongness. It has gone through a huge upheaval due to The Open so that one part of Market Street (the main road which runs through Hoylake) has been transformed into some kind of mini-mecca of posh bars and restaurants. Olde Hoylake is still as it ever was. The telling thing is that New Hoylake has all the fancy Christmas decorations, while we get tat. There's a tangible class divide which is unsettling. It's also unsettling that I never really feel safe walking around Hoylake at night whereas (rather comedically) here in Gateshead I've had no issues at all. I grew up in Hoylake and yet it feels like an alien place. Every time I come home I walk down Market Street after getting off the train to see what new sights and shops have cropped up.
Yes, I Was Working Class
I come from a family which was very deprived and although we worked hard to make ends meet, it felt like we did lead wholesome happy lives. In my early years I was a member of a large family of two brothers and two sisters. I think I was always considered the favourite of my Mum and Dad - the golden boy who did no wrong. Did I ask for that? Nope. Still, I didn't ask for the outside toilet either. That's something - having a shit in Winter while you're sitting on a cold toilet seat. We had no warm running water and we also had a tin bath which was dragged into the lounge and filled with water boiled on our stove. I had friends who had hot running water and proper bathrooms... it was a revelation to visit and see how the other half lived.
Nothing Changes.
Home home still has a problem with hot running water. We had some Scally builders in to renovate our bathroom - though they managed to make it worse with a plastic sink (!) - and the bath has cold running water too. So to fill a bath I have to chuck a load of water in there from the kettle. It's quite astounding that in this day and age I have to do this. Not only that, but also the boiler - also installed by those wacky Scally builders - is courtesy of Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw have been cited by my old plumber when I lived on my own as being the company responsible for the worst boilers ever concieved. So no heating at home even though there's radiators everywhere now. It's stupid because Mum thinks it's a blessing that her bills are lower because of it. It's no way to live though, really.
Did I tell you she also has thirteen cats? Maybe it all makes sense to you now.
The thing I don't look forward to on the way home is getting to Liverpool. It's not I don't like Liverpool, just a lot of the people who live there aren't the nicest people. There's a world of difference travelling on a Virgin Train from Newcastle to York and travelling on Merseyrail from Liverpool to Hoylake. This may sound a bit crazed but if you've travelled on Merseyrail, you know what I'm talking about.
Working For The Weekend
Work on Wheelman is progressing although it still feels like we're in the middle of the development of the game rather than the last third. I've been busy putting extra hours in to get the work done and although I love doing what I do, it's hard to keep the faith when you're tired. I've had arguments about scheduling and the company fascination with outsourcing - although I know that the company needs a percentage quota so they keep the outsourcers in a job. When I worked at Jester on TT Superbikes, the outsourcers ended up getting paid more and delivered work which was badly done and had to be fixed at our end as well. So I'm not too fond of outsourcing from personal experience. We are slowly progressing though and the game still amazes me about how lovely it looks - we're using the Unreal Engine in a way it wasn't designed for - a high speed racing game. We just need a game to match the looks.
Sod it. I'll go home on Friday and say the reason why is because of my fear of the Haunted Bathroom.
A Christmas Wish
Well, this is time for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hopefully you'll find someone to hug and be in the company of loved ones. I'm lucky to have this opportunity to go home and see my folks and see friends and loved ones. It must suck for those who are alone. I bet it sucks almost as much as me trying to grab The Duper Sessions with Sondre Lerche on UK iTunes only to discover it's available on US iTunes but I can't download it. I've e-mailed the record company and I know the album is rare - but it's a stunning album. Below is a promo for the single called Minor Detail - it's a fantastic tune which puts me in a special place and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Merry Christmas!!
I'm glad I woke up for work today, I really, really am. After the news that Rez HD is coming to the Xbox 360, I had an inkling and checked out our PartnerNet. This is the closed Xbox Live Arcade network which is like peering into the future - game developers across the globe chuck stuff on there for other devs to download and play to death. It's quite, quite special to be able to do this. Lo and behold! Rez HD! To download! I'm the world's biggest Rez fan - I even have the Rez Trance Vibrator in my personal possession as well as the original Dreamcast version (a promo copy no less) and the PS2 version. This was quite a find for a slow Wednesday.
Like Rez. Except MORE.
As it says. Imagine Rez but in beautiful HD running at a silky smooth frame rate and you're halfway there. Add achievements, leaderboards and the like and it adds to an already brilliant experience. The download is pretty small (around 111Mb) for what you're getting - one of Sega's greatest moments in gaming where they were getting their very talented satellite studios like United Game Artists and Smilebit producing beautifully-crafted games like Jet Set Radio, Cosmic Smash, Seaman (hehe), Samba De Amigo and Rez. Inspired by the works of Kandinksy of all people, it's a game which is astounding to not only look at but also to hear. There's some wonderful meshing of visual and audio and without sounding too pretentious, it's as close to art in videogaming as you can get. Jeff Minter commented that Rez was "Space Harrier in techno trousers" which is pretty close to the mark. It's a shame that his recent Xbox Live Arcade release of Space Giraffe can't even hold a candle to something this expertly crafted. You do need to do the game justice though - get a surround sound system with a stonking huge television and turn out the lights.
"Memorieessss..."
When I was holed up in the flat in Mold, Rez helped coocon me from the drunken pissheadery and small town mentality and I look back on those days with joy. It was almost like a ritual getting myself ready for another trance-like assault on the senses. I also know of someone I used to work with who swore by Rez. He did smoke d'herb, mind you. The game is ideally suited for it. I'm just joyously happy that the game will soon be in the hands of the Xbox Live Arcade community and I predict it'll do incredibly well to the point that Rez 2 would be a certainty. The great thing about Rez is that even though it's a few years old, it still looks fresh and different - the art style is so radical that you accept it and enjoy it for what it is. It's like watching Tron - even though it's dated, the Syd Mead-inspired designs still hit a chord and look fresh and modern. Rez's achievements are spot on too! Here's a small taster...
Assassin's Creed - The Opinion So Far...
My favourite videogame reviewer Yahtzee has recently reviewed Assassin's Creed and once more he's spot on. There was a lot of mixed opinion online about the game, so I was keen to see what it was like. The first time I experienced the open world in the game was quite an incredible thing - you start off in the bowels of your main Assassin's Bureau. After some (many) tutorials, you get stuck into the town outside the Bureau and the game does a good job of getting you involved. Soon after you get on a horsey and end up in the huge main map - The Kingdom. It was quite mind-blowing - I have to say the graphics in the game are the most truly immersive I've seen yet. The shadows are so nicely produced that everything feels solid. It's very easy to believe you're there in the world and soon I was tasked with sneaking up viewpoints and launching myself off posts into haystacks. This is more fun than you just reading that. You then go to the city of Acre - and when I say city, I mean it - the place is vast. You then interrogate suspects, pickpocket, eavesdrop and help citizens as part of your campaign to find out more about the person you've been assigned to kill.
So Far So Good?
Well, yep. Except the review comments I've heard about repetition are true. Every job thereafter has been the same - travel to city by horse, investigate area and then assassinate. Yahtzee mentioned the horse thing where you have to slowly walk past guards on horseback so they don't suspect you. This got quite irritating quite quickly, and was more fun to leg it through areas with guards running behind you. The parkour stuff is nicely handled and your movements are startingly fluid and realistic - in fact, it's quite enjoyable running on rooftops collecting Crackdown-style hidden things (in this case, flags) while running up to a guard and assassinating him with your handy hidden blade in one fell swoop. There's also the sub-plot set in the future which Ubisoft spoiled themselves by leaving the futuristic HUD in their promotional materials. Ah, well. There's some horrificness in the game though. The combat system can be frustrating at times in that sometimes when you get knocked over, you lose the ability to lock onto stuff - although it's more a case of pressing the left trigger to lock on and then the right trigger to defend yourself - instinctively you press the right trigger straight away, which is where the problem lies.
More Problems!
Yep. Although countering to kill people is great fun, you sometimes glitch through buildings as you perform your moves. If you're backed up in a corner, the camera can suffer somewhat which makes anticipating counters difficult. The repeated soundbytes from passers-by get old way too quickly, especially when saving citizens - plus the camera will lock onto the citizen you've saved when all you want to do is get the hell out of there before another guard turns up... and yet the thrill of running away from many guards is an enjoyable one, as is setting stuff up before you assassinate a main target. Killing guards is good fun because - get this - they stay dead! No respawns here... so killing archers outside the area will make your life a lot more easier. Also nothing beats climbing a massive building and looking around you. In Acre, there's a humoungous cathedral which you get to access after your third kill - and climbing to the top of that was extrememly memorable. Launching off it into a haycart was even more memorable, although I was expecting an achievement like the one I got in Crackdown from getting to the top and jumping off the Agency tower. In short then - rent before you buy. It's good in short doses (say an assassination a day) and the sub-quests help increase the longevity of the thing.
Computer Update!
Here's me thinking I could only burn discs with Vista's gimped burning, but no! Clicking on the Help and Support bit of my PC, I discover I have Roxio Creator - meaning (hopefully) DVD burning won't be painful and I won't have to shell out £59 for Nero. It's curious I only found out about this via the Help and Support bit. Also I think I've found out why my keyboard and mouse are cack - a workmate of mine tells me it sounds like I need to update the BIOS. He also told me why this would be the case - and the link to a forum I posted yesterday had inklings of a BIOS update - although the process to go about it sounds ball-achey. I've contacted HP's After Care Shizzle via a contact form so I hope I'll get concrete help back from them. The frustrating thing is I shouldn't really have to go through all this shit. It's curious that The Tech Guys didn't mention that I had Roxio on this computer when I complained about the slow burning speeds - their "solutions" were either to buy Nero or to use msconfig to shutdown everything and see if that improved anything. Is it too much to ask that I can go into a shop, buy a branded PC-type product and have it do the job it's supposed to do? This BIOS stuff is good news though. I could still salvage this puppy. I can phone up The Tech Guys for shits and giggles and give them the exact reason why this PC is sick and they'll be dumbfounded as they try and use google for an alternative solution.
Book Update!
I recently got a test book through from blurb.com which also acts as a present for Mum - she's not seen any artwork of mine for some time, so it's the least I can do. Anyway, the quality of the book was great - there was a small rip on the bottom of the back of the dust cover, though that might have been my excitement getting it out. The book, I mean... tsk. Well, I was told by another workmate that there's a new way to produce books and it's Amazon-fuelled! CreateSpace is extremely exciting - basically it's the perfect way to get my 365 book out to the masses. I'll need to use InDesign to get the book together, but there's a lot more advantages to this than blurb - you get your own ISBN number, you have more control over content and layout and - get this - Amazon will actually sell the thing for you in their store!!! This is insanely good news. I was using the BookSmart software to layout 365, though now I will use these guys. I just need to start hunting down all the bits and pieces of artwork I have lying about.
YouTube Update!
If you've not yet seen Network, then I suggest you watch the below clip and realise just how relevant it all is to today...
Well, here's the results from my PC "overhaul"...
1. Checked my memory to see if there's any badness. None. All fine.
2. Keyboard and mouse are still being terrifyingly bad at their jobs. Interestingly this thread outlines my issues. Repeated keystrokes and "forgetting" keys.
3. Bluescreens - I always seem to get them when looking at YouTube. It may be a driver issue and I've found out there's a Driver Verifier though sounds like I need to be a tech head to try it.
4. Mouse - the pointer still jumps about, though it's sometimes in relation to the hard drive access. Not sure what the issue is there. I get the feeling HP don't make very good wireless and mouse peripherals.
5. Installed Firefox, Adblock, FireFTP - so some issues solved there with a different browser choice. Will use Explorer less and less and it'll be interesting to see if the issue I have with BSOD in YouTube will happen again. (MmmmmDRIVER_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL). A driver sounds like it's causing pain, though I haven't a clue which driver to sort out.
6. Checked graphics drivers - installed one hotfix and not much else. I have latest graphics drivers for this machine as I had a notion that maybe the graphics card was making the mouse pointer jump about.
7. Vista's slow DVD burning - solved by "purchasing Nero" as quoted by The Tech Guys. Why the fuck should I buy something for £59(!) when I already have bought an OS which should do this properly for me?
Well?
The jury is still out. It's frightening that this very computer is being advertised on bus stops for mugs like me to buy into. I get the feeling that there might be something I'm missing with this. There's so much stuff that if something goes wrong, then something else could go wrong and then a knock-on effect will happen. There's still more to do...
8. Chuck on a wired (non-HP!) keyboard and mouse and see if there's any difference. If so, I may have to purchase my own non-HP keyboard and mouse combo. Probably not wireless, as I consider it witchcraft.
9. Scandisk this bugger. Just in case, although scandisk won't do it's thing while the drive is in use. Hahaha!
10. Try and get the USB Camera fixed. It worked fine with Skype's preview, but now I get a frustrating pink screen. The microphones work though.
11. (Last resort) - Get The Tech Guys to send round - what else? - a Tech Guy! He can try and fix my machine while I slurp tea and silently curse myself for my ill-advised purchase.
12. (Last last resort) - Phone up The Tech Guys/PC World and get a refund for this atrocity.
13. Go into the woods to avoid technology altogether. Grow a huge beard. Get a shotgun.
Last night was a good night out. I've not had a night out in Newcastle for some time and it was in the Union Rooms where drink was enjoyed to wish our good friend Piotr all the best for his journey to London after leaving Midway Studios - Newcastle. I thought Piotr was a hoot, so I'm sad to see him go. The reason why he's off to London is because his wife (he got married recently) has a job offer in London, though although he's not fond of leaving Midway, he has to support his missus. This is weird because I sometimes think what would happen if I ever got my act together and got myself hitched, only to have her alter my plans. Sometimes it's good to be single, except the periods of time when you're lying in bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if being single is part of some divine plan which you have no idea about.
This is Ben Marsh. He works as a programmer at Midway Studios - Newcastle, and recently he found himself in possession of the super-sexy-but-sometimes-slightly-disappointing iPhone. When we were drinking lovely alcoholic liquids, he was showcasing the powers of the phone - the browsing mostly. You look at it and think how something so technologically amazing could exist ten years ago. There it is though. The future. Right there.
When You Leave Technology Behind...
After enjoying the company of many workmates and some new friends (including some Polish people who recommended we enjoy a meal at the Polish restaurant in town), we went our separate ways and ended up in a taxi. We nattered about stuff like the Christmas do and other bits and pieces. I tried to entice Ben to come with me and a few workmates tomorrow to a spooky castle, but he wanted to veg out. We got dropped off and there was no tip for the cheeky taxi driver who decided to add his own tip to the price it would normally cost to get back home. Thinking back, we did almost toy with the idea of walking back like the good old days - but it was freezing. Thinking about that though... *sigh*
A Cautionary Tale
To cut a long story short, Ben left his iPhone in the taxi. He only realised when he was home and the iPhone wasn't in his pocket. In his panic to remove himself from the O2 service, he realised he could have phoned his iPhone and hoped a kind soul would have picked it up and kept it safe for him. Sadly, no. The taxi company stated that this type of thing happens regularly, and he may as well treat the phone as "gone and forgotten". This came as quite a blow for Ben - evenmoreso that he didn't take any insurance cover out on it, so the phone couldn't be replaced. It's on a contract too, so I think he'll have to pay out the rest of the contract for - well - nothing. That can't be right, can it? I hope not. It must be quite a horrible thing to lose something that technologically amazing and personal. Then again, it's another reason why technology sucks.
"Get Off My Land!"
I sometimes yearn to be a Grizzly Adams-type of the woods. A huge white beard and an angry temperament in a log cabin deep in the woods of somewhere desolate. Any strangers come by and I would pop out with my shotgun, maybe fire off a warning and shout at them to get the heck away from my cabin. No technology. No mobile phone. No games console. No PC. We rely so much on technology, that it'll be interesting to see how we survive without it. Amazon recently announced they were releasing some stupid ebook-type device which has a battery life. A book with a battery life? That makes me giggle somewhat. What the fuck is wrong with a book? A normal book? No battery life to speak of there. Speaking of books, I ordered myself the 365Lite! book I produced on blurb. When I get it, I'll see how good the quality is, and I may start on the actual 365 book on their BookSmart software instead of InDesign. We'll see.
Technology Update!
I phoned up HP to enquire about my wireless keyboard woes. Sometimes it repeats letters. Sometimes the left shift key doesn't work. The first voice I heard when I phoned HP was a recording of an American woman. Not a good sign. Second voice was an Indian in a faraway call centre. Great. I'm not racist, but my heart sinks when I hear an Indian voice on a phone. It means they can't really understand me and HP are cheapskates. First Indian bloke passed me onto the desktop department and I got another Indian bloke who couldn't really hear me because the connection was dodgy. Well, sod this. I gave my favourite Tech Guys a call! The wonderful PC World "Technical Specialists" who are there to help out, though really all have access to google. The funny thing is that they actually did a very, very good job of satisfying me - they ordered me a replacement keyboard and mouse and I joked to the lovely lady on the other end about how terrible Vista is... and she agreed!
Oh, that reminds me. I need to order Nero. Grrr.
The Lovelyness Of Games
Lastly, I'm still enjoying Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. It's seriously good fun. I need to order some of those free Wii Jackets for the Wii Remote though... you can order them here. All you need is your serial number and address details. Super Mario Galaxy is, well, fun. Some games these days play more like chores than actual exclamations of enjoyment, and Super Mario Galaxy has proven that Nintendo still have it. The game has become the fastest-selling Mario title ever. Half a million units sold in the US in the first week! It's amazing that I know people who still want a Wii, but can't get their hands on one because Nintendo can't make them fast enough. I love the analysts who harp on about the Wii being a flash-in-the-pan, but I don't think so. Not at all. I finished and adored Call of Duty 4 on the 360 (I need to get online with it though, although the thought of going on Xbox Live with randoms these days chills me to the bone) and I've started on the sublime Mass Effect - a game full of epic wonder and excitement.
I'm off to order me those jackets.
So today was my first day off in ages. I've been in the studio religiously - I rarely get ill and I've been spending far too much time in the office after hours. My day off though was quite, quite productive - I spent a bit of it in bed and bit more of it getting ready to go out and about to buy some Christmas pressies. Before that, I ventured into Sainsbury's to buy myself a bottle of my favourite Innocent drink and noticed they were looking a bit... chilly?
I'm very happy about that photo because I took that photo today on my Samsung U600 (which I'm slowly getting used to), uploaded it to this IQ771 via Bluetooth and then edited the photo in GIMP before uploading it to Vox. See? Sometimes technology does work and when it does - it's a wonderous thing. I digress...
So What's With The Knitted Mini-hats, Steve?
Weeeeell Innocent Drinks are quite the company - they're not like a faceless corporation and they enjoy making me giggle with their labels. This is all part of The Big Knit which is a drive to raise money for Age Concern which is a charity in the UK which helps the older generation get by. If you want to know more, then please check out the video below -
They hope to raise £200,000 for Age Concern as every woolly-hatted drink which is sold will generate 50p for the charity. I wish them well!
Brrrr!
Yep, it's getting colder. I love the transition towards Winter with the promise of Christmas although these days Christmas doesn't seem as lavish as when I was a kid. I think it's got something to do with not insulting certain religions although I think that's a lousy excuse as those religions were about when I was younger and enjoyed Christmas in all its lavishness. As for the Christmas shop, there's still more to get although not that much - I plan to have bought everything as well as wrapped it all up by the end of this month, although...
Mum's Christmas Pressie!
So what to get for Mum? Well, last year I gave her a framed photo of me finishing the Great North Run. I can do the same this year as well as something pretty different - the 365 book I've mentioned a few times in blog posts can also be a possible present. Mum hasn't seen much of my artwork properly and it's a shame - so the motivational factor for this is a good one as well as the fact that the trial version of InDesign will last me 30 days, unless... I buy it. Saying that, I was going to buy Photoshop until I discovered that GIMP is pretty bloody good for the price of free...!
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