31 March 2008

April! Wait...it isn't that just yet...

Well, here comes April. March was relatively uneventful, it would seem.

Speaking of April - of the O'Neal variety, of course - just finished watching TMNT and it was just as kick-ass as always. I have a weak spot for the pizza guzzling brothers - they were my absolute favourite thing when I was little, and the CGI animation film, whilst not brilliant in and of itself, is still a welcome piece of nostalgia.

Did my first day of work from home today. Got quite a bit done, so it would seem that working at home doesn't actually affect my work ethic. Got a little stuck towards the end of my 'shift' - actually it was about 10 minutes before I was meant to stop working - so I figured that it doesn't really affect me that much in terms of work done. Will get it sorted tomorrow!

That's about it for now.

Bye....

23 March 2008

Bollocks!

Argh! Broke my damn laptop's keyboard. Was trying to clean the damn thing, and it appears the the G and H keys have slightly more delictate parts than I originally anticipated. Suffice to say, plastic has broken, and now the damn things only barely work. Although it seems that Dell laptops have easily replaceable keyboards, so I'll just have to find somewhere to acquire one, and then I can re-fit it myself.Anyways! This comes to you from my fancy new wireless keyboard. Procured it from Curries, bundled with a wireless mouse that is suspiciously similar to my wired one, for the rather reasonable sum of £39.99. Not bad, though I do say so myself. Also get a cable to connect my PC to my TV, so that the wireless-ness of the keyboard is justified in the long run. Y'know...connect to the TV, then have long-distance, high-definition, big-screen internet surfing! Pretty cool, I reckon.

Had to ban myself from playing Halo 3. The game just frustrates the hell out of me, and I know exactly why. The bloody rank system. It simply doesn't allow you to be good at it - or at least, it doesn't allow people who aren't cosmically good at Halo to shine. Take, for instance, Call of Duty 4; even if you're in a match where there's somewhere who's infinitely better than you, if you're even remotely good at the game, chances are you'll do well. Unless every person on the other team is infinitely better than you. Problem is, with Halo, you are guaranteed to reach a point where every person on the opposing team is far, far better at the game than you. And so you just lose game after game after game after game. And let me be the first to say that losing 14 matches of slayer in a row is ridiculously frustrating. So yes, in an attempt to preserve the money invested in both my controller and our flat, I have banned myself from playing that game.
So! I have gone back to Call of Duty once again, and am enjoying being relaxed. Plus, it seems I've picked the perfect time to do so, as the new maps are going to be released shortly. Think that might be one of the things that I splash out my precious XBL Points on. Anything to change up the maps...I hate to admit it, but they're becoming a wee bit stale.

Was horribly sick on Friday and Saturday - no idea why, but I have an inkling it was to do with a chippy I had on Thursday night - so I've been doing quite a bit of surfing; found loads of great stuff. Like the trailer(s) for WALL•E. Suffice to say, it looks like Pixar's next outing into movie-world will be another palatable hit. Ctrl+Alt+Del too has providing momentary and fleeting spats of humour, which have helped passed the time between stomach cramps!

So that's it for now. Absolute bollocks, as usual, but this time not only was it figurative bollocks, but also rather manifest ones. God dammit.

12 March 2008

Angry...

Forth Road Bridge was closed today. Meant my bus back from work was stuck on the other side of the Forth. Sat in rain and cold for two hours waiting for it. Not happy. Will find person responsible and break skull.

11 March 2008

Keeper of the Sanity

Yeah, that's apparently my title. No idea how I got it, but what the hell; might as well run with it.

So yeah! I have a new job! No more washing dishes and gutting shrimps and scrubbing floors for Ross! No, now I shall be working in an office, in front of this very laptop. Entering data into a shopping website. Could be a lot worse, I suppose - it's a job in IT, and the faster you work, the faster you get paid, and let's just say I can work bloody quickly when it comes to computers. £1.25 per thing that I put in, which means in an 8-hour day I have to do about 35 in total per day to be earning minimum wage. Which is by no means impossible. I mean, if I can crack out one every ten minutes, that'd be about 48 a day!

Anyways, I'm rambling about the new job. Saw Jumper on Sunday. Was pretty good, although both Fee and myself had exactly the same reaction come the end... 'is that it?'! 88 minutes, including credits, I found out much to my own chagrin. What's there is good - Hayden Christensen's plankiness aside. Jamie Bell is fantastic support, Sam Jackson a great villain, the special effects really subtly yet effectively applied and above all, the concept is absolutely fantastic. It's such a shame that they chose to go with an ending that sets up a sequel. I'll try and write a proper review on Friday or Sunday, so look out for that.

Just found out that Man Utd bombed out of the FA cup. Bit gutted about that, but we've still got the Premier League and the Champions League as distinct possibilities - I'll never, ever say we're going to win it, because anything can happen in football, as has been demonstrated. So no potential Wembley trips this year, which is a bit of a bummer.

Gotten to a ridiculously frustrating spot in Devil May Cry 4; so that has been abandoned in favour of Call of Duty 4 for the moment. Trying to get all the intel so I have 1000 gamerpoints for it, but it's a bit of a slog; not really feeling up to the challenge. Would probably help if I did it on easy, but that would somehow...lessen, the sense of achievement somewhat.

That's about it really. No pictures today, couldn't be arsed to find the bastards. So you get some rather bland text. Enjoy.

8 March 2008

Sex, Caffeine and Calcutta Cups


So there we go. Scotland, against all odds, defeat England for the Calcutta Cup 2008. Well, the first of the 2008 Calcutta Cups, seeing as there's going to be two this year, mainly thanks to the absence of one last you, which is in turn thanks to the rugby world cup. Joys, eh? Anyways, absolutely brilliant game. Not exactly the prettiest - errors were made on both sides worryingly frequently, and the referee was a pile of ass and bad decisions - but definitely on of the more exciting ones I've seen in my 8 years of going to Murrayfield. Particularly delicious was the fact that Johnny 'I'm the best kicker in the world, honest' Wilkinson managed to miss a kick which Dan 'I can kick, honest' Parks slotted right between the posts. So no, Johnny; you're not the best kicker in the world. That little honour just so happens to be awarded to the smiling mug in the photo above. 30 kicks in a row without missing. Simply put, the man has a magic boot. Chris Paterson, I salute you mate!

Good news too on Wales winning the Triple Crown. Wales are my third choice support of the home nations (it goes Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, if you care), largely due to the fact that one of my best mates is Welsh, and he supports Scotland if Wales aren't playing. So seeing as I'm semi-obliged to support England if they're not playing Scotland, Wales sit pretty at third in my choice list. No offence to Irish people. But I suppose Wales deserved it this time - they just played harder and probably wanted it more. Ireland always seem to stumble in big games anyway, so it was hardly that surprising. So well done Wales!

Been pissing about on a Wii for a while now. Not technically mine, but it's now in my house temporarily attached to my TV and it's cool. Super Mario Galaxy is excellent, and Wii Sports is as frustratingly addictive as ever. Haven't really tried any other games, but what the hey? Was thinking about getting Resident Evil 4 to see what all the fuss is about. Might see if I can score it second hand for cheap!

Not much else been going on, so I shall bid you all adieu. Going to see Jumper tomorrow night, so will post a review of that when one is written. Laters, ladies!

1 March 2008

March! The one before May! Or is that April...

Yes, my mind has finally melted. Not sure if I'm truly happy about it, but then there's always the old saying: 'ignorance is bliss'! Just because this isn't self-inflicted or hereditary ignorance, doesn't mean that doesn't apply. Right? Right?!?!? Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed my unproductive February...two movie reviews is pretty good, regardless of what else I did(n't) post.

Regardless, my brain is indeed a pool of pink mushy stuff, and so this little ditty will probably be far less coherent than normal. Starting with probably a ton of spelling mistakes that I will inevitably forget to change once it has finished pouring out of me.


Saw Cloverfield the other day; was pretty good. Attempted to write a review, but fell asleep and dropped the computer on the floor. Not a good plan. Still, I did enjoy it, and I'd give it about 7 or 8 out of 10, depending on what mood I'm in. Some of the characters were vaguely annoying - especially the guy holding the camera, although his name was ingenious: 'Hud'... - but when the action kicked in, it was a ridiculously tense ride, loads of great moments and an actually quite scary monster. Although I agree with Empire - if they decide to do a true sequel, it'll just degrade the original. But I can see a so-called 'midquel' working quite well; i.e. the same events, but from a different angle. Like...Gods, I can't believe I'm saying this, The Lion King ...

Been spending loads of my free time procrastinating. Actually got some of Raider's done, which made me happy. Fee's been over quite a bit, which has been pretty cool. Been...*ahem*...'forcing' her to expand her movie horizons, which has been vaguely entertaining. Particularly on my shiny new TV, which I adore. Also been playing some CoD4 and Devil May Cry 4, all in 'glorious' HD.


Speaking of Devil May Cry 4; micro review! It's pretty damn good. The graphics are amazing; the combat is easy to get to grips with, but rather tricky to get truly good at; and the cutscenes are brilliantly over-the-top, both in terms of action and melodrama. Some of the boss fights are really interesting too! Although the platforming 'puzzles' - to paraphrase Ben Croshaw - suck a big fat cocksicle. Some of them are just ridiculously unintuitive, and others are so inane that you wonder why they even bothered. What is it, recently, with developers not actually being able to grasp what makes their games fun? Anyways...

That's about it, really. Making money, having fun and generally living it up. Went out on the lash last night with some people from Winter Wonderland; ended up half way down freakin' Leith Walk to have one freakin' drink. Epic. Oh! And we're going to go see Scotland get thrashed by England next weekend! My Dad managed to secure an extra few tickets, so Fee and I are going to trot along and shed tears of despair for the state of our national side. Huzzah!

Well, that's me done for the night. Hope you enjoyed this splurge of randomness. Ta-ta for now!