Fatlip

My dad recently name dropped the Chemical Brothers in an attempt to be cool in his blog. I retaliate with this; a much cooler Chemical Brothers song, so I am now cooler. pwnzed.

Anyway, enough of being cool for this evening, back to moaning endlessly. Well, its now December, the shops are now in their full Christmas fixation, the weather has got even rainier and windier, if that is possible. But at least our internets fixed, so I don't have to care about any of that... Hahaha... This spellchecker gets annoyed when I type internet without a capital I.... and also doesn't have Aberystwyth in it, so every time I write it, I'm corrected, and told I live in Abreast. And also when I write Hahaha it tries to correct it to "heehaw"... fucking American pig dogs.

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a graphics card. An EVGA 8800GT 512MB KO Edition, to be precise. Please, no fan mail telling me its wank, Ive already paid for it. And from what Ive read, it should be the shit. So that's good. Although slightly worried its not on Ebuyer's website anymore... It said they only had 3 in stock when I ordered it, so maybe they took it off when they ran out. Its a very new card, and most websites said you may have trouble getting one for Christmas since they haven't made many yet. But, I have one, Ive had an email saying its been sent home, so that's good. I won't be able to plug it in until I get back to Wales after Christmas, but I can sit around stroking it and waiting for better driver support, so I'm happy anyway.

In my spending binge, I also bought myself a Western Digital MyBook II 500GB external hard disk, very pretty. It arrived on Tuesday I think. Its an external hard disk, so its not very exciting, but means I can backup everything which is always good. I mainly wanted it before Christmas, since I'm not taking my PC home, I wanted some mass storage to take my stuff home with me and bring stuff back to Wales in the New Year. The only problem Ive had so far with the thing, was when I first plugged it in, it automatically, without asking, installed a TON on crap on my PC. Google Toolbar, Google Picasa, whatever that is, Google Desktop, and some other 30 day trail backup applications, along with WD's drivers. I was fucking livid. I nearly smashed the thing during the installation, I'm extremely careful what I install. I uninstalled all the software straight away, but this thing had now stuffed loads of DLLs and subfolders all over my PC which I now can't find to delete... GRRR. I spent 30mins going through Program Files and My Docs deleting stupid folders, even after uninstalling... makes me wonder how much it left hidden in my registry... Oh well, I haven't noticed any long term effects on my PC, so I'm hoping I got rid of most of it. But it wasn't a good start to my relationship with my new device.

Oh, and another stage in my saga of ordering the Matrix on DVD off the web... for those who didn't read it before, basically I ordered the Matrix on DVD off PlayTrade, and they sent me some shitty 2nd hand computer game, so I emailed them and told them, and they said "oh fine keep it, we'll send you the Matrix, incredibility sorry". So fair enough I thought, Ive only paid 4 quid, Ive got to expect screw ups if I'm a cheapskate. So... 8 days later, I receive yet another DVD, but once again, its not the one I want. Ill admit, they've got closer... this time they've sent me The Matrix Revolutions. I'm beginning to wonder if the people in their dispatch department, which they assured me last time had "very strict quality control checks" is in fact run by people who can't read. Or, as my housemates theorised, monkeys. I sent them a very angry email, and they now once again assure me they will sent me another DVD. If you give enough monkeys a DVD dispatch department full of DVDs that start with the letter M, how many more times will it take before they send me the Matrix...

Its funny, I was reading my dad's blog about the "Teddy bear called Mohammad" thing, and one point he made was that although the whole thing may seem very barbaric to Daily Mail readers, is it not right that a culture should have sacred words that can't be used for things? Things that cannot be said because they are too holy? Well, I retort that: Daily Mail readers do have scared things, holy, special things which we aren't allowed to poke fun at.... Ive only just finished reading an article about some outrage that Jonathon Ross poked fun at the Madelaine Mccanne investigation at some comedy awards ceremony, saying the voting was investigated by Portuguese Forensic teams or something. How we look down on other countries, saying "How dare they get offended, its only a god's name, for god's sake" and then you read the Daily Mail's front page the next day.... Its like they can't remember what they said the day before... and people still take it seriously? I do agree with my dad, we lost the plot along time ago... this truly shows how hypocritical we are. And if you want my crazy "left wing" opinion: we are no different to them, because we are the same: humans. True human nature always shines through, in every culture and society..... and then I remember why I don't leave the house anymore.

Meh

Well, I'm quite chuffed. Looks like I was right about Vista. Look. Seems no one else wants it yet either. What I am thinking about getting tho, is an external hard disk, I need one for backup. I'm just trying to decide weather to build my own or buy one pre-built. I'm doing Dandy one soon, so Ill see how that goes. I haven't done a lot recently, just been playing the new Guitar Hero Jam got on Friday. Its super cool, has a wireless controller, and he already had the controller from the last one, so now we have 2 player. It has a much better selection of songs on as well, seems they've got more record industry backing this time. I'm now downloading all the songs from it, cos some of them are very catchy.

I also saw the Hitman film last night, that was pretty odd. For those who don't game, Hitman is a series of computer games about a genetically engineer super assassin called 47, who you play, and you have a series of missions to kill various people in various exotic locations. You can do so employing stealth or violence, or an mixture of the two. You get rated on how successfully you complete the mission and given appropriate amounts of cash to buy new tools for the next level. Its one of my favourite games. I was worried the translation into film would ruin it, and admittedly, it wasn't great, but it wasn't awful. The script was corny and barely had any dialogue at all, the characters were completely flat, and the plot very simple. But the cast was good, and there was a lot of stylish action. But It did leave me disappointed, it felt more like a trailer for a film then a actual film, since barely any plot or characters were exposed. Never the less, I don't regret watching it and recommend it to fans of action and the games.

I doubt I'm going to write much on here for the next week, cos Ive got a lot of work due in at the end of the week and next week, since its near end of term.

New year, new OS?

For:

• It looks pretty
• The Beta version I had before XP ran ok, and its improved since then.
  
• I can have more then 3.5GBs of RAM
• and DirectX 10 graphics.
  
• I'm going to have to get used to it's new layout and style because: its the future.
• I know my hardware will work with it, because Ive used it before (apart from my wireless dongle which I don't think will work with it, but their cheap)
  
• SP1 is nearly here
• It actually works, Ive used it on Jam's PC, hes had for about 2 months now, and it hasn't gone horribly wrong.
• I don't have to buy it, cos the university gave it too me for free and legal!
• I can show off.
• It has Mahjong, which makes me feel warm inside.
  

Against:

• It asks for admin privileges every time you change any settings or install anything
• It makes annoying sounds.
  
• XP runs fine with 2GB of RAM, so do I really need 4GB if I'm not going to run Vista anyway?
• Vista might work with 2GB RAM, but I'm not sure, so Id probably have to buy more RAM which is an extra expense. But I get a free copy of Vista, so that's the only cost.
• I will probably have to wipe my PC and reinstall everything.
• Something might not work with it.
• It uses up a lot of RAM, so some games may go slower.
• Do I really need DirectX 10? I find it very hard to see any actual difference, except smoke and water look a bit better. And although I wouldn't be using the DX10, a new graphics card on XP would still give a massive performance boost, which is what I need.
  
• It takes up more room on my hard disk then XP does.
• Its still not as tried and tested as XP, so I may still find software I need doesn't work.
• My wireless dongle won't work with it (but their cheap and I got Jam one that does support Vista so I know where I can get one).
• No IE6 or Media Player 9, I would be forced into having IE7 and MP11, which are both total wank! (but not a big problem, since I use Firefox and VLC now anyway)
• I'm not nearly as familiar with it as XP, so if something goes wrong, will I be able to fix it as easily? (Although, this could be seen as a plus because it means I get to learn to fix Vista)

Conclusion:
At the moment, I think I'm going to keep my university copy of Vista Business, but not install it, and wait, until I'm sure. Because at the moment, I think Vista is mostly vanity, there is no real underlying need for it, and its new demands on my system and my brain don't sound appealing at the moment. But I'm pretty sure some day Ill have to use it, probably on my next PC.

Fun Blog

Ok, hopefully this blog should be a bit more jolly then most, since Ive found some amusing websites:

Face transformer - Lets you upload a picture and muck about with it, quite amusing too see what you look like as an ape man.

Portal Cat ^_^

Aberystwyth man crushed under house full of rubbish - Ok, so some people might not find this funny, but I just found it a bit odd, and wondered if that might happen when someone next stays in the spare bedroom...

Jellyfish launch assault on Salmon fortress - Lol, I just thought it was funny, that even the fish in Northern Ireland are at war with each other.... I think their just in a power struggle now Ming, the Mighty 400 year old clam Warlord, is dead.

The ultimate children's character, made by Zippy...

MOO - A very trippy animation about cows, with some quite cool music. It gets better near the end so I recommend watching it through if your interested. Quite gorey as well, I wonder if the maker eats meat?

My poor computer

Me and my computer have separated after a few days of spending too long together, and I'm now having an affair with this university workstation. It is a cruel mistress, which I had to "manually power cycle" after it wouldn't recognise my portable HD. Oh well, its being compliant now. And too add to my computers woes, I'm downloading two things that will punish it for failing me graphically in Crysis: Vista and Unreal Tournament 3 Beta. I'm downloading Vista, because as regular readers will know, I plan to upgrade once I get my mitts on a better graphics card, and I get a free copy of Vista Business edition off the university, so I might as well take it. Unreal Tournament 3, I'm just downloading just because I really want to prove to myself that my graphics card is rubbish and I have to buy a new one soon. I would use my home PC to download these, but I fear my housemates might batter me to death if I try to download 3GBs of stuff in the middle of the evening, so I thought Id rinse the University's net connection instead.

Crysis was good. I recommend it to anyone whose into pretty shooting things games. I finished it yesterday after 48 hours of hiding away with it. I managed to get quite a lot of work done as well. I'm feeling quite chuffed in a way. I haven't finished a computer game Ive bought in years, but then this seemed very short. But I think the fun of Crysis is that you can replay it a million times, because its levels are so large, there are so many different ways of doing things. Its very open ended, unlike most the console games Ive seen Jam play recently (CoD 4 and Halo 3), so its definitely getting replayed in DX10.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe overclocking my current graphics card might make things a bit better for now. I read an article about it, it doesn't sound that hard, although there is a risk of system instability and heat damaging the thing. Also, I'm not sure if I should add more RAM when I upgrade to Vista, because I read a lot of conflicting things about how much RAM it really needs. I had a Beta (RC2) Vista on my box before I put XP on it, and that ran ok with my 2GB of RAM. But some say you need 4GB, Jams has 4GBs, and that runs well. I should just try it with 2GB, see if its stable and responsive, and if not, RAM prices will have fallen and Il get some more RAM. Yeah, Ill probably do that. I need an external HD, a bigger one, before I upgrade to Vista as well, so I can backup everything. Ive currently got about 350GBs of crap on my box, so it will need to be bigger then my current one.

News:

1. Apparently some hacker has broken the new encryption on BluRay discs. Although, it should be noted that this wasn't the original BluRay encryption, but another stronger layer (called BD+) they added on a few DVDs after the last lot of BluRay encryption, used on most discs, was broken ages ago. Makes me wonder why they bother. LINK


2. More HD news: The BBC finally catches up with the rest of the universe and starts talking about HDTV. Pity they screwed up Freeview. I say this, because, from what Ive heard, apparently Freeview can't do HD, because they didn't allow enough space for the signals on the digital Freeview spectrum, so their going to have to re-shuffle all the signals to get it to work, which means we all need new Freeview boxes. Clever. LINK


3. Leave Heather Mills alone, that poor women, their now claiming she drinks rats milk! Come on people, get over it, shes not Satan, shes just rinsing some silly old sod stupid enough to marry her for all hes worth. He'll still have a couple of hundred million quid left, I'm sure we won't see him busking anytime soon. LINK


4. This ones just stupid: Christians are trying to sue someone over the Jerry Springer musical. Why do we still have a blasphemy law? In this day and age, of a multi-cultural, multi-faith England, do we still have laws that stop us saying whatever we like about a bunch of one faith's fictional characters? Am I now going to be burnt at the stake for riding in a horseless carriage or something? Apparently it won't get by the judges, and contravenes EU human rights laws. Thank fuck, at least the EU has done something useful for once. LINK


5. Hmm... more bollocks about Dianne.. Oh look, UT3 Beta has finished downloading ^_^
   
6. umm... probably more bollocks about Madeline...
   


7. oh, Firefox 3 is out soon! That will be good, to watch it put the final nails in IE's coffin.
   


8. Sony have released software update for the PS3, no surprises there....
   


9. The internet needs more bandwidth, because we're watching too much streamed video, apparently.


10. The Germans are kicking off about the iPhone because you have to sign up for a 24 month T-mobile contract to get one there apparently.
    


11. And then there is all this stuff about this stupid Custom's and Revenue department losing a load of data. What a bunch of newbs. They just stuck it in the post, not registered or special delivery, just normal post, and now its gone missing. Twice. Oh well, at least they managed to at least to remember to back it up and not send the originals. Twits.

Sorry this has been so long... downloading Vista is on 38% =( what am I going to do now? Oh well, I'm sure Ill think of something else... bye for now.

Hiding

Urgh: people.

Despite everything that's happened, I didn't lock myself away in my room. I tried going out and being sociable, I make a lot of effort to be nice to them and make them laugh. I spend hours talking to them on MSN, and try to help them with their stupid problems: their broken relationships and computers. I listen to them moan about their stupid boring crap for hours on end. And what do I get back? I get ignored, or told I'm useless, and treated like I'm some horrible disease that won't go away. Like I'm so demanding, like I ask for so much, just for one person to ask me how I am and actually care, and give me a hug and make me not feel so useless, not like I'm just in their way.

So that's it, I've given up on all that useless caring-sharing crap, I'm going back to hiding in my room, playing computer games (Crysis is the bomb BTW) and listening to my metal. Makes me wish I had my job back, at least there I was doing something everyday, I had responsibility, people needed me, every now and then praised me. Or fuck them, if they didn't praise me, at least I was being paid, I knew I was getting somewhere and being rewarded. And the walk home from work... listening to my music so loud my ears would bleed, knowing I could just eat and go to bed, was the best thing ever. I didn't have a care in the world. Now I've got nagging lecturers and deadlines, no responsibility or praise, just a constant feeling that everything I do isn't good enough.

So sod it, I've got a lot of work to do, a lot of good computer games and music, and the internet has been alright for the last 2 days (touch wood), I need not waste my time on ungrateful people any more. I would stop blogging as well, but I enjoy it even if no one read it, so I won't let them stop me. Curse you all, men.

Anyway, news. Crysis is amazing, but I really need my new graphics card to get it to run as well as it should. I really can't wait till I get to play it on a good PC with DirectX 10. I'm still not sure weather to go the whole hog at Christmas and upgrade my RAM and go to Vista. Apparently Vista SP1 will be out soon, RC1 is out now, so maybe I should wait for that. I should really read more computer news, but generally the news just bores me, seems to be repeats of the same stories about the Wii and PS3. And non-techy news is just too depressing, so I won't talk about any of that.

So its just a useal monday really: regretting ever getting out of bed. 10th blog, woot!

Missing Information Gutter

It would seem I left out quite a few things I was meaning to share with you in my last blog, due to having so much to say. Firstly, here are some more pictures of Jac from yesterday, to backup my case for him being the cutest entity in the known universe. Their on facebook, but Ive gone to great lengths to try and make sure it doesn't make you login to look at them. Just click on the link, then the picture of him, and it should bring up the whole album's collection.

Secondly, I remembered something which was one of the main reasons for my displeasure yesterday. Just after I got back from my wasted trip up the hill for a cancelled lecture, Jenny phoned me and told me my estranged pet rabbit Trotsky had died. He was probably about three years old, and had to be put down cos he had myxomatosis. Not a huge personal loss, in perspective, because of me not having seen him for about two years. It just brought back a lot of memories of Jenny and all the time we used to spend together playing with him, before she moved to Rosser and I went on my industrial year. She told me shes currently living in a YMCA. I don't really know why, I can't keep track of everyone's lives at the moment.

RIP Trotsky Marklew Gray

Today so far has been pretty rubbish, I woke up with a headache and my housemates moaning the internet wasn't working. I fixed it and then went back to bed. I then go up for a drink, spoke to Dandy, and remembered my DVD I ordered should have arrived. I ran downstairs, found it and a large pile of Time magazines for Hazel (why she needs 4 the same I will never know). I opened the box only to discover, instead of the original Matrix on DVD, I had been sent a second hand computer game called Myst IV Revelations. To be fair, Ive ordered off PlayTrade about 5 times now, and normally its pretty much the same as normal Play.com service, just a bit cheaper, some more rare stuff, and it normally takes longer to come. This is the first real problem Ive ever had with anything Ive ordered online. I hope its the last.

After marching around the house verbally expressing my displeasure, I emailed the seller asking what I had to do to get rid of it and get my DVD. They replied asking for an order code, because apparently the 3 Play.com order codes I provided weren't enough. I find this all highly annoying, as Ive had to wait a week for this DVD already, and now I have to pay out my own money to send this stupid computer game back and then wait another week for my DVD. I'm not impressed. I'm beginning to feel like Victor Meldrew mixed with Ozzy Osbourne more then ever right now. Apart from when I had broken ribs, when I actually looked, walked and mumbled like Ozzy and was probably equally dosed up.

This may interest people who are from Aberystwyth: NO MORE 24/7 DRINKING AT INN ON THE PIER