Archive for December, 2005
Summary
And 2005 comes to a close. This time last year I closed by rounding up the highlights of the year, so it only seems fitting to do that again.
I started the year by bemoaning the lack of decent OS X text editors, only to find one a couple of days ago. I also promised to bring my debt under control, which I haven’t really done, but I’m not fighting for funds anywhere near as bad as I was, so it has got better. I worked on a webmail system which is still unfinished, sold a laptop and launched what would become whatinterest. Note that a lot of those features still aren’t done. Oops.
Chatbear finally got some new fetaures, my computer was upgraded, things started to get good again, Webdog came to an end and attitudes changed.
My three months of almost unbridaled joy started in April, including fun trips to theme parks, lots of photography, some posts I don’t understand now and the completion of Bearscript. Paris Hilton screwed me, I cooked, made promises I couldn’t keep, listened to some amazing music, changed my look and said goodbye.
With the fun times over, the second half of the year was initially spent enjoying the sunshine, buying laptops and avoiding pussy jokes. I started on the next-generation Bearkey, which got quite far, and I closed IRC Bear.
The year was rounded out with death, failure, bad luck, baking, gaming and confusion.
Overall, a hard year to sum up. I failed at writing the book, still can’t learn the unicycle, didn’t launch any Bearscript powered project, and lost the most important person in my life. I also seem to have been sick a lot. On the other hand, I had three fantastic months, played in the sunshine on a daily basis with a great dog, launched a new website, added some features to Chatbear, finished Bearscript and rewrote the Bearkey admin (it’s just not public).
As for 2006… who knows. Chatbear will be six years old in May, and the plan is to have both Chatbear v3 and Blogbear launched properly before then, although I’ll be taking them in a different direction than my plans for the past 18 months would suggest. I might also finally learn to unicycle, keep trying to play the piano and get my finances in check.
But if 2005 has taught me anything, it’s that tomorrow can always surprise you. Let’s keep living for it.
Slow
The Netgear Storage Central is REALLY slow. It’s a simple hardware and software setup, but it’s almost unusable for playing video. It’s plugged directly into the same router as my PC is, so it’s not the network, and a search on Google brings up the terms extremely and slow more than I would like. Guess I’m going to have to sacrifice one of my DVD drives so I can just put the hard disk directly into my case.
Whipped up another cake today, turned out well again. Just wish there weren’t all those dishes to wash once I’m done.
Also beat my Geometry Wars high score by almost 45,000 points, I’m now in the 169,000 range. Top of the leaderboard is now almost 7 million, which is just astounding.
Drives
Got a new case, graphics card fan, hard disk (320GB!) and a Netgear Storage Central today.
I’ve been having overheating problems for about six months, I can’t actually play any PC games without the machine beeping and eventually resetting. I looking into the case so I could see what kind of case fan I could order, only to find that there wasn’t actually a single mounting point for a fan on it. So that meant buying a new case. I got a replacement graphics card fan at the same time because the one on my x800 has been making squealing noises that aren’t very pleasant to listen to. The replacement is one of those quiet ones, and is actually bigger than the card itself.
I ordered the Netgear Storage unit because I don’t actually have any more space for drives in my machine, and it seemed like a reasonable solution to that. I could upgrade the case that my media server has, but that would actually have been more expensive, nor would a larger case fit underneath the table next to the TV. It’ll be nice to have hard disk space again, I’ve been putting it off for months.
Fighting
Been fighting with a web design for work, just can’t get something I’m happy with. There’s already a design there, but it just seems plain and uninteresting, not the bright and colourful look I think is required. I’ve spent hours trying all kinds of variation, different sized boxes, different images, moving things all around the page, but nothing I can settle on.
I’m actually at the stage now where I can write the code to power a site faster than I can produce the designs for them.
Rising
Now that Christmas is over and all the gifts are in, I’ve been looking at what is left on my Wishlist and trying to decide what to buy. Missing out the TomTom unit, the total cost of the other items isn’t that much, but I’m always fighting the voices in my head that tell me to buy nothing and take satisfaction from a rising back balance instead.
I do have to say that my discovery of Komodo for Mac OS X has certainly fueled my interest in buying a Mac Mini, should they be fitted with Intel processors at Macworld in January. My Mac career has always been somewhat stunted by the lack of a decent text editor, and now that I’ve found one, I could be tempted back. But we’ll see.
It’d certainly just be nice to run iPhoto on something with a bit more horsepower than my current iMac.
Already
This is already the last day of my holidays, since I’m back to work tomorrow. That seems wrong somehow, like somebody is playing a trick on me. In reality I’m off again next Monday and Tuesday, but I should have taken the three days inbetween off too.
It was otherwise an uneventual Tuesday.
Parentheses
Finally published new content on whatinterest (360 articles next). Fell asleep in the chair most of the afternoon (and I did sleep fine last night). Replaced Ubuntu with Kubuntu (still crap). Watched Young Frankenstein (so funny). And the stockings I hung up at the same time as the lights are still empty (I knew Santa didn’t exist!).
Sensors
On the little bedside tables, surprisingly enough which you’ll find in the bedroom, I have lights that have no switches. You simply wave your hand over the top of them to make them go on and off. By moving your hand in a vertical motion you can also decrease or increase the brightness.
This leads to a game of trying to turn them on or off with the smallest hand gestures possible, decreasing the number of fingers used, trying to do it quickly and slowly, playing with their intelligence and the obviously included motion sensors inside.
I really am the master of fun in the bedroom.
Oh yea, and it’s Christmas or something. Don’t think I’ll get what I want.
Decoration
I put up some Christmas lights and a couple of other decorations tonight. Didn’t put up a tree, but even doing this is more than I’d planned.
The lights look nice, and there’s plenty more if I wanted to circle the room with them a couple of times, but I’ll leave it as is. I guess it does make me feel slightly more festive.
Family
According to Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Family Films, E.T. is the greatest family film of all time.
Then how come I’ve never seen it all the way through, let alone watched it with any member of my family?
The choices weren’t really that surprising, all the kind of films you would expect to be in there, no doubt many of them on every Christmas. I was particularly pleased to see Back to the Future in the top ten, of course I would have had it number one, but it’s nice to see the love for that film extends beyond just me.
Curveball
When life throws you a curveball you need to learn whether it’s worth swinging at. Get it wrong, and you might end up clipping the ball at an unfavourable angle, giving you no opportunity to run, and leaving you regretting it later.
I need to get better at letting some of them sail by. That’s the only way to leave the field happy.
Geometry
Out of all the games on 360 I’ve spent the most time with Geometry Wars, one of the £4 or so games available from the Live Arcade.
It’s an update of the hidden game included in PGR2, enhanced with a larger play area and particle effects galore. An old style shooter, much like Robotron or Smash TV, where one stick controls the direction of your shots and the other controls your ship. Stay alive as long as possible, shoot anything that moves, rack up the points.
What makes it so addictive is the online high score table, so you can finally see where you rank in the entire world of 360 owners. The fact that these are an integral part of almost every 360 game makes such a difference to the whole experience, that sense that you’re just one of many players around the world being hooked on a stupid shmup game.
I’m about 14,500th at the moment, and a fair distance off the top spot points wise. But maybe if I play just one more game…
Definition
The Xbox 360 is promoted as being the console for the HD era, but unfortunately I don’t have an HDTV. I do however have an HD projector, allowing me the opportunity tonight to play PGR3 and Call of Duty 2 on a 15 foot screen in all their HD glory.
Oh. My. God.
This really is a completely different home gaming experience, something entirely different from what you’ve seen before. It’s like those times you used to goto the local arcade as a kid, and they’d have some game on a huge screen with graphics way beyond what your home machine could do at the time. Except now it’s here, in your living room, and looking better than any of those ever did.
Driving around PGR3 using the in-car view is the closest you’re likely to get to driving a Ferrari around the streets of New York or Las Vegas at 180mph. As you move the right stick to move your virtual head as you drive across a bridge, you see the skyscrapers in the distance, fleeting past you in a blur.
And Call of Duty 2 is thankfully the closest I’m going to get to a real life war. As my Russian comrades call on me to provide them cover, machine gun fire whizzing past me, it’s enough to make me wish I had a sound system to complement the screen.
I finally understand what J Allard has been banging on about with the HD era, this is what it is, the massive screen, high resolution, online experience.
Motion sickness included.
COD2
Call of Duty 2, far too much like an obvious PC port. Font used on the display is entirely unreadable from more than 2 feet, especially when it’s green.
Controlling an FPS without a keyboard and mouse obviously takes a bit of getting used to, but seemed like I’d get a good handle on it with time. Weapons have a satisfying kick, looks nice, sounds good, excellent sense of participation with the rest of your squad. Particularly impressive AI.
Made me motion sick.
Kameo
Irritating platform, adventure combo with awful camera, confusing controls, repetitive enemies and little sense of fun.
Looks pretty though. May get better with further play, but little incentive to continue.
PGR3
A very polished launch title, a slew of options, race modes, tracks and cars, with a comprehensive array of online possibility. Really the way an Xbox 360 game should be.
Feels really slow when the camera is placed outside the car, but the one where it’s low to the ground in front of it belts along at a great pace. Riding across the Brooklyn Bridge at night in an Aerial Atom is a sight to behold.
Again, full review to come on whatinterest.
Gamertag
First impressions: impressive.
My gamertag is richard5mith for anybody who wants to join my friends list. I have no friends. I need some.
Dashboard is very slick, the Marketplace and Live Arcade are two of the best things to come to a console, wireless controllers are like magic and the box looks nice.
Full article on whatinterest once I’ve had about a week of playtime.
Shipped
Well, and I don’t often swear on here, fuck me. My Xbox 360 has been shipped, and a day earlier than the last estimate. Expect me to be in Microsoft powered gaming heaven tomorrow.
All my other Amazon packages turned up too, which is incredible considering I ordered it all on Tuesday night. Certainly restored my faith in them after the 360 debacle.
Bought my wrapping paper this afternoon, always hard to know how much you’ll need. Spent almost all Christmas morning wrapping last year before I went out, hoping to be a bit more planned out this year.
Dispatching
Incredibly, all the Amazon stuff I ordered last night has now shipped. Three seperated deliveries and it’s all left the warehouse.
Even more incredibly, my Xbox 360 order status has changed to “Items Dispatching Soon,” which is enough to make me fall off my seat. Maybe I’ll get it before Christmas after all.
Finished
That’s all my Christmas shopping finished, wasn’t too difficult. Started a bit earlier this year, made sure I knew what everybody wanted, and as always, used the online stores to my best advantage.
I still don’t understand those people who brave the real world shops every year, battling through queues, shortages, cold weather and the endless loop of Christmas music to get what they’re looking for. Doing it online is a much less stressful experience, leaving you just a quick trip to pick up some wrapping paper so you can individually wrap each one.
Using an online wrapping service would just be wrong.
