Planet Sillicon

Getting things done

By blog on Jun. 19, 2009.

I have actually been getting things done! WOOT! That to do list has been wiped clean, all is done. There were even extra things that went on the list and I have done those already too! I was very productive after getting home, I think it was having to do those projects at work that put me in that frame of mind where you want everything done and out of the way before you sit down to do anything relaxing or fun.

I noticed on the Smart Phones page at Mobilewire that the new OS for the iPhone was officially released, so I set that to downloading whilst I looked over everything else on my list. I saw that I had written on there that I needed to call my mother. I love my mother, but she is a little chatty, so when you call her, you need to put aside about an hour where you can just chat with her. I don’t mind, but it makes it more difficult to call her back when she’s left a message on my answering machine and such, because you can’t just say to yourself, well, I am getting ready for work, have half an hour spare, that’ll do. No, you have to wait until you know you won’t be bothered for at least an hour, and be sure to take a trip to the bathroom first!

Armed with this knowledge, I go in prepared. I use our home phone on speaker phone when I talk to her, so I can still sit at my computer and use the net or get little things done like downloading software updates. Last night, whilst talking to her I was very productive, I upgraded the OS on my iPhone, package up my old phone to those mobile phone buyers that I have been meaning to do for a week, updated three of my games, and checked to make sure my drivers where up to date, and updated those that weren’t. Huzzah!

Then the only things left on my list were some grocery shopping my SO had asked me to do, and pick up some nice wine for a grand dinner she has planned for us for Friday night. As it was about 10pm at this point, I drove out to the supermarket and the liquor store quick as a flash – I love being at the supermarket when only about three other people are there! Everything is off my ‘To Do’ list, and I am looking forward to one relaxing weekend!

Just deserts

By blog on Jun. 18, 2009.

Do you know what the just deserts are for a person whose lethargy is borderline profound? Their just deserts for forcing themselves to get a job that have no desire to do – see my last post – done in very quick time? Their just deserts are finding out they were only told of half the job, and they have to do it all over again… Not best pleased.

Okay now I have my rant out of the way I’ll get to the point. Essentially, I had to do the same thing I did for our office for the small office our company has in Scotland.

Because I had already done the same thing for our own office, it took no time at all for me to find and organise a deal with Highland Telecom and then buy the Panasonic cordless phones the Scotland office would need. With all that out of the way, I actually got a small amount of work done, and then it was time to head off home.

I was trying to be eco-conscious, so I took the bus. On which, I played some more Starfy, mainly because when I opened my DS, I realised I had left the game running whilst I charged it last night. The game is growing on me, I must say. It does still feel a little too easy, but I am wondering if it is just a slow intro into harder parts of the game.

I really enjoy the parts of the game where you are spin-attacking boulders into fish and so forth, that is quite fun, actually. Some of the foes are quite interesting too, there seems to be legless flying cats in some levels, something that my SO would absolutely go insane for – she loves the idea of flying cats. Anyway, so whilst I am not as impressed as IGN seemed to be, it is still fun for killing time every now and then.

Oh and I am totally working from home tomorrow, that way they can’t try to give me any extra projects!

Phone project

By blog on Jun. 18, 2009.

You know when there is an extra project at work, that no one really wants to do, but has do be done anyway? We had one of those pop up today. A phone project. I have been assigned the project… I have to find the business’ new telecommunications provider, and new phones for the office. Apparently the contract with our previous provider was up, and ‘those upstairs’ decided a better provider could – and should – be found, which means the phones the business had leased also need to be replaced. For some reason, I was chosen to find the most suitable option, and then send it along for approval by ‘those upstairs’.

I like what I do, really, I like building websites, it’s like a male form of birth for me. However, what I don’t like is being tasked with something that I have no experience with – okay with the exception of buying my own phones and such, so really I do have a little bit of experience. Okay, I don’t like being tasked with something I have little experience with, and absolutely no desire to do! All it does is feed into my current mood of not being productive, and that’s the last thing I need right now!

I knew I couldn’t get to the work I was supposed to be doing until this little gem was off of my ‘To do’ list, so I set to it this morning right away, and was finished by this afternoon. Strangely enough, it didn’t feel like having teeth removed, which is pretty much what I had expected.

After being handed a thick wad of papers which contained the figures we had been paying on all our phone and internet lines, I emailed around a few different telecommunication providers to see what sort of quotes I would get for our particular office. I had a few emails back,but one looked more promising than others, Brite Telecom.

As for the phones themselves, ‘those upstairs’ stated that they didn’t want to lease phones for our office, so the office would be buying them. It’s pretty informal, so we needed cordless so we could carry them around. I thought long and hard about making everyone use these, but then thought these were absolutely the way to go, but then thought of trying to rationally explain that to ‘those upstairs’ as anything other that malicious spiteful glee and thought better of it. In the end, I chose to buy the BT Synergy business phones, with the condition that the headset is mine.

So! Now back to my real work!

I’ll get to it tomorrow

By blog on Jun. 18, 2009.

I really will, I will get all those things I meant to get done tomorrow, along with what I already had to do tomorrow. See a problem with this? Oh I certainly do!

Even right now, as I find time to sit down and write, I find my mind wandering. I find that it is actually quite difficult to focus for long enough to get this written down. After one sentence, just one, I found I had to stop for a minute and just sit back in my comfy chair and stare into space. Ugh, my lethargy currently is just off the charts!

I had a few things I have been meaning to do for the last few days, like doing that send in and get cash back for my mobile thing that I posted I would do when my SO bought me my new iPhone. I actually urge anyone who gets a new mobile to send their old one to these people, because one, they will pay you a little for your effort, and more importantly two, your phone could end up going across the glove to help somebody less fortunate than yourself out. I like that.

On a more selfish note, the other thing I have been meaning to do is to check out mobile TV for my phone – I am going to have a lot of fun with this thing, I know it! I am currently in the information gathering phase, because I want to see if it’s really worth it or not. It is looking to be quite a good optional accessory for me, actually, because how brilliant a way would that be to ignore everyone on the bus or tube, or to wait for appointments, or pretty much drown out my fellow man in any uncomfortable social situation.

Of course, there is also all that pesky work I have to get done, but luckily I have a while yet before any deadlines. I shan’t procrastinate any more than is absolutely necessary. I just have to go play flash games for fifteen minutes, then get to work.

I am now the lazy gamer

By blog on Jun. 17, 2009.

I first noticed Knights in the Nightmare when I was puddling around looking at the Editor’s Choice list over on IGN.com. It looked interesting, I don’t mind a turn-based RPG, so I read on. After a few minutes, I figured the game looked alright, but I had to scoot off to do something so I just closed it down and forgot about it.

Now when I was on Penny Arcade earlier, I happened to notice Tycho had written about this very same game. What he said confirmed what I had suspected in those few minutes of looking at the review. Here is what he said.

…I am trying to fashion my mind into something capable of perceiving Knights in the Nightmare. Another psychotic import with an incredible translation from Atlus, the shit that goes on in this game will overwhelm your frontal lobe, leaving you in a state which is neither dead nor alive. Imagine that a man is juggling while standing on a pile of conscious, scowling heads. Only he’s not juggling balls, he’s juggling concepts, like poverty and flavor. As you watch him, you are shaken by the unprovable yet unnerving sensation that there is, somewhere, a secret third hand, juggling a perverse cadre of unballs.

You know what this says to me? This says to me, ‘don’t bother’. Why? Because I am too lazy for the kind of mental obstacle course that this game appears to be. Oh don’t get me wrong, it sounds like a great game, but if I wanted to bust my brain to the point of not having any fun, I’d do my taxes.

And so it is with games for me at the moment. If it is an overly complex game where I have to learn a lot about the game mechanics to get anywhere… chances are I will just opt out and choose to play something a little less in depth and play Starfy. ) I know, I know, I am missing out on the games with the great story-lines when I do that! I will get out of my lazy gaming funk, I know I will, that’s why I don’t push it now.

Back from the grave

By blog on Jun. 17, 2009.

I have noticed a trend in the comic world, and I thought I might spew out my reactions to this trend. Keep in mind, please, that I don’t actually read these comics, I just for some reason seem to know a tiny little bit about them. In multiple comic series in recent times, heroes of great renown have been killed off, and a short while later brought back to life. Even the BBC is doing news articles about this… I just find that… odd.

If you’re going to kill off a main character, then I think you should leave it at that. And here’s a tip, if you don’t want them to be dead… don’t kill them off! The following is a brief list of those I know to have been killed and brought back;

Professor X: This guy has been pretend killed by Cable, who actually just put him somewhere else in time, and really killed by Magneto, which just makes me angry.

Spiderman: Spidey has been killed no fewer than eight times… EIGHT TIMES!? That’s ridiculous! He has been killed by Thanos, Clone Degeneration Syndrome, Norman Osborn (though this was Spiderman II, Bill Reilly), The Owl, The Other, Kulan Gath, Dr Doom, and Terraxia. In all these cases, he dies, and then sort of, just gets over that.

Captain America: CA was assassinated on the order of Red Skull, who uses Crossbones to snipe him, only after he has been shot by a fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Sharon Carter, who had the mission hypnotically implanted in her brain by Dr Faustus who was posing as a S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist. That’s a bit odd, now isn’t it. Anyway, he’s on his way back too.

Superman: He is killed by some giant bad-ass villain creature thing, really stupid if you ask me. Doomsday is the name of the creature that killed Superman. Doomsday is one of those characters that you see in movies and books sometimes, everything you do to him only makes him stronger in the end. Blah blah blah, think Super Sayan levels that just keep rising and you will know what I mean. Doomsday was a clone, and as an infant, was subjected to pretty much every nasty event that could possibly happen, which killed him repeatedly. I know, really damn morbid and horrible, eh? Every time he is killed by something, he grows immune to that which killed him along will all his other previously accumulated immunities. I personally see this as ridiculous writing, and extremely over the top. Here is the stupidly long list of how uber Doomsday is. You see the problem that arises with these characters? Inevitably they have to toss away the character’s bio and conveniently do away with them. Blegh!

The list goes on, too, but those are just the ones that spring to mind. I really don’t think you ought to kill off the main character in your comic series if you are just going to cave and bring them back. It all just seems like grand-standing to me.

You can’t replace Kirby!

By blog on Jun. 17, 2009.

That’s right Starfy, I’m talking to you, Prince of Pufftop indeed! Yeah, you know you have no right to that title, you’re a starfish! You’re not puffy! You know who’s puffy, Starfy? Kirby! Yeah, that’s who. Don’t give me that look, Starfy, you know I’m telling the truth. You don’t even inflate! No matter how cutely you swim, or how many cute outfits you put on, you can’t replace Kirby!

On a more serious note, that’s what this game feels like. Knowing that Nintendo have plans for Starfy to be the next big mascot, aspects of the game-play started to stand out as being rather Kirby-like. The games play very similarly, they both have this almost super-speed feel to them, even though there are numerous foes, none are particularly challenging, so you just speed right past them. Also Starfy, like Kirby, is altered throughout the game. He joins up with Bunston at points during the game, which makes for a much more tough Starfy. He also has a sort of tag-team mode with his sister Starly.

So I feel a few things about this game. On the one hand, it is fun to zoom around in the water, much less arduous than Mario water levels. And Starfy is undeniably cute, I mean, the Kitty Outfit is adorable! However, I do feel that there are a few draw backs to the game. For one, it is too easy. Granted I have only gone through the first two worlds in the game, but yeah, so far too easy. I am also left a little underwhelmed with the graphics in the game. They are alright, and I know they were going for a certain style, but I know what the DS is capable of, and I think Starfy could have pushed for more.

As for those questioning whether Starfy is ‘too Japanese’, I don’t think so. I know what is being referenced here, the story-line and sound effects mostly, but it really isn’t too much. This is a pick-up-and-play title, so the story-line really isn’t the focus, so if it is a little wacky, it doesn’t matter. As for the sound effects, Starfy’s noises are clearly Japanese, but they are cute and appropriate. I mean a creature with no central nervous system (a brain) probably won’t be capable of speech.

By blog on Jun. 15, 2009.

Oh. My. Goodness. A couple of days ago I posted about my in-laws approaching me to create their website. I said no, but I did help them with direction for what they wanted. Well this week they have called me three times, three times, about information I gave them – I wrote it down and emailed it to them – about who to see about it and what they would need.

It was a tiny checklist, itty bitty, weeny checklist of what they would need and who they would have to see about it. They needed a better net connection – and I gave them the link to a good SDSL provider – a web designer who would set up the site, the server and domain for them, and I encouraged them to go for a kilostream circuit as they have so many computer systems in their business. I really went above and beyond, I believe, with these people who so often can barely maintain civility with me.

I helped them, but I am not going to be at their beck and call for the next six months whilst they ass around trying to do something that should have taken them a month with the outline I gave them. Really, this is one of those instances where I should have just been rude and told them flat out that I wouldn’t help them.

Anyway, I need to talk of something else now, before I become really angry. Pixar have released a trailer for Toy Story 3, due out June 18th next year. I have to say, that’s kind of exciting, and here’s why. Whenever Pixar release anything, I pay heed. I pay heed because numerous times I have heard the theme of one of their films, skipped it at the cinema, only to watch it six months later at home, thought it was fantastic, and kicked myself repeatedly for not going to see it on the big screen. This happened with Cars, Ratatouille, and WALL-E. I think Cars was good, Ratatouille was fantastic, and WALL-E was brilliant. I am eagerly awaiting the chance to see their newest one, Up, which I think has a fabulous story line! :yes:

So I will include the Toy Story 3 trailer here, and pay heed!

Investments still under consideration

By blog on Jun. 13, 2009.

I told you I would end up writing about this again! I was looking at all that property investment stuff again and it is pretty darn interesting. I think I will keep my eye on this for a while! One promising development seems to be investment properties for sale in the Philippines. I took a look over some of the locations, and I have to say, kicking back on a beach in the Philippines seems pretty alright, if you ask me. My SO and I, under a huge beach umbrella, fruity cocktails with tiny umbrellas in them… :>> Oh yeah!

I have also been looking at a few travel blogs, which is fun. Kind of like seeing what a non-game-obsessed but travel-obsessed person would write about.

Thinking of all those lovely beaches in the Philippines got me thinking about The Legendary Starfy. I have played the opening round, and I have to say, it plays well. I am really looking forward to picking up the game more in the coming days. It is very pretty, and Starfy’s noises are adorable. But I do have to mention, I’m concerned for Starfy’s welfare. For two reasons, really. The first reason is, well, Starfy is sort of a starfish… and starfish don’t have brains… and that kind of leads onto the second reason… Starfy falls over a lot in the story sequences… a heck of a lot… seriously. It makes me understand why he is so flat!

Nonetheless, I will do my best to protect the little echinoderm, because the game plays really well. It’s nice to pick up a game and have the controls respond so well. I am a little surprised, because even though I knew this game was going to be pushed hard by Nintendo, I didn’t expect it to play like a sequel to a long line of good games so much as a slightly dysfunctional but based on a good idea kind of game.

For the love of all things green and good

By blog on Jun. 13, 2009.

I knew The Hobbit was going to be made into a movie, but for some reason, I just assumed that Peter Jackson was going to direct it. Apparently that isn’t the case. Apparently Guillermo dl Toro will be directing it… I have had a few reactions to this.

Firstly, let me say that Pan’s Labyrinth was a fantastic film that I highly enjoyed. It was very fay, and showed del Toro’s ability to evoke eeriness to near palpability. However, The Hobbit is a text that was primarily written for children. Granted it isn’t the same sort of book that would be aimed at children today, but nonetheless, it is a children’s novel. del Toro has previously focused on directing horror, comic book adaptations, and a couple of historical histories. Blade II, Hellboy, and Hellboy 2 are some of his more famous works, and to be honest… I really don’t think a heck of a lot of those films. Now, granted, comic book adaptations are often tricky, but the ones that he is actually acclaimed for, The Devil’s Backbone, and to a lesser extent, The Orphanage, are both creepy and disturbing. Sad, depressing, and disquieting. And what is del Toro set to do after The Hobbit? Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a remake of a very strange film, Slaughterhouse-Five, and an adaptation of a novel about the last five years of Charles Dickon’s life, called Drood… Does anyone else have that song ‘One of these things, is not like the other. One of these things, is not quite the same‘ going on in their heads right now? I do!

I’m sorry but why, oh why, is this particular director directing The Hobbit? I hold out a tiny sense of hope that Peter Jackson is producing it, and I do recognise that some of Jackson’s earlier work is terribly gruesome too, but this just doesn’t sit right with me. Already del Toro is talking about the scares included in the text and how they are trying to imbue that into the film… Scares… in The Hobbit… oh for the love of all things green and good.

There is something ever so wholesome in Tolkien’s work, something that is completely and utterly absent from del Toro films… I feel like the Shire as the way I see it will be absent from this film, this film that I have so looked forward to, and instead we will be presented with some creepy, blue filter shot, pressing place… I really do think del Toro’s work is good, I do, but not for The Hobbit. I am sorely disappointed with this right now. The only thing that makes this any better is that the other short listed director isn’t doing this film, as that was Sam Raimi, which would have been and even worse choice. Bah! I’m feeling completely dejected at the thought of what is going to be done with The Hobbit. Seriously, I was so looking forward to this film, seeing all those dwarf cloaks hung in the entrance-way of Bag End… now I am just bloody certain that what I loved in the book will be gone in lieu of a focus on ‘the scares in the book’.