thirtyfootscrew’s blog

My Blog is Moving...

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:27:57 +0000

Just a quick note to say that my blog is now moving from Vox to my own personal website, the blog will now be available at thirtyfootscrew.com (direct url: http://www.thirtyfootscrew.com/golb).

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Gamerscore Blog Road Tour 2007: Washington D.C.

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Fri, 25 May 2007 07:08:59 +0100

I've not long since got back to my hotel after attending an event in Washington DC hosted by the Microsoft Xbox (and Games for WIndows) PR guys from the Gamerscore Blog, it was a great night and good to finally put some faces to names / gamertags / forum handles. The event started with some food and drinks whilst we were able to play a whole slew of games including Shadowrun, Project Sylpheed, Forza 2 and a bunch of Xbox Live arcade titles (one of which was Track & Field).

I was impressed with Shadowrun, other than what I've heard from blogs and podcasts this was the first real concrete information I'd seen and it definitely clarified a few points for me. The things I'd heard were that it's complexity might prove to be a barrier for people who just want to jump in and start playing and in my experience this definitely wasn't the case. Other than a brief run of the first tutorial and some on-the-fly coaching from Chris I was pretty much running and gunning right away, sure it'll take a while to master the finer points of tech and magic but if you're a fan of the FPS genre then you'll feel at home immediately as it handles exactly how it ought to and I was very quickly "in the zone", ignoring everything around me and trying to get some decent headshots.

Project Sylpheed is essentially a 3D space shooter / flight sim and handles pretty well, I didn't get to see a great deal of the mission structure so I can't comment on the overall arc of the game but it was certainly put together well and once I'd inverted my flight controls (up vs down) I was flying quite easily. As I said, I didn't really get far enough into the game to know but I'd love to see a more in-depth and interactive mission structure as opposed to the "enter arena and kill 'em all" style of mission that most console flight sims have had recently.

I was also reasonably impressed with Forza 2, I wasn't really a fan of the original and hated it within about 15 seconds of playing the game so I was pleasantly surprised when after 15 minutes of playing the sequel I was still enjoying myself. I'd still need to spend a little more time with the demo in order to be sure of it's purchase value but that has more to do with my fussiness about control methods and handling than it does with the game itself.

Anyway, that's about all the info I can regurgitate before I fall asleep and I have a flight tomorrow so I'd better get some shut-eye. Catch y'all later (well I am in America after all).

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QotD: Not Allowed In The Cart

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Thu, 17 May 2007 23:46:05 +0100

What item(s) do you have to prevent yourself from buying at the grocery store?
Submitted by Places Unknown.

Meat, because I'm a vegetarian! That said, I do have to worry about manufacturers sneaking animal products into everyday items like Mars, Snickers, Twix or Milky Way bars. It can be difficult as a veggie working all that stuff out at first but you get used to it and everyone sets their own moral compass (do they eat fish, wear leather etc.).

On a side note, if any veggies stumble on this and want an alternative to leather shoes then I'd heartily recommend Vegetarian Shoes, they're based in Brighton on the South coast of England and make great quality leather free footwear for men and women (not one person I've met has spotted that my shoes are not leather). They're also really friendly and helpful, I once had an 11th hour requirement for shoes to attend a wedding and they arranged to have a pair of smart shoes couriered overnight so that I could look smart and still keep my conscience clean!

If anyone out there is a new veggie or is thinking about it, feel free to get in touch - it can be daunting at first and it's always good to have someone to ask.

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How Awesome is Skype?

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Sun, 13 May 2007 20:01:35 +0100

I know this puts me somewhat behind the times, but I just wanted to comment on how great Skype is. In the course of arranging a trip to the USA I have had reason to call on the phone a number of times to arrange hotels, etc. I just got off of the phone from Ticketmaster as I had issues with their site booking tickets for a game at Madison Square Gardens.

I work in the IT industry and have been using computers in one form or another for almost 20 years so it's hard for things to really give me that 'wow' factor, but occasionally the enormity of it all hits me and I my brain lets me stand back and appreciate the whole thing. So, just now I was sat in the UK talking to some guy in the US over the Internet, wirelessly inside my flat and I though "yep, this is cool".

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QotD: Search Me

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:52:39 +0100

How well does your name Google? Who are you up against? (Celebrities, etc.)
Submitted by Matt Blank.

The top listing on Google for my name is that of an escort girl based in Sydney, Australia (It's not me, honest) which I thought was quite amusing. Some of the links further down are related to me and one is even my own website, which is nice.

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QotD: My Daily Dose

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Thu, 03 May 2007 20:00:34 +0100

What websites do you visit every day?
Submitted by Chez Michelle.

I'm an avid gamer, techie and current-affairs junkie so I check...

The Gamercast Network - website for a series of podcasts and a brilliant good-natured forum as well.
Eurogamer - great news site for games and a rare gem of European based news.
BBC News - my absolute favourite news channel and website.
Digg - a superb social news site, excellent for highlighting the quirkier stories as well as good solid tech news.
Xbox.com - I have a 360 but don't use it every day, I visit the site to see who's online, read my messages and send messages to my friends.

That's all folks.

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MacBook: First Impressions from a Switcher

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:29:50 +0100

Many months ago when I started this blog I'd just acquired a PowerMac G4 having rescued it from a skip, I installed OSX and started using it. I enjoyed the experience but the Mac quickly fell into disuse as I still had all of my regular apps, email, music, etc. on the PC. I couldn't have switched to the G4 as my PC was newer and more powerful and besides that I didn't really want to abandon the PC as a platform, until now.

In order to make traveling easier and provide me with a little more flexibility I decided to get a laptop, I thought this would be an ideal time to make a first serious step into the Mac world so I went to the Apple Store on Regent's Street (London), watched their "Switch at Six" talk and spoke with a few employees about the practicalities and after much deliberation I bought the 13.3" Macbook. Whilst the extra power of the Macbook Pro would be great I think the size makes it much less portable and when you start thinking about spending that much money on a laptop you might as well say "screw it" and buy an awesome desktop for the same money.

I've had it for a few weeks now and I'm enjoying it, I've found that I'm using the Internet much more for fun as I can sit in the living room with the TV on and talk to my flatmate at the same time, I also can just pick it up and take it out with me if I need to. I plan to clear some space on my desk so that I can run a cable to my 22" CRT to get a better experience for editing photos, etc. - but these are just benefits of having a laptop - so how am I finding the Mac?

Overall, it's been positive, I've had difficulty overcoming certain hurdles (lack of right mouse button, the fact I hate Preview) but in general I love some of the cool features such as: pressing F9 tiles all of your open applications and allows you to pick which one you want to use and F11 pushes all of your apps to the side of the screen so you can get access to your desktop. They're only little things and probably exist in Vista but that's one of my reasons for switching - based on everything I've heard to date I really don't want Vista and am getting fed up of being tied to Microsoft software so this is my first step towards application freedom. Now I barely use my PC and I'm wondering whether or not the Macbook will become my primary computer - time will tell I suppose.

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Old News Catchup: Apple TV, PS3 Launch, EMI sans DRM...

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:06:46 +0100

So, what's been going down in my absence? After a three month absence I thought I'd better catch up by posting my thoughts on the recent (and not so recent) news stories, so here (in no particular order) are the ones that caught my eye.

Suitably following on from my last serious post, the Apple TV finally launched - I pretty much stand by all of my previous comments, especially that the Apple TV's success is probably in the hands of the hacking community. I actually had a play with one in the Regent Street Apple Store the other day and wasn't too impressed, scaling low quality video up to an HDTV (they were using Sony TVs) looks pretty bad and given that HD content takes an age to download and isn't that prevalent I really can't see the need, I might consider it for £99 for the hacking alone but for £199 you can jump. Also, given that Microsoft are adding more codecs to their Xbox 360 player there's even less of a need for it, I do agree with the crew from Macbreak Weekly that it'll give video podcasts a realistic shot at getting HD content into the living room but I'm not convinced it'll get the critical mass to make a difference.

In further Apple news, the announcement that EMI would be offering DRM free music. I really think that this will be the start of a sea-change in how the record companies view digital music one way or the other. Personally I welcome the move and will definitely begin purchasing music from iTunes if I know that I'm not tied to their platform.

And finally, in the gaming arena there was the launch of the PS3 in Europe, despite a couple of facts and figures about "record breaking" sales the whole thing went with a bit of a whimper and to date there's still a lot more supply than there is demand. The problem right now is software and with only two viable titles on release right now (RFoM and Motorstorm) the prospect of laying ot £400 for one is hardly attractive. We'll have to wait and see, in the long run I expect Sony will catch up but even if they do I doubt that they'll achieve anywhere near the dominance of the PS2 - those days are over. The other niggling thought at the back of my mind is that Sony were originally touting the PS3 as having a 10-year lifecycle, if that holds true then just as they're hitting the middle of the curve I'd expect both Microsoft and Nintendo to come out with another generation of hardware to challenge whatever momentum Sony have gathered up to that point. For my money, I'd pick the soon to be released XBox 360 Elite with a larger hard drive, HDMI, better online support, better games, better price, etc. etc. As for the Wii, I really don't play it as much as I expected to but because it cost less I'm not too upset - I'm sure that at some point they'll release a serious killer app and I'll be straight back on it for a while.

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QotD: Ms. President

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:17:46 +0100

Is it likely that the U.S. will have a female president in the near future? In your lifetime? Why?

I hope so, though I really (really) hope it's not Hillary Clinton. I'm British and we've already had a female Prime Minister (though many would argue that Maggie had more balls than any of her successors). The Queen is pretty obviously a chick as well but we don't get to choose her.

America is such a varied country that by the time you've chosen a president they end up being a bland widely appealing baby kissing mix of what each section of the population wants, which is a pity. I would really like to see America have either it's first female and/or it's first black president some time in the next 10 years, obviously there's a possibility this time round so I'll keep my fingers crossed - I just think that it'd be so dull if you had yet another classic middle aged white-boy in the oval office again.

We're doing pretty well over here in Europe as Germany is currently led by Angela Merkel and Sergolene Royal is in with a good shot at the French presidency. The Council of Women World Leaders lists 11 currently serving female presidents, prime ministers and chancellors from countries as diverse as Ireland, Sri Lanka, Liberia and New Zealand so the other continents are doing alright too.

Even though I'm no fan of Hillary I'm a democrat by nature and I'd still welcome the progress that a female leader would mean for the USA. The shame is that I doubt enough Americans are progressive enough for the vote either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama into office, even though they're the favourites at the moment. Whatever happens I don't expect it to affect policy, the last two white-boys you've had were markedly different (Clinton = awesome, Bush = ass) - it would just send a statement about America as a country. In reality, I think the best candidate might be Gore, he's turned into a proper Climate Change Ninja lately and he seems to be pretty popular for it too.

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Absence makes the heart grow... apathetic?

nobody@vox.com(thirtyfootscrew) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:47:22 +0100

It's been a while since my last post, and yes I'm aware that means that I suck at blogging but I don't care. It's the thought that counts and I really do want to keep it up, recent developments mean that I have an added incentive to put finger to keyboard too so hopefully I'm back.

There's a whole load of old news I want to post about before I get swallowed up by the torrent of new news so I'll go through that in a separate 'catch-up' post sometime soon but for now I'll leave you with some helpful advice: Cadbury's Creme Eggs don't melt properly. I just tried to make cakes out of Special K and Creme Eggs and oddly the fondant stuff seems to foul up the chocolate so I've got a big pile of mess in the fridge trying to set.

From now on I'm going to consult the experts before I try anything like this again - if you've not seen them before you HAVE to check out the masterful creations at pimpthatsnack.com, these guys know where it's at.

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