Monthly Archives: November 2008

Currently playing

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Xbox: Forza, Fable, Tiger Woods 2003, SW:KoTOR
PSP: Nothing – D has it in Sunderland
PS2: FFVII, SSX games
PS3: Burnout Paradise, Little Big Planet
Xbox 360: Rez, Fallout 3, Tiger Woods 09

FF VII is the most played right now and is still absorbing to play. Fallout 3 I’m at the first place out of The Vault and going to give the game a fair chance. It scored so highly that if I don’t like this one I can say I’ll never like the FPS. I loved Goldeneye / Doom though in the dim and distant. Rez is utterly fantastic. Doing the top scores which as always is proving tricky. Little Big Planet I am slowly playing but P is playing more. There are many sections which require two players at once so when I’m needed I’m called in to help. The soundtrack to the game is fantastic. I love golf games. From PGA Tour on the Megadrive up Tiger Woods now. Everybody’s Golf on the PS3 is deceptively tricky. For the record my first ever real life 18 hole par 3 course I did in 111 strokes – that putting is harder than it looks.

Gaming heaven: to complete FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, FFX, FFXII.
Estimated time to gaming heaven: 500 hours minimum. (so 2 hours a day is 250 days is just over 8 months. So given that 500 really is a minimum maybe a year. I’ll start tomorrow..)

Jason Owen

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Men found guilty of baby’s death – BBC.

One request.
That the two men responsible are beaten frequently by other prisoners. Death is too good for them.

Another request.
Can we please get rid of every single Social Worker? Shoot them, sack them, brand them and parade them in chains, anything. Just get rid of these utterly useless people who WE pay.

Lastly.
Lock the men and the woman up for something that means real time. Not some namby-pamby Life crap which means they’ll be out in 10 minutes. It’s about bloody time that we had natural life sentences – who gives a damn if it’s a deterrent or not. Lock up, lose the key.

Outsourcing help

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“So when you turn the television up your xbox starts making a noise?”
Yeah right.
I would never buy another Belkin product of any sort because they outsource their help. You cannot ring and describe the issue because you have to go all through their little flow chart help system before they realise that you have a clue, they do not and Yes Please just escalate the thing.
I would have thought that Microsoft could afford actual help. Having to give my name 3 times, my phone number really slowly, my post code twice and the serial number twice and really slowly does not make me happy. It makes an angry me even more angry. And they never ever speak at a decent volume. It’s always really quiet like they are a long way away…..

If you want to make Customer Service cheaper then you are effectively giving the finger to everyone who buys your products.

And having no email address, a contact form that allows only 500 characters and help in hell knows where really does mean you don’t want to hear from anyone, ever.

I’d get a refund on the console but because I opened the games I can’t get a refund on them because I’d be a nasty software pirate.

That damn noise again.

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Would a DVD/CD player that made so much noise be acceptable in a car? No. In a personal hifi? No. In a player used in a quarry? No. So why is it acceptable to use in a player that is touted as a film player, as a game player, as a music player? Not everyone plays Guitar Hero on max do they?

I got the Xbox because of a certain few games and I knew that (1) it made some noise and (2) unless you were prepared to give Microsoft a stack of cash every month that you were effectively a second class citizen to them. (I really do not understand why Sony don’t push their online being free. I go online and get thrashed in a game – do I care? Not really, it cost me nothing. Would I care if I was paying money for that privilege? Sure as hell I would). Downloaded games are okay. But the way it plays disc games is gobsmackingly loud.
For those of you without a PS3, games install some content to the internal HD. This speeds up loading, probably cuts disc access. I thought the Xbox did the same but it really doesn’t do that. That’s pretty crap. 120GB drive for what? Music? Pics? It really is a PC. No-cd cracks anyone?
Apparently there is some update in the works to allow install to the HD? If that stopped the CD spinning that would be good but given how PC’s keep the discs spinning I can’t see that changing. It’s screamingly obvious that (1) someone without a clue designed the damn thing, (2) someone in QA who stamped it as good was deaf (3) that MS should never be allowed to build any consumer hardware.
More frequent Arcade updates? Maybe – it’s to keep people from complaining about that damn racket.

I find it amazing that this issue is not in any official Xbox forums. Looks like they govern their empire as badly as Apple do in theirs.

I now appreciate my PS3 more than I thought I would.

Noisy 360. Microsoft should die.

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Bought a 360. Downloaded some Arcade games, all was good. Put a game disc in to play and I might have well put 2 blenders full of ice and spoons either side of my head. Noise was not just loud, it was stupid. Extremely loud. Cannot play a game and not hear it loud. Can’t Microsoft make a frigging CD drive that doesn’t sound so absolutely terrible? If there is way to rip that crap out and put something decent in then I’ll pay someone to do it. How are you mean to watch films? You could not hear the machine if you watched Starship Troopers on max but pretty much anything else and you are screwed. I tried it lying down, on cork, tipped slightly and standing up. It still sounded like half a dozen cheap hairdryers on full. I knew they made some noise but wtf?
I blogged ages that when I rang the PS3 Careline about my PS3 being noisy the guy said that I should try a 360 to see what noise was. No kidding. The PS3 is like an angel tiptoeing across dandelion down compared to this rhino in climbing boots going over gravel.

It is seriously f*cking loud. Microsoft can get a serious f*cking call in the morning too.

And…..

Google site:xbox.com/en-US/ noisy gets zero results as does site:xbox.com noisy

Search their forums for noise / noisy and nothing turns up. Well paid forum nazi there then.

Somewhere in Microsoft someone said “YEAH GREAT THIS WILL DO, SHIP IT!“. Sack it.

Nominet – bargain bucket prices.

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A couple of years ago during a conversation in #wordpress I bought a domain. 5 minutes after buying it the ‘good idea’ to do so had disappeared. So it sat in the registrar unloved (given that no other tld had a registration of the domain name shows it was bad). A short time ago I started getting the expiry emails from Namecheap and I ignored them. The cost for a domain there is just under $10 so that’s about £6.50 The domain lapsed as it should.
Yesterday I get a letter from Nominet. They told me that the domain had expired but I could still have it. All I needed to do was give them £95 (that’s $148 right now) Bargain eh? Sad thing is that somewhere the bandits at Nominet are screwing people over who will pay their prices. And I just checked – I could still reactivate the domain for $17.76
When I took over the abody website I sorted some new hosting, fixed the site (I need to upgrade Gallery again probably. And people moan about WP.. tried a Gallery upgrade recently? I’d rather chew a brick) and I mentioned their domain name and renewal. They showed me the certificate they had from Nominet. They were told they needed it. Eh? They renewed the name a few months ago and did not get a certificate – and asked me if that was okay. Why are Nominet saying these bits of paper mean anything? It would be like me showing you a certificate that said I was sane.

Nominet – domain name robbery.

Ecclestone – racist by action.

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Ecclestone described the supporters’ actions as “a joke” and told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I don’t think it has anything to do with racism.”

But Hamilton responded by saying: “I didn’t see it as a joke.” BBC

If someone says they are being bullied then you cannot dismiss it because you are not feeling what they are.
If someone says “It hurts” then it hurts. You cannot tell them it does not.
So if someone feels upset, intimidated, angry then you must accept that and act accordingly. And if someone says that and is in a situation you can never be in – such as because of the colour of their skin – then to make light of it is to be ignorant at best and probably racist yourself.

Palin. Idiot. Bimbo. Fool.

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Sarah Palin just said she has the right to privacy so does not have to tell anyone how she voted. She said this was another reason why America was cool. That’s a pretty neat idea. Maybe the rest of the world should do that.

People voted for her. The same people are allowed to breed. The same people are allowed to own guns. Hell, SHE is. Scary.

but I prefer it my way.

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Andre Baptiste Sr.: Welcome to Democracy!
Yuri Orlov: Democracy? What have you been drinking Andy?
Andre Baptiste Sr.: Heh, you have not seen the news. You know, they accuse me of rigging elections. But after this -
[holds up a newspaper with the headline "U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Recount Ruling"]
Andre Baptiste Sr.: – with your Florida and your Supreme Court of Kangaroos, now, the U.S. will shut up forever!
[laughs]

Lord of War

Prompt at the Vatican

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Vatican reintroduces clocking in

Senior clerics will have to swipe plastic cards when entering and leaving, all in a drive to improve time-keeping and efficiency.

Why? After all, if you can’t trust a Man Of God to keep his word when asked if he was late or asked to perform a task then who in hell do you trust? Are people there … lying!?

Next year there are plans to introduce performance-related pay.

So the God Squad have to perform to some level of criteria? They’ll have a Payscale to Heaven? They’ll have to say more Hail Mary’s than the next guy? Cure more lepers? Cast sinners into Hell or save more sinners from Hell? Give more money back to the super-rich Catholic Church? Find and remove any homosexuals?

Absolute nonsense.