Another reason I like Will Ferrell:

Will Ferrell Answers Your Internet Questions




# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Funny, Web

Actual screenshot of one of my Facebook friend's Mini-Feed (I've changed the names to "Timmy" to protect the horny):



Either my 15-year-old self borrowed Timmy's PC when he wasn't looking - or Timmy was bored a few nights ago and went trawling for Facebook funbags.

I must say, Fan de Big Tits does sound like a fun group.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Web

The title says it all - I received the following image in an email forward:



People falling down are funny. Especially when they are holding a drink.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Funny

I saw The Dark Knight on the weekend and enjoyed it muchly. It goes without saying that Heath Ledger's contribution was incredible. One small aspect of his performance that I didn't expect when going in was his portrayal of the Joker's voice - it was a pleasant surprise. Christian Bale's take on Batman's "man voice" however - was very distracting.

Looks like I'm not the only one to think this - nor the most eloquent. One of the blogs I read hosted a mock interview with the caped crusader recently - which sums up my feelings quite well.

Quoting Geese Aplenty:
And you know what's even more annoying? You do it in front of people like Rachel and Lucius, who know who you are. I'm surprised they're not all 'Bruce, we get it, you're a badass. Now stop pretending you have a 6-pack a day habit.' What is the third movie in the series going to be called, anyway? "Batman Enunciates"?
Indeed.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Movies

As mention in an earlier post, Jonathan Roy - son of hall-of-fame goaltender Patrick Roy - basically assaulted Bobby Nadeau in a very one-sided hockey fight.

Looks like someone over there's doing something right - as Jonathan's just been charged with assault.

Quoting Sportsnet:
If found guilty of the summary offence, Roy faces a maximum $2,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
I'd be surprised if he's faced with jail time, but it's good to the authorities are making a stand on this one. Incidents like this give hockey an bad name - which it doesn't always deserve.

# Posted in the Hockey section

I was browsing through my iPod's song library looking for Sweet Child o' Mine, as I've been playing my Guitar Hero games a lot recently.

When my scrolling arrived near the Sw section I noticed that a song called Superman was shown four times. I thought it might be a bug, until I played each of them - and they were all different songs:

• Superman by Eminem
• Superman (It's Not Easy) by Five for Fighting (a very cool stage name)
• Superman by Goldfinger (I used to love this song when playing the original Tony Hawk game)
• Superman by Stereophonics

I do have a few song titles twice (Alive, Always, Beautiful etc) but nothing else approaching four. And since getting all of the Wiki links for those songs - I've noticed another song title Superman that I listen to a hell of a lot. Superman by Lazlo Bane is the theme song for the TV show Scrubs. A quick search on iTunes shows there are heaps more from bands / artists such as Sandi Thom, Ronan Keating, Unwritten Law, R.E.M., The Kinks etc.

I wonder what the most popular song title is. Purple Monkey Dishwasher?



# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Music

(news at 11)

I scan the news headlines each day at The Age's website. After doing a quick scan of the headlines from the homepage, I've recently started scrolling to the bottom of the page each day to check the "Readers' most viewed" links. Each day the top 5 viewed news stories are linked, from 4 different newspapers (The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, WA today and the Brisbane Times).

Since doing this, I've noticed something peculiar about the top 1 or 2 articles for the Brisbane Times' readership. I've taken a screen shot of 5 days in a row - and only left in articles from the Melbourne and Brisbane based newspapers. See if you can spot the pattern:

Monday


Tuesday


Wednesday


Thursday


Friday


Admittedly, the week I chose may have been rigged - as Big Brother is filmed at Dreamworld (Queensland) - and large-breasted housemates Bianca and Brigitte were evicted in that week. But that doesn't explain their two-day fascination with corpse-sex.

I did read the article about sex being used as a punishment for shoplifting - but it turns out the only people being punished were females. Guess I'll keep stealing my copies of Zoo Weekly elsewhere.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Web

I was listening to a podcast of an ex-Melbourne radio show - The Shebang - when they played an audio clip of "Dimitri" leaving a few phone messages for a girl named Olga. Marty and Fifi concluded that Dimitri was the most egotistical man on the planet - and when you listen to the clip it's hard to disagree. I've linked to a YouTube video of it - and the whole transcript is below. The transcript is an indication of the crazy going on - but it's no substitute for the audio.

Dimitri the Lover


Quoting Dimitri The Lover - First Message:
Yeah hi there Olga, it's Dimitri.

Sorry I had to leave such a rushed message with you when we met the other day. I just wanted to quickly give you my phone number, and had to get the heck out of the area. In any event, I figured I better leave you a more detailed message and explain why I approached you.

I am single. I have no trouble meeting women; I mean, women approach me ... six, seven times a day. But I'm very particular about what I like. You're extremely elegant. I couldn't take my eyes off of you, and your friends were very jealous — even if they say they weren't, they were envious of the fact that I approached you, and I was very taken by you. Elegant women are very rare. I'm Greek and I'm very particular about what I like. So I'm giving you an opportunity here.

I don't know if you pick up the messages on the weekend but I'm working on a movie script so I'm pretty much around all weekend, doing that. I left you my number [number here]. This looks like a land line, and if it is, you may not get the message till Monday. But when you do, call me and then we'll get together for coffee and chat, and let the romance begin.

You looked very taken aback by my approach, and I hope that isn't timidness, I hope it was just a little bit of shock at being approached so directly. Because I don't really date timid women, because I'm a very direct, very passionate, very assertive man, and I want a woman who's very independent and strong. So anyway we'll talk about that, but I just wanted to formally introduce myself. Now I have. I leave the ball in your court. You call me as soon as you have the courage to. Okay, Olga? Talk to you soon, bye.

It gets much better when apparently Olga doesn't call Dimitri back for three days:

Quoting Dimitri The Lover - Second Message:
Hi there, Olga. It's Dimitri calling again, the guy from the street.

I left you a message several days ago, you said you were interested. Now, here's the way I work. I don't like leaving second messages, but I like you, you're a very elegant woman, you're very attractive, but, you know, I don't play that game. I know your friends tell you not to return calls; you're playing games like you see in stupid TV shows. So here's how it's gonna work.

It is now 4:30 on Wednesday. Now I'll assume ... I'll assume that you've already left work, because you know, some people leave early, and I'll grant you that. But if I do not receive a phone call back from you by 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon, I'm no longer interested and you can erase my number. I don't play games like that.

I'm completely single, I'm very intelligent, I'm great in bed, I make great money. Believe it or not, I'm a complete catch. I've only been single four months, I had a long distance relationship, you know - went a year, it's very tough to maintain it like that and it didn't work out. There's nothing wrong with me. Matter of fact I'm one of the few men in the city that has nothing wrong with him. So I'm giving you that three o'clock deadline. If I don't hear from you, you lose my number. I'm erasing yours right now, so you won't be hearing back from me.

So that's it: three o'clock tomorrow, or you can just completely forget it.

Now I understand if you've got other issues, like maybe you're not playing games, maybe you've had - I don't know ... maybe you were abused in childhood? Maybe your mother has cancer, you're going to chemo? Maybe you're just a person who's just extremely frightened or has an anxiety disorder, maybe you're on some medication for that. I don't know, there could be another issue that I'm not aware of.

But nobody says "Call me," hands a person a business card and then doesn't return calls. It's extremely passive aggressive. You should actually look that up, passive-aggressive personality disorder. And you let me know, if you've got issues, psychological issues, if you're on any sort of medication for anxiety or depression, I'm not interested. OK? But if you're psychologically normal, and you haven't called me because there's been some horrible thing that's happened in your life which prevented you that's fine. But otherwise? Don't call me. Okay? Bye.

Wow. Just wow!

After a little research into this Lothario revealed a wealth of information.

Here's his website where he was providing advice and workshops in the art of seduction. But if you are in the Toronto area, don't get your hopes too high. He's taking time off over the Summer for a few documentary projects - of which he is the star of course. And you must see the genuine products he has on offer. I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone wearing these down the street yet.

Then I found a few sites talking about his checkered past (such as changing his name after having his medical license suspended due to sexual impropriety - classy).

One thing's for sure. He certainly is a complete catch!

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Funny

Quote:
It was the best of games, it was the blurst of games.Last Exit to Springfield

There have been 21 other games in the long list of Simpsons-based video games, and it's fair to say that very few of them have been worth playing. The Simpsons Hit & Run was pretty good and Bart vs. The Space Mutants kept me entertained as a kid - but most of the games have run the gamut from totally shit to an occasionally enjoyable distraction.

It is with this in mind that when the last Simpson game was announced - with the original title of The Simpsons Game - I wasn't expecting much.


There's a different cover design for each version of the game

The Simpsons Game features an original storyline - it was initially assumed this game might be a movie tie-in with the recently released Simpsons Movie - in which Bart discovers that the family is part of a video game. You can control Homer, Marge, Lisa and Bart and each member of the family has different skills and abilities. The game is broken up into 16 episodes - each with a different setting built around the two characters you will play as.

Developed by EA, poster boy for all that is wrong in the video game industry, this was a very tough game to keep playing. Deaths are far too frequent due to clunky gameplay and the camera seemingly intent on sabotage. If this game was on any other subject, I probably would have stopped playing it after a few hours. But this is where the story kicks in.

The game was written by three Simpsons writers and all in-game dialogue is delivered by the actual Simpsons actors. The story is very funny, and reminiscent of the golden age of Simpsons episodes (for me anyway). The town of Springfield is also pretty faithfully represented in digital form, including internal designs with the comic book store, police station, Kwik-E-Mart, Moe's Tavern and more.


Although there isn't much you can do there, running around the inside of places like the church is a nice touch

The funny, Simpsons-style story alone would make for a good game even considering the poor game play issues, but the most pleasantly surprising aspect of the game for me was the video game references. The game makes fun of past and current video games as well as the whole games industry including EA themselves. There's also many brief aspects of the game play included as homage to famous games in history, such as space invaders, all rendered in the regular in-game engine with a different camera angle (generally top-down).


Mmmm, chocolate

There's no online component to the game, and the achievements are uninspired. Apart from the "finish the game" type achievements, most of the points are handed out for collecting the various "collectibles" throughout the game. That being said, The Simpsons Game does give up one of the most amusing achievements I've "achieved" on the ol' 360. I won't give it away, but you'd see what I was talking about if you ever decided to give this game a go.

3.5 out of 5

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360

This picture popped up in my inbox with the subject "What kind of bow is this?"



The answer given was "Who gives a shit" - and I must say it's a fair response. Prepare for an increase in archery crowds.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Hawt

I stumbled over an amusing post with a collection of science fair photos on Photo Basement. Here's some of my favourites:

Plants and Pop

I seriously want to find out what the results were. Why is the government hiding this stuff from us? It's the EV1 all over again.

Moon Babies

Moon Babies. What more can you say?

Animal Magnetism

Animal Magnetism. You're telling me!

The Code of the Meniscus

Best. Jumper. Ever! (except for maybe this one)

The Ideal Pancreas

Part 2 mind you. I assume all the good stuff was in part 1.

If I were back in an American high school, my experiment would probably be about cats and whether they want cheeseburgers.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Funny

As I've mentioned I'm a huge fan of NHL video games, and have tried to collect one for each year. A little while ago I found a second-hand version of NHL 2K6 for the 360 so I snapped it up.


NHL 2K6 with Marty Turco on the cover

2K6 was the first NHL game released on the Xbox 360 - and it kinda shows. Buying a two-year-old game I didn't expect anything fantastic, but I can't image it would have been that special even when it was first released. It wouldn't run on PAL-60, so to play this game I needed to changed the cords I was using and alter the Xbox's display settings. There was also some freezing issues with the game, and the 2K Sports interface was getting very clunky by this stage.

I played a few games with my beloved Penguins, and it's always fun controlling Crosby around the ice - but there wasn't much reason to continue once I earned the 5 achievements. It will take it's place on the shelf next to the other NHL games, and the Tony Hawk series.

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360

The Internet is a wonderful place. Sure, there's plenty of downsides, but at times it appears that we've discovered the proverbial thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters. Amongst all of the internet crap - there's a heap of gems, like Garfield minus Garfield. From the site:

Quote:
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Basically he photoshops Garfield out of the Garfield comics and it turns into a hilarious comic about a crazy Jon. I browsed the site and he has picked some very funny ones - exhibit A.

Anyway, on the train home the other night I picked up a copy of the Herald Sun and flicked through to the comic section. Sure enough - the comic I saw was another example of a good Garfield minus Garfield so I got Bell to photoshop it up for me. When you mouse over the image it will be replaced with the original comic (give it a second to load), or if you don't have Javascript enabled you can just click it.



Check out the site - don't let the monkey's work be in vein!

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Funny, Web

About a week ago the Quebec Remparts were losing by 6 goals in game 2 of their playoff series against the Chicoutimi Sagueneens in the Quebec Major Junior League when a fight broke out. The fight turned into a bit of a brawl with most of the players on the ice getting involved and the following happened:

Jonathan Roy assaults Bobby Nadeau


The goalie in red is Jonathan Roy, backup netminder for the Remparts with a very ordinary 3-10 record in 22 games this season. The only reason this incident made national news is Jonathan is the son of Patrick Roy, retired Hall of Fame goaltender for the Montreal Canadians and Colorado Avalanche. Patrick is also well known for his short temper on the ice and being arrested on a domestic violence charge after an argument with his wife (I bet Jonathan is bummed that his Dad passed on his temper and not his hockey ability).

What Roy did had nothing to do with the fight of the hockey game - he just outright physically assaulted the goalie in blue, Bobby Nadeau (who is the starting goalie for the Sagueneens and who's team will actually suffer if he was suspended). It's clear that Nadeau wasn't interested in fighting, and Roy didn't let up when Nadeau was dropped to the ice. The footage says everything.

Obviously this isn't great publicity for the sport of hockey but the worst part of this story is the "punishment" that was dished out to Jonathan and Patrick Roy. While it's good that Patrick was suspended (albeit for only 5 games), Jonathan's suspension of 7 games is nothing more than a slap on the wrists. What a joke.

I can only hope that the police get involved and give the second-rate backup goalie a punishment that fits.

# Posted in the Hockey section

A little while ago on a train home from work I was sitting near two people that looked to be around 19 or 20 having a seemingly normal conversation. My ears pricked up a little when I heard the following:

Quote:
Curious Girl: Do you think nuns masturbate?

Uncomfortable Boy: Um ... [long pause] I'm sure they probably do.

CG: Is it some kind of sin?

UB: Probably. But then again so is pedophilia.

Quite the odd conversation, but it's apparently something that some people are wondering about.

And it seems the "myth of the pedophile priest" thing is still going strong.

# Posted in the General section

When I bought the Xbox from a workmate he included his 4 remaining games. I had already completed three of those games (Kameo, Oblivion and Enchanted Arms) after my first few weeks in Edmonton around 8 months ago. The fourth game, Ninety-Nine Nights - took considerably longer.


Ninety-Nine Nights cover

A joint effort between Q Entertainment and Phantagram, Ninety-Nine Nights (shortened to N3) is a hack-and-slash game with up to a few thousand enemies to vanquish in each level. You start the game as Inphyy, a 17-year-old leader of the Temple Knights fighting a holy war against a horde of goblins and other supposedly evil groups. Once you finish the main storyline with Inphyy you unlock two new characters and replay the same story with a different viewpoint. Each character you unlock tells a different part of the story and lets you play on both sides of dark and light, which changes the events of the story.

The game play has elements of RPGs such as level progression based on experience points and a number of weapons with status changing upgrades. The story also reminds me of RPGs like Final Fantasy - complete with world-saving teenagers, a predominant light-versus-dark theme and female characters that believe boobies are more effective against a sword than armour.


All protected from stabbings. Unless, of course, someone goes for the chest

Visually N3 is very impressive, and this was obviously an important goal of the development team. Hundreds of enemies and allies are onscreen at once set against purty backdrops of the desert, jungles or a snow field. Each enemy is given a different look with a random combination of various armor pieces, and act relatively believably when left on their own. Unfortunately it seems they pushed the poor Xbox too hard as the framerate is noticeably slowed when a large number of enemies are joined by the destruction of structures such as a sentry tower. While this doesn't affect the game play too often it does make the game look a little unpolished.


Bring it!

N3 is essentially a button masher with one button controlling a regular attack and the other a power attack. These buttons are combined to inflict powerful combo attacks, and you learn better attacks as you progress in level.

For each enemy you kill you are awarded a red orb. When you collect enough you can unleash an orb attack allowing you to cut through hundreds of enemies like partially set jelly. Enemies killed during an orb attack result in a blue orb. When you collect enough of the blue orbs an orb spark attack pretty much levels the playing field of foes.

The achievements in N3 are quite well implemented for such an early title. Awarding an achievement for completing the game with each character encourages you to uncover the complete story in the game. If I was playing this game on a system without achievement points I probably would have stopped playing after finishing Inphyy's quests and would have missed a lot of the story elements. The final achievement, progress each character to level nine, gets repetitive to the point of tedium - which explains why this game took so much longer to complete.

Ninety-Nine Nights isn't the most strategic game, but when you come home from work there's a certain level of fun to be had mowing through thousands of animated goblins.

3 out of 5

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360

Back in high school a couple of friends and I hired a game that was getting a little bit of hype amongst the kiddies - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for my PlayStation. Still to this day, I can remember how I felt when I started skating the first level - the Warehouse. The game did look awesome - but the real joy came from replicating the feeling of turning up at an unfamiliar place, and seeing what you could skate on. This is something my friends and I did frequently during our early high school days (on rollerblades), but in Tony Hawk - I could actually complete better tricks than "the jump".


The first level in the original Tony Hawk game

As I rolled through the levels like The School (another very familiar setting) and The Mall (I admit I did have a fantasy of blading through an empty Eastland) collecting the coveted tapes and uncovering amusing gap names I knew this was a special game. I am now a proud owner of every game in the Tony Hawk's series and while I definitely feel the quality of the series had peaked by the third installment - I still buy and enjoy each of the games, just to try out the new levels, if nothing else.

The last Tony Hawk game I bought for my PlayStation 2 was Tony Hawk's Underground 2 quite a few years ago - and it was fortunate that the next in the series, American Wasteland, was available for the Xbox 360 at the bargain price of $15.


Why pink?

As this is the fifth Tony Hawk game, game play changes were hardly genre re-defining. The big change was what they took out of this game - loading screens. There was, however, loading tunnels - 30 seconds of sparsely populated tunnels connecting each different section together. Even though the change was essentially turning the loading screen into a user-controlled animation, I must admit that it did help the flow of the game.

Continuing the trend that was introduced in Tony Hawk's Underground, American Wasteland's main content was uncovered in a "story mode" that tried to add a narrative to the game. I've never been a fan of "story mode" as it generally results in a lot of busy-task goals, and crap loads of unnecessary skating from point A to B. In my opinion the story mode succeeds only in making the game more disjointed.


The chick you try to doink in the story mode (the one without pigtails)

Some of the new story mode levels are pretty cool (such as a finished Skate Park) as are some of the NPCs that are introduced - but on the whole I was unimpressed. A very small feature of story mode is the ability to get off your board and hop onto a bike to ride around. This was one of the better inclusions of the game in my opinion, especially since the BMX controls were much better than the controls of Activision's Mat Hoffman series of games. It feels great to pull off a flare or tailwhip with this style of controls!


No tuffs on this bike, unfortunately

Once I finally slogged my way though the story mode I gave classic mode a shot - and was happy again. The sense of nostalgia overwhelmed me as soon as I begun the first classic level. You see - all of the classic levels are remakes of levels from earlier games in the series (like my beloved Mall level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater). I'm sure some people view this as a cop out - but I was happy as it's been so long since I've played these levels, and they take on new life with the inclusion of moves such as the manual and revert.

I guess the other new feature that would have wowed people when this game was released was the ability to play against others online with Xbox Live. I played a few games online over Live - and it was definitely fun - but there really isn't many other games playing this game now days. Still - the online experience was quite well implemented - considering the time this game was released.

Achievements in this game weren't too bad, but pretty basic. Once completing story mode and classic mode most of the achievements were dolled out, leaving only 10 points to skate each level over Live (with or without another person) and 100 points to "complete" the game (basically get all of the gaps). Once again, considering the release date of this title, the achievements weren't too poorly implemented.

Overall - American Wasteland is pretty much as you would expect for yet another game in the Tony Hawk series. A fun game, some new levels and the ability to play over Live (while the game is still popular).

2.5 out of 5

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
This is the 3rd in the My Video Gaming History series

Found this gem on a technical blog I subscribe to:

The Sound of Windows


A musical treat made only from the system sounds found in Windows 98 and XP. Sure, it isn't very long (though there is an extended version if you follow the link to YouTube) - but I thought it sounded neat enough to share.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Music

Quote:
Find the miracle ball
In my early primary school days a geeky-looking kid named Nick joined our grade 2 class a few weeks into the year. My best pal Jason and I had planned to torment this "new guy" relentlessly, until we found out he was an Essendon Bombers fan. We became fast friends and as I lived a 10 minute bike ride away from Nick's house, we spent most of our after-school time together. We used to take treks "down the creek" to investigate sewer pipes, ride our bikes (I had a sweet set of Skyway Tuffs wheels) to the Ringwood bowl (no longer there) accomplishing amazing tricks (like a mono) and we spent a lot of time on Nick's Sega Master System hurting our thumbs.

WE5T 0NE


We had the vastly superior Sega Master System II

The game that utilised most of our time was Alex Kidd in Miracle World, which was bundled with the Sega Master System II (in this case bundled meant it was actually part of the system - when you turned on the game without a cartridge in it, Alex Kidd would start). Miracle World was a very simple platformer, and the first game starring the Master System's mascot Alex Kidd (in some games he was a boy with large ears, in other he looked more like a monkey than human). Being the time before Game FAQs, Nick and I spent countless hours trying to discover the secrets of Miracle World, and we eventually learnt all there was to know about the game. And, of course, all this time was spent bugging my parents for our own Master System.


Alex is eating a rice ball here - but in my version it was replaced with a hamburger


We memorised all of the boss men's jenken strategies


I really enjoyed the helicopter stages

Eventually our parents relented, and I think it was Easter of 1988 that we received our own holy grail of gaming. I didn't quite react like this guy - but I was very happy to say the least. We started with a copy of Enduro Racer (a very basic motorcycle game) and eventually built up our gaming library over time. As the games were all on cartridges, piracy was not possible, so we relied a lot on our local One-Stop Video store for new and exciting games. I can remember standing in One-Stop for a very long time, furiously studying the back of the game boxes to make my important choice. As we spent most of our money on hiring the games instead of buying them - we had a good variety of titles rolling through the Dixon household. I had hunted down some of the classics for a previous pixel-related blog entry:


(from top-left) The Ninja, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, Micky Mouse: Castle of Illusion, Desert Storm, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Enduro Racer, Sonic the Hedgehog, California Games, Parlour Games

There were a few games which hold a special place in my memory. The main would would have to be Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap. Part of the Wonder Boy series, this game was a side scroller with a bit of a difference. At the very start of the game, after defeating the Meka Dragon, you are transformed into Lizard-Man a very weak character (doesn't even hold a sword). During your quest to return to a Hu-Man, you play as different -Man's (Mouse-Man, Lion-Man etc) each with unique abilities (ie. Lizard-Man is impervious to lava). You can also purchase various swords, shields and armour which can provide unique abilities (the Magical Saber can make invisible blocks appear etc). This game was on high hire rotation during primary school - and early in high school I found that Eryc-Ads was also a huge fan of this game (and better at it than I was). This sparked another period of squaring off against Mr. Meka Dragon & co. - and every couple of years I fire this one back up on the emulator.


The Meka Dragon is my biartch


The first town isn't as fun when you're a damn lizard


Mouse-Man is probably my favourite

Another family favourite was Parlour Games, providing electronic pool, darts and bingo faithfully represented in 8 bit graphics and a killer soundtrack. This title has the particular distinction of being the first game I ever bought with my own money (it was worth it!). Pool was the most popular sport in our family, but darts had a run every so often. This was another game that I rediscovered with Eryc-Ads in my high school days - as a group of us would take turns playing pool or sit around watching the one person play bingo.


The Trendy Break in operation


Open In, Open Out?


I still don't fully understand how this game worked

The Master System was a great introduction to console gaming, and it helped prepare me for the gaming juggernaut of the Mega Drive that was soon to follow!

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Master System
This is the 2nd in the My Video Gaming History series

The last PlayStation 2 game we bought was Buzz! The Music Quiz, the first game in the somewhat popular Buzz! video game series. We had played it at my parents house and found it enjoyable enough to purchase our own copy. Belinda is pretty good with music trivia, especially newer music, and we were pretty evenly matched which made the game fun even after playing it repetitively.

The Buzz! series continued with The Big Quiz and The Sports Quiz - but I was hoping they would come out with a movie trivia game. Since then I bought an Xbox 360 and the DVD-based game Scene It? was adapted into a video game. Fun for everyone.


Scene It? is a Xbox 360 exclusive title

The four "big button pads" that come with the game are designed quite well. Firstly, they're wireless and come with an infrared receiver that you place on top of the television. It takes a little bit to remember that you need to point the buzzer at the TV - but it's much better than using wired controllers. They have a proper guide button and all the other buttons of a regular controller except for the triggers. The big button also doubled as a directional pad, which makes navigating the Dashboard screen much easier. And, batteries were included - bargain.


That's not a big button pad, this is a big button pad

The narrative of the game is tedious at best, but basically involves three rounds of games, with 3 or 4 games each round depending on whether you're playing a short or long game. After the three rounds is "The Final Cut" which will potentially award a lot of points. There is a "Movie Clip" game each round in which a short movie clip is proceeded by five questions. The game does remember which questions you have seen and tries not to show you those questions again - but as there are only 40 or so different movie clips and they start repeating quickly.

The 20 other game types is where I found the most fun. These games include guessing the movie title from it's poster as the elements are slowly added to the canvas, or guessing the movie that a sound byte has been taken from. The game types are creative and a lot of fun, but unfortunately there's no way to select which game types you will playing. I feel the "Sequentials" game pops up far too often (you are presented with four similar movie titles, and you need to order them according to release date).


The Pictogram game type - see it and say it

The game types are generally fun, and the mechanics of awarding extra points for early answers is good to see - but with only 1,500 questions in the game it starts repeating far too quickly. When I started playing the game 60,000 points was a pretty good for me - but it didn't take long at all until 90 to 100k was coming easily. I didn't find Buzz to be as bad in this regard at all as they have a pool of 1,000 music clips to choose from (and 5,000 questions). I guess it's easier for Buzz! as they use cover bands - you can't really have a movie clips or screen shots with cover actors.

This is where the Scene It? should be using the power of downloadable content to prolong the lifespan of their game, and make use of the inventive game designs by providing downloadable question sets. I believe this is their plan, there's already a "Downloads" menu items that sends the user into the Marketplace area for this game - but there's currently nothing to download there. I would assume there are more questions coming - probably in different theme packs like we've already seen with the DVD game (like the Disney, James Bond or Marvel Comics editions). I'll certainly be downloading any theme packs that are released.

Speaking of Live integration - initially I felt it was a little disappointing that there is no online multiplayer game mode - but it didn't take me too long to realise that multi-player wouldn't work with the limited question set. For example, in most of the game types I can answer all of the questions immediately just by looking at the four available answers - and it's not like I've been studying the game at great length. Eventually most good multiplayers would be competing very close to the maximum score allowed each game.

The achievements were handed out very quickly, but again, I think this was a result of the limited question set more than any design flaw. The 30 and 60 questions correct without an incorrect answer were tricky and time-consuming - but all of the others were pretty straight forward to achieve, the first 600 points coming in the first three games. Then again - any trivia game that allows you to pause after a question has been asked is going to have most people getting all achievements when combined with IMDb.

In summary, a fun game - great for small gatherings - and something that will hopefully have downloadable content! 3.5 out of 5

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360

Quote:
Are you keeping up with the Commodore? Because the Commodore is keeping up with you!

Video games have played a big part of my life. NHL 94 encouraged a love for the sport of Ice Hockey. Samantha Fox's Strip Poker and others have introduced me to digital bewbies during my important formative years. And Distruptor for the PlayStation was an important game for me, as it was the first time that my older brother beat me to the end of the game (crushing). I've decided to do a little retrospective of my video game history, and hope that some of you will enjoy the walk down memory lane.

LOAD "*",8,1


This actually looks a lot like our system. Getting the disk drive was a huge time saver!

Excluding some generic "Game and watch" clones, the Commodore 64 was my first real introduction to video gaming - and I liked it! The Commodore was released in January of 1982 as a system designed to offer advanced hardware at a cheap(ish) price. I really took to the system (as did the rest of my family) and was sitting in front of it whenever it was "my turn". Turns got to be a bit of a problem whenever a cool game was acquired, with lots of fights between the family for play time. I can vividly remember my eldest brother waking up at 5 or 6 am before school to get a few extra hours playing California Games. I also remember feeling cheated because I was unable to wake up earlier than him!

You may have noted that I used the word "acquired" in the above paragraph - not many of our games were actually store bought. Pirating was rife - my eldest brother had a friend, who had a "contact", someone that provided us with as many copied Commodore 64 games that we could play. Those that know me now know that I am against piracy of any kind (except for amusing pirate jokes), but back in the day I didn't know any better. FastHackem fueled our piracy, allowing a game disk to be copied in 3 minutes instead of around 20.

That Commodore 64 was also life changing as it introduced me to the pastime of Basic programming. Basic in more than a name, my first program was probably something like this:

Basic Code:

> 10 PRINT "JOEL IS RAD!"

> 20 GOTO 10

> RUN

I also loved reading through the Basic books that were provided with the 64, and typing out the hundred line example programs. Armed with this extra programming knowledge, my coding skills were greatly expanded:

Basic Code:

10> FOR I = 1 TO 10

20> NEXT I

30> INPUT "ENTER YOUR NAME: ", N$

40> PRINT N$; ", DID YOU KNOW THAT JOEL IS RAD?"

50> GOTO 40

RUN

(the first two lines is now an obvious loop. I had no idea what it did, but included it in my own programs because it looked cool)

For me, the Commodore 64 was the golden age of video gaming, and it kept me entertained even after we received more modern systems (such as consoles). A pictures is worth 1,000 words, so this video of 100 Commodore games should be worth a fair bit. Go to the YouTube page to see the list of games displayed.

100 Commodore games in 10 minutes


# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Commodore 64
This is the 1st in the My Video Gaming History series

Not much of a story - but funny all the same!

Hitman, the Hoff, another mate from work (let's just be real insensitive and call him Piña Colada, or PC for short) and I were about to catch a lift up to our floor. I don't know what possessed me, but right before we got in I said "It'd be funny if we got trapped in this lift". I'm sure you can guess where I'm going here.

We were traveling to level 7, so PC thought it would be amusing to press buttons 1 to 6 (he was correct - it was amusing). Hitman was feeling a little surly, unrelated to alcohol consumption I'm sure, and the lift stopping and starting at every floor wasn't helping. To speed up the trip he started to press on the "Close Doors" button repeatedly, like a tween at a pedestrian crossing. The lift stopped at level 6 without the doors opening at all which was worrying, and when it stopped at level 7 the doors remained closed. The "Open Doors" button was not as dutiful as its evil twin, so we appeared to be stuck.



Hitman started to get a little concerned, and admitted he could get a little claustrophobic at times, which amused us a little more. We tried to go to level six and the doors still wouldn't open, and I think it's fair to say Hitman started to panic. He pressed the "Alarm" button as we went down to the ground floor, and let the security guard know of our predicament when he came on the small speaker.

Showing a mixture of brute strength and girly-man fear, Hitman forced open the lift doors and we all poured out. The Hoff and I lamented the fact that we missed out on an excuse for 2 hours away from our desks, but I guess it's better than being stuck in a lift for an undetermined amount of time. I guess.

# Posted in the General section

Bell and I had a quick browse through JB Hi-Fi and found a very cool special edition of the Transformers film on DVD. Firstly, I loved the Transformers film, one of my favourites of this year. Secondly, the DVD case transforms!


DVD case. Admittedly, it's not too taxing to guess what this will transform into. "Robots in pretty ordinary disguise"


The DVDs are stored in a little cavity on the back


The transformation itself is pretty weak - but it's the first DVD cover I own that can transform!

Ingenious DVD marketing people! Apparently when Saw IV comes out - it will actually contain a human eyeball! Looking forward to that one.

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: DVDs, Movies

While I'm admittedly a goody-two-shoes when it comes to illicit drug usage, for some reason I find drug culture incredibly fascinating.

After watching (and loving) Trainspotting I really got into reading Irvine Welsh's back catalog. Some of his other novels such as Marabou Stork Nightmares, Glue and Porno feature many elements of drug culture in well developed working-class Scottish characters.

I also enjoyed Kevin Smith's series of blog posts discussing Jason Mewes' battle with drug addiction. It seems Kevin's turned part of his site into a book so the posts have been removed, so you'll just have to believe me. Thankfully I haven't had somebody so close to me dealing with a drug problem, so these posts provided an interesting insight.

If I didn't have an understanding of the potential negative effects of consistent drug use - the Drug Free website's "Faces of Meth" campaign would certainly help. They say a picture's worth a thousand words, in this case two pictures are worth two thousand:


There's less than 5 years between these two photos - but plenty of Methamphetamine use

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Web

Belinda has told me that a number of people have said "I didn't know Joel could cook" to her recently. We assume people are saying this because they have seen my recipe entries on this blog. My response to Bell is generally "I can't cook, but I can follow directions pretty well".

The magical Internet helps me no end. From recipes, history and techniques and simple conversions - I would probably have starved if it wasn't for the Internet's help.

I decided that I needed to do some actual cooking - and tried to think of my own recipe. Whatever it was, it was going to have cheese and maybe some garlic or onion - and it had to be simple. In the end - I remembered some incredibly nice Potato Skins Belinda and I ate at Planet Hollywood many years ago that I would try to replicate with a twist (the garlic).

It went pretty well, except I used way too much garlic (some bites really hurt my mouth) which I've rectified in the recipe below.

Garlic Potato Skins



Ingredients
Russet Potatoes - 2
Garlic, minced - 1 to 2 cloves
Cheese (I like a Tex-Mex mix), grated - a few cups depending on taste
Bacon bits - small handful
Spring Onions, chopped - around a cup
Corn Chips - small handful

Method
1. Bake the potatoes.

2. Quarter the potatoes and remove most of the middle, leaving about 1 or 2 centimeters of "middle white bit" next to the skin.

3. Spread a small amount of minced garlic onto the middle bit of each potato quarter.

4. Sprinkle a small amount of cheese on each potato quarter.

5. Sprinkle a small amount of bacon pits, spring onions and corn chips on each potato depending on taste.

6. Sprinkle some more cheese on the top of the potato skin.

7. Cook in oven until cheese has melted.

It's obviously a very simple recipe, but I was still surprised it was edible as it was my first attempt at something creative.


Before cooking

# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Recipe