The Last Supper
SCIENCE!
That is what I would be shouting if I had been doing science today, however I was woke up my Dave wanting to goto Sainsbury's to buy stuff for dinner (Rosalyn came too).
The day before we had gone to the market to buy things for supplies, we couldn't decide whether to get a duck as well as a turkey (some people didn't think there was such a thing as a Christmas duck), so I offered to buy the duck, as well a large turkey and some fruit and veg.
We finally got around to starting to make the meal, and onto the first basting only to find out that Dave had put the tin foil on backward and the turkey was frozen. There were a few other obstacles, like the insane about of potatoes to peel and cook, then the lack of cooker space (lucky we have two ovens).
The meal was finish, the placemats were set and good times were had by all. The meal itself consisted of (and was nicknamed shortly after) a Jesus Duck, Holy Ghost Turkey and God's Gravy.
As you can see from the pictures, there was more than enough for 8 people, and we had plenty spare.
Next year, we need to make an even BIGGER meal to outdo this one, like this one outdid the last one we made. It really puts actual Christmas dinner to shame.
The Credit Crunch
Looks like Santa is also been affected by the credit crunch. I was at Sainsbury's today and there is in the doorway begging for money like a hobo (and clearly starving, what ever happened to our jolly fat Santa?) - as you can see from the picture.
Or maybe he also taken for a ride by the Christmas Parcel Wrapping scam. Those elves have unions nowadays, he probably thought he could save money, but instead they replaced all his toys and gifts for children, with coal.
His mortgage must have gotten a bit too pricey for him, hes even moved his Grotto to Bolton, of all places.
Chrono Trigger DS
I just had to write a blog entry about this, but as most people know, Chrono Trigger is being rereleased for the Nintendo DS in February (Lavos shall rise again bwuahahahahaha). This game is in my top 5 favourite games of all time...
- Tales of Phantasia
- Final Fantasy 6
- Chrono Trigger
- Ocarina of Time
- Prince of Persia Trilogy
With 13 different endings, several characters to choose from, and so many 3d projects remaking this that got shutdown by SquareEnix, this has to be amazing.
Though I do get the feeling it will just be a 2d port with some extras like the Final Fantasys, I'd much prefer it to be 3d, I don't understand why SquareEnix don't do this.
I suppose its so that in another 10 years they'll rererelease it and make more money... bastards, I want a 3d one now!
George Orwell …
George Orwell was a visionary, he forsaw the future, video cameras, TV, Room 101, Big Brother.
Most of this can be read in his amazing book, Nineteen Eighty-Four (or the John Hurt film with the same name).
Nowadays, he goes by another name, a well known alias of Steve Jobs, using his powers of immortality, he plans to take over the world, one Apple at a time.
However, the most important thing about George Orwell that I think you should all know, is that he, all by himself, invented the most important thing in modern times...
...
He invented the internet.
Left 4 Dead
So I finally got around to playing Left 4 Dead. Last time I played it was prerelease on Steam, and I preordered it, but forgot when it was released, and when I did remember, it meant logging into Windows. And then when I did log into Windows, I could not get my WiFi to work due to some changes I had done when I went to Bolton to visit friends.
So tonight I decided to fix the WiFi, after much effort, it turned out it was because my computer was named glyphwire, instead of Glyphwire, my router didn't understand they were the same thing and so rejected me access (thats what you get for using the generic BT crap they give you).
I didn't think much of the Single Player, the AI for my team were idiots and in the end got me killed because they decided to stay behind and have a cup of tea or something, when around a zombie infested city, you don't just stand still and wait around for them to come for you.
However the multiplayer redeems this game, and using my dual GPUs of my laptop, I was kicking ass once I found a way to change weapons without scrolling, even the cut off the internet was fixed when I added Steam ports to the router. One downside is the limited number of levels, and although playing a zombie is fun, its usually short lived unless your a tank, which is fun, since if you take them down one by one, they have no chance, rather than just chasing them all and keep changing, make sure they're down, then go for another, lets the zombies finish them. The witch is one I would love to play as, but is not possible yet (probably since she can do one hit kills on expert). Boomers are just pointless, but can get you assist points if you bile them, hunters are fun, and the second most effective for attacking a stragller, and smokers are useless unless you've got tall buildings to hide behind, then you use them during a large invasion.
One annoying this is the respawn time, 20 seconds before you can become something, as Yahtzee said, it would be nice if you could choose to become a generic zombie till then. Still, once you've played it through a few times, it starts to get boring, I just look forward to the Shaun of the Dead mod.
iPhone Developer
I awoke this morning to find an email in my inbox from Apple, reminding me that I hadn't finished enrolling for becoming an iPhone Developer yet. Surprised since they hadn't told me I could finish yet, I just assumed that it must have been filtered by my spam filter (must remember to fix that thing).
So since there was an hour to go before work, I quickly followed the instructions, paid for my membership and got an emailing saying that within 24 hours they will get back to me with instructions of how to setup my iPhone to allow development. However upon getting back from work, I was greeted by an email telling me it had all been setup and that I was now able to develop and publish applications for the iPhone.
The setup process was a little annoying, the tutorials aren't fully specific, but I managed, and sometimes it was my fault for not reading them correctly, but they do come with pictures depicting how things should look when it is done correctly, which is very helpful. Finally, I setup one of my iPhone examples to compile and run, and bobs your uncle (which he is quite ironically) it worked. So next weekend I'll start work on porting my chuck norris game as a starter to get use to developing for it.
There are so many things that can be done with an accelerometer that I hadn't thought of, I even found an example on the internet that uses the accelerometer in a MacBook Pro so you can move water about on your screen. Usually its just used to move the needle off the hard drive when there is a suddenly change of gravity. It can also be used to detect seismic movements, or used in conjuction with Expose so you can tap the side of your laptop and shift screens, I probably won't use this, I'm already afraid of smashing the glass screen.