Bruises and business…

So, how was everyones Christmas? Mine was pretty good and I ended up spending most of the time at Hannahs. I got a bunch of cool stuff, including the new Dylan Moran DVD ‘Like, totally’, the Harvey Danger double disc album ‘Little by Little’ and the G-15 Keyboard. It’s got programmable keys and an LCD screen that just oozes coolness.

In other news, I met up with Charlotte yesterday and went paintballing at hers with her family. I then got pretty wasted on local brew (appropriately called Last Rites) and I think I made a bit of a tit of myself though, to be honest, I can’t really remember much of it – to a scary degree. So, I just assume the worst and presume that I made a bad impression on all her family. The amount of paintball bruises helps support the theory.

Still, it was great to see Charlotte again. Me and her go way back but rarely get to meet up because of Uni and the ilk. Unfortunately though for my state of mind, Charlotte has a way of talking certain attitudes and views into me – mainly by the way she barrages me with questions and refuses to accept bullshit answers. Thus, when she asks “So what are you planning to do over the next few years?” and I reply with the usual friendly avoidance she will make it clear that it isn’t good enough and I have to come clean about how I am stumbling blindly through mylife with no plan. Its not a bad thing, in fact its one of the things I like most about her and is something I very much admire, but its very sobering when one is forced to accept that theyhave no long term plans and no idea about themselves. Because of this I’ve been instilled with a strange (and hopefully shortlived) desire to accomplish. Its a bitch really because I was just getting used to my armour of indifference.

Anybody care to suggest a carrear (no, I can never spell that word properly) or aim? I was thinking about learning a foreign language or something…

Joe, out.

P.S Pheasant Stew is my new second favourite stew and is actually the only stew I actually like with the exception of Hannahs Cassoulet.

Generous Git…

Well, its Christmas. I don’t really have much to say about that – especially because its hard to concentrate right now. I’m sat on the floor in the worlds untidiest living room watching X-Factors worst auditions and typing this up on a borrowed laptop. Who says student life has to end, eh?

So, whats up with me lately? Not much, but thanks for asking. I got my Christmas bonus, though my boss said it was ‘just a little money for a few drinks because we don’t have a work party or anything.” It turned out to be an extra hundred pounds which probably tells you more about the state of his liver than a colonoscopy. I’m also begging Seth over at the Gamechair.com for a copy of Zelda: Twilight Princess for a review – no, not for the Wii. I’m hoping its going to be my farewell ode to my much loved Gamecube.

Thats about it. I’m off for some pre-Christmas brandy and cigars – pwnage! Heres hoping the rest of you have a uber-l33t Christmas.

Joe.

Hungover at Heavens Gate…

We all went out for drinks last night and now I’m pretty hungover. It started off as a good night but, for reasons I’m not going to go into here, it didn’t really end all that well. I dunno. Stupid things happen when people drink.

Still, I found my favourite ever wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_%28cult%29

Also expect to see a feature about the best games of 2006 over at Pro-G soon. I’ve contributed to it, but if you want to know what I voted for then you’ll have to wait for the finished article.

Joe, out.

Schteam Whishky…

You’d think the Steam system over at Valves HQ would have some sort of back-up, wouldn’t you? Regardless of these assumptions though retail and games platform (one which I actually like, which is confusingly unfashionable in we geeks) is down at the moment due to power outage. I realise I am a respected and prominet technology and games journalist, but no, not even I have any idea it will stay down for. At the moment I don’t really care either since I’m only using Steam currently to fiddle with Emitters in Garrys Mod 10 and play Sin Episodes (another unfashionable game that I adore).

Seperate to Valves trickery, my parents (yes, who I still live with until the 7th of Jan) hosteda whisky tasting last night. I was in a shit mood because of my crappy 8-6 job and for other reasons and the drunken parents with crowd of attached over excitable girl-children did nothing to elate my mood. I probably would have sealed myself in my room with Planescape: Torment if it hadn’t been for:

A) The fact that my brother, Sam, is back from Uni now and is proving both socialable and interesting thus far. We shared tired glances as my parents swapped over to dance with the other parents and literally waltz from room to room, their drunen conversation consisting of boasts like “Your husband says I’m lovely” ad infinitum and “You get your arse over here and dance baby!”. Ugh.

B) I’m actually stuck on Planescape: Torment, despite having played it twice before. I’m having to scour the game for a piece of junk to use as a portal key to get back to Pharods Warrens. None of you will know what that means.

Still, funniness did arise from the whisky tasting. My dad had made a lot of little notebooks and the like, as well as having been sent some gifts by distilleries, and I enjoyed reading the increasingly drunken notes of one attendee in particular. What starts off with:

“Maccallan Whisky; bright colour with delicate vanilla aroma and a warm developing fullness” 

soon collapses under the effort required and ends a few pages later with the following notes:

“Tobermory Whisky: Appearence? Yes. Nose? Couldn’t see it. Taste? My wifes nether regions. yes.”

“Ledaig Whisky: Slowbegs. Appearence: Lord of the rings. Gold, gold. Nose: Peat? Taste: Oysters – smoked.”

“Jura Whisky: Appearence of womanly fluid. Nose not allowed. Taste best cold, better shaved.”

My god, I actually know these people! Still, my favourite is the midpoint between these extremes which seems to show the exact point where this nameless critic lost the plot:

“Glenmorangie: Appearence is deep gold, huey. Sherry rose. Smells of lemon and vanilla. Citric. Taste? Italic alligator teeth.”

God help me, even I couldn’t make this shit up.

Out.

Outerview…

Andy reminded me today that I hadven’t let anyone know if I’d heard back about my interview. Its not that I didn’t want to tell you, just that it slipped my mind. Basically I didn’t get the job though, despite being shortlisted to the final five. I asked the recruiting department for some feedback and the enlightened me as to their reasons:

In the interviewing task the person I was interviewing felt that I was nervous and not chatty enough to relax him (which is true as I can’t write shorthand and all the other applicants could, which forced me to type very quickly)

In the writing task about Bitlocker they found my final piece very informative and excellent, but felt that my ‘pass notes’ style wouldn’t always be appropriate.

In the English Assessment I scored the highest, placing in the top 10% of scorers in terms of word recognition, spelling, grammar, syntax and attention to detail.

Overall, and based on their interview with me, they felt that no matter how well I could write I was too focused on the games aspect of Vista and that this would be a problem. I understand their point completely and agree with them, though I also know one of the major things about Vista is that Microsoft is trying to re-establish the PC as a games platform.

So, yeah. I didn’t get the job! You happy now, Andy? *sob*

In other news I’ve updated the blogroll and changed my profile picture. Andys link now goes to his personal blog, not work blog and Duncans link is gone because the website is still down. I also added the Garrys Mod homepage for personal use. My new profile picture is scavenged from a comic strip and looks, I think, exactly like me. Spooky.

Also, since I didn’t get that job, I may as well ask if anyone knows of any good websites that may be hiring/willing to accept contributions from someone like me (or, more accurately, me).

Joe, out.

Edit: I may as well take this chance to let people know that the Christmas party at my house is no longer going ahead. Can’t figure a way to get the dates right for everyone, including me. I’m working full time and nobody comes home from uni at the same time. It’s a shame, I was looking forward to the whole Pirates Vs. Ninjas theme we had planned…

Hot Fuzz!

This is going to be even better than the porn film with which is shares a name…supposedly….

http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/trailers/hotfuzz_trailer_xlarge.php

All for now, Joe.

Warhammer: Mark Of Chaos review….

Tom Orry over at Pro-G was nice enough to send me a copy of Warhammer: Mark Of Chaos last week, and my review of it is now available to read. Follow the link below if you’re into this kind of thing.

http://www.pro-g.co.uk/pc/warhammer_mark_of_chaos/review.html

Joe, out.

Jaded Gamer…

I was out in the sprawling urban, switched on mass that is Chesterfield today and I popped into a few game shops. A new one had opened called Playtime which offered some pretty competitive prices. Still, I was looking at all these latest games and all these new consoles and I couldn’t help but feel they were a waste of shelf space, to me anyway. Its kind of an unusual feeling for me to have, but I realised later (when having similar feelings as I looked through PC Formats gift guide) what its to do with. You see, at the moment I’m kind of jaded by computer games because there are no real ‘must have’ technologies or games out there for me. Sure, there are games on the horizon that interest me and which I will either buy or blag (Portal, Fallout 3, Bioshock, Sin Episodes 2) but all those games are fairly distant still. There are also a handful of current games that have my attention (Dark Messiah, Psychonauts, Double Agent, Fear: Extraction Point) but none of them have any ‘must buy’ qualitites for me. The same is true of consoles, where the Wii, 360 and PS3 all look fairly uninteresting to me due to a lack of interesting titles, which is especially disappointing given the Wii.

 

Could this be the end of my geekdom, or just a blip on the radar before another set of pricey polygons pull me back into the world of framerates and ragdolls? Only time will tell. In the mean time you can look at my latest experiements with Depth of Field and lighting via Garrys Mod. You’ll have to forgive the crappy formatting, but using wordpress to insert pictures can be a real bitch.

Joe, out.

Crashes and Randomness…

In between bouts of Garrys Mod and the review I’m doing of the new Warhammer: Mark Of Chaos game, I’ve been trying to get Doom 3 going. I’m mainly hampered by the fact that my computer keeps blue screening sometimes when I use MSN Live. If anyone else knows a workaround let me know.

In the mean time: Cool videos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX85ZrMSq0k - Monkey Island Remix!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP21zUrMh7s - Fantastically random music video by Eleven Saints

Thank you and goodnight…