Monday, August 30, 2004
Hmm.New tv station on freeview digital starting up in september.
abc1.
Comedy, darama and soap... american style, and all reruns. Do we really need a new station to watch Moonlighting?
I'm sat here watching a preview... can't see me spending much time watching it.
Is this rubbish what they call 'prime time' over there?
Still, I dont for a moment regret buying the freeview box, coz uktv history's so good, I barely watch anything else.
Steve 7:01 AM [+] (0) comments
That was fun.
I was stumbling around on the web looking for new cam communities to list on my site and I found a place that was rather different from most of the communities I've tried.
Not so much in the technology, but the people and the atmosphere. I wandered into a room where they play music, nicely organised and a very friendly group of people... so I joined in.
It was rather amusing from my perspective, coz they were all americans and played fairly typical american blues/rock kinda stuff. So then when I played my stuff, they were like "Woah! What the hell is that? I've never heard music like that before."
Not that I was playing anything extreme as such, just I doubt you get to hear many french bands playing arabic music in smalltown nowheresville usa.
Steve 5:15 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, August 28, 2004
I got round to installing Windoze Service Pack 2 today.Pleasingly, it didn't kill my laptop, but other than that, I can't say it's a big step forward. I guess it'd be good for people who don't know anything about security issues like firewalls, security updates, virus checking, popup blockers etc... as it has all of those built in or integrated in some way or another.
For someone who already has all of those bases covered (like me), unless there are hidden security patches hidden in there (which there probably are) it's not really that impressive. I'd sooner just download the individual patches and not bother with all the bells and whistles that serve no purpose.
On the plus side, it *has* stopped that annoying search bar from appearing on this blog, which google's popup stopper was unable to block, but I *still* have no java.
The Windoze Update site's changed a bit too, and not for the better in my opinion. For it to work at all, I had to allow a load of processes access to the net that I normally block.
I could see that causing nightmares for people who go with the new default setting of the windoze firewall (namely 'on'), coz if it's blocking those ports by default and they dont know how to allow access to those ports, they wont be able to get future updates.
Labels: computers
Steve 2:23 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Ah, I do love a to watch huge doccumentary box sets.A few months ago it was 'The World At war', a 10 dvd set on WW2, before that, the recent Ch4 4 dvd box set 'The First World War'. Today it's the 7 dvd set of the 1964 BBC doccumentary 'The Great War', and I have to say, it's very good.
On a par with The World At War, it stomps all over the Ch4 doccumentary in terms of both footage and detail of coverage of the military actions, though the Ch4 series is still worth having as it goes into more detail regarding the political situations.
This is probably gonna be the last world war doccumentary box set I buy though, as I think I have pretty much all the info I could want on the wars. Next on my shopping list are the two David Attenborough wildlife doccumentary box sets.
Steve 3:32 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Ahhhhh.... hot water... bliss :-)It only took the guy 5 mins to find and fix the problem, which has to be something of a record.
Steve 2:32 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 23, 2004
My boiler's broken.No hot water.
Bollox.
I hope they send someone out pronto when I call them in the morning. I think it's the same problem it had around a year ago... flow regulator or something. They fixed it quickly last time.
Hmm.
3am's getting to be a pretty empty hour.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 3:24 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Geek geek geek geek geek geekgeekgeekgeekgeek geekity-geek Nintendo 64 geek geek Project 64 emulator geeeeeeeeek geek geek roms on bittorrent geek geeek geeeeek geek geek as good as the real thing geek geek geek geeeeeeeeeeeeek.Ahem.
Cheers for the email Nik. I found it but couldnt make it work so settled for the Megadrive version in the end.
Normal service will resume shortly (probably), do not adjust your set.
Steve 6:10 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Welcome to geeksville, where the geeking geekiness never ceases to geek.Er... what?
Anyway.
More emulation tinkerings, so feel free to close your browser and read no further, coz it almost certainly won't interest you.
Back to the Amiga emulator today, coz I found a site with loads of adf format Amiga games, and better yet, I found a configuration on my emulator that'll actually run them.
What games did I grab? I know you really wanna know. (or not)
Battlechess, F1 GP, Hard Drinin', Hunter, Knights Of The Sky, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus 2, Pinball Fantasies, Road Rash, Scorched Tanks, Stunt Car Racer, Vroom, and Epic.
And for a change, my concience is completely clear while downloading these, coz I bought all of them years ago and have the floppies in the loft.
It's rather interesting to play them again after such a long time, coz people say you remember such games with rose tinted spectacles, but to be honest, even though they all look shockingly dated, they're still great fun to play.
Sadly though, I can't find the game I really wanted... Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker.
Steve 3:02 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
More games.I'm sure no-one cares what I think about a bunch of ancient games for a defunct games console, but since this is my blog, I'm gonna waffle about them anyway.
Virtua Racing: Hmm. tricky. Low rez solid polygons with a very low viewpoint make it bloody hard to see where you're going, but there's a certain charm to this that's growing on me. Oddly though, I think I preferred this on Sega's 32X Genesis addon thingie.
Virtua Fighter: Classy. Nice control system, good graphics which compare well with beatemups from the same time period on the PS1. Pity I'm so crap at it.
Daytona USA (CCE): For something that's supposed to be an improved re-release to make up for the diabolical original version, this is pretty shoddy. The graphics are rough, the control system lacks any kind of feel, the car handling is primitive beyond belief. I loved this game in the arcades, spent a small fortune playing it, but this..... nah. Poor.
Sega Touring Car Championshp: If I dont miss my guess, this was supposed to be Sega's answer to Gran Turismo on PS1.
Hah! They're having a laugh.
Apart from only having 4 cars and seriously rough graphics, the cars are totally uncontrollable. Give it some power in a corner and the car's all over the place. It's not just bad... it's unplayable.
Now here's the thing. All of these games, and the ones I got yesterday are 3D, and the Saturn was never able to cut it against the PS1 at 3D games... but that's not what I bought it for.
What it's the absolute master at is 2D shootemups, maybe even surpassing the NeoGeo in that respect. Sadly by the time it was released over here, 2D games were passe and everyone wanted 3D, so most of the really good 2D stuff never got imported to the UK. Still... I'm keeping my eyes open, coz there's bound to be some classic game hiding in a bargain bin somewhere or other.
While I'm on the subject... that shop's gonna give my bank balance a real hammering if I'm not careful. When I went in there today, they'd just put a Philips CDI in the window (never a big hit, so it'll probably end up quite collectable) and the guy behind the counter informed me they had a Goldstar 3DO stashed away upstairs.
I was sorely tempted.
Labels: games
Steve 12:35 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 16, 2004
So I've been sat here for a few hours now playing these games... time to give some brief impressions.Klockwork Knight... pretty pants to be honest. This was a very early game and it shows. Bog standars platform affair with quasi 3D graphics tacked on. Doubt I'll be playing it much.
Sega Rally... well... it's Sega Rally. Lots of fun for a quick blast, easy to get to grips with, but very tight time limits, so you probably have to practice like mad to complete it, not that there's much there to complete, so boredom will probably set in before that happens.
Manx TT Superbikes.... hysterical. They take realism and throw it out of the window, and just tell you to go fast... go very very fast. Dont worry about hitting the buildings, it wont hurt. There's probably no more longevity in terms of vaiety than Sega Rally, but it's just so much fun riding like a lunatic, and the graphics have such a bright breezey feel to them, I think I'll keep coming back to this.
Christmas Nights.... Oh my. Whoever designed this game must have been doing some serious drugs. It reminds me of a cross between Sonic The Hedgehog in 3D crossed with Spyro The Dragon on acid. Very very surreal, and utterly charming, even though I dont have a clue what I'm doing most of the time.
Yup, much fun. I think I'll be going back to the shop tomorrow to see what else they have, coz with games this good, this cheap... I wanna grab as many as I possibly can.
Labels: games
Steve 11:14 PM [+] (0) comments
Ahhh... retro gaming heaven.
Regular readers (I think I have some) may recall not long ago I mentioned trying to run a Sega Saturn emulator on my laptop, and failing miserably. Well, a new retro gaming shop has opened in town... mostly PS1s, Dreamcasts and Nintendo 64s, but just on the offchance, I asked the guy behind the counter of he had any Saturns, and what do you know? They had one, stashed away in the back.
Better yet, it came with a copy of Christmas Nights which turns out to be very collectable as it was a fairly limited release.
Playing games on the machine is quite a peculiar experience. The graphics really do kinda suck, being like sub-standard PS1 gfx, but the gameplay... well... it's Sega, and while they may have a crappy reputation for abandoning their users with unsupported hardware, their games were always second to none (though nintendo may disagree).
So at the moment I have Christmas Nights, Sega Rally, Manx TT Superbike and Clockwork Knight... but with the Saturn games in that shop selling for between 99p and £2.99, you can be pretty sure I'll wind up buying everything they've got in pretty short order. Bet they don't get their hands on any copies of Radiant Silvergun any time soon though.
Steve 6:57 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 15, 2004
I'm not too impressed with this Microsoft Service Pack 1 for Windows. In fact, it's downright bloody stupid.I donwloaded it yesterday, and began the installation, but half way through it gave me an error alert saying it could not install because the pc's atapi driver was already in use and I should close down any programs using that driver.
Well duh! The atapi driver is for the hard drive, so unless I shut down windows or turn off the whole bloody computer, it's always gonna be in use.
Stupid.
Oh dear. This blog really is turning into a right old winge-fest.
It's not supposed to be that way.
Steve 2:36 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 13, 2004
Dontcha just love screaming neurotic attention seekers who neglect to tell the whole story regarding an event, so they can appear to be the innocent victim of someone else's mean nature, when in fact *they* are the aggresor?God knows how I managed to hold my tongue.
Better yet, when they'd rather choose to believe *everyone* is a backstabber than to believe what they're being told is the truth, if that means they'd have to accept something unpleasant about themself.
Am I talking about someone specific?
You better believe it.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 2:07 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Went to see I, Robot last night.I've never read the book, so I don't know how closely it followed it, but as a film, it absolutely rocks.
Best film I've seen this year, in fact.
Labels: movies
Steve 8:41 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
I'm feeling kinda restless.It rained a lot today, but it's still very hot and humid, so I'm feeling very fidgety.
Went into town this morning with very healthy finances, looked at loads of goodies, gadgets, dvd box sets... all sorts, and came home having not spent a penny. Most unusual.
#England's in a sorry old state just lately. Hopefully it's just coz everyone's had better things to do in the good weather, coz most of the 'people' who've been there have been nothing short of moronic.
Oh well.
Steve 12:32 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Hot, hot, hot, hot, HOT!Steve 9:11 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Derby, it has to be said, is a pretty unremarkable place. At least... Micleover, on the outskirts certainly is.The journey there was enjoyable, simply coz I love being passenger/navigator on long (by british standards) trips. Having got there, when my friend went to take care of her work, I went walkabout, looking for anything remotely of interest to photograph.
Did I find anything?
Nope. Not a sausage.
Now I'm the kinda person who'll photograph absolutely anything if it looks remotely unusual, characterful, or interesting, but all I found was street upon street of middle class suburbia. Everytime it looked like things were going to open up into some space, maybe parkland, maybe quaint village... anything.... nope... just more suburbia. And considering it was an absolute scorcher of a day, I walked a bloody long way too (a slightly questionable thing to do when you're around a hundred miles from home without a street map and not familiar with the area).
Pity... I love taking photos of places I've never been before, but still... just for the long ride and good company, it was a fun way to spend the day.
Steve 4:18 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 06, 2004
Okay... what on earth is going on in F1 GP?Jensen Button's leaving BAR at the end of this season and signed to Williams... when BAR are stomping all over Williams this season.
I don't get it.
Williams better get their act together, or Button's gonna be kicking himself.
Labels: F1
Steve 8:40 AM [+] (0) comments
Mame is a peculiar emulator. Frustrating even.
They keep 'improving' it, to make it closer and closer to the original arcade hardware it emulates, but each time they do, it seems to become slower, and less compatible with the game roms that are out there.
So technically they're right, as the roms only stop working coz they're not dumped or ripped in a truly authentic structure, or something, and need nothing but a simple redump, but when most of the roms you find on the web are for older versions of mame and you have to really hunt to find ones that work, these 'improvemnts' become nothing more than a pain in the arse.
On the plus side, I can now play R-Type, R-Type II and best of all, R-Type Leo. All classic and truly brilliant sideways scolling, totally mental, arcade shootemups.
Also on the emulator front... last week I downloaded a Sega Saturn emulator, something I've been waiting for for a long time. The Saturn being a very complex piece of hardware, it's taken a long time for any emulator to even 'claim' the ability to run commercial games software.
So, having got the emulator and OS rom file, it's taken around a week to find a game image I wanted to try on it... ie, not huge, and reputedly a decent game... in this case Radiant Silvergun, a legendary shootemup.
After much messing around converting the file into a useable format, guess what? It didn't run.
Bastard!
Think I'll give up on Saturn emulation for now. What with the size of the files, the complexities of file conversion and unreliablity of the emulator, it's just not worth the effort.
Back in the real world for a moment, *shudder* the trip to Derby is indeed on. My friend phoned me last night... waking me up in the process, and asked if I was still up for the trip. It was kinda funny, coz she was asking if I was gonna be up in the morning, and I said I was... so she (she knows me well) asked if that meant I was gonna be up coz I'd been up all night or if I was gonna get some sleep before then.
"I was sleeping... remember?"
I had to chuckle.
Great thunder storm last night... pity I slept through most of it. I was vaguely aware of some very loud crashes and booms very nearby as I drifted back to sleep, which made for some interesting dreams.
It must've been a good one, coz when I got up an hour or so ago, my laptop was off, meaning the power must've been out for a while. I never turn the laptop off unless I'm going out for some time.
Pity I missed it, but... sleep is good :-)
Steve 1:45 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Okay, so we didn't see I Robot... it's not out till thursday.Instead we watched the remake of The Stepford Wives.
There's not much I can tell you about it if you've seen the original, and nothing I'm gonna tell you if you haven't... except to say it's much more of a comedy than the original.
Entertainment wise, I'd rate it much the same as the original. Not bad, not great. Worth watching if there's nothing else really good on.
Friday may turn out to be interesting.
My friend has to make a trip up to Derby and is a little nervious about it, coz she's never been further north than Northampton... so I volounteered my services as navigator.
Dunno if she's gonna take me up on my offer yet, she'll see how she feels about the trip nearer to friday. Could be a laugh though, and at least worth taking a camera so I can take lots of pics while she's working.
We'll see.
Labels: movies
Steve 10:59 PM [+] (0) comments
AHA!
Okay, I admit it.
Invader Zim is rotting my brain.
I just can't stop watching it.
So anyway.... thunderstorm.... mmmmm... good.
Should be off to see I Robot later. Expect a full report (no spoilers), if all goes to plan.
Ah yes... my fiendish plan.
Oh... wait... that's Zim again.
Steve 5:19 PM [+] (0) comments
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