Currently… Playing:
Dungeon Defenders
Listening to:
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Watching:
Smallville: Season 10
Reading:
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Hey look, a Paypal button.
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I have ten days off work starting tomorrow. Rough itinerary is as follows:
Sunday: Go see Otis.
Monday: Haircut.
Tuesday: Town to get ideas for wedding.
Wednesday: App development.
Thursday: Visit possible wedding location.
Friday: App development.
Saturday: App development.
Sunday: App development.
Monday: App development.
Tuesday: App development.
It’s going to go so quickly, but I’ll try to get some serious progress going on the WP7 front and not spend all week playing on the Xbox.
Well, the support forum is up and running. At the moment, as I have nothing to support, it’s more of a progress forum. And sadly, the first things I’m doing is design work, and I have no way of creating vector graphics… I mocked up the first logo in Paint and it’s pretty basic. Gonna have to have a look around the web for free vector software.
Oh yeah, the name is RFbytes. We had a brainstorming session and that’s the one that stuck in my head.
I had been meaning to read this email for ages, but only got around to it today. It’s another reason why WordPress is incredible.
My 2011 year in blogging.
It’s just so fast and lovely and Windows 7 is amazing. All I needed to do was plug things into it and it’d go “Alright then, start using the thing you just plugged in”. A far cry from the old PC which needed to be configured here, there and everywhere, and have it’s hand held all along the way.
I’ve just downloaded the SDK for Windows Phone 7. A bit daunting, but just having a quick little look around the MSDN forums – the support for new developers is immense. I think the first thing I’ll do is install a new phpBB forum for feedback on the stuff I create. The second thing I need to do is devise a name for my endevours. I have entrusted Jane to come up with something more interesting than “Random Fury Software”, which is the pinnacle of my imaginations thus far.
Also, we went shopping to Fareham today and I bought some Deadmau5 CDs. So far, so fucking awesome. I also bought a Mark Watson DVD, a David Mitchell DVD and a polo shirt. I did not however, buy any books, even though I had £20 of Waterstones vouchers to spend. Is it wrong I’m tempted by a Kindle?
Well… It was.
I didn’t get much done in terms of blogging, but I did get other stuff done that needed doing. I burnt “Iain’s Digital Pics Volume 4″, I uploaded all the new photos I took with my camera and phone whilst on holiday (ready for the best ones to go on here), I did some online banking, checked that my phone contract was all well, ripped four albums ready to be put onto my mp3 player and generally had a sort out of some computery stuff (on the PC as well as in the study). It’s getting a bit cluttered in this here study, it does need a sort out. I don’t feel we have enough room to be honest.
I took notes over the course of the holiday, so it’s not like everything will evaporate from my memory!
Actually, the title is a misnomer. With WordPress you very rarely have to endure waiting – one of the reasons I love it so much. I finally decided to get around to installing Jetpack, and so far, so good. It hooks up with WordPress.com, and they provide all your stats like “pages viewed” and “visitors per day” from their end, so not having the site stats weigh my server down is a good thing. Also, the “share” buttons on the bottom of each post look much nicer than the plug-in I was previously using. That they all come with Jetpack is a bonus. I’ve only just scratched the surface, and there are more additions to come, but could this be the one plug-in to rule them all?
This feels like the first time in ages I’ve been able to sit and do some site stuff in ages without being dragged off to do some other random activity. I got some Haribo and some Irn-Bru, and I’m ready to do some serious typing. I’m going to retrospectively add entries from our holiday, finish up some other loose ends, and maybe look at updating the theme. Today is looking good for blogging.
 Resolved: I think I have finally solved the spambot issue on the forum. I have installed new countermeasures that will hopefully stop them dead in their tracks, but still allow new users to get through as long as they have a tiny understanding of what RF! is all about.
Unsolved: Why won’t it let me upload images, dammit? None of the posts on the first page of Waves have images on them whatsoever, it looks so bland! I will contact our hosts, they are very understanding and helpful when it comes to things like this.
I’ll have a ramble about what I’m currently playing while I’m here: Carrying on the Transformers theme from Dark Of The Moon, I have been playing Transformers: War For Cybertron. It’s actually quite good. I didn’t like the demo, but the game was dirt cheap, and I wanted to play a game as a giant transformable robot, blowing up other giant transformable robots. And my, some of them are bloody giant – and I’m glad they never tacked Unicron on the end like that Transformers game on PS2. The Campaign is decent – it tells a good story, and the multiplayer (which takes a bit of getting used to) is great fun. The class based system works really well, and I love the art direction. Kinda takes the old G1 look and updates it so it’s a bit more like the Michael Bay films, but retains a little of the cartoonification. If that is a word. Check out the WFC Shockwave to the right here. Stylish.
I’m currently working my way up the ranks of multiplayer after having polished off all the single-player Achievements. I will get all my classes up to 25 and unlock Prime mode!
Edit: I contacted our hosts and they have magically fixed my uploading issue. They are so good to me.
Another one from the forum. This time it’s GrumpyPenguin, talking about his first go on Battlefield: Bad Company 2…
I’m not saying I’m going to dislike this one, but my first outing did consist of quite a lot of running around in maps I don’t know to perform objectives I didn’t understand with a gun that didn’t work whilst being insta-killed by people I couldn’t see.
Apart from that, though, it was a magnificent debut and I am champing at the proverbial for more.
It’s no Halo, that’s for shure.
Our yearly pilgrimage to Coventry was a success yet again – it was great to see everyone and catch up and stuff. A massive thank you must be extended to Hannah and Karl for once again hosting such an eclectic mass of bodies in their home, it’s really appreciated.
A personal highlight was singing Everybody Wants To Rule The World, and getting 98%. All that Lips training has paid off! It was pretty funny when Jane was singing Total Eclipse Of The Heart and literally everybody else in the house was providing the “Turn around” backing vocals. Poor girl couldn’t concentrate properly because of it.
I’m pretty tired you know, I think it was all that lazing around drinking vodka. Tiring work, that.
For more details such as “Who’s who?” and “WTF is that picture all about?” go to the SOMETHINGFEST ’11 topic, as this is just an image archive. All photographs were taken by myself or Jane.
CAUTION! There are 76 thumbnails!
Continue reading SOMETHINGFEST ’11 gallery
melatonin wrote:
Elite Four done again. So much easier the second time round. You know you’re good when your biggest problem is PP usage rather than actually managing to win. Cynthia done also. Bitch.
Guess there isn’t much else to do now really? I feel empty.
Lost and Found wrote:
Seventeen days. You had it for seventeen days and you just couldn’t ration it. For shame.
melatonin wrote:
The Blastoise is me, the keyboard is my new Pokémon video game.
Good news! I’m pretty sure I’ve survived Asda’s 12 week probation period. I’ll have been there 12 weeks exactly on Saturday, which is my next shift. I was unsure whether I would actually be kept on after the 12 weeks, as no-one said anything either way, but I’m incredibly glad it looks like I will be. Paul worked there one Christmas and was let go before his 12 weeks were up… I was worried that the same would happen to me, but it seems I can do Asda better than him. There have been some big clues that I’ll be kept on, such as my line manager asking if I can cover the shifts of a guy who is leaving next week, and my holiday request for Somethingfest in April being accepted (see forum for more details on Somethingfest), but I’m not going to take it for granted until I have worked twelve weeks and one day – that’d make it official. Overall, I’m finding it a pretty nice place to work. The people are great (for the most part at least, there’s always one or two idiots no matter where you work), and I’m slowly bringing order to Music and Video. My Tuesday shift (1pm to 10pm) is quiet in the evening, ideal for tidying up and organising the desk, and doing the CD/DVD chart changeovers on Sunday night is a great way to remove old stock from the drawers and fill them with relevant new stuff.
 Todd is my favourite Evil Ex. Why? See title of post. I think things may get a bit quiet round these parts due to me dropping the LOLcats and only updating things once a week (or every two weeks, in this most recent case). Hey, it don’t matter – no-one reads this anyways! What have I been up to then?
So, I decided to investigate Zune Player on the ol’ Xbox 360. I rented Scott Pilgrim vs the World last week – I wasn’t sure if I’d like it enough to buy it (which turned out to be a massive understatement). Loved it, every second, so much so that I bought the two disc version on DVD (for the extras, which I just knew would be good) and I have now got the graphic novels which spawned the movie – got them on Amazon for under £25, bargain. Although there are some discrepancies between the comics and the film, it’s all good. I don’t feel Lisa would’ve added much to the film, and some moments that would’ve been missing have been switched to other characters, but yeah, all in all, they compliment each other well. I’ll go into more detail when I do a write up of the books, I think. So yeah, that was a success, but earlier today I rented Inception. By no means a bad movie, I enjoyed it very much, but I can’t quite understand why everyone I spoke to about it said “YOU MUST WATCH THIS AMAZING FILM”. It was ok.
Still been playing Reach, but not to the extent I was – Fable III has knocked it from it’s perch a little. I still log on to do some Daily Challenges now and again, but it’s not my focus right now. I wasn’t sure of Fable III at first, but it has proven to be a nice game. The story is probably better than that of the second game – becoming King and doing Royal stuff is quite novel. Some of the quests were really great too. Although a fair few were near-identical to quests from the first two games, a few really pushed the boundaries and were so entertaining I actually forgot they were simple “kill all the bad guys” or “collect and return this item” quests. There are some things I dislike about it (not being able to target specific points on enemies – shooting the gun out of mercenaries hands was entertaining), but also things I do think are good additions (holding hands for one – actually taking someone by the hand and leading them to a place is easier than them following you and getting lost), but I think Chibi said it best: “One day, someone will make a great Fable game. But at this rate, it won’t be Lionhead”. I concur.
Work is going well – Slowly but surely I am subtly re-organising things. I actually look forward to going in and making a difference, which is a good sign when it comes to your job, isn’t it? Hopefully we’ll get everything in alphabetical order eventually, and get it through to my fellow Colleagues that putting stock in alphabetical order is generally a good thing. Makes it easier to find for one thing, and it looks tidier too. Anyway, yeah, it’s going great.
Hang on – I just remembered that Fable II was all about The Spire – Fable II wins in the story stakes.
This blogging lark is starting to get away from me now I’m working. I think I just need to update my schedule of LOLs, Reach screenshots and weekly round-ups. The LOLs and screenshots are fairly easy to do, so I’ll keep them on the same days, but doing the weekly round-up depends on when I have enough time off, and when I have enough time free to write stuff – it’ll be sporadic, but I’ll try to get an update up once a week.
Work is going ok – Back on the 12th of December I wrote that I’d been given a chance to show how good I am, well, I didn’t exactly take charge of the Music/Video section and re-organise things, Christmas got in the way. Still, I did make some positive changes and things are a bit more organised now. Whether that’s just because it’s not Christmas and “super busy” any more, who knows.
Speaking of Christmas, ours was a bit of a non-event this year. It snuck up on me, I admit. Before I knew it it was Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day was over in a flash, then before we knew it, it was New Years Eve and Jane and I went to bed early as we were suffering from Swine Flu. That was fun, the Swine Flu. Matt had it bad over Christmas, and it slowly went around the house, infesting everyone. I wasn’t too bad to be honest, whether it be natural resistance or it just losing potency over time, but yeah, I wasn’t too bad. It was like Norovirus on Easy Mode. As for presents, I got the usual stuff: smellies, pants, socks, vouchers – nothing majorly super exciting.
Oh yeah, the Doctor Who Christmas special was amazing, the best one yet, and the trailer for the next series was great. I am very much looking forward to that!
Hello readers. Jane and I would like to wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas. Eat, drink, be merry.
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