Coming home

Wow, so I'll be coming home for a month tomorrow... I almost feel reluctant about it, university life is quite different and a lot more action-packed than life at home. It'll be good to see you guys again though, and my family of course. What're you all doing Thursday-Saturday? I'm off on Sunday of course, and seeing Lyss Monday/Tuesday I think.

My hard-drive died last friday, again. Maplin were extremely awesome about things though and provided me with an equivalent replacement (but a better brand!) with no questions or anything - I didn't even have the receipt, and they tracked the order and gave me an updated receipt! I'll certainly be buying more hardware from them if they can consistently provide this level of customer support, not to mention the convenience.

Anyway, because of this, I've reinstalled Linux and such - I lost surprisingly little - Annoyingly, some code I was working on, but nothing big and it was unlikely that I was going to finish it anyway... I'm using Ubuntu Linux now, as Mark has raved about before. I did try it out before after my last hard-drive crash, and I wasn't impressed. But things have changed. It is *extremely* awesome and I'll be recommending and installing it for Linux n00bs as much as I can :) (James?)

I'm now in the midst of reinstalling OpenEmbedded, so I can get my dev on again. Also re-downloading Scrubs series 4 that I lost :( (lost some movies too, but nothing I was going to watch anytime soon, and mostly Chris's and James's stuff) Series 4 of Scrubs is great btw, much like series 1-3 - Still has that great feel-good vibe about it, and the brilliant slapstick humour mixed with a pinch of tragedy that make it so unique, in my eyes.

Thinking of humour, have either of you seen Team America yet? I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but it's the funniest film ever. Period. Well, on initial viewing anyway... But yeah, you should both see it!

Anyway, I'm going to continue to setup OE and start a build going, then ride to uni where I forgot my D-lock on Friday... (whoops) Hopefully someone hasn't taken a hack-saw to it or anything.

See you guys in the week, here's hoping!

Mumblings of the fatigued

Yoshi's Island was (and is) a great game. I mean, damn - The first mario game where they really try something new (Mario 2 isn't a Mario game!) and they hit the nail, RIGHT on the head - AGAIN. There is only one criticism I can level at it, and that's the pathetic level of difficulty of the bosses vs. the levels... Some of the levels are fiendish - In a good way, it makes you keep coming back, but they're really very challenging... The bosses on the other hand... Man, they're so piss-easy it's laughable! I've no idea what they were doing with those... (They are all cool though :))

Anyway, yes, playing a fair bit of that given that I've bought the game now - 'tis good. I also bought Mario Advance 4 (Mario 3! :D) last weekend, hasn't arrived yet - looking forward to that too :) Having now played Yoshi's Island some more, I'm really not sure which my favourite Mario game is... The top three are most definitely Mario 3, Yoshi's Island and Mario 64, without a doubt... I think Mario 3 might edge it, but I'll have to play it again...

I've been doing so much stuff recently it's almost silly... I've been so occupied - not to say that I haven't got lots of play-time, but man... So much OE work, coding for the group project, work work... I am VERY much looking forward to the easter holidays.... When I'll have to catch up on work I've missed :p

Oooh, thinking of easter, guess who's going to see the original Lockers AND the Electric Boogaloos? Oh yes, 'tis me. That is SO gonna rock, man...

We did an ECS games thing today - 5-8.30 (we meant to stop at 7 :p hehe) of AirBucaneers and UT2k4 :) That was a lot of fun, and I totally OWNED on one deathmatch game (Morpheus, I know the level well :)). As usual, I owned in AirBucaneers, but that really isn't worth mentioning and it's a team game anyway... (but I do totally own at it.)

I'm very tired... Will go to bed in a sec... Just thought I'd update and stuff - haven't really had the time to write a proper update, these are my pure unedited, hazy thoughts. I'm very tired.

What's with all the gayness btw Mark? Am I to be the bastion of manliness for this trio? (well, I was already, but I dunno, is my position to be concreted?) Yeah, what's up with that? Man - what?

(plz ignore grammar and spelling in this post! :D)

Ms. Homerton

There was a Ms. Homerton competition at the bar last night. Suffice it to say that I was gorgeous. The only reason I didn't win was because I have STANDARDS.

There will be pictures.

Recent purchases and potential good news

Well, just blogging to fill you guys in on what I've been up to recently... This mostly consists of some purchases, and some potentially good news - I'll leave the latter until last :)

Recent purchases

• GBA SP - Limited Classic NES edition - Lyss paid for half of this as an early birthday present, and I must say - Nintendo really made a mistake with the first edition... I've rediscovered my love of portable gaming, now that I can actually see the games I'm playing :p This is the basis of my next few purchases.
• Final Fantasy Tactics - Brilliant game - both me and Lyss have it, and I've played it a lot (and thanks to the GBA SP, I've not lost any time I could've been productive with). It reminds me a lot of Shining Force 3... There's a lot more depth to the battles, stats and the like, but a lot less depth to the story and adventure element. Very good though - not a Shining Force 3 (or even 2 I don't think) beater, but certainly worth playing.
• GBA SP headphone adaptor - Nintendo are so damn cheap... Not only do I have to get another GBA to play my games properly (I've sold my old one though mind), but I have to buy a bloody adaptor to use headphones with it! Good thing it only cost £2.50..
• Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island - Classic game, as I'm sure you both already know... Haven't received it yet, but looking forward to playing it at work :) I wasn't aware of this (and I did play Yoshi's Island quite a bit, so it's surprising to me), but did you know that Yoshi's Island is actually a bigger game than Mario World? It always struck me that Mario World was huge, but then I never played it much.... Interesting little fact there for you anyway.
• Airform GBA SP case - Nice little stretchy case thingy that fits snugly around the SP and can fit two extra game cartridges... Cost me about £3.50, also hasn't arrived yet... Looks cool, not really got much to say about this...

Planned purchases

• Sharp Zaurus serial cable - It's a little expensive (£25! rip-off...), but it's quite rare now, and I need it for development... I was a little reluctant to shell out the money at first, but once you hear my potentially good news, you'll see why I no longer mind (Although given that it is only potentially good news, I may be let down). I haven't bought this yet because it's not available - it becomes so on March 17th, hopefully.

If you're wondering where I'm getting all the money for this stuff, I've managed to wrangle myself some extra work (at my place of work, doing odd jobs), so it's all good.

Now, on to the less mundane, and potentially totally awesome news.

Summer work - I may be working on Matchbox/OpenEmbedded stuff as a summer job. PAID to work on what I work on pretty much every day. The reason this is potential and not solid is that it depends on how well the company is doing at the time, but the head of it is a guy who idles in #gpe and I've spoken to him lots and had dealings with him and such - I'm sure he knows I'm a pretty capable guy (or he wouldn't have said that there may be a job kinda thing... I'd hope!) and I love working on OpenEmbedded and GPE and such, so if I got that, that'd be totally awesome.

Totally Awesome.