Pointless.

I have realised why soul calibur 4 annoys me so much.

Satisfaction when winning :[[[[[[|
Frustration every loss:        [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[|

Shit is infuriating when playing tower of lost souls only to lose on the last motherfucker who has [---] much HP left , on a scale where i was very very close to throwing my controller through the window , a thought ive never had before.

On a side note , was cleaning out space on my PC and finally decided to delete WoW. Go me.

I'M LIKE A HADOKEN, CAUSE IM DOWN-RIGHT FIERCE

So im about to start my essay at last...
3,000 words , this is going to be hell.

In other news , found out that im getting Street fighter 4 next week as a very very late birthday present.

I had a dream last night about finding out about an exam the day before , it was probably the most horrible feeling evar , i woke up and have never been happier to be at home and not at Uni - although warwick uni in my dream was amazing , it was super hot and sunny and i was walking around in shorts , i think there was an outdoor swimming pool next to an outdoor tiki-hut bar. After hearing that the exam is tomorrow , i did what any sane person would do - i went to the nearby supermarket and bought somewhere in the region of 50 eggs. Nize.

ps. only just saw the latest update to L4D , melee cooldown in versets - sounds good to me , that shit was ridiculous.

more tumbleweed than a tumbledryer

Still nothing much to report if im honest
Its pretty hard to blog without going to some form of education facility or workplace.

uhm...
on the games side:
I completed fable 2 and stupidly picked to save everyone instead of choosing the dog , now i have no doggy woggy :< Completed Gears 2 the other day as well , better than the original - although the final boss was somewhat rubbish compared to the cheating wank that was general RAAM from the first game.
Completed castle crashers as well , which is really long considering its an XBLA game.
I bought a 360 memory card because i figure im away from home more often than not , problem is that it doesent work properly , i returned it , got another one , that one is the exact same as well - doesent work properly. So now i basically need to find out whether its my Xbox that doesent work or whether its an entire bad batch of Memory cards. What hassle.

On the academic side , i realised last night that my tutor probably set us some work , i have no idea what it was about or where it is or if it even exists for sure.
I havent started my 3,000 word essay on endowhateverbiotism , and im only about 1/4 through reading all of my notes , 2 hours a day went right out the window ~.~
Of the 20 amino acid thingies im supposed to learn , im at 7/20 so far...
Im pretty fucking worried that i may not be able to pass my exams at this point , but im still not committed enough to actually apply myself and do some work >_<

Champion

This guy is my new idol






also , last video has some crazy shit at the end , at like 1:37...... O_O"

ITBP Music , also Fable and Gears sequels

ITBP (In this blog post) , music and Games.

All american Rejects - When the World comes down
Its oh so very generic , it could honestly be any other pop/rock band in the world and id probably not know better. The single they released from it , 'gives me hell' is pretty catchy i guess but the tune itself is pretty so-so. The track 'another heart calls' on the other hand is the complete opposite , not catchy at all and if i try to remember what the song sounds like right now i really cant , but it has a very good tune and just sounds good.

Papa Roach - Metamorphosis
So i feel kinda bad downloading the album when im going to see them next month (this day next month exactly actually) but i saw the supposed setlist from a friend and figured i should probably learn the songs they'll be playing. Im actually kinda worried that the tickets havent come yet , im not particuarly keen on the idea of something ive bought not being in front of me a week after i bought it , the email i got said that 'you may not recieve the tickets until the week of the event' though... which is sort of comforting i guess? the next line saying 'if you do not have your tickets 48 hours before the event please call......' was not so comforting.
So anyway the album , it seems very old school / hard rock , very defined guitar riffs and clear rock lyrics over the top. Hollywood Whore is definately the best song on the album , im still getting into the other stuff.

Other news -
Went to visit good friend Dave today, got 16 nutri-grain bars and 2 games out of it , cant ask for much more from a friend right?
Started playing Fable II , why the fuck am i cutting wood for money , ive heard of gold farming/grinding but this is kind of ridiculous. The property thing in the game is really awesome , as is the whole effect of everything you do and how people look at you and all that shit , very cool game.
Gears 2 , I did warm to Gears of War eventually after playing through the first , Gears 2 is a pretty clear improvement in many ways , the co-op particuarly shines with plenty of 'okay you take the roofs and cover me' style moments , or where you'll both end up flanking a locust camp from both sides and can help each other take out the other's troikas.

The guillotine.

To the right : the handouts from most of the lectures ive been to..
(does not include the few dozen lecture handouts which i didn't go to... )

On the left , For comparison (and i probably have to read them too..) - Lodish stacked on top of stryer , both approx 1.3k pages each.

Also , 3000 word essay on...
'Endosymbiotic theory - the modern or organelle containing eukaryotic cell evolved in steps through the stable incorporation of chemo-organotrophic and phototrophic symbionts from the domain bacteria
Write and essay reviewing the evidence which supports this theory'

.... T_T

ALSO. 4 Page write up on Virus Haemagglutination Assay lab.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...................
I just want to play 360 and drink milkshakes and eat cookies whilst listening to california.mp3

And home again..

Flipped open my folder of handouts from lectures , its about 4 inches thick :/ i have to read through that thing and more over the course of this holiday , and then i get 1 more month and then kapow! exams.
My parents already dropping hints that they want higher than a 2-2 :(

Also at home , 360! i kinda forgot i have one of these.

Got soul Calibur 4 for birthday present , so ive been playing that , and i also bought a month gold subscription last night so i can play halo/ghwt/SC4 online. Kinda bitchy that you have to call the fuckers up to cancel otherwise they auto-renew. Also started playing Eternal Sonata which is a Star Ocean style RPG.

mm..

nothing much else to report.

Ignite!

Went to Lava Ignite in Coventry last night , after a bit of a rocky start with the buses and stuff we got there,
To get to the actual club area you have to go up a large flight of stairs , on the walls are mirrors in funky shapes and the carpet was old.. very old , it felt like going to lazer quest or some venue beginning in 'roller' , at the top of the stairs was the queue to pay and get in , complete with CCTV monitor attached to the wall , this MUST have been a lazer quest at some point.
We pass the huge black bouncer dude and enter the club...



I think we entered during dance/rave time , because there was darren styles playing , swiftly followed by basshunter and cascada, strobe lights all over the place , fog machines , giant green lazers... Initial impressions were good.

Drinks were fairly cheap , not that i drank much last night - Vodka/coke and VK's were £1.20 i think

Notice also the jet turbines in the picture above , those come in sets of 2 , and there was about 4 sets of them surrounding the dance floor.
My ears were destroyed by the end of the night.
Music genres cycled... From dance to RnB (shit) , to sing-a-long 'rock' (sweet child of mine , livin on a prayer , summer of 69...) to Drum and bass (pendulum) , to hardcore (set u free hardcore remix , insomnia remix...) them back to RnB for the last 20 minutes or so (soulja boi , other monotonous 2 bar loop songs)

Went home by taxi , £2 - only slightly more than the bus ticket there (£1.20)
Went to sleep at 4am...

Woke up at 9:20ish... pain.
Endured a lecture about fungi and stuff , then did a lab until about 3pm , got 0.5 / 10 for my prelab test , ouch.

its now 4pm , my ears are actually still ringing , and i think im gonna go have a nap.

I wanna go birmingham to the oceana tonight (club) but i have a 9am exam tomorrow morning , ive already missed one in that module (worth 5% and bringing down my average from 70% to 40%) so i dont really want to miss another one :(

Kasbah

So decided to go to a club yesterday night with a bunch of friends for someones birthday , it was my first time goin to kasbah so i didnt really know what to expect.
Student night on the monday , so at least entry was moderately cheap , drinks were like £1.50 each - which isnt great but could be worse i guess, just as well im not a big drinker.

So there are 3 rooms at kasbah and then an outdoor smokers garden kinda area with a bar out there too ,
Room number 3
Indie / shitrock room , pretty small.. and black walls black ceiling etc... the kinda place you might expect to have to fight through if you was a vampire hunter or something. The music here was crappy indie stuff which nobody has heard of , there are flashing coloured lights , they hurt when they hit you in the face. You can hear yourself in this area at least though.
Room number 2
NigguhWut/Xhibit room , about the same size as room 3 , has a chandelier and is over 2 floors.. kinda , small balcony and such but its all really tiny , random black girls on tables thinking they can dance in this room , kinda scary.
Room number 1
Ohmaghud room , i cant really think of any way to describe how big this room was , kinda like what i imagine bill gate's atrium was to look like i guess? giant chandelier thing, flashing lights and all that jazz , 2 sets of speakers which measure about 1 meter x 1 floor , TWO OF THOSE. Oh yeah , there are super awesome lazer things and a smoke machine too. This room was actually really fucking cool , huge dancefloor and the lazers and shit , and the music was so loud it was borderline deafening , i could feel the bass rumbling my internal organs , there was actually no way you could talk to the person next to you , we had to use mobile phones to text out what we wanted to say , even cupping your hand over someones ear didnt help at all.
The music unfortunately for most of the night , was shit , generic RnB rihanna kinda crap , it did switch to some dancy/drum and bass half way through for some pendulum and shit which was good fun , but then it switched to soulja boi and went downhill from there.

Still a fun night though i suppose , finished at 3am and taxi'd back , surprisingly only spent about.... 1.30 + 3 + 2.40.... £6.70

Angel Baby

So Angels online has a rather... odd... feature about it. Certainly a unique feature which i never thought id see in an MMO.

Hitting Alt+R brings up the Angel Baby menu , which is essentially a full bot program.



You set skills your char uses when its killing shit (what you open with , with you finish with .. etc)
You set what monster your guy attacks and the distance to which your guy seeks them out ,  you set whether to run away from boss monsters or not , you set whether to autorevive and then go back to your training spot...


Cast buffs on yourself , use items on yourself when you're below X hp...



Theres also this crazy menu which i dont really know how to use , but the gist of it is that the bot will play the entire game for you.

As an example , i started a new char and left the game open for a while , my guy is now level

Full fat

i mean i guess?

Angels Online

^Pretty cool music video , kid is a tank

So the latest then?
Angels Online , Probably the biggest surprise of 09 so far , originally only wanted to play it because i saw this picture ~



Turns out its actually not a bad game at all as free MMO's go , kind of like trickster/Ragnarok Online.
Run around, kill stuff , grind on paopaos , all the usual MMO stuff.
Also , did i mention Rage fire elf?



The avatar system thing is kind of innovative, which is a huge surprise for a game which basically rips off every other game ever - apparently they stole just about every Diablo sound ever for the skill sounds.
Rather worryingly we clocked up around 5 hours of play time in one sitting last night , the question remains as to whether we'll go back for more...

On another non-gaming related note , i was in the kitchen with a bunch of people including a very drunk duncan , i put some jelly and ice cream in a glass because all my bowls were dirty (from jelly and ice cream for the most part) , duncan tells me to down the jelly , and that he'll down 'this' if i do


(did i really just find a site called barbequesauce.be?)
I tell him that if he goes first , i'll down the jelly after.
He does it , gets through about a quart of the bottle and then starts spluttering in the sink. lol.

Yay , no more exams for a little while

Been a little tight strung lately , exam on friday , exam on monday and then todays big exam.
Yesterdays exam was pretty much horrific , the exam earlier today though wasnt toooooo bad - fucking biostatistics.

Everyone here seems to be gearing up for the last stretch of Uni , i believe next week is going to be crazy , people are saving up money and planning to go clubbing/drinking every night and such - we'll see i guess. Not particuarly fond of clubbing if im honest.

uhm...

Gave the new cp_junction map a try from the TF2 scout update , plays pretty well if not amazingly cramped, pretty much the killzone if you're a soldier or demoman. I got the Baseball bat the other day as well, amazing fun to use but so very hard to use well , the lack of double jump is kind of lame too.

Played the HAWX demo through today, its good fun , not sure if id pay £30 or whatever its actual price is though.