The time to renew my domain and stuff is coming up, and though the cost of it wouldnt be that bad or anything - i just feel theres little point in keeping the blog up anymore. Its not something that people read and its not something I have much spare time to currently write, I felt it was pretty useful during university when stuff would actually happen on a regular basis, but at home its pretty much going to work and coming back home to play vidya and watch anime, I have no friends at home to go out with so its not even like i can run into adventure through that route.
If the situation calls for it, i may restart a blog on the free wordpress domain but we'll have to wait and see if that is necessary.
Twitter will likely be my new output medium, as its lightweight and i can easily update from anywhere via my phone - So i guess i'll try and use that more often.
aka. Make sure you're following http://twitter.com/#!/mengplex
Saturday, 27 August 2011
Friday, 15 July 2011
Site fixed... Again.
Lets hope that error doesnt come back again eh.
Stuff on my agenda...
19th- Graduation
23rd - Holiday in Mallorca for a week
Stuff on my agenda...
19th- Graduation
23rd - Holiday in Mallorca for a week
Monday, 4 July 2011
Burning time
Uneventful day
Started playing Assassins Creed brotherhood, which is pretty much exactly what I expect from Assassins creed at this point im time, the game does do some things differently but for the most part its just a refined version of Assassins creed 2, not that I have any problems with that, because its a great game - If something is a winning formula, why change it - although I do feel like the games are coming out a little bit too quickly, id hope AC:Revelations is the last in the series, the last thing we need is another overmilked franchise.
I also had a look at mobile phones, im considering going contract just because i'll (hopefully) have a full time job soon, which means more time spent out the house and away from a computer, the last thing I want is to become like one mythical Sean Penney, so a good phone with mobile internet and a fuckload of free minutes and texts will be useful for keeping in contact with everybody. Godknows I have a pretty small circle of friends already, I dont want that getting any smaller.
Thanks to a family friend, i'll probably end up getting a 50% contract deal, letting me go for a pretty outrageous £30 a month deal and only paying £15.
Strongly considering getting the Samsung Galaxy S2, which seems to be getting amazing reviews everywhere and is supposedly the best phone on the market right now, £15 a month is the minimum they let you get with the family/friends deal, so im thinking if I get the £17.50 a month deal, on a 24 month contract - I get the phone free and the total price of the contract over 2 years is £420, considering i'll get 900 minutes, infinite texts and unlimited mobile internet as well (per month obviously) and the fact that the free phone they give me is worth £475 on amazon right now... Id say it sounds like a pretty good deal. What the fuck im going to do with 900 minutes and infinite texts when I have about 6 friends is fucking beyond me, but at least i'll be ready should the txt-pocalypse occur.
Finally, given the possible buying of smartphone and jobsearching and stuff starting, I thought i'd clear out my email inbox, it had around 3000 unread messages in, so looking at the MSN 'new messages' notification was anyones guess.
I'd say that went well.
Also uncovered some super retro emails from up to 7 years ago, including some nudes of a girl I dont know
Started playing Assassins Creed brotherhood, which is pretty much exactly what I expect from Assassins creed at this point im time, the game does do some things differently but for the most part its just a refined version of Assassins creed 2, not that I have any problems with that, because its a great game - If something is a winning formula, why change it - although I do feel like the games are coming out a little bit too quickly, id hope AC:Revelations is the last in the series, the last thing we need is another overmilked franchise.
I also had a look at mobile phones, im considering going contract just because i'll (hopefully) have a full time job soon, which means more time spent out the house and away from a computer, the last thing I want is to become like one mythical Sean Penney, so a good phone with mobile internet and a fuckload of free minutes and texts will be useful for keeping in contact with everybody. Godknows I have a pretty small circle of friends already, I dont want that getting any smaller.
Thanks to a family friend, i'll probably end up getting a 50% contract deal, letting me go for a pretty outrageous £30 a month deal and only paying £15.
Strongly considering getting the Samsung Galaxy S2, which seems to be getting amazing reviews everywhere and is supposedly the best phone on the market right now, £15 a month is the minimum they let you get with the family/friends deal, so im thinking if I get the £17.50 a month deal, on a 24 month contract - I get the phone free and the total price of the contract over 2 years is £420, considering i'll get 900 minutes, infinite texts and unlimited mobile internet as well (per month obviously) and the fact that the free phone they give me is worth £475 on amazon right now... Id say it sounds like a pretty good deal. What the fuck im going to do with 900 minutes and infinite texts when I have about 6 friends is fucking beyond me, but at least i'll be ready should the txt-pocalypse occur.
Finally, given the possible buying of smartphone and jobsearching and stuff starting, I thought i'd clear out my email inbox, it had around 3000 unread messages in, so looking at the MSN 'new messages' notification was anyones guess.
I'd say that went well.
Also uncovered some super retro emails from up to 7 years ago, including some nudes of a girl I dont know
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Arrietty / Kari-gurashi no Arietti (2010)
Arrietty is the studio ghibli take on 'the borrowers' concept, an american film was made in the late 90's as a comedy with John Goodman or some fatguy i believe, unsurprisingly, the Studio ghibli version is better.
The story is fairly simple and follows the life of young borrower Arrietty as she does her first borrowing from the house she lives in, however things dont go quite as planned and... thats how the movie plays out.
It runs fairly short for a modern film at only 90 minutes and it feels it, I personally have no problems with this as theres nothing worse than watching a film that outstays its welcome, The borrowers Arrietty does what it comes to do, and then disappears much like the borrowers themselves. Its a great film, but falls short of other Studio ghibli greats like Porco Rosso or Laputa. The film also does a fantastic job of conveying the scale of the borrowers, the sound is particularly well done.
Im going to stop now before I start sounding like a film student.
8/10
Definitely worth the 90 minutes.
Note: This film comes out in cinemas in the UK on the 29th of July according to imdb
The story is fairly simple and follows the life of young borrower Arrietty as she does her first borrowing from the house she lives in, however things dont go quite as planned and... thats how the movie plays out.
It runs fairly short for a modern film at only 90 minutes and it feels it, I personally have no problems with this as theres nothing worse than watching a film that outstays its welcome, The borrowers Arrietty does what it comes to do, and then disappears much like the borrowers themselves. Its a great film, but falls short of other Studio ghibli greats like Porco Rosso or Laputa. The film also does a fantastic job of conveying the scale of the borrowers, the sound is particularly well done.
Im going to stop now before I start sounding like a film student.
8/10
Definitely worth the 90 minutes.
Note: This film comes out in cinemas in the UK on the 29th of July according to imdb
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Ibiza - Day 4 - The rest
Sadly the rest of the holiday wasnt even nearly as memorable - Of course maybe thats just my opinion because I hadnt slept (Still awake from the all-nighter at Es Paradis) , I think the rest of the holiday involved...
- Ritas 1 Euro breakfast
- Swimming in the hotel pool for ages because someone left a giant mattress style float
- Strolling through town
- Breakfast at the cheap beachfront place again, including an alcoholic slush cocktail (malibu, bananna liquor, Red Slush)
We ended the holiday by once again meeting the girls, we met them at a beach near to their hotel - it was on the way to this beach that we realised that their hotel is actually really really close to ours (see maps posted on the first day, if you cut through the town you can walk it in <20 minutes, as opposed to the 4 hours or godknows what we walked around the coast)
There wasnt a huge amount of drinking or anything special involved on the beach, a little bit of drama throwing each others sandals into the ocean, the hennesys concoction (which is something like equal parts rum and coke with some vodka)
Mostly just some nice civilized chitchat as we watched the sun set, which quickly turned into sex-chat as the girls got more drunk.
We opted to not go for an all-nighter on the beach with the girls, as our flight was pretty early in the morning at around 11, and we planned to catch the 8am bus to the airport (as its an hourly bus)
In retrospect though, I should have stayed out for the all-nighter because I basically did one anyway, the room that night was stuffy and hot as hell, all of the nights I had actually slept in the hotel I had been pretty fucking drunk, trying to sleep that night was horrible and sticky - opening the balcony doors only seemed to increase the drunken shouting coming in from the streets and not cool down the room at all.
And so the 2nd night of no-sleep happened.
In the morning we caught the bus, checked out fine etc, got on the plane, arrived back in birmingham UK in the early afternoon.
An overall fantastic holiday, even if we did get robbed of phones, time and (personally) sleep by the island of Ibiza.
I cant wait for the next holiday with my housemates, skiing sometime maybe guys? :P
- Ritas 1 Euro breakfast
- Swimming in the hotel pool for ages because someone left a giant mattress style float
- Strolling through town
- Breakfast at the cheap beachfront place again, including an alcoholic slush cocktail (malibu, bananna liquor, Red Slush)
We ended the holiday by once again meeting the girls, we met them at a beach near to their hotel - it was on the way to this beach that we realised that their hotel is actually really really close to ours (see maps posted on the first day, if you cut through the town you can walk it in <20 minutes, as opposed to the 4 hours or godknows what we walked around the coast)
There wasnt a huge amount of drinking or anything special involved on the beach, a little bit of drama throwing each others sandals into the ocean, the hennesys concoction (which is something like equal parts rum and coke with some vodka)
Mostly just some nice civilized chitchat as we watched the sun set, which quickly turned into sex-chat as the girls got more drunk.
We opted to not go for an all-nighter on the beach with the girls, as our flight was pretty early in the morning at around 11, and we planned to catch the 8am bus to the airport (as its an hourly bus)
In retrospect though, I should have stayed out for the all-nighter because I basically did one anyway, the room that night was stuffy and hot as hell, all of the nights I had actually slept in the hotel I had been pretty fucking drunk, trying to sleep that night was horrible and sticky - opening the balcony doors only seemed to increase the drunken shouting coming in from the streets and not cool down the room at all.
And so the 2nd night of no-sleep happened.
In the morning we caught the bus, checked out fine etc, got on the plane, arrived back in birmingham UK in the early afternoon.
An overall fantastic holiday, even if we did get robbed of phones, time and (personally) sleep by the island of Ibiza.
I cant wait for the next holiday with my housemates, skiing sometime maybe guys? :P
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Monday, 27 June 2011
Ibiza - Day 2 - Holiday low point
Day 2 was designated as a beach day, the sun was scorching and temperature was probably somewhere around 30 deg C
We spent a large amount of time on the beach, probably a good 4-6 hours or something, just kind of lazing around and getting burnt by the sun.
Being that Ibiza is such a tourist trap, there are con-men fucking everywhere roaming the beach, throughout the day, overly friendly young girls walk around and sit with groups of guys (or hot guys sit with groups of girls) and offer them what sounds like the most amazing experience, some of the claims we heard was a party boat with free alcohol, a beach party with all you can drink alcohol... etc etc. These nights out are of course limited entry and stuff and as such they need to take a deposit.... you pay them 20 euro and then pay 20 euro on the night... So... we just give them 120 euro and then they walk off and we turn up to the club and assume it actually exists? IDUNTHINKSO.
Lots of banter in the ocean, including seeing Ian scream like a little girl at starfish, we are still making fun of him after returning home.
This is where the day gets rough.
Im not sure if i clarified it yet, but the people on this holiday is 4/6 of my housemates (me, luke, ian, duncan) , and 2 friends from lukes course who I'll hopefully never see again (Phil and ryan)
Our house came back from having a swim in the ocean to discover that basically all of our bags had been stolen... whilst 2 people were with them, right under their noses.
Fuck.
Losses:
Me : Phone, Vest, 5 euros
Duncan : Phone, Bag, Shirt, hotel keys
Luke : Wallet with 10 euro (all cards), hotel keys
Ian : Everything? (Wallet with all his holiday money in, full set of clothes, new phone, book....)
Pretty shitty. Especially Ian who lost probably around £300 or £400 worth of stuff
I Lost all the photos I took on my phone as well, and I was pretty much the only one on the holiday that was taking photos, this is why there are pretty much no photos of the holiday, which actually makes me more upset than losing the phone itself.
We got back to the hotel and found out we had to pay 40 euro for each set of keys stolen, as they had to change the locks and stuff. Expensive and annoying, but necessary I suppose, better than having my passport stolen.
Spent a few hours sulking, having a nap and so on until dinner, where we went to a beachfront restaurant for a cheap burger and chips or something to that effect.
The night rolled in, and we decided to meet up with the girls...
But where would we meet them? They decided to meet up at the London Bar again.
And so the 10 euro pitchers appeared again.
The girls sussed out that phil is a virgin (forever alone) and took it upon themselves to try and teach him how to pull girls, they tried teaching him a subtle technique of slowly brushing a bit of the girls hair out of their face and offered themselves as practice dummies. Phil spent the next hour or so essentially palming poor kate in the forehead instead of brushing her hair out of the way. It was painful to watch and I still dont understand how anyone can be so shit at life.
Earlier in the day, duncan took out 50 euro for Ian to survive off for the rest of the holiday (as he literally had all 150 euro or whatever of his holiday money stolen), Ian somehow manages to lose this 50 euro at the London bar, unsurprisingly he is kind of bummed the fuck out at the fact he has lost all of his money twice in one day.
The alcohol is hitting me pretty fucking hard.
We leave the london pub and go into a Vodka Bar, which was like a free entry club-bar place, the music was pretty good and they had smoke/fog machines and lazers all over the damn place.
Of course by this time I was out of it. I stumble to the toilet to throw up, but all the stalls are taken, I start to feel dizzy and worry im about to collapse - at this point an english skinhead gets in my face and starts shouting at me, I ask him to help me get to a seat, he does, I am surprised at the kindness of said skinhead.
The next half hour or so is a blur for me as I am essentially slumped on a sofa in this foggy club, the only thing keeping me conscious is willpower at this point, I pump my leg in time with the dance music to try and keep myself in the game, I have no idea where the fuck any of my friends or the girls are at this point and the last thing I wanted to do on my 2nd day in Ibiza is pass out in a club when I can barely find my way back to the hotel when sober...
I open my eyes at one point and the skinhead is like inches from my face, thankfully he skips the rape and gives me a bottle of water and we basically have a chat about how nice he is and how he hates seeing people have a bad time, who am I to argue - he was genuinely a pretty nice guy for helping me out.
The rest of my housemates find me and realise I need to get home, I promise them 'ive got this' and slump back on the sofa to sober up a little more.
We eventually leave the club and get back to the hotel alive.
We spent a large amount of time on the beach, probably a good 4-6 hours or something, just kind of lazing around and getting burnt by the sun.
Being that Ibiza is such a tourist trap, there are con-men fucking everywhere roaming the beach, throughout the day, overly friendly young girls walk around and sit with groups of guys (or hot guys sit with groups of girls) and offer them what sounds like the most amazing experience, some of the claims we heard was a party boat with free alcohol, a beach party with all you can drink alcohol... etc etc. These nights out are of course limited entry and stuff and as such they need to take a deposit.... you pay them 20 euro and then pay 20 euro on the night... So... we just give them 120 euro and then they walk off and we turn up to the club and assume it actually exists? IDUNTHINKSO.
Lots of banter in the ocean, including seeing Ian scream like a little girl at starfish, we are still making fun of him after returning home.
This is where the day gets rough.
Im not sure if i clarified it yet, but the people on this holiday is 4/6 of my housemates (me, luke, ian, duncan) , and 2 friends from lukes course who I'll hopefully never see again (Phil and ryan)
Our house came back from having a swim in the ocean to discover that basically all of our bags had been stolen... whilst 2 people were with them, right under their noses.
Fuck.
Losses:
Me : Phone, Vest, 5 euros
Duncan : Phone, Bag, Shirt, hotel keys
Luke : Wallet with 10 euro (all cards), hotel keys
Ian : Everything? (Wallet with all his holiday money in, full set of clothes, new phone, book....)
Pretty shitty. Especially Ian who lost probably around £300 or £400 worth of stuff
I Lost all the photos I took on my phone as well, and I was pretty much the only one on the holiday that was taking photos, this is why there are pretty much no photos of the holiday, which actually makes me more upset than losing the phone itself.
We got back to the hotel and found out we had to pay 40 euro for each set of keys stolen, as they had to change the locks and stuff. Expensive and annoying, but necessary I suppose, better than having my passport stolen.
Spent a few hours sulking, having a nap and so on until dinner, where we went to a beachfront restaurant for a cheap burger and chips or something to that effect.
The night rolled in, and we decided to meet up with the girls...
But where would we meet them? They decided to meet up at the London Bar again.
And so the 10 euro pitchers appeared again.
The girls sussed out that phil is a virgin (forever alone) and took it upon themselves to try and teach him how to pull girls, they tried teaching him a subtle technique of slowly brushing a bit of the girls hair out of their face and offered themselves as practice dummies. Phil spent the next hour or so essentially palming poor kate in the forehead instead of brushing her hair out of the way. It was painful to watch and I still dont understand how anyone can be so shit at life.
Earlier in the day, duncan took out 50 euro for Ian to survive off for the rest of the holiday (as he literally had all 150 euro or whatever of his holiday money stolen), Ian somehow manages to lose this 50 euro at the London bar, unsurprisingly he is kind of bummed the fuck out at the fact he has lost all of his money twice in one day.
The alcohol is hitting me pretty fucking hard.
We leave the london pub and go into a Vodka Bar, which was like a free entry club-bar place, the music was pretty good and they had smoke/fog machines and lazers all over the damn place.
Of course by this time I was out of it. I stumble to the toilet to throw up, but all the stalls are taken, I start to feel dizzy and worry im about to collapse - at this point an english skinhead gets in my face and starts shouting at me, I ask him to help me get to a seat, he does, I am surprised at the kindness of said skinhead.
The next half hour or so is a blur for me as I am essentially slumped on a sofa in this foggy club, the only thing keeping me conscious is willpower at this point, I pump my leg in time with the dance music to try and keep myself in the game, I have no idea where the fuck any of my friends or the girls are at this point and the last thing I wanted to do on my 2nd day in Ibiza is pass out in a club when I can barely find my way back to the hotel when sober...
I open my eyes at one point and the skinhead is like inches from my face, thankfully he skips the rape and gives me a bottle of water and we basically have a chat about how nice he is and how he hates seeing people have a bad time, who am I to argue - he was genuinely a pretty nice guy for helping me out.
The rest of my housemates find me and realise I need to get home, I promise them 'ive got this' and slump back on the sofa to sober up a little more.
We eventually leave the club and get back to the hotel alive.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Ibiza - Day 1 - Arrival and the start of something special
We landed on the island at around 4 or 5pm, and got to have a small sample of the island through the bus journey to 'Sant Antoni', from the bus station we eventually worked our way to our Hotel, the hotel Rosalia - supposedly a 1 star hotel, needless to say we werent exactly expecting much, summed up pretty well by "what? It... doesnt... look completely shit?" when we found it amongst some cafes and some other more residential looking buildings.
Sant Antoni where we would be staying for all 4 days of our holiday is basically only divided into the beachfront, and a wealth of bars, pubs and small clubs in what essentially forms a big alcoholic maze of roads which look exactly the same and young girls who desperately try to pull you into their bars with alcohol deals so cheap that theymake you question the relatively high price of water.
We had 2 rooms of 3 booked, we were actually kind of expecting a single and a double in each room but fortunately we got 3 singles - They were arranged into a single and a double but we werent having any of that shit.
^Heres a map showing where we were staying (Hostel Rosalia) along with some other key places i'll be referring to...
After faffing around with keys and dumping our stuff into the room, we hit the strip to look for food but as Ibiza is such a tourist trap, all of the food shops were crazy expensive - we ended up in a spanish pub like place, got some lasagne and chips....
So we decided we'd 'take it easy' as it was our first night in Ibiza, we didnt really fancy hitting a club or anything just yet, the plan was to get some cheap sangria from the nearby alcohol shop and then sit on the afternoon beach... However, we made the mistake of going the opposite direction of an actual beach and ended up at the marina... where we (wrongly) assumed, "if we keep walking in this direction, we're bound to hit a beach eventually"
Basically, instead of hitting 'Beach' on the map we went all the way south from our hostel, through the alcohol maze and then walked west all the way to rock beach, where we eventually said fuckit and just sat on the rocks and started drinking sangria. A few of the less typical drinking games were played, I Spy in particular (drink if you get it wrong, nominate drink if you get it right).
After about an hour sitting on this rock beach something bizarre happened. Duncan (my housemate) was identified by 3 girls he knows from UK, his best friend's (hot) little sister and her 2 friends...
Bizarro.
Little did we know at this point that we'd end up meeting with these girls (Kat, Kate and Jess) every night for the rest of our time in Ibiza. We headed to the alcohol maze to find a cheap bar...
And there we had our first run in with 'The London Bar' . Oh Goddamn.
For 10 euro, 2 mixed drinks (I think doubles or triples) of whatever you want, a bottle of peach schnappes (about 2~3 shots each for our group) and then a 2L Pitcher of cocktail to share between 2 people.
....
I nearly died. Holy shit.
But it was fine. I had this. I was the best.
Drunken banter ensued.
Ian disappeared, then reappeared very drunk, thought he had lost his phone, and had to be escorted back to our hotel by Phil and Ryan.
Eventually we were tasked with taking the drunk girls home (whilst completely drunk ourselves) - You can see their hotel on the map (The hotel Abrat), its actually not THAT far from our own hotel.... However we did not know this at the time. We stumbled arm in arm in pairs back to the beach (me, luke and duncan and the 3 girls) ... and around... through rockbeach.. It was fucking ass. And it took around an hour or more probably. Im not sure if it was just me, but i was actually expecting to stay the night at their hotel - but when we got there the guard at the door basically wouldnt let us in because we didnt live there (cockblock'd). We started heading home.... Except we didn't because Luke had different things planned for us.
We walked in the wrong direction for about 20 minutes, before me and duncan turned around. We saw many bizarre things that night, things which I likely dont completely remember, a stairset from tony hawks underground 2, a hybrid ATV-Car thing, many drunk people....
^The route we took, if only we had known where the hell we were going at the time....
We got back at around 5-6am after originally going out for a 'light' night , collapsed on the bed.
And that was the end of day 1.
Sant Antoni where we would be staying for all 4 days of our holiday is basically only divided into the beachfront, and a wealth of bars, pubs and small clubs in what essentially forms a big alcoholic maze of roads which look exactly the same and young girls who desperately try to pull you into their bars with alcohol deals so cheap that theymake you question the relatively high price of water.
We had 2 rooms of 3 booked, we were actually kind of expecting a single and a double in each room but fortunately we got 3 singles - They were arranged into a single and a double but we werent having any of that shit.
^Heres a map showing where we were staying (Hostel Rosalia) along with some other key places i'll be referring to...
After faffing around with keys and dumping our stuff into the room, we hit the strip to look for food but as Ibiza is such a tourist trap, all of the food shops were crazy expensive - we ended up in a spanish pub like place, got some lasagne and chips....
So we decided we'd 'take it easy' as it was our first night in Ibiza, we didnt really fancy hitting a club or anything just yet, the plan was to get some cheap sangria from the nearby alcohol shop and then sit on the afternoon beach... However, we made the mistake of going the opposite direction of an actual beach and ended up at the marina... where we (wrongly) assumed, "if we keep walking in this direction, we're bound to hit a beach eventually"
Basically, instead of hitting 'Beach' on the map we went all the way south from our hostel, through the alcohol maze and then walked west all the way to rock beach, where we eventually said fuckit and just sat on the rocks and started drinking sangria. A few of the less typical drinking games were played, I Spy in particular (drink if you get it wrong, nominate drink if you get it right).
After about an hour sitting on this rock beach something bizarre happened. Duncan (my housemate) was identified by 3 girls he knows from UK, his best friend's (hot) little sister and her 2 friends...
Bizarro.
Little did we know at this point that we'd end up meeting with these girls (Kat, Kate and Jess) every night for the rest of our time in Ibiza. We headed to the alcohol maze to find a cheap bar...
And there we had our first run in with 'The London Bar' . Oh Goddamn.
For 10 euro, 2 mixed drinks (I think doubles or triples) of whatever you want, a bottle of peach schnappes (about 2~3 shots each for our group) and then a 2L Pitcher of cocktail to share between 2 people.
....
I nearly died. Holy shit.
But it was fine. I had this. I was the best.
Drunken banter ensued.
Ian disappeared, then reappeared very drunk, thought he had lost his phone, and had to be escorted back to our hotel by Phil and Ryan.
Eventually we were tasked with taking the drunk girls home (whilst completely drunk ourselves) - You can see their hotel on the map (The hotel Abrat), its actually not THAT far from our own hotel.... However we did not know this at the time. We stumbled arm in arm in pairs back to the beach (me, luke and duncan and the 3 girls) ... and around... through rockbeach.. It was fucking ass. And it took around an hour or more probably. Im not sure if it was just me, but i was actually expecting to stay the night at their hotel - but when we got there the guard at the door basically wouldnt let us in because we didnt live there (cockblock'd). We started heading home.... Except we didn't because Luke had different things planned for us.
We walked in the wrong direction for about 20 minutes, before me and duncan turned around. We saw many bizarre things that night, things which I likely dont completely remember, a stairset from tony hawks underground 2, a hybrid ATV-Car thing, many drunk people....
^The route we took, if only we had known where the hell we were going at the time....
We got back at around 5-6am after originally going out for a 'light' night , collapsed on the bed.
And that was the end of day 1.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Summer 2011 Anime
http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/interest/2011-06-20/list-of-summer-season-2011-tv-anime-in-japan/
its not looking great tbh.
I may consider watching Usagi Drop and the idolm@ster anime but the rest of it all honestly looks/sounds terrible. bit of a disappointment after there being so many good series on now (spring season). Ah well, maybe i'll watch some older series like Geass/Darker than black
its not looking great tbh.
I may consider watching Usagi Drop and the idolm@ster anime but the rest of it all honestly looks/sounds terrible. bit of a disappointment after there being so many good series on now (spring season). Ah well, maybe i'll watch some older series like Geass/Darker than black
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Fucking holograms son.
3d Hologram stuff has always been a thing of the future, something you look at in movies like avatar and be like 'wow. how cool would that shit be...'
Mind. Fucking. Blown.
Mind. Fucking. Blown.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Metal Gear Solid 4
Yup. Little bit late to the party, but fuckit. I played through it recently and im giving my thoughts on it. DealWitIt.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is not very good as a game, infact, about half of the time I was playing I was curious as to whether it should even be classified as a game.
The stories people tell about MGS4, saying its the best movie ever on the PS3 ( I wouldnt really know as I havent played Heavy Rain) are completely justified. MGS4 could easily be described as a 15-20 hour film with some interactive scenes - Worth mentioning also that the story of said film will make little sense if you have played through the other games, and probably no fucking sense at all if you've never played the previous games.
That said, for metal gear fans (Myself? Maybe? Im not even sure...) there are alot of cool throwbacks and flashbacks in the game, references to itself and its unique humor ["Damnit otacon pull yourself together this isnt a game"] along with a complete remake of some parts of shadow moses island from MGS1
The game is somewhere around 8-10 hours of cutscenes/codec calls, and 6-8 hours of 'gameplay' - although I feel like a fair amount of that gameplay isnt the desired type from a MGS game....
Basically alot of scenes have forced combat, which i suppose could be worse, but fucking hell the combat in that game is so shitty, the third person aiming style is pretty badly done if you need to actually move at the same time (its fine for tranq'ing soldiers in the side of the head, ala MGS2/3), god forbid you actually attempt to take cover in a full scale firefight, or aim down the sights of your gun, as you'll find yourself in a clusterfuck of useless buttons, tiny aiming area and general bullshittery.
The one big thumbs up it gets from me is for certain climax scenes near the end of the game, the game does a very cool and arty split screen style with action going on along with cutscene in the other panel, its very well done, powerful and memorable, and im amazed I havent seen anything like it before. Also, the final fight against 'youprobablyknowwho' is epic as fuck (I quite dislike the use of the word epic nowadays because its overused, but the final battle really can't be described in any other way)
verdict: Its okay if you loved the previous games I suppose, but in all honesty I'd probably say its just not worth your time unless you really really care about the MGS universe. I for one couldnt really give a shit about sons of the patriots, big boss and so on...
Metal Gear Solid 4 is not very good as a game, infact, about half of the time I was playing I was curious as to whether it should even be classified as a game.
The stories people tell about MGS4, saying its the best movie ever on the PS3 ( I wouldnt really know as I havent played Heavy Rain) are completely justified. MGS4 could easily be described as a 15-20 hour film with some interactive scenes - Worth mentioning also that the story of said film will make little sense if you have played through the other games, and probably no fucking sense at all if you've never played the previous games.
That said, for metal gear fans (Myself? Maybe? Im not even sure...) there are alot of cool throwbacks and flashbacks in the game, references to itself and its unique humor ["Damnit otacon pull yourself together this isnt a game"] along with a complete remake of some parts of shadow moses island from MGS1
The game is somewhere around 8-10 hours of cutscenes/codec calls, and 6-8 hours of 'gameplay' - although I feel like a fair amount of that gameplay isnt the desired type from a MGS game....
Basically alot of scenes have forced combat, which i suppose could be worse, but fucking hell the combat in that game is so shitty, the third person aiming style is pretty badly done if you need to actually move at the same time (its fine for tranq'ing soldiers in the side of the head, ala MGS2/3), god forbid you actually attempt to take cover in a full scale firefight, or aim down the sights of your gun, as you'll find yourself in a clusterfuck of useless buttons, tiny aiming area and general bullshittery.
The one big thumbs up it gets from me is for certain climax scenes near the end of the game, the game does a very cool and arty split screen style with action going on along with cutscene in the other panel, its very well done, powerful and memorable, and im amazed I havent seen anything like it before. Also, the final fight against 'youprobablyknowwho' is epic as fuck (I quite dislike the use of the word epic nowadays because its overused, but the final battle really can't be described in any other way)
verdict: Its okay if you loved the previous games I suppose, but in all honesty I'd probably say its just not worth your time unless you really really care about the MGS universe. I for one couldnt really give a shit about sons of the patriots, big boss and so on...
Monday, 13 June 2011
The lull
So ive pretty much finished writing my dissertation, going to print it and everything tomorrow and then hand it in... (deadline is on weds)
Havent been doing a whole lot other than that, casual relaxation and such...
Gaming :
Replayed Resi5 with a friend (god that game is so much fun on a clean playthrough with no guns), Played through LEGO Batman because I had nothing better to do, League of legends as always, Downloaded and played some of Duke - but it runs really ass on my PC so it kind of kills the enjoyment a little
TV:
Southpark this season has been pretty disapointing on the whole, there was that huge err.... twist... or... something... at the midseason though, which has gotten alot of discussion going....
Anime:
Aside from the regular shows ive been following this season (Click Me), I recently picked up the somewhat now infamous 'Mahou shoujo Madoka Magica' along with 'Kimi Ni todoke 2'.
Whilst the latter is kind of whatever, Madoka has been very very interesting, Its bizarre in that it doesnt really fit the genre/tags it bestows upon itself, I actually gave it a miss in the spring season just because its a fucking Mahou shoujo anime (Magical Girl), y'know... one of those shows where teenage girls transform to fight evil and have a transformation sequence where they get pretty little frilly clothes and shit [see also, Cardcaptor sakura, Sailor Moon....] .
The show is however, anything but cute girls running around with bows in their hair, this is some serious shit, a dark plot and kind of twisted characters make for a bit of a sinister take on the cutesy genre, I zerged through 9 episodes in about 3 days because its really one of those anime that you want to keep watching once you start... Give it a try if you have nothing to do.
other:
This reddit is kind of fucking amazing.... http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/ca4bl/time_to_get_classy/
Havent been doing a whole lot other than that, casual relaxation and such...
Gaming :
Replayed Resi5 with a friend (god that game is so much fun on a clean playthrough with no guns), Played through LEGO Batman because I had nothing better to do, League of legends as always, Downloaded and played some of Duke - but it runs really ass on my PC so it kind of kills the enjoyment a little
TV:
Southpark this season has been pretty disapointing on the whole, there was that huge err.... twist... or... something... at the midseason though, which has gotten alot of discussion going....
Anime:
Aside from the regular shows ive been following this season (Click Me), I recently picked up the somewhat now infamous 'Mahou shoujo Madoka Magica' along with 'Kimi Ni todoke 2'.
Whilst the latter is kind of whatever, Madoka has been very very interesting, Its bizarre in that it doesnt really fit the genre/tags it bestows upon itself, I actually gave it a miss in the spring season just because its a fucking Mahou shoujo anime (Magical Girl), y'know... one of those shows where teenage girls transform to fight evil and have a transformation sequence where they get pretty little frilly clothes and shit [see also, Cardcaptor sakura, Sailor Moon....] .
The show is however, anything but cute girls running around with bows in their hair, this is some serious shit, a dark plot and kind of twisted characters make for a bit of a sinister take on the cutesy genre, I zerged through 9 episodes in about 3 days because its really one of those anime that you want to keep watching once you start... Give it a try if you have nothing to do.
other:
This reddit is kind of fucking amazing.... http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/ca4bl/time_to_get_classy/
Friday, 27 May 2011
A quick reminder.
The official soundtrack for Beatmania IIDX 15 : DJ Troopers still holds the award for most awesome cover art ever
feel free to prove me wrong
worthy mention goes to A PICTURE OF FINN FARTING (which renard is offering for free :O )
feel free to prove me wrong
worthy mention goes to A PICTURE OF FINN FARTING (which renard is offering for free :O )
This guy makes some amazing music videos
edit:
Have one more from a different artist
edit2: and one more...
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Oh god (league of legends)
We have some smurfs on the US league of legends server, my summoner name there is Twilight Sparkl3
(We also still play on the EU servers where my summoner name is Mengplex)
If you dont play yet? Then you fucking should. (and use my referral code so i get cool shit)
http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c209680df1ef
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Realization: 'Platinum Games' are straight beastin.
So games dev 'Platinum Games', just... cant make bad games?
Even before they platinum games, most of the staff came from Clover Studio which made Viewtiful joe, Okami and God Hand, and then they go on to form Platinum Games to make Madworld, Bayonetta and Vanquish?
And now they're making anarchy reigns, which if you havent seen it - looks fucking amazing. I only hope its more of a Spikeout (ARC) clone than the MOBA they seem to be advertising it as.
So yeah. this post goes out to Platinum Games, making flashy, challenging and fun games since whenever the fuck they were founded.
Keep at it son.
Even before they platinum games, most of the staff came from Clover Studio which made Viewtiful joe, Okami and God Hand, and then they go on to form Platinum Games to make Madworld, Bayonetta and Vanquish?
And now they're making anarchy reigns, which if you havent seen it - looks fucking amazing. I only hope its more of a Spikeout (ARC) clone than the MOBA they seem to be advertising it as.
So yeah. this post goes out to Platinum Games, making flashy, challenging and fun games since whenever the fuck they were founded.
Keep at it son.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
More Ponies...
^ Proof that ponies break the laws of physics.
^ Giggle at the ghostie techno/dance mix
Thursday, 19 May 2011
LabLife
So we're coming towards finishing the second week of my laboratory work, 2 more weeks to go (i think)
I feel like we havent actually got much stuff done, and im worried about getting results i'll need for my project work, as I mentioned in a previous post, the lab is supposed to involve making some synthetic genes to put into plants and then seeing what happens, but with only 2 weeks left im not entirely sure we'll be able to do that - how long does it take to make a gene? and then how long will it take the plant to grow? (surely >2 weeks total)
<No pictures of inside the actual laboratory yet, i'll try and get one soon but its always so busy in there>
^ Picture of my workarea in the glasshouse, where I had to pull the flowers off of these plants, the flowers as you can see if you click to open fullsize - are the little white/yellow bits on the ends of the stems. I had to fill 20 1.5ml eppendorf tubes with the flowers, with each tube holding maybe 100? (so around 2000 probably)
I Did this over 2 days, about 10 hours work ~.~
(The pictures in the glasshouses are weird and look like someone taking a picture of a SDTV because of the special lighting they use in there for the plants)
^ The next job involved taking sliques from the flowers (essentially a small tube of seeds), pulling the petals off and then slicing both ends of the tube with a razor blade, these things are on the scale of.... maybe if you imagine about 33% of a grain of rice? (really tiny)
Then there was the flower grinding using liquid nitrogen...
and then finally...
^ The microscopy room, where various microscopes are rigged up to computers (that one on the left has a 30" monitor). They are used for various things, for example putting fluorescent markers into cells or just phenotypic analysis [in english: put radioactive stuff into cells, microscope can see the radiation and shows it as fluorescent green, alternatively they can be used for looking at shape/structure of stuff]
I was tasked here for a few hours to photograph some seeds for analysis of size, the seeds of course were seriously tiny, smaller than table salt, hence the need for the microscopes. I also had to make sure the seeds weren't touching by using a needle and - using the monitor/microscope for guidance, separating out the microscopic seeds
update:1 - Liquid nitrogen video up
update:2 - greenhouse vlog up
By the way, what do people think of video blog style stuff? Im not saying its something I would do on a regular basis, but as you can see - my phone can output some pretty decent quality video...
I feel like we havent actually got much stuff done, and im worried about getting results i'll need for my project work, as I mentioned in a previous post, the lab is supposed to involve making some synthetic genes to put into plants and then seeing what happens, but with only 2 weeks left im not entirely sure we'll be able to do that - how long does it take to make a gene? and then how long will it take the plant to grow? (surely >2 weeks total)
<No pictures of inside the actual laboratory yet, i'll try and get one soon but its always so busy in there>
^ Picture of my workarea in the glasshouse, where I had to pull the flowers off of these plants, the flowers as you can see if you click to open fullsize - are the little white/yellow bits on the ends of the stems. I had to fill 20 1.5ml eppendorf tubes with the flowers, with each tube holding maybe 100? (so around 2000 probably)
I Did this over 2 days, about 10 hours work ~.~
(The pictures in the glasshouses are weird and look like someone taking a picture of a SDTV because of the special lighting they use in there for the plants)
^ The next job involved taking sliques from the flowers (essentially a small tube of seeds), pulling the petals off and then slicing both ends of the tube with a razor blade, these things are on the scale of.... maybe if you imagine about 33% of a grain of rice? (really tiny)
Then there was the flower grinding using liquid nitrogen...
and then finally...
^ The microscopy room, where various microscopes are rigged up to computers (that one on the left has a 30" monitor). They are used for various things, for example putting fluorescent markers into cells or just phenotypic analysis [in english: put radioactive stuff into cells, microscope can see the radiation and shows it as fluorescent green, alternatively they can be used for looking at shape/structure of stuff]
I was tasked here for a few hours to photograph some seeds for analysis of size, the seeds of course were seriously tiny, smaller than table salt, hence the need for the microscopes. I also had to make sure the seeds weren't touching by using a needle and - using the monitor/microscope for guidance, separating out the microscopic seeds
update:1 - Liquid nitrogen video up
update:2 - greenhouse vlog up
By the way, what do people think of video blog style stuff? Im not saying its something I would do on a regular basis, but as you can see - my phone can output some pretty decent quality video...
Sunday, 15 May 2011
The vidya.
Spent yesterday playing meatboy and trying to do dark world and get bandages, now have world 1 and 2 at 100%...
This morning, kind of impulse bought Deathsmiles from a buy it now auction on ebay, so that'll hopefully be coming in a few days to play.
also.
This game looks like fun, although kind of scary that I can play 37's on Pop'n Music (the difficulty goes up to ~42) and cant follow this shit at all
This morning, kind of impulse bought Deathsmiles from a buy it now auction on ebay, so that'll hopefully be coming in a few days to play.
also.
This game looks like fun, although kind of scary that I can play 37's on Pop'n Music (the difficulty goes up to ~42) and cant follow this shit at all
Saturday, 14 May 2011
-insert betus blues here-
Not a huge amount going on at the moment, Feels like im essentially working already with all these 9-5 days. Its annoying because I cant really stay up late for gaming without seriously fucking myself over the next day.
Have been playing alot of Super Meat boy, trying to grab all the bandages and finish off the Dark World (and finish off the cotton alley of the light world :/ )
After asking my supervisor for some additional reading material he basically printed off a review paper (for non academic people, basically a summary paper which compiles information from about 80 journal entries) which was published in January 2011 by people in the group - And its pretty much my lab project in a nutshell, so it should hopefully let me write up the entirety of the introduction with minimal hassle.... In theory anyway.
In other news (i mean you'll already know if you follow my twitter or even just look at the right of the webpage at the twitter feed) - We're going to Ibiza! Booked the holiday last week, we're going there for 4 nights, So probably lots of faffing about in the sun, at the beach and then getting drunk as fuck at night. Will take my phone and hopefully take lots of pictures for you to all see.
Have been playing alot of Super Meat boy, trying to grab all the bandages and finish off the Dark World (and finish off the cotton alley of the light world :/ )
After asking my supervisor for some additional reading material he basically printed off a review paper (for non academic people, basically a summary paper which compiles information from about 80 journal entries) which was published in January 2011 by people in the group - And its pretty much my lab project in a nutshell, so it should hopefully let me write up the entirety of the introduction with minimal hassle.... In theory anyway.
In other news (i mean you'll already know if you follow my twitter or even just look at the right of the webpage at the twitter feed) - We're going to Ibiza! Booked the holiday last week, we're going there for 4 nights, So probably lots of faffing about in the sun, at the beach and then getting drunk as fuck at night. Will take my phone and hopefully take lots of pictures for you to all see.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Here we go again!
My next few weeks...
may 9th - June 3rd (4 weeks)
9-5 weekdays in the lab, probably involves being very confused and not know what to do, failing experiments and ultimately getting nothing done and no conclusive results
June 3rd - June 16th (<2 weeks)
Frantic frantic dissertation writing, 2 weeks to consolidate all my results, make up some bullshit about why the experiment didnt work and what should have happened. Word limit is 8000 words, last time I did a 3000 word essay it took me about 5 weeks... So... yeah... 2 weeks for 8k words is going to be fucking ass.
>June 16th
Freedom...?
~June 25th
Possibly holiday to Alicante (spain) for a few days with the housemates
July 19th
Graduation
July 23rd - July 30th
1 Week holiday with family to Mallorca
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Went home for a long weekend (had monday off because lab supervisor is too busy to help us get started) , Played lots of MVC3, played through Portal 2 Co-op (Which is WAY more challenging than the singleplayer), played 'Vanquish' which ive deduced is essentially a fun version of gears of war with weapons which actually feel like they do something, I also got Outland (XBLA) - the game which is essentially touted as Ikaruga the platformer, and its pretty much exactly that, reminds me a little of metroid as well with the whole character skill progression stuff, its pretty good but maybe a little linear, havent finished it yet.
And now I guess I need to figure out exactly what my lab project is / requires...
Oh also, on the 360 situation, have decided I should probably wait until I finish my dissertation to get one, I got a little too caught up in 'exam freedom', and forgot that after exam freedom essentially comes 'Lab project Hell'
~~~~~~
TITLE OF PROJECT: Cell-specific expression of small-secreted peptide ligands in plant reproductive tissues
BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
We have identified a group of peptide ligands in Arabidopsis, and mutations on these genes show pleiotropic developmental defects. These mutants carry T-DNA insertions in these peptides, which are thought to regulate cell-cell communication between neighboring cells.
AIMS OF THIS PROJECT
(i) In order to investigate how development is abnormally regulated, the student will conduct a detailed phenotypic analysis of these mutants using microscopy.
(ii) In order to get clues to the mechanism, by which this mutation affects their function, the student will engineer synthetic genes to assess their function in plant development.
METHODS TO BE USED
Plants will be grown under long-day conditions in a control environment. Tissues will be harvested for analysis by confocal microscopy. mRNA will be extracted, transcribed into cDNA then used as template to generate synthetic genes. These synthetic genes will be cloned in a binary vector for Agrobacterium transformation.
may 9th - June 3rd (4 weeks)
9-5 weekdays in the lab, probably involves being very confused and not know what to do, failing experiments and ultimately getting nothing done and no conclusive results
June 3rd - June 16th (<2 weeks)
Frantic frantic dissertation writing, 2 weeks to consolidate all my results, make up some bullshit about why the experiment didnt work and what should have happened. Word limit is 8000 words, last time I did a 3000 word essay it took me about 5 weeks... So... yeah... 2 weeks for 8k words is going to be fucking ass.
>June 16th
Freedom...?
~June 25th
Possibly holiday to Alicante (spain) for a few days with the housemates
July 19th
Graduation
July 23rd - July 30th
1 Week holiday with family to Mallorca
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Went home for a long weekend (had monday off because lab supervisor is too busy to help us get started) , Played lots of MVC3, played through Portal 2 Co-op (Which is WAY more challenging than the singleplayer), played 'Vanquish' which ive deduced is essentially a fun version of gears of war with weapons which actually feel like they do something, I also got Outland (XBLA) - the game which is essentially touted as Ikaruga the platformer, and its pretty much exactly that, reminds me a little of metroid as well with the whole character skill progression stuff, its pretty good but maybe a little linear, havent finished it yet.
And now I guess I need to figure out exactly what my lab project is / requires...
Oh also, on the 360 situation, have decided I should probably wait until I finish my dissertation to get one, I got a little too caught up in 'exam freedom', and forgot that after exam freedom essentially comes 'Lab project Hell'
~~~~~~
TITLE OF PROJECT: Cell-specific expression of small-secreted peptide ligands in plant reproductive tissues
BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
We have identified a group of peptide ligands in Arabidopsis, and mutations on these genes show pleiotropic developmental defects. These mutants carry T-DNA insertions in these peptides, which are thought to regulate cell-cell communication between neighboring cells.
AIMS OF THIS PROJECT
(i) In order to investigate how development is abnormally regulated, the student will conduct a detailed phenotypic analysis of these mutants using microscopy.
(ii) In order to get clues to the mechanism, by which this mutation affects their function, the student will engineer synthetic genes to assess their function in plant development.
METHODS TO BE USED
Plants will be grown under long-day conditions in a control environment. Tissues will be harvested for analysis by confocal microscopy. mRNA will be extracted, transcribed into cDNA then used as template to generate synthetic genes. These synthetic genes will be cloned in a binary vector for Agrobacterium transformation.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Exams Over! (6/6) and the immediate future...
So i finished exams yesterday, last exam went... alright...
Enjoyed my first bit of freedom by basically going to a barbequeue straight after the exam (like... exam finished -> go to tesco to get BBQ food -> BBQ)
Being warwick university though, freedom doesnt last long...
The day after the final exam was the ol' Lab induction - starting at 9am.
We were given a little introduction to the facility and introduced to some of the staff.
It looks like im going to be able to play with alot of cool chemicals and stuff , we were shown where they store the ethanol, the chloraform and liquid nitrogen (we got to see some of it, it was all smoky and cool and shit)
I'll be spending the next 4 weeks in there, so I guess i better get used to it.
Enjoyed my first bit of freedom by basically going to a barbequeue straight after the exam (like... exam finished -> go to tesco to get BBQ food -> BBQ)
Being warwick university though, freedom doesnt last long...
The day after the final exam was the ol' Lab induction - starting at 9am.
We were given a little introduction to the facility and introduced to some of the staff.
It looks like im going to be able to play with alot of cool chemicals and stuff , we were shown where they store the ethanol, the chloraform and liquid nitrogen (we got to see some of it, it was all smoky and cool and shit)
I'll be spending the next 4 weeks in there, so I guess i better get used to it.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Exam update 5/6
Home Stretch!
The 2 exams today were.... Okay....ish.... I guess....
Both generally consisting of 1 alright question which I could answer fine, and then a 2nd question which I kind of cobbled an answer together for and hope that its right. This especially applies for 'modern approaches to human disease' exam, which asked for "evidence that glutamate is involved in brain damage in stroke" - and I just kind of rambled on about glutamate in general, stroke in general and brain damage in general, without actually talking about evidence (because I didnt know any) :|
Lets hope it'll be fine eh.
Last exam is on Thursday morning , then I wont know what the hell to do with myself.
Im considering going home for the weekend just because I havent been home in a few months now (last time i went back was for MVC3 release), I imagine there wont be much partying going on in general because its only us Bio students that will have actually finished exams, alot of other students will be beginning to start to take theirs.
Im also really seriously considering buying a 360 so i can mod it, it feels like for the price (£80?) its just so much more worth it than trying to run new games on my old PC. Of course a drawback with this is that i'll have to open it up and tinker around with shit and have absolutely no idea what i'll be doing - Ive modded a PSP and Wii myself but those are all firmware hack based and dont involve opening up an expensive piece of equipment (okay so i built my PC, but thats a piece of equipment meant to be opened up)
Not that anyone ever posts comments, but if anyone has any experience in modding 360's with LT+ stuff, let me know how easy it is. I would kind of like to Jtag but that shit requires solder and resistors and all sorts of stuff I dont trust myself with - even though I used to be a boss at Systems and Control back in school (which involved circuit boards, soldering and so on, probably one of the few actually useful classes I took)
Also, I feel like the post looks too empty without a picture or youtube link, so here you go.
The 2 exams today were.... Okay....ish.... I guess....
Both generally consisting of 1 alright question which I could answer fine, and then a 2nd question which I kind of cobbled an answer together for and hope that its right. This especially applies for 'modern approaches to human disease' exam, which asked for "evidence that glutamate is involved in brain damage in stroke" - and I just kind of rambled on about glutamate in general, stroke in general and brain damage in general, without actually talking about evidence (because I didnt know any) :|
Lets hope it'll be fine eh.
Last exam is on Thursday morning , then I wont know what the hell to do with myself.
Im considering going home for the weekend just because I havent been home in a few months now (last time i went back was for MVC3 release), I imagine there wont be much partying going on in general because its only us Bio students that will have actually finished exams, alot of other students will be beginning to start to take theirs.
Im also really seriously considering buying a 360 so i can mod it, it feels like for the price (£80?) its just so much more worth it than trying to run new games on my old PC. Of course a drawback with this is that i'll have to open it up and tinker around with shit and have absolutely no idea what i'll be doing - Ive modded a PSP and Wii myself but those are all firmware hack based and dont involve opening up an expensive piece of equipment (okay so i built my PC, but thats a piece of equipment meant to be opened up)
Not that anyone ever posts comments, but if anyone has any experience in modding 360's with LT+ stuff, let me know how easy it is. I would kind of like to Jtag but that shit requires solder and resistors and all sorts of stuff I dont trust myself with - even though I used to be a boss at Systems and Control back in school (which involved circuit boards, soldering and so on, probably one of the few actually useful classes I took)
Also, I feel like the post looks too empty without a picture or youtube link, so here you go.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Dubstep is obviously spreading
Its even in goddamn pop'n music now...
edit:
^ This is fucking awesome
edit:
^ This is fucking awesome
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Exams update 3/6
Halfway there.
The 2 exams today were brutal, Im not really sure how I did tbh, the question format is you pick 2 essay questions out of 4
For both exams, 1 Essay went well, and the other went kinda of meh at best.... Which i mean... at least one of them went well?
IDH (infectious diseases and health module) did the dickbag move of putting a ridiculous question and making it a compulsory one, now the twist here is that we're not allowed to complain because... Its the exact same compulsory question from the year before! Of which we got to see as a practice, the problem arises in that the question didnt make sense then, and didnt make sense in the exam today.
Everyone (myself included) sort of thought 'I dont understand this question, but it'll be okay hopefully because surely they wont ask the same question 2 years in a row' , and then they fucking did.
*sigh*
next 2 exams are on tuesday so I at least get a tiny break to revise for them.
I really want to play some games and have some fun right now, but my head is completely fucked. Mentally completely exhausted and I have a headache, If i could sleep right now, i would.
The 2 exams today were brutal, Im not really sure how I did tbh, the question format is you pick 2 essay questions out of 4
For both exams, 1 Essay went well, and the other went kinda of meh at best.... Which i mean... at least one of them went well?
IDH (infectious diseases and health module) did the dickbag move of putting a ridiculous question and making it a compulsory one, now the twist here is that we're not allowed to complain because... Its the exact same compulsory question from the year before! Of which we got to see as a practice, the problem arises in that the question didnt make sense then, and didnt make sense in the exam today.
Everyone (myself included) sort of thought 'I dont understand this question, but it'll be okay hopefully because surely they wont ask the same question 2 years in a row' , and then they fucking did.
*sigh*
next 2 exams are on tuesday so I at least get a tiny break to revise for them.
I really want to play some games and have some fun right now, but my head is completely fucked. Mentally completely exhausted and I have a headache, If i could sleep right now, i would.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Exams update 1/6
First exam went pretty fucking badly, Its always the ones you're confident on that you get completely buttfucked by.
I have 2 exams tomorrow, not particularly confident about either of them. Fucksake.
Who puts 3 exams in 2 days anyway. Why couldnt you spread that shit out eh university?
This is how I feel right now.
I have 2 exams tomorrow, not particularly confident about either of them. Fucksake.
Who puts 3 exams in 2 days anyway. Why couldnt you spread that shit out eh university?
This is how I feel right now.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Ok, I've seen a bunch of speculation of why people think PSN is down, and I thought I should just post what the community knows in comparison to what Sony is telling everyone. The truth is, there was a new CFW (custom firmware) released known as Rebug (http://rebug.me). It essentially turns a retail console into a dev console (not fully, but gives you a lot of the same options that usually dev's only have access to). Anyway, this new CFW was quickly figured out by 3rd parties (not Rebug) to give CFW users access to the PSN network again via the dev networks. With a little manipulation of the URL's through a proxy server you could get your hacked console back online. Not that big of a deal, right? Well, it also turns out that some people over at NGU found out that you could provide fake CC# info and the authenticity of the information was never checked as you were on Sony's private developer PSN network (essentially a network that Sony trusted). What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network. Now, before you go freaking out about the latest information posted about Kotaku, no ones personal information was accessible via this hack. Not to say they couldn't get it, but no one is admitting to it being available. Anyway, that's the real reason for the PSN downtime. Sony is now rebuilding all of it's PSN servers to be more secure and (hopefully) make sure the CFW users cannot get online anymore.
Edit #1: To those of you saying that this is speculation, you are correct. But, it is speculation based on a lot of facts and the outcome seems to make the most sense.
- Rebug was released on 3/31/11.
- First guides of how to use the dev network to get back on COD games on 4/3/11.
- Word of NGU users finding a way to pirate PSN content via the dev networks on 4/7/11 (basing this on posts I had to delete on the website. Update: Users have pointed out to me that these posts existed on NGU as of 4/2/11).
- PSN goes down on 4/20/11
Now, you can believe Sony's PR team which has kept you completely in the dark, or you can see the list of events above and come to your own conclusion. Now, this isn't the first time Sony has fought back against the PS3 modders from getting on PSN. A couple of months ago we had a utility called f*ckPSN that changed the necessary header information that was being sent to Sony to allow modified consoles back online. We were able to use it for about a month. Then came the new TOS, the mass e-mail to PS3 customers, and software update 3.56 and 3.60. So, once again, yes this is all speculation, but it is speculation based on previous actions and known facts.
Edit #2: Mathieulh just mentioned that he has been in contact with someone that has official access to the SCE devnet servers and it was posted to them today that only 3.60+ debug firmwares will be allowed on the dev network anymore. All earlier versions will be cut. If you want to retain your access you need to contact Sony and upgrade to 3.60 debug firmware.
Edit #3: Ok, it looks like some various news sites have picked up this story and taken it out of context. Once again, this is all speculation and information gathered from various devs in the PS3 scene. It might very well not be the real reason PSN is down, but as the timeline fits, it's a reasonable explanation. Now, as to Rebug directly allowing this to happen, that's not the case at all. Different CFW's have had access to the dev network the whole time. This is not new news for people in the PS3 scene. It's what people have figured out what to do with the said network that has caused all the recent issues. Saying that Rebug is what did this is like saying a gun manufacturer is responsible for every death that happens with a gun.
Chapter 10 - The part where bad stuff happens (Exam timetables)
27th Apr - Oncology
28th Apr - Bacterial Pathogenicity + Infectious Diseases and Health
3rd May - Extreme Enviromental Biology + Modern Approaches to human Disease
5th May - Integrative Neuroscience
6 exams spread over 9 days.
90 Minutes each
Fuck. My. Life.
Wish me luck folks. Cant wait til they are over so I can get back to playing games and blogging and all the good shit in life.
28th Apr - Bacterial Pathogenicity + Infectious Diseases and Health
3rd May - Extreme Enviromental Biology + Modern Approaches to human Disease
5th May - Integrative Neuroscience
6 exams spread over 9 days.
90 Minutes each
Fuck. My. Life.
Wish me luck folks. Cant wait til they are over so I can get back to playing games and blogging and all the good shit in life.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Getting mad at anime. (Baka and Test)
So. I usually find anime to watch by sifting through genres, or going by recomendations from other people so on and so on.
Somehow, i stumbled upon 'Baka and Test: Summon the beasts' , a show which has (i suppose) an interesting premise....
----
"Fumizuki Academy is a school that strictly stratifies students, and the comforts of their classrooms, by test scores. The lowest ranked class, Class F, lead by Yoshii Akihisa, the idiot amongst idiots (and the series titular Baka) rallies to use experimental fantasy summoned monsters to battle the higher ranked classes for school supremacy.
With the power of idiots and one of the smartest students in Fumizuki Academy, Himeji Mizuki, a girl who was sick on the day of the placement test and ended up in Class F together with Yoshii, one by one the other classes begin to fall before them."
---
The show is tagged as (amongst other shit) Seinen Comedy - or comedy for 18-25 year olds.
What the show actually is, is an attempt at comedy similar to.... I dont even know... I cant even think of anything else which attempts to do comedy at such a poor level.
The plot is shit, the action is shit, the comedy is non-existant , the romance is sort of there but fucking christ you couldnt make a more stereotypical highschool romance love polygon than this shit...
I can honestly say this is the worst anime ive ever seen (of which ive seen about 150).
I can also honestly say I havent been so mad at a piece of digital media since the whole Final Fantasy XI incident and actually, im probably more mad at this because i spent more time on it, the reviews and comments say it gets better as you go but jesus fucking christ im not waiting around to find out. 3.75 episodes was enough for me to realise this is a complete shitpiece.
tldr; avoid this shit at all costs.
Princess Ghibli - Ghibli Metal covers
I kind of downlaoded this just for a laugh after seeing the below trailer for it, it just sounded hilarious. And yet here i am, 3 days on, still listening to it, im not sure I still like it ironically or what.
I mean i used to listen to alot of metal back in the day (Slipknot, Mudvayne, SOAD, Disturbed, Korn, Sonata Arctica etc etc) so it wouldnt be completely out of character to genuinely enjoy the album. Nonetheless, its below if you guys fancy it
I think my favorite track is still track 5 - princess mononoke just because its so hilariously odd hearing the original japanese singing accompanied by about 15 guitars and 7 drumsets
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=675K5NYA
I mean i used to listen to alot of metal back in the day (Slipknot, Mudvayne, SOAD, Disturbed, Korn, Sonata Arctica etc etc) so it wouldnt be completely out of character to genuinely enjoy the album. Nonetheless, its below if you guys fancy it
I think my favorite track is still track 5 - princess mononoke just because its so hilariously odd hearing the original japanese singing accompanied by about 15 guitars and 7 drumsets
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=675K5NYA
nothing much to report...
Literally nothing happening in my life anymore
Revision is going bleh, past exam paper questions that i managed to find are bleh, gaming is bleh (decided to stop league of legends for a while, only playing the occasional Pop'n music and started final fantasy IV on psp)
ETA to first exam : 1 Week
Things i look forward to nowadays : Washing dishes, eating, anime, sleeping [ie. all the time spend which doesnt involve studying]
Revision is going bleh, past exam paper questions that i managed to find are bleh, gaming is bleh (decided to stop league of legends for a while, only playing the occasional Pop'n music and started final fantasy IV on psp)
ETA to first exam : 1 Week
Things i look forward to nowadays : Washing dishes, eating, anime, sleeping [ie. all the time spend which doesnt involve studying]
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Deadman Wonderland (Spring Anime 2011)
Wasn't really looking forward to this much, it sounded okay on paper but was just kind of 'okay sure whatever', didnt help that AniDB has it marked as 'Shounen' (boys).
A Brief overview of the plot given in Episode 1 is that the kid below is just chilling in his class, hanging with his fwens (maybe it was a friday, who knows) , when all of a sudden some guy in a red cloak floats outside his 3rd floor classroom and basically murders the entire class except from him. The murderer then does a wesker and implants this red gem thing into the kids chest (KONAMI CAPCOM WILL SUE).
The kid is basically the prime suspect for the murders, some evidence is planted against him, and he is sent to death row in Deadman Wonderland - Basically a prison/themepark , depending on which side of the gate you are, the prisoners have to survive and win games to get candy (which they die without). And thats about it for ep1, oh yeah he gets some sort of power from the gem, of course.
Overall, seems like an interesting anime, pretty dark and gritty at times which i quite like, good soundtrack from the sounds of it and it'll be interesting to see how it progresses.
(Also, yet another fucking Sunday show)
You can grab the episode (DDL or torrent) here http://umee.is-fabulo.us/2011/04/17/deadman-wonderland-01/
[Oh. and apolagies for the bemani joke earlier which im sure 99% of my readers wont understand]
A Brief overview of the plot given in Episode 1 is that the kid below is just chilling in his class, hanging with his fwens (maybe it was a friday, who knows) , when all of a sudden some guy in a red cloak floats outside his 3rd floor classroom and basically murders the entire class except from him. The murderer then does a wesker and implants this red gem thing into the kids chest (KONAMI CAPCOM WILL SUE).
The kid is basically the prime suspect for the murders, some evidence is planted against him, and he is sent to death row in Deadman Wonderland - Basically a prison/themepark , depending on which side of the gate you are, the prisoners have to survive and win games to get candy (which they die without). And thats about it for ep1, oh yeah he gets some sort of power from the gem, of course.
Overall, seems like an interesting anime, pretty dark and gritty at times which i quite like, good soundtrack from the sounds of it and it'll be interesting to see how it progresses.
(Also, yet another fucking Sunday show)
You can grab the episode (DDL or torrent) here http://umee.is-fabulo.us/2011/04/17/deadman-wonderland-01/
[Oh. and apolagies for the bemani joke earlier which im sure 99% of my readers wont understand]
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Why Friday is fun fun fun fun
1. Ponies.
2. It means im allowed to listen to my most favorite song ever.
3. As you can see, the shows im following this season arent exactly evenly weighted across the week. Particularly when the best 2 shows (Nichijou and hanasaku iroha) are both on the Sunday.
4. Everyone generally seems happier on friday/weekend, or maybe thats just my imagination.
5. Ponies.
2. It means im allowed to listen to my most favorite song ever.
3. As you can see, the shows im following this season arent exactly evenly weighted across the week. Particularly when the best 2 shows (Nichijou and hanasaku iroha) are both on the Sunday.
4. Everyone generally seems happier on friday/weekend, or maybe thats just my imagination.
5. Ponies.
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Finally finished this 64 episode beast the other day (after starting it somewhere around new years), the first half of the series doesnt really give you much incentive to keep watching and as a result I almost actually dropped it 1/3 through, but I stuck with it because it has like.. the highest rating on AniDB at the moment (9.4 with 2k+ votes)
Turns out they were right, the story picks up somewhat half way through, and then the last quarter of the series was essentially a clusterfuck of action scenes loosely strung together by a plot with more twists than your average DNA molecule.
The series reminded me alot of an old Arnold Schwarzenigger film, first 3/4 of the film is buildup, setting the story, introducing the characters, and lots of little action scenes, and then the final quarter is all out action - Difference here being the average action film is 90 minutes, equating to about 15-20 minutes of finale action, the action quarter in FMA:B Lasts around 13 episodes
This is pretty reflected in the average episode votes...
Anywho, what im basically trying to say is, The series was really fucking good. Its a memorable story with a huge cast of likable and distinct characters, the art was fancy and the ending was satisfying (unlike the end of the 'original' Full Metal Alchemist series). If you saw the old series, this is a fun trip back to revisit old characters, If you didnt see the old series, this will probably be a nice treat into an interesting universe of alchemy.
Turns out they were right, the story picks up somewhat half way through, and then the last quarter of the series was essentially a clusterfuck of action scenes loosely strung together by a plot with more twists than your average DNA molecule.
The series reminded me alot of an old Arnold Schwarzenigger film, first 3/4 of the film is buildup, setting the story, introducing the characters, and lots of little action scenes, and then the final quarter is all out action - Difference here being the average action film is 90 minutes, equating to about 15-20 minutes of finale action, the action quarter in FMA:B Lasts around 13 episodes
This is pretty reflected in the average episode votes...
Anywho, what im basically trying to say is, The series was really fucking good. Its a memorable story with a huge cast of likable and distinct characters, the art was fancy and the ending was satisfying (unlike the end of the 'original' Full Metal Alchemist series). If you saw the old series, this is a fun trip back to revisit old characters, If you didnt see the old series, this will probably be a nice treat into an interesting universe of alchemy.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
Akinator (aka. The time waster)
So i only just discovered Akinator through ponychan, this thing is fucking amazing.
http://us.akinator.com
Basically, you think of a character, answer some questions, and it guesses who you was thinking of.
I thought it was pretty good when it guessed Albert Wesker (Resi) and Harima Kenji (School rumble), but then it guessed that I was thinking of Angel the Bunny (MLP) which was like.... wat.
(it also guessed Ed Elric, Dr Robotnik, Bruce willis, but those are kind of more common i guess)
Give it a try, ask it to predict some semi-common characters, then try to fuck with it by picking someone obscure
edit: Okay jeeeeeeeezus... This guy knows fucking everything, Successfully guessed...
Hirasawa Ui (K-ON) , Riza Hawkeye(fullmetal alchemist), Tsukamoto Yakumo (school rumble), Kamiyama (Cromartie) , maggey byrde (phoenix wright) ,General Ouromov (007 Goldeneye)
I thought i'd try Ryze (from League of legends) and it hits me with..
http://us.akinator.com
Basically, you think of a character, answer some questions, and it guesses who you was thinking of.
I thought it was pretty good when it guessed Albert Wesker (Resi) and Harima Kenji (School rumble), but then it guessed that I was thinking of Angel the Bunny (MLP) which was like.... wat.
(it also guessed Ed Elric, Dr Robotnik, Bruce willis, but those are kind of more common i guess)
Give it a try, ask it to predict some semi-common characters, then try to fuck with it by picking someone obscure
edit: Okay jeeeeeeeezus... This guy knows fucking everything, Successfully guessed...
Hirasawa Ui (K-ON) , Riza Hawkeye(fullmetal alchemist), Tsukamoto Yakumo (school rumble), Kamiyama (Cromartie) , maggey byrde (phoenix wright) ,General Ouromov (007 Goldeneye)
I thought i'd try Ryze (from League of legends) and it hits me with..
minecraft project - First floor done!
Now to put the first floor ceiling in, lighting, and then start working on the second floor - which probably wont take as long because there is less space to work with (balconies and shit)
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Nichijou TV (Spring Anime 2011)
So episode 2 of Nichijou came out today, and its fucking fantastic.
I havent laughed so hard at an anime in a while, its bizarre humour is pretty refreshing amongst all the standard moeblob school comedy bullshit that is every other show nowadays.
If you liked Azumanga Daioh, you should check it out
I also made this, because im really fucking cool.
I havent laughed so hard at an anime in a while, its bizarre humour is pretty refreshing amongst all the standard moeblob school comedy bullshit that is every other show nowadays.
If you liked Azumanga Daioh, you should check it out
I also made this, because im really fucking cool.
Saturday, 9 April 2011
Minecraft project update 2
Have to say, wasnt expecting to have to do essentially 3 layers of floor - that being background, lightstone and then visible floor and glass. (along with having to need to do 3 layers of ceiling per floor later)
Can see some testing of light sources on the left corridor, it looks pretty good (ill screenshot it when ive done the whole corridor), but it looks kind of like office lights.
Everything seems to be coming together pretty well, I had to brainstorm for a few minutes to come up with a floorplan/blueprint sort of thing though because i was pretty lost.
also. Looks like im going to have to remove the glass ceiling that i made because its too low, just as well i didnt fill in the whole thing.
Friday, 8 April 2011
huge minecraft project
never made anything on this sort of scale before, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Will keep you guys posted on how its coming along
I was really inspired by this huge underwater thing someguy made (video embedded below) , and thought 'I want one of those in my world' , then went and drew up a quick sketch thing of a building to give me an idea of what i want to make. No doubt though this is going to take ages to make, and its probably going to be a bitch just to properly design the interior, I like symmetry a little bit too much and I can already tell thats going to hinder me greatly.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Conclusive proof that the average gameFAQs user is about 10 years old
Any other series would have been fine, even if pokemon was highest, it wouldnt prove that gameFAQs users are mostly children, because pokemon was actually a good game.
(I totally voted Donkey Kong Country, but Advance Wars or Punch Out would be fucking sweet too. Not much of a Fire emblem or Metroid fan... )
Monday, 4 April 2011
Streets of Rage Remake project is now out
http://www.bombergames.net/sorr_project/
Found it on blackcats and I have to say, it does what it says it does
Its... Streets of fucking rage. Remixed, Remade, Re-coded , Re... you get the picture.
If you enjoyed Streets of Rage, its definitely worth a look, theres 2 player support (obviously) and even an AI teammate mode for you lonely hearts.
There is, sadly, No online support, but its completely reasonable given that this is a fan based thing, and proper netcode and etc would probably take fucking forever to make.
I imagine i'll play through it at some point with my brother when I go back home
Update: Okay so I played a little more, enough to get to the beach in SOR1, the game is really really well made, like you can tell alot of love has gone into this. I also forgot how much i love streets of rage, the music in particular was making me nostalgia the fuck out, the background beats, the jingle when you finish the level.... Even the soundeffects are really well done, from the crunchy punches to the unforgetable FWOOM that the pipe makes.
Found it on blackcats and I have to say, it does what it says it does
Its... Streets of fucking rage. Remixed, Remade, Re-coded , Re... you get the picture.
If you enjoyed Streets of Rage, its definitely worth a look, theres 2 player support (obviously) and even an AI teammate mode for you lonely hearts.
There is, sadly, No online support, but its completely reasonable given that this is a fan based thing, and proper netcode and etc would probably take fucking forever to make.
I imagine i'll play through it at some point with my brother when I go back home
Update: Okay so I played a little more, enough to get to the beach in SOR1, the game is really really well made, like you can tell alot of love has gone into this. I also forgot how much i love streets of rage, the music in particular was making me nostalgia the fuck out, the background beats, the jingle when you finish the level.... Even the soundeffects are really well done, from the crunchy punches to the unforgetable FWOOM that the pipe makes.
So the human body can be pretty stupid sometimes.
The body needs iron to function properly, it stores it in a molecule called 'Ferritin', now here is where stupid comes in...
~~~
"Hemosiderin
- If capacity of storage of iron in ferritin is exceeded, a complex of iron with phosphate and hydroxide forms called Hemosiderin
- If burden of iron increases beyond normal levels, hemosiderin can be deposited in the liver and heart, this can reach a point where function in these organs becomes impaired and death ensues."
~~~
Why would you....
This is like a guy living in a closed box that likes money so much he decides to throw away all his food to fill his fridge with money and then proceed to block all air holes in the room with money.
I dont even.
Why do mechanisms like this exist? :|
~~~
"Hemosiderin
- If capacity of storage of iron in ferritin is exceeded, a complex of iron with phosphate and hydroxide forms called Hemosiderin
- If burden of iron increases beyond normal levels, hemosiderin can be deposited in the liver and heart, this can reach a point where function in these organs becomes impaired and death ensues."
~~~
Why would you....
This is like a guy living in a closed box that likes money so much he decides to throw away all his food to fill his fridge with money and then proceed to block all air holes in the room with money.
I dont even.
Why do mechanisms like this exist? :|
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Toriko Preview
"In a world where the taste and texture of food is extremely important there exist individuals known as Bishoku-ya (luxury food providers) who specialize in the acquisition of rare ingredients and animals. Toriko is one of these hunters and it is his dream to find the most precious foods in the world and create the ultimate dinner course. As one of the most skilled hunters in the world he is regularly hired by restaurants and the rich to seek out new ingredients and rare animals. A man with inhuman ability, he utilizes his incredible strength and knowledge of the animal kingdom to capture ferocious, evasive and rare beasts to further his final goal, the ultimate dinner course composed of the most delicious food in the world. He is currently accompanied by a weak and timid chef who, inspired by Toriko's ambition, travels with him to improve his culinary skills and find rare ingredients. "
~~~~~~~
The description sounds alright, but then you look at the picture and its like FUUUUUUUUUUUUU~
Fucking goku battle chef wrestling dinosaurs and shit, Definitely going to check it out when it gets subtitled
~~~~~~~
The description sounds alright, but then you look at the picture and its like FUUUUUUUUUUUUU~
Fucking goku battle chef wrestling dinosaurs and shit, Definitely going to check it out when it gets subtitled
Friday, 1 April 2011
'World Order'
So i only discovered this group (?) the other day when I saw it in my youtube newsfeed
So, crazy japanese electro-house group with some elaborate choreography, no big deal right?
And then i did a little research on the group, and it turns out the Lead singer(?) , producer and so on is an ex K-1 Fighter, built like a fucking beast with full tattoos and shit.
Then doing a little more research found this video...
This guy is a fucking boss.
So, crazy japanese electro-house group with some elaborate choreography, no big deal right?
And then i did a little research on the group, and it turns out the Lead singer(?) , producer and so on is an ex K-1 Fighter, built like a fucking beast with full tattoos and shit.
Then doing a little more research found this video...
This guy is a fucking boss.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Revision update 30th march
Have successfully skimmed through all 6 of the modules im studying for, highlighing key points and making sure the material makes some level of sense.
Ive only actually learnt 2 of the modules, and those are both of the easy ones. The rest of the information I need to learn involves maybe 120 pages at standard font size.
Particularly bitchy is Integrative Neuroscience, which is just fucking ridiculous. Im not sure how im going to handle it when it comes to the exam :< The material barely makes any sense.
I dont think anyone else is in revision stages yet - Our exams this year are super early because we do our final year laboratory project afterwards - but if you are, good luck and dont burn yourself out! D:
Countdown : 4 weeks (28 days left)
Ive only actually learnt 2 of the modules, and those are both of the easy ones. The rest of the information I need to learn involves maybe 120 pages at standard font size.
Particularly bitchy is Integrative Neuroscience, which is just fucking ridiculous. Im not sure how im going to handle it when it comes to the exam :< The material barely makes any sense.
I dont think anyone else is in revision stages yet - Our exams this year are super early because we do our final year laboratory project afterwards - but if you are, good luck and dont burn yourself out! D:
Countdown : 4 weeks (28 days left)
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
OniiKoto and Dragon Crisis
both finished yesterday/today , and both are varying levels of terrible.
I dont actually know why i stuck around to watch both of them through til the end.
Dragon crisis : 5/10 - Bad plot, characters, inconclusive ending
I dont like my big brother at all : 6/10 - Bad plot (but then its at least a comedy), annoying characters, another inconclusive ending
Alot of the other spring series will be ending over the next 2 weeks as well, but none will be as bad as Dragon Crisis (oniikoto wasnt actually THAT bad, just not good)
I dont actually know why i stuck around to watch both of them through til the end.
Dragon crisis : 5/10 - Bad plot, characters, inconclusive ending
I dont like my big brother at all : 6/10 - Bad plot (but then its at least a comedy), annoying characters, another inconclusive ending
Alot of the other spring series will be ending over the next 2 weeks as well, but none will be as bad as Dragon Crisis (oniikoto wasnt actually THAT bad, just not good)
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Minecraft March
Pre-note: Most of this probably took less time than you imagine it did, ive got a fair few hacks on so I can build as efficiently as possible (aint got time to waste now that exams are creeping up)
This is also what happens when the internet/league of legends servers are being sketchy and I dont feel like studying...
(can see the next WIP in the background, going to be a 3 floor hub area)
And finally...
This is also what happens when the internet/league of legends servers are being sketchy and I dont feel like studying...
(can see the next WIP in the background, going to be a 3 floor hub area)
And finally...
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Random lookback at Meng's early gaming days
So most of the consoles I had were modded in some way, I had a modded saturn, PSX, PS2.... And a gameboy which used carts so that could just read whatever anyway.
Anywho, my parents or uncles/aunts used to just buy me shit loads of asian pirate games, I distinctly remember , whenever my mum or dad would go on holiday - to malaysia, or hong kong - they would come back with a huge stack of CD-R's in a little plastic sleeve with some squished artwork printed on a piece of paper.
I still actually have alot of these, maybe when I go home sometime i'll take some photos so you can all get an idea.
But pretty much...I had maybe 80~ saturn games, 150 PS2 games, 100's of GB games...
And probably the majority of them werent in english, which - surprisingly, didnt really faze me much.
I'd imagine the average teenager that puts in a game, RPG's or turn based strategy, action, whatever... and see's a flood of moonspeak - would probably give up and just not bother playing.
Never seemed like that much of a big deal to me though, I played through alot of them, maybe not to the end but a fair amount for sure, just trying every option, clicking everything i possibly could, seeing what happens, seeing what doesnt happen...
"oh, this is save" , "i guess this means attack?" , "what the hell am i casting? why is it not doing anything (probably casting esuna on self in jappo FF game)"
Sadly, the occasional game would be unbeatable, specific victory conditions, or needing to get something specific from a specific place etc - Super Robot Wars was one of my favorite games on the sega saturn, kind of comparable to Advance Wars- but with robots and shit.
That game was the fucking worst for it, jesus, so much text, you can swap out robot pilots and weapons, skills, more stats to look at than your average level 85 WoW character... And then dickbag victory conditions like 'protect this unit' and im sitting there making that unit be the leader of the suicide attack army and stuff.
I wonder if those experiences changed my character at all, I wonder if i'll intentionally do the same to my children in the future and be like 'DEAL WIT IT.' Im sure it must have taught me something, im just not sure what that something is yet.
(also, i wonder if i could go back now and be able to understand it any better, given ive aged 10 years and can read a little japanese)
Anywho, my parents or uncles/aunts used to just buy me shit loads of asian pirate games, I distinctly remember , whenever my mum or dad would go on holiday - to malaysia, or hong kong - they would come back with a huge stack of CD-R's in a little plastic sleeve with some squished artwork printed on a piece of paper.
I still actually have alot of these, maybe when I go home sometime i'll take some photos so you can all get an idea.
But pretty much...I had maybe 80~ saturn games, 150 PS2 games, 100's of GB games...
And probably the majority of them werent in english, which - surprisingly, didnt really faze me much.
I'd imagine the average teenager that puts in a game, RPG's or turn based strategy, action, whatever... and see's a flood of moonspeak - would probably give up and just not bother playing.
Never seemed like that much of a big deal to me though, I played through alot of them, maybe not to the end but a fair amount for sure, just trying every option, clicking everything i possibly could, seeing what happens, seeing what doesnt happen...
"oh, this is save" , "i guess this means attack?" , "what the hell am i casting? why is it not doing anything (probably casting esuna on self in jappo FF game)"
Sadly, the occasional game would be unbeatable, specific victory conditions, or needing to get something specific from a specific place etc - Super Robot Wars was one of my favorite games on the sega saturn, kind of comparable to Advance Wars- but with robots and shit.
That game was the fucking worst for it, jesus, so much text, you can swap out robot pilots and weapons, skills, more stats to look at than your average level 85 WoW character... And then dickbag victory conditions like 'protect this unit' and im sitting there making that unit be the leader of the suicide attack army and stuff.
I wonder if those experiences changed my character at all, I wonder if i'll intentionally do the same to my children in the future and be like 'DEAL WIT IT.' Im sure it must have taught me something, im just not sure what that something is yet.
(also, i wonder if i could go back now and be able to understand it any better, given ive aged 10 years and can read a little japanese)
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Year 3, Term 2 End
So im done with University lectures forever, have been since last week.
On monday I had to do my final task this term, Give a 15 minute talk about 'Food entrained Circadian Clocks in the hypothalamus' and then spend 5 minutes answering questions from the audience...
The presentation went mostly okay i guess, I was so nervous at the start that I messed up the goddamn title, and I almost fell over because of jelly-legs, but once i got into it... went alright...
I think I did best on the questions, whilst some other people just couldnt answer any, I had a good 6 or so from the audience and 1 from the lecturer and was able to answer them all.
The only thing left now are the 6 exams and my Final year lab project (which involves around 4 weeks of 9-5 days starting sometime in may)
My exam period starts on the 27th of april and ends on the 5th of May, so they're around 6 weeks away I guess - which will hopefully give me plenty of time to revise and learn my material because right now i dont know fucking anything...
I still cant believe Ive spent almost 3 years here, Hell im sure somewhere i still have blog posts about my first day of university, and now its practically over.
Life really does fly by...
On monday I had to do my final task this term, Give a 15 minute talk about 'Food entrained Circadian Clocks in the hypothalamus' and then spend 5 minutes answering questions from the audience...
The presentation went mostly okay i guess, I was so nervous at the start that I messed up the goddamn title, and I almost fell over because of jelly-legs, but once i got into it... went alright...
I think I did best on the questions, whilst some other people just couldnt answer any, I had a good 6 or so from the audience and 1 from the lecturer and was able to answer them all.
The only thing left now are the 6 exams and my Final year lab project (which involves around 4 weeks of 9-5 days starting sometime in may)
My exam period starts on the 27th of april and ends on the 5th of May, so they're around 6 weeks away I guess - which will hopefully give me plenty of time to revise and learn my material because right now i dont know fucking anything...
I still cant believe Ive spent almost 3 years here, Hell im sure somewhere i still have blog posts about my first day of university, and now its practically over.
Life really does fly by...
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Awaiting Spring 2011 Anime
So was just browsing to see whats coming out next season... (no Panty and stocking S2, no Ika Musume S2, I am disappoint.)
Actual lists are...
Here
Over Here
And one here as well
So uh... Doesnt seem to be a whole lot to look forward to next season,
I'll probably check out the one featuring the super buff guy looking for food ingredients (Toriko) , World only god knows S2 , Maybe 'Deadman Wonderland' (Prison battle royale?) , Kaiji S2 (Yakuza Pachinko arc?) and maybe 'Steins;Gate' (about sending messages to the past)
Actual lists are...
Here
Over Here
And one here as well
So uh... Doesnt seem to be a whole lot to look forward to next season,
I'll probably check out the one featuring the super buff guy looking for food ingredients (Toriko) , World only god knows S2 , Maybe 'Deadman Wonderland' (Prison battle royale?) , Kaiji S2 (Yakuza Pachinko arc?) and maybe 'Steins;Gate' (about sending messages to the past)
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Gaia Tower (Minecraft)
Needed a new transport hub tower because my world is kinda fuckin big...
Inspiration taken from a lot of things: the CN Tower in Canada, Biospheres, Kami's Lookout in Dragonball Z and some other shit probably...
Inspiration taken from a lot of things: the CN Tower in Canada, Biospheres, Kami's Lookout in Dragonball Z and some other shit probably...
Friday, 4 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Tangled VS Megamind VS Despicable Me (2010)
So today we have a 'face off' of sorts....
Tangled - By disney, a re-envision of the old tale of Rapunzel, classic disney princess/prince affair.
Megamind - By Dreamworks, the story of a troubled supervillain trying to find himself
Despicable Me - By newcomer 'Illumination entertainment' , another story about a supervillain, but this time trying to out supervillain another supervillain.
Films will be rated on Story, Comedy, Graphics, music and general how much i liked it (overall)
Lets begin then.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tangled (2010)
Tangled is without a doubt the prettiest of the 3 films, like.... seriously seriously pretty, the enviroments, character detail, lighting... things like hair and water look amazing.
That said, I thought that the humor in tangled was the worst of the 3, with comedy fairly slapstick in most cases, Granted its supposedly a childrens movie, but so are the rest of the films in this post, and so are all of the pixar films and they still manage to keep a good balance between childish slapstick humor and subtle adult jokes.
Something i didnt actually know until about 10 minutes before i watched the film is that it is a borderline musical ,now this isnt exactly a bad thing, but I guess I wasnt completely mentally prepared for it - Or i thought i was... and i wasnt. The film really reminds me of old school disney films like Beauty and the Beast, Happy endings, animal companions and the occasional sing and dance - This makes sense as the logical progression for Disney however (I hear princess and the frog was a flop)
Oh. Id also like to add that it sort of felt like the main character was based loosely on Miley Cyrus or something.
Best Bit? Without a doubt the Lantern scene which the film builds up to for the first half hour or so. Really Beautiful.
The scores:
Story : 5/10 - Fairly predictable Disney affair, I also felt the pacing was a little slow... Maybe because there wasnt actually much story to begin with
Comedy : 3/10 - As mentioned earlier, not much comedy here other than slapstick
Graphics : 10/10 - Amazing
Music : 8/10 - Its a musical, so i was kind of on edge during any song in case a housemate came in, the music is generally decent and fits the scene well, the tavern song was lol.
Overall : 7/10 - Its a good film, but I felt the lack of comedy let it down a little, However, Id say the film is actually worth watching JUST for the graphics. If you have a spare 90 minutes, grab a HD version and enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Megamind (2010)
I saw megamind last, So its still pretty fresh in my mind.
Im not really sure what, but I felt like something was missing from the film, Something felt out of place but I cant really put my finger on what, maybe the voices? Maybe the characters were unlovable? Im not really sure..
The story starts fairly strong, and then kind of loses its way after a while before trying to find itself, of course everybody watching already kind of knows where the story is going to end up and how the story will end, The plot is actually vaguely like the episode of Dexter's Lab where he 'Fires' Deedee and then spends the rest of the episode trying to hire a new sister.
As sort of mentioned, I think the characters were a little...crap... Cant really say why, the main character was kind of unlovable and dumb, which is unsurprising because apparently his voice actor is Will Ferrel, who is also unlovable and dumb.
The film is pretty funny, about 50:50 slapstick:adult, this film also I think rocks the best music, because its hard not to enjoy a film where old famous rock songs are played.
Uh....more or less sums it up i think? I didnt really expect much from Megamind and whilst it didnt really shock me with anything but kept me entertained throughout.
Best bit? I cranked my speakers for the finale when Welcome to the Jungle came on for the final battle...
The Scores:
Story: 7/10 - Could have been more original, I feel like I've already seen this film somewhere else with different characters somewhere.
Comedy: 7/10 - Pretty funny with lots of variety
Graphics: 9/10 - I watched the 1080p version, And it was very pretty, yet somehow upstaged by Tangled in 720p, this may have scored higher had I not seen Tangled prior
Music: 9/10 - ALL ABOARD!~
Overall: 8/10 - A good animated film, brought down by a few little smudges here and there. Definitely worth a watch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Despicable Me (2010)
I sort of stumbled into watching this film, taking a break from my work to stroll into the lounge where my housemates had just started watching it, my brother said it was a really good film so i dropped what i was doing and went to watch, it was a good call on my part.
In my opinion, I'd say Despicable Me is the best film of this bunch, im a bit of a sucker for cutesy films, comedies and bizarre shit, and Despicable Me seems to tick all the right boxes.
It feels like the writers and animators really tried their best to make the film hilarious, both in a bit of a slapstick way - with the little yellow minions acting similar to rabbits (from the rayman series) - and in a very clever way, the way the characters interact with each other is really good and entertaining in itself, add in some clever dialogue and the main characters voice/accent and its golden ("I SAID COOKIE ROBOTS. NOT BOOGIE. WHY ARE YOU SO OLD.")
Another great asset the film has are that you will fall in love with most of the characters, the main, the minions, the girls, the pirahnadog, its about the opposite to the feeling I had towards the characters in megamind.
The story is very simple but with a few twists here and there (he fly to the moon, he shrink the moon, he take the moon...) but story is arguably the weakest part of the film.
Best Bit? Its really hard to think of a best bit, I feel like the film was pretty consistently great all the way through and didnt really peak and drop like other films. So i guess i'll just put a picture of Gru and the girls on the rollercoaster
The Scores:
Story: 6/10 - Very simple as mentioned before, and whilst its probably the film's main weakness, it is by no means bad
Comedy: 10/10 - I laughed out loud, a lot. From the easy laughs like the failed Dart gun and failed bank presentation to the more obscure stuff.
Graphics: 8/10 - Slightly simpler graphics compared to the other two films, yet by no means bad, animation is still top notch but stuff just isnt as detailed as the others.
Music: 6/10 - It was alright, nothing too spectacular, but it all went with the film just fine. I did feel a little awkward watching the end dance though, it felt a little forced...
Overall: 10/10 - A very very enjoyable film, and one which I'd happily watch again in a few months maybe. Give it a watch for sure.
Tangled - By disney, a re-envision of the old tale of Rapunzel, classic disney princess/prince affair.
Megamind - By Dreamworks, the story of a troubled supervillain trying to find himself
Despicable Me - By newcomer 'Illumination entertainment' , another story about a supervillain, but this time trying to out supervillain another supervillain.
Films will be rated on Story, Comedy, Graphics, music and general how much i liked it (overall)
Lets begin then.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tangled (2010)
Tangled is without a doubt the prettiest of the 3 films, like.... seriously seriously pretty, the enviroments, character detail, lighting... things like hair and water look amazing.
That said, I thought that the humor in tangled was the worst of the 3, with comedy fairly slapstick in most cases, Granted its supposedly a childrens movie, but so are the rest of the films in this post, and so are all of the pixar films and they still manage to keep a good balance between childish slapstick humor and subtle adult jokes.
Something i didnt actually know until about 10 minutes before i watched the film is that it is a borderline musical ,now this isnt exactly a bad thing, but I guess I wasnt completely mentally prepared for it - Or i thought i was... and i wasnt. The film really reminds me of old school disney films like Beauty and the Beast, Happy endings, animal companions and the occasional sing and dance - This makes sense as the logical progression for Disney however (I hear princess and the frog was a flop)
Oh. Id also like to add that it sort of felt like the main character was based loosely on Miley Cyrus or something.
Best Bit? Without a doubt the Lantern scene which the film builds up to for the first half hour or so. Really Beautiful.
The scores:
Story : 5/10 - Fairly predictable Disney affair, I also felt the pacing was a little slow... Maybe because there wasnt actually much story to begin with
Comedy : 3/10 - As mentioned earlier, not much comedy here other than slapstick
Graphics : 10/10 - Amazing
Music : 8/10 - Its a musical, so i was kind of on edge during any song in case a housemate came in, the music is generally decent and fits the scene well, the tavern song was lol.
Overall : 7/10 - Its a good film, but I felt the lack of comedy let it down a little, However, Id say the film is actually worth watching JUST for the graphics. If you have a spare 90 minutes, grab a HD version and enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Megamind (2010)
I saw megamind last, So its still pretty fresh in my mind.
Im not really sure what, but I felt like something was missing from the film, Something felt out of place but I cant really put my finger on what, maybe the voices? Maybe the characters were unlovable? Im not really sure..
The story starts fairly strong, and then kind of loses its way after a while before trying to find itself, of course everybody watching already kind of knows where the story is going to end up and how the story will end, The plot is actually vaguely like the episode of Dexter's Lab where he 'Fires' Deedee and then spends the rest of the episode trying to hire a new sister.
As sort of mentioned, I think the characters were a little...crap... Cant really say why, the main character was kind of unlovable and dumb, which is unsurprising because apparently his voice actor is Will Ferrel, who is also unlovable and dumb.
The film is pretty funny, about 50:50 slapstick:adult, this film also I think rocks the best music, because its hard not to enjoy a film where old famous rock songs are played.
Uh....more or less sums it up i think? I didnt really expect much from Megamind and whilst it didnt really shock me with anything but kept me entertained throughout.
Best bit? I cranked my speakers for the finale when Welcome to the Jungle came on for the final battle...
The Scores:
Story: 7/10 - Could have been more original, I feel like I've already seen this film somewhere else with different characters somewhere.
Comedy: 7/10 - Pretty funny with lots of variety
Graphics: 9/10 - I watched the 1080p version, And it was very pretty, yet somehow upstaged by Tangled in 720p, this may have scored higher had I not seen Tangled prior
Music: 9/10 - ALL ABOARD!~
Overall: 8/10 - A good animated film, brought down by a few little smudges here and there. Definitely worth a watch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Despicable Me (2010)
I sort of stumbled into watching this film, taking a break from my work to stroll into the lounge where my housemates had just started watching it, my brother said it was a really good film so i dropped what i was doing and went to watch, it was a good call on my part.
In my opinion, I'd say Despicable Me is the best film of this bunch, im a bit of a sucker for cutesy films, comedies and bizarre shit, and Despicable Me seems to tick all the right boxes.
It feels like the writers and animators really tried their best to make the film hilarious, both in a bit of a slapstick way - with the little yellow minions acting similar to rabbits (from the rayman series) - and in a very clever way, the way the characters interact with each other is really good and entertaining in itself, add in some clever dialogue and the main characters voice/accent and its golden ("I SAID COOKIE ROBOTS. NOT BOOGIE. WHY ARE YOU SO OLD.")
Another great asset the film has are that you will fall in love with most of the characters, the main, the minions, the girls, the pirahnadog, its about the opposite to the feeling I had towards the characters in megamind.
The story is very simple but with a few twists here and there (he fly to the moon, he shrink the moon, he take the moon...) but story is arguably the weakest part of the film.
Best Bit? Its really hard to think of a best bit, I feel like the film was pretty consistently great all the way through and didnt really peak and drop like other films. So i guess i'll just put a picture of Gru and the girls on the rollercoaster
The Scores:
Story: 6/10 - Very simple as mentioned before, and whilst its probably the film's main weakness, it is by no means bad
Comedy: 10/10 - I laughed out loud, a lot. From the easy laughs like the failed Dart gun and failed bank presentation to the more obscure stuff.
Graphics: 8/10 - Slightly simpler graphics compared to the other two films, yet by no means bad, animation is still top notch but stuff just isnt as detailed as the others.
Music: 6/10 - It was alright, nothing too spectacular, but it all went with the film just fine. I did feel a little awkward watching the end dance though, it felt a little forced...
Overall: 10/10 - A very very enjoyable film, and one which I'd happily watch again in a few months maybe. Give it a watch for sure.
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