Shameful

Well done to Jamie Oliver as the government finally bows to public pressure over the amount spent on school meals. But did we really need:

  • A programme to highlight how bad school meals currently are and how it affects kids diets?
  • Labour lies. They had been working on the issue for quite a while said Tony Blair. Election on the way?
  • The ever more desperate Tories saying they would match anything the government spends. In fact…they’ll do more. Hang on a minute lads. I got a great idea. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm (think Italian Job).
  • If this is what the next 6 weeks are all about I’ll see you in June.

    Arrived

    Well….the PSP arrived this morning. Well – 2 arrived as I’d ordered one for Graham as well. Unfortunately one (thankfully not mine – no conspiracy theories allowed) had 11 dead pixels. So it has been returned, but mine is fine. The screen is gorgeous, it really is the most difficult thing to keep clean and when I sort out my 1 gig memory card videos on the go will be a joy. I’ll do a fuller post over the weekend as it’s not without flaws, but it’s still highly recommended.

    The Doctor

    Watched the first of the new Doctor Who’s last night. Underwhelmed is about the best I could say but then I never expected too much. Christopher Eccleston played the Doctor as a smiling idiot for the first 20 minutes which was starting to get quite irritating – hopefully this was just a one off and doesn’t permeate the series. Billy Piper played Rose pretty well I thought. However the action was a bit ‘British’ and poor compared to American drama’s – the special effects were also cheap. Spooks does it far better.

    Still – good to see an alternative to the usual Saturday evening line-up – far too many reality shows now. Cheap tv is here to stay. I’ll give it another try as hopefully later series can concentrate on plot rather than character introductions.

    Ordered

    I’ve caved in and ordered a PSP through ebay. Ridge Racer and Wipeout Pure too. Hopefully delivered next week. This is a device that could replace the iPod as my favourite gadget – it certainly has the potential. I cannot wait for Wipeout – when the PS1 and Saturn were jostling for best new console (95/96) this was the game that showed what next gen really meant – great graphics, amazing style and Chemicals Brothers all in a game which was difficult but once mastered impossible to put down – hopefully pure will be the same.

    Danger – Eyetoy

    The Eyetoy has been out for the PS2 for a couple of years now – I never had any intention of buying one but those nice chaps at Sony sent me one along with Eyetoy chat for doing a questionnaire as part of the ongoing beta trials. I managed to ‘acquire’ a copy of Play 2 and gave it a whirl yesterday. Never have I felt like such a fool as I did when playing these games.

    Firstly you need to wave at the OK and Cancel buttons. Quite why I’ve no idea but there you go – already I had an idea that a few beers before trying this would have helped. First game I tried was Table Tennis. Nice enough but the opponent got in the way of the ball and it was all quite awkward. Next was Goal Attack – save penalties from the comfort of your lounge. Or not – pretty poor game. Onto Kung Fu – damn – while the lighting was fine for the other games I wasn’t distinct enough against my magnolia walls. Final game was Boxing. This started off well – swing your fists and try and knock out your opponent. Good way to vent some frustration….need to swing a bit harder. Ouch.

    I managed to smack myself in the jaw. Surely not what was intended. At that point the PS2 was switched off and the Eyetoy packed away until the next games night. Now – can I sue Sony for the injures I sustained – there’s certainly no warning on the packaging. Mmmmm.

     

    GTR

    gtr
    As many folk know I do like my racing games. Xbox Live has seen many great racing games. Moto GP 1 & 2, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Race Driver 2. All were class games and had various strengths. However the driving model in each, although attempting to be sim, veered more to arcade so to keep the games as approachable as possible.

    GTR is an entirely different beast.

    Continue reading “GTR”

    Sprung

    Yes – spring has sprung. The first good weekend of the year weather wise has meant the garden can be appreciated without realising after two minutes it’s bloody freezing and time to get back inside. The bulbs planted last year are flowering well (daffs and tulips mostly) and it’s good to see that the plants we invested in last year have got new growth on them.

    But the front lawn. Oh dear. Needs some serious attention over the next two months. I am on a mission. A mission to seed.

    Rated

    Finally I have achieved one of my long term goals. It’s not one of those vitally important life changing ones, but it brought a smile none the less. All 3501 songs in my iTunes library have now been rated and listened to at least once. Joy. The advantages this brings……mmm. Well, the playlists will be fully functional and at least I’m able to listen to all my top rated music. The radio playlist will also work 100% with all my music. And that’s it. Thank you for listening.

    Hard Sell

    UK Online have now installed their LLU gear in my exchange. I know because in the last 4 days I’ve had two letters and two phone calls telling me all about it. That means I could have 8Meg downloads with 400k uploads for a mere £39.99 a month. That speed comes with a 500Gb monthly cap and a free wireless router – not too shabby a deal especially compared with NTL/Telewest who’s 3 & 4Meg deals seem dear in comparison, especially with the new caps introduced by NTL although it will be interesting to see how they implement them – kick people off who regularly abuse? (The cable company’s really should be offering far more to hammer home their fibre network advantage. Shame.)

    Despite the temptation I will be sticking it out with PlusNet. From next month I will hopefully be on 2Meg for £21.99 a month. If the BT trials are successful I should then have the opportunity to move to up to 8Meg download and 1/2Meg upload later in the year again for £21.99. Bargain. Even if that falls through the UK Online deal will still be there – they just need to improve their performance if Adslguide forums are anything to go by. More speed – can’t wait.

    Tweaking

    Added a fair bit of ‘stuff’ to the website this weekend but all behind the scenes. The Archives are now a bit more funky and you should now see some Gravatar links if you post a comment. I’ve also been tweaking quite a bit of the php that drives the site – there should be context sensitive sidebars and also the times are a bit more friendly although I keep on missing dates as they are peppered throughout the code. I’ve also added in a Plugins page so you can see what’s been added to the default WordPress engine. Most importantly I’ve added in lots of interesting content. Ok – I’ve added a couple of drab posts but what do you expect?

    Joking aside – I tidied up some old posts with images that weren’t displaying properly. I also removed some work posts that while I thought they were innocent enough with hindsight they were better off deleted – you never know who might read it.

    So that’s it – I’m ready to add more dreary posts about the films I’ve been to see and games that I’ve played. Which makes you wonder why I and others blog…this quote summed it up for me.

    “Blogging in itself is stupid, really, and self indulgent (or perhaps that’s just my approach to it). But it’s a hobby, and we are a nation who love our pointless little hobbies. It’s no more corrosive than other hobbies. Or rather, it shouldn’t be.�

    Thanks for the quote Gordon – shame about the snide piece in The Sunday Times.