Aspirations and stuff

Have you ever really wanted to do something, but when it actually came to doing it - you have no clue or it isn't possible. Me for instance, I've always wanted to be able to walk in a book shop and pick up a book that has my name on it. Or have a shelf to myself like Stephen King does. Whenever I have come to actually write a book myself I just get half a page down and then spend an hour changing bits because I think they sound silly. Plus I don't think any ideas I've ever had have been good. Or the story line strong enough. Or the characters. Maybe its just I'm being too self critical or it's my way of saying - no, this isn't the right story for you. I'm hoping one day I will manage to get through an entire book that I wrote myself. A colleague of mine is half way through their book and I have massive amounts of respect for him for managing to get so far and still have everything going how he wanted it to.

Watched Breaking Dawn Part II today. It's so good. I don't care. The end is such an adrenalin rush, makes me want to watch it right now! I won't give anything away as some people may have been waiting for the DVD release but it is a really good end to the saga. I hate the music in the credits though, Christina Perry - A Thousand Years because it just makes me want to cry. I'm a massive girl you say? Listen to it and try hold back that feeling!
Christina Perry - A Thousand Years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cdygEzfbhqc

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/knights-of-pen-paper/id549248038?mt=8

So I have an iPhone 4 which some of you may have guessed or know. I never go on the app store unless there is an update for something I have. I thought I would have a browse on it today to find Angry Birds for free? Downloaded that as it's now free forever. Found another two games as well, Words and Knights of Pen and Paper. Words is a simple game where you find words.. I'll post about that one tomorrow. I wanted to post about Knights of Pen and Paper as 8 bit RPG's seem to be the taste of my apps right now. Now at first it sounds boring I must admit. The idea of the game play is that the game is entirely fictional. The team you control are in a room sitting at a table as the game master designs the scenario who sits across from you. Your team then plays along to fight enemies. It has an interesting mechanic which I don't think I've seen before to set the difficulty. Games will easy have easy, medium and hard but this game allows you to choose the number of enemies you face at once. It's clever as it lets you create your own difficulty with benefits for making it harder like more experience etc. You also hire more members of your team and then choose their role playing class as well as their real life job which determines attributes and skills that they have. The animations are good and simple, the art is amazing and colorful  The music really suits it and its quite fun to play. The character interactions are good as well in terms of conversations and explanations while all the while reminding you - it's all happening through pen and paper.
Here are the links to the app page and the developers website.
iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/knights-of-pen-paper/id549248038?mt=8
Behold Studios
http://beholdstudios.com.br/#

With the recent snowy weather I thought I should include a picture from it. These little things are my cats frozen footprints which I thought were pretty cool. Well.. I assume them to be but there are only two so I'm not sure how he was walking. He has his ways.

I also added an RSS feed to my page, it should be on the left hand side. I'm not 100% sure how it works but as far as I know it will notify you every time I post or a comment is made depending which you choose. This way if you want to know every time I post something - BOOM. You can. Yeah.

Hope you enjoyed this. Send me some ideas for topics you would like covered! Blog ya later.

Pizza Hut

It's so good. Me and pixelamy decided to go to Pizza Hut today and we had our usual cheesy bites 14" BBQ meat feast pizza. With unlimited salad and bottomless drinks. I'll leave it there otherwise I'm going to go back because it's so friggin' good! I like going back there because the same people have been working there ever since I started going out for food. It's nice to see a familiar face.

Yesterday I had a bit of an angry moment at the snow. Thankfully it was wonderfully sunny all day and the snow melted off of all the roads. Partly why we decided to go to Maidstone because the roads clearing up seemed like a sign. The grit was out in force today!

We also went to Tesco on the way back. Amy bought Breaking Dawn Part II 2 disc special edition. I want to watch it right now. She says no. Sad face. I know that I'm not supposed to like it but I do, I've even read the books. Given, they aren't the best books or films ever but there is something about Kristen Stewart's expressionless face that draws me back. She also exhales quite a lot, search YouTube for 'everything wrong with Twilight' and you'll know what I mean. I also got a big bag of Magic Stars for £1 because they are the best chocolates ever.

Amy also got a 'Jelly Bean' bubble gum scented candle. I popped out of the room and when I came back I opened the door to a lovely smell of bubble gum. Makes me want to chew something though.

And here's a picture of my cat looking quite smug. Just because I couldn't think of a picture to fit in with the rest of the stuff. Maybe I'll try add a picture with every post. Vain.

Thanks for reading. Send me something you would like me to talk about! Blog ya later.

F#!@ snow

I usually like snow but now it's just getting annoying. Once a year is enough for me, this is the third time now and its just getting on my nerves! Last time there was a tiny drizzle and the gritters were out in force. Why aren't they out this time - the weather even predicted heavy snow falls yet the traffic in my area basically ground to a halt everywhere because no gritting had been done. The snow kept melting then freezing and melting then freezing some more. ICE.

Rant over.

The gaming thing I was planning to do with customization is going to have to be pushed back again because I got called into work today. Guess the culprit! It'll get done because I'm interested to see in what could be made. I also haven't done any more drawing.. Seems like my creative cap is loose at the moment. It'll all get done. For those of you who are waiting.

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http://mobage.com/games/dot-defender-of-texel

I haven't posted anything game related in a while so I thought I would chuck that on the end here. It's another iOS/Android game which I discovered through App Gratis (check it out, a free paid app or add on everyday) called DOT. Or Defender of Texel. It's by DeNA studies who I hadn't heard of before but I am thinking I will check out anything else they've done now. It's a very simple or game where you have a 9x9 formation of warriors where you swipe rows of 3 to attack the enemies in little animated battle. You can customize your team, fuse some to make stronger character, build new characters and equip them with stuff - I haven't yet found any stuff. The art style is 8 bit which I love. Somehow there's a lot of detail incorporated which makes it very pleasing on the eye. It's easy to catch on to, you will need to make a Mobage account or log in with your Facebook which will only post comments if you allow it to. Here's a link to the Mobage page about the game for more info, I'd highly recommend it. You also need an active link to the web to play it which is the biggest draw back.

http://mobage.com/games/dot-defender-of-texel

Thanks to those who have read this. Please please please send me an idea of something you would like me to talk about. I know a lot of you probably don't have Google+ so you can send me an idea on Facebook or Twitter or to my phone for those of you who have my number. I'll credit you for the idea if you'd like. I'd like to get more engaged with who is reading! Blog ya later.

The weekend

For people who have read all of my posts, I think you'll have noticed that I am only posting one blog a weekend. This just gives me a day off allowing me to brainstorms some ideas. So here is my post for the weekend, a tad late but I finished work at about 10:15 thanks to someone jamming a cash box. It shan't be along one but I want to post something.

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So after I finished work today, I popped round to see my better half. We usually sit in my car and have a little chat and as we did this today - someone decided to drop a glass bottle out of the window of a moving car. Now I know that people do stupid things but this really annoyed me. It hit the floor less than a meter from my car. If that had hit my car then I could have been looking at a smashed rear windscreen. Luckily it didn't but then there's smashed glass all over the road which could possibly damage someones wheels. I managed to sweep most of it out of the way but.. Its just really ridiculous. I think chemical castration was created for people with bright ideas like that.

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This next thing is a bit strange but its something I've always found odd. The stigma attached to shopping at different supermarkets is almost like a social stereotype. If someone shops at a Waitrose, people would say they are posh and have a lot of money. If someone shopped at Iceland - what's the first thing that popped into your mind? I went to Iceland yesterday to get some little party good type things for my tea and there were some very good deals there. Huge box of choco shreddies for £2 twice the size of a regular box which costs £2.75. A 3 liter bottle of coke for the same price as 2 anywhere else. It makes sense to shop around to get the best deals and not worry about what people will think. I can honestly say that I don't shop at one supermarket exclusively. I go everywhere to save money. It's as simple as that.

Sorry for another short post today. I am planning to do the one about customization in game tomorrow so you can look forward to that! Blog ya later.

Movie review and an idea

I have a lot of DVDs. Not a lot compared to some, way too many compared to others. There are some that I still haven't watched so I thought I would pop one on last night just so I can say that I have seen that film. I decided to watch the film 'Knowing' because I've always wanted to see it and got it as part of a 3 movie box set with 'Knowing' 'District 9' and 'Moon' for £5 (bargain!). I like Nicholas Cage and it seemed like an end of world sort of plot. Here's my brief summary of the plot and what I thought about it.

*** Contains spoilers - if you don't want to know what happens please skip over this bit! ***

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/

It starts with an old school which wants to celebrate its anniversary. The strange kid thinks of a time capsule which is the chosen idea. Each child must then draw a picture to be given to another child in 50 years time upon opening the capsule. The strange girl rights a long list of numbers. Nicholas Cage's son in the film receives this piece of paper. Cage is then fascinated and links all the numbers to a date with the number of deaths and the location at which it happens. No matter how hard he tries he can't find a way to stop anyone dying. He seeks out the family of the girl now dead, in search of answers. He ends up following the numbers to a location where aliens have set up to take certain survivors away from the Earth before everyone dies. Turns out the aliens have been whispering to the people they wish to save, telling them the numbers. Only people smart enough to follow the numbers survive. They take Cage's son and a girl met along the way and then everyone dies. The end.

So I skipped over a lot of the content in the film so that you could still watch it even if you did read this.. I would give it at least an 8/10. I really like the genre of disaster movies, preferably when they are completely made up so I know that nothing like that could ever happen. I was very impressed with the film until the very end when it turned out to be aliens. Aliens whispering to children. It seemed quite a cliche rather than just some crazy person predicting the future and leaving clues as to save the world. I guess that it what I was expecting though which made the ending more of a twist. All the acting is pretty good, some of it is pretty graphic in terms of the death scenes. Not a lot of blood but if you see it, you'll know what I mean. Definitely try and catch it if it is on the TV or like me, it has been laying around in your house for a while!

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My Mum works at a school and its world book day today so the staff were asked to dress up if they could. She managed to find the outfit which I wore during my last summer fair when I was in year 6. It still fit because it was a huge jumper but I'll let you guess who I went as. I remember this day because my Mum encourage me to do it saying that everyone else would be doing it as well. Only 6 people did and I was the oldest one being in year 6. It was quite embarrassing as I then had to get changed on the school field behind a giant inflatable slide. Fun times.

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I have had an idea for something that might be quite fun. It's something I will post when I have some free time on my hands. I was thinking about the customization aspects of games such as Skyrim and Mass Effect where you can make your own character. I was thinking - is it really possible to make the in game character look anything like you? I'm going to give it a go on 3 or 4 games: Mass Effect 3, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas and possible Dark Souls depending on the tools available in the creating screen. There have been games where you take a picture of yourself and it sticks your face onto your character. The problem was that it always distorted your face and made it flat and look dam silly!

Thanks for reading my post today. Share it if you can, would be much appreciated! Let me know what you thought, Blog ya later.

Yum.

It would appear that I'm at the risk of becoming a food blog and not being able to cook or prepare many things! But what I had for lunch today was really tasty so I had to stick it on here. Warburton's sandwich thins with red onion, green pepper, grated mozzarella, sliced chorizo and of course some sweet chili sauce. Might sound a little crazy and over the top but that's what you get when you go to a restaurant! Good thing is that it was pretty healthy especially as we grilled the chorizo which released a lot of the fat in it. If you are hungry and reading this, I advise you to skip over the picture!

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I've mentioned that I had fished out my old laptop, and it does what I wanted to do which was play Minecraft with some mods added on. The only thing is that it was slow, bearable but slow. I thought that it was something to do with allocated memory but it turns out I already had mine to the max. Luckily I came across a video about altering the game code itself to make it run faster. It got me thinking about something I saw on YouTube about something that barely any schools teach. Computer coding. The stat was 90% of schools in America didn't teach it and I don't know of any schools which teach it in my local area. The video covers the stories of many people who have made their money thanks to coding including the creator of Facebook. I was a little confused when Will.I.Am appeared at the end saying he was taking coding classes but I guess it's another famous face. Turns out that some university lecturers are even putting their classes up on YouTube and other sites for free. The Internet is our oyster!

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I am afraid I haven't got my pen to paper recently, the mood hasn't taken me so no more update on the drawing. I am planning to take a stage by stage of the drawing and then posting them as a single blog when it's all done. People seem to like it when I let them know about my art work so I think you'll like it and I hope you do!

Thanks for reading, sorry it was a bit shorter today but I don't want to force things into the blog. It wouldn't be my best stuff and you wouldn't like it any where near as much! Blog ya tomorrow.

Kinect gaming, new drawing and other stuff

Me and pixelamy wanted to get a Kinect to try and be a bit healthier so we set about researching how much we should expect to pay for one then split it down the middle. Second hand we were looking at about £80, new was about £110. Luckily, we had a look on Gumtree and someone was selling one for £25! We instantly assumed that there must have been something wrong with it and after inquiring  it turns out that the owner had just forgot to sell it when he got rid of his Xbox 360. It was still in its box, barely used and he even said he would refund is if it stopped working, and it was in driving distance. So we headed over there, paid and it has been working perfectly since.

For those of you that read my post yesterday, I mentioned that I was at a friends house on the weekend. A couple of months ago I got a text from him saying he was board so we offered to take the Kinect round to his to give it a try. Now we have a Kinect night every couple of weekends and it's really fun. At the moment we have Kinect Sports 1 and 2 and Kinect Adventures (which cost a whopping £1.50 from CeX..) which all work really well with the sensor. The sports games are definitely the best, turns out I'm terrible at bowling. The other two were really good and are both left handed so I'm sensing a little bias there.. Competitive tennis and table tennis is good but every now and then you get a little slap from you opponent from an over aggressive swing.

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So I have got my old laptop out. I haven't used it in a couple of years so I knew there would be a lot of updates from windows for it to catch up on. I just really didn't there would be this many! Especially as there really doesn't seem to be any difference to windows at all. With 91 updates to do, I really would have thought I would have noticed something. I also would have hoped that it would have solved the problem with the outlook calender which used up to 50% of the CPU. This must be one kick ass calender that is already planning your life out before you even know about it. All of these updates took about 3 hours including configuration upon rebooting it. It did make a fun guessing game for the time trying to guess which update it was on. Glad that they are all done now though because I can use it without having to wait 3 hours!

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I've mention my cat before. He's pretty normal for a cat apart from his choice of sleeping position. He likes to sleep in places where he will get really dirty and then expect to come straight in the house. Like for today for example - his choice was on an old piece of polystyrene. We used the polystyrene to cover the rabbit hutch so that snow wouldn't get in. As he is a black cat he looked like someone had flicked white paint all up one side of him. I know this picture doesn't show a lot of it but it was all up his back legs and over his face. Unfortunately when I opened the door to get this picture he managed to sneak in and get it everywhere. That was not so much fun to clean up. He is also one of the only cats I know that will walk on the paving slabs down the middle of the garden. Any other cat that ends up in the garden walks everywhere. Then again, he eats a lot of grass so maybe he doesn't like to walk on his food.

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Last thing, I've also started another drawing. I've chosen to do the Legionary Suit from Dead Space 3. I'll leave the link to it below if you'd like to see. It'll probably be a 10 hour drawing so it should be up in the next 1-2 weeks depending how often I'm in the mood to put pen to paper.

Legionary Suit - Dead Space 3 on Creative Uncut

http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-24/ds3-legionary-suit.html

Thanks for reading! Leave me some comments about something you would like me to talk about. Share in any way you can, helps me out a lot!