Many, Many Hours of Motor Sport

posted by Jaitu at 20:20

I've been a fan of Formula One for about ten years now and have watched almost all of the races in that time. Prior to that I would watch them if they happened to be on when I was around but wouldn't go out of my way to see them. Now it's a ritual. If I can watch them live then I will and I'll have my laptop showing the live timing screen alongside me. (If you're an F1 watcher and haven't tried the live timing online then I highly recommend you do. It adds a whole layer of involvement and you will often notice things long before the commentary team/cameras bring it to your attention).

Last year was the first time I made the effort to follow anything other than Formula One from start to finish. I watched every one of the Formula One, GP2, A1GP and Australian V8 Supercars races. Where possible I followed the qualifying as well. There was no way I could watch these live and had to resort to 'tape-delay' for all but the F1. I made sure that I watched each series in order though and found them all to be greatly entertaining (Formula One being arguably the least exciting on-track).

People often say that F1 is boring. Those people might prefer cricket or golf or snooker or darts or bowls. They almost certainly do not follow the season. Watching an entire campaign results in something more than the sum of it's parts. You get to know who the drivers are, be able to recognise livery and helmet designs without relying on TV captions to tell you who you are looking at, you understand how important a certain race is for who and why. It's like watching the whole season of LOST instead of one episode somewhere in the middle (OK, not the best example because no-one knows what's going on in LOST, but you get my point). There are people, myself amongst them, who will watch every race from every circuit even knowing that sometimes once the field are through the first corner it'll likely settle in to a procession. But also knowing how the points stand, what a difference a small change in the order could make, that whether or not this guy can stay out a lap or two longer before pitting can be as significant as a passing move, that the chap whose running fourteenth is wringing the neck of an under-funded back-of-the-grid car and has that position on merit, that this boy has landed a seat in what could be the championship winning car in his first season, that this old guy could well be enjoying his last hurrah or that that fella tends to get a bit flappy and all 'Mama Mia' under pressure. There is a lot of enjoyment to be taken from a race that to a casual observer is 'boring'. The thing is you have to know it and the only way to know it is to follow it.

I've always been curious about the Aussie V8s but mostly have only seen highlights and then usually only from Bathurst. The V8 Supercar Series is in my opinion the best touring car category I have ever seen. There are currently only two manufacturers and only two models involved, the Ford Falcon and the Holden Commodore, which makes for generally closely matched racing although one or other can sometimes show an advantage at a particular track. The two make format also has the affect of dividing fans into 'red' (Holden) and 'blue' (Ford) camps. There can be either three, two or only one race on a weekend depending on the circuit in use. The most famous being the one thousand kilometre endurance race around Mount Panorama in Bathurst, an event that lasts around seven and a half hours. This is the Monaco of the Aussie V8s and was fittingly last won by Craig Lowndes (partnered by Jamie Whincup) on the day that motor sport paid tribute to Aussie racing legend and Lowndes own mentor Peter Brock. A close run championship was decided at the final round at Philip Island.

A1GP was in it's first campaign across 2005/06 and the second season began in September. This is a new concept in motor sport. A one make winter series, all the teams have the same spec car, but each team represents a country. The drivers for each of the teams must be from the home nation and as a result the competition is between countries and not individuals. France stormed to a first season win with Nicolas Lapierre and Alexandre Premat sharing the time at the wheel. The cars themselves are a swoopy affair looking like a cross between F1, IRL and the Batmobile. With low down force and a single tyre supplier the cars can run close to each other without suffering aerodynamically. Pitlane crew restrictions and a Push-To-Pass system mean you are pretty much guaranteed close racing and plenty of overtaking. The different countries tend to display a wide range of ability and as a result you get a number of on track battles at every event. Recently the round held at Sentul in Indonesia provided some of the best wet weather racing I've seen in a long time and has put the name of Germany's Nico Hulkenburg at the top of many people's list of drivers to keep an eye on (the fact that he races for a team whose principal is Willi Weber won't do his career much harm either).

GP2 was running for only it's second season last year and had learnt from it's debut campaign. Current Williams F1 driver Nico Rosberg won the opening season and was at work at the end of '05 assessing changes to the GP2 car before starting in F1. Another one make series the car looks more like F1-lite than the A1GP vehicle but also benefits from low down force and high mechanical grip from the control tyres. It's not uncommon to see overtaking moves under braking around the outside of corners in GP2, as well as four wheel drifts, things not seen for a long time in F1. A number of GP2 drivers have moved in to Formula One the most publicised being the young British driver Lewis Hamilton who became GP2 champion last year and this year partners current F1 champion Fernando Alonso at Mclaren.

This year I'm aiming to add four American series: ChampCar; IndyCar; Nascar Busch Series and Nascar Nextel Cup. These, again, are formulas where I've seen bits and pieces. Mostly they have not been so exciting except for an occasional pile-up, but this has been because I have never known the back story. Both Champ and Indy have drivers I'm familiar with from Formula One and even Nascar now has Juan Pablo Montoya and former Aussie V8 racer Marcus Ambrose. Not knowing too much about these categories right now I'm looking forward to seeing whether Sawyer and Kate can escape and what Jack intends to do next.

I dont have a Wii

posted by Womble692 at 16:57

I don't have a Wii.
I cant give a review but it looks awesome and i really wanted one for Christmas. Alas it wasn't to be, i was disappointed again, not as disappointed as when i didn't receive an Optimus Prime back in the 80's and cried all Christmas day and tried to kick my parents in the shins for daring to buy some other piece of crap! (I was a lovely child really)
I do understand why K wouldn't get me one, i already have an Xbox that never gets used and a PC that doesn't get switched on and a whole host of other gadgets that after the initial weeks enthusiasm i get bored with and leave in a drawer. The problem you see is i am a "must have". You know the type, they must have that computer game, then play it and get bored after a couple of days, they must have that new cd then never listen to it, they must have that new mp3 player and then leave it in a cupboard. I have spent so much money on gadgets you would have thought i would have learnt my lesson yet i watched and drooled at the new Iphone and will no doubt buy one and leave it in a drawer after a week.

I am going climbing tonight for the first time in about 2 years, tomorrow i will be aching and walking like John Wayne. I am a fairly fit guy and go to the gym a lot but climbing is a different sort of exercise, your arms feel like they are on fire after 10 minutes and your legs and feet are wobbly at the end of a hard climb. The problem i have is i am an ex fatty, we are worse than ex smokers. We exercise too much and watch what we eat 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time we try to cram as much crap and unhealthy food into our mouths as the time allows, there is only so much rice and chicken or steak and pasta you can eat! I am addicted to the feeling you get after exercise and also im quite lucky i go to a David Lloyd where there are lots of Mums who have good bodies that i can look at in between sets, they bounce in a very fake way on the treadmills!

I hope to update a bit about my hobbies (music, guitar, sports, films) and bitch about my work and stuff that annoys me. In the mean time im signing off...

To recap, im an Ex fattie must have who is a binge eater and a binge drinker and likes watching women bounce on the treadmill whilst working out.

Fate Wants Me Fat

posted by Jaitu at 21:54

True to my word I have continued riding to work so far this week. I am beginning to see worrying signs though.
On Monday I rode into work despite some obstacles as I previously mentioned. That was obviously Sign One.
Yesterday I rode in with no problems and as the weather and light were much improved I even returned through the trees. This was not what Fate wants for me. Fate wants me off the bike.
Fate wants me fat.
Today we awoke to a blanket of snow. Not huge amounts but enough to bring a great nation like ours to it's knees. Sign Two.
I bravely set off avoiding tyre tracks in the snow and sticking to the fresh white surface where I was guaranteed firm footings only an inch or two below. As the tributary side roads of our area slowly joined and commingled in to potentially stronger streams of traffic the amount of road surface not already rolled smooth by passing cars rapidly decreased. Suddenly I was riding on a plane of sheet ice that stretched the length and width of the immediate road. With elegance and grace akin to that of the most experienced practitioners of Tai Chi, I landed flat on the tarmac. Sign Three.
A close by group of school kids paused in their snow ball fight to see that I was OK. I replied 'It was bound to happen sooner or later' and dragged my bike across the glassy tarmac to the assured traction and relative safety of a grass verge. No sooner had I got back on than a scrubbing sound drew our attentions to a VW Golf which sailed slowly from the patch I had just vacated, through the T-junction and thudded up the kerb on the opposite pavement. Sign Four.
Once on the main road everything went smoothly. The road was clear of snow, ice and slush and the traffic was hardly moving. I was able to ride straight up the middle of the road overtaking everyone and still only on the middle ring. I climbed my way up the cycle path and around the fallen trees and made it to work safely. Take that Fate.
Come time to leave for home I discovered a flat front tire. Cheap shot. A colleague gave me a lift home and I'll not be riding tomorrow.

Nine and Three. Two. Two. Jack.

posted by Jaitu at 20:57

I found out this evening that my credit card has been ripped off for the second time in six months. It seems I've bought goods from two opticians, the Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone and booked a trip with National Express. I should hope that amongst the data that will have been caught during these transactions is enough information to find whoever was behind them.
The thing that frustrates me most about this process is that the banks fraud prevention office get in touch fairly promptly to check on unusual spending patterns, stop your card, a new one is issued and that is the end of your involvement.
I want more.
I want them to get back in touch with me after a week or two and say "You know how your card got scammed a while back? Well it happened here." I mean it's happened twice now (and I count myself lucky that it's only been twice) and I don't know whether some information from the first time, had it been available to me, could have prevented it happening this time.
I'm not stupid with my cards. I don't let them out of my sight, I'm careful about the places I use them and websites that I buy from. So, I want to know how and where these transactions were made possible. I have other cards but this, naturally, was my primary one and I'll have to update any payment accounts with details of the new one when it arrives.
It's a great fat pain in the arse.
Still, the coach trip might take my mind off it. I hope I'm going somewhere nice.

Quest for eternal life.

posted by Kahoona7 at 08:46

As a 34 year old male the horror and embarrassment I experienced while being confronted with my very first Mii age on Wii Sports (age 42) was only alleviated when my friends 'attempt' resulted in a Mii age of 78.

My strongest event has always been bowling but of late this has become my Achilles heel. Now with regularity I return 99% of the balls in Tennis and hit 6 out of 10 home runs. But I have become increasing frustrated with my inept attempt at the bowling.

I decided last night to spend some time tinkering with my 'technique' and after three rounds I managed to post my highest ever score, 205, eureka!!!!

I don't really know why the game only allows one attempt a day at reducing your Mii age but I can not wait to try again tonight, and with an increasing optimism I am sure I can reach my quest and become 20 again.

-- Tuesday 23rd January, Mii Age 25.

Riding, Trees Down, Lard

posted by Jaitu at 21:15

I rode my bike to work for only the fourth time this year today. It's a journey of less than three miles and only takes around 15 minutes but when the weather is bad or I'm not feeling so good it can be tougher than you'd expect. I could always slow down a bit and take it easier but that feels like cheating. When you're riding along a major A road and traffic is brushing past you at 50 miles an hour you don't really want to spend longer than you have to either. The route gets better at two thirds in. This is where I get off the road and follow a bridlepath that forms part of a cycle route that runs from Greenwich to the South Coast. It's here that the morning get's tough even if only for a few minutes. The path rises steadily and although it doesn't look like much for a man of my athletic build, it saps what little residual energy I have. Not having breakfast then setting out in the bracing British weather takes it's toll.
Just to make things a little more interesting four trees of varying sizes had fallen across the track over the weekend causing me to go either under, over or around the obstacles. It also meant a diverted and extended all-road return journey in the dark.
The forecast for the rest of this week is also not promising but I'll try and continue the riding. Having bought my suit on the weekend I have to keep my waistline in check until the wedding. In good weather and daylight I'm quite happy to ride off in the wrong direction after work and stretch things out for a while. In the cold and the wet and the wind and the dark I usually just want to get home.

Squirrel Update

posted by Jaitu at 14:04

The squirrel activity continues apace in our loft space. During the rough weather over the weekend it sounded like our fluffy little pest was moving in both his family and their furniture.

Towards the end of last year I put three poison trays in the loft. These were left untouched despite the frequent visits from our furry little pointy-clawed sharp-toothed friend. Over the Christmas period I tried to attract some interest in them by mixing broken peanuts and chocolate into the poison pellets. While I was up there last week installing the ultrasonic pest repellent I noticed the trays had still not even been nibbled.

The ultrasonic repeller is a battery operated device which is activated when the built-in PIR detects movement. It then screams at a very high pitch until the movement stops and then resets a few seconds later. When it switches off it produces an audible 'squeak' as the frequency falls. I initially set the frequency such that I could hear it come on when I was in the loft but back in the house proper with the loft hatch closed I could only hear the squeak as it shut down. It turns out I set the operational tone when not in the loft just inside Naomi's range of hearing and just outside of my own. Naomi could tell me when it detected motion even if we couldn't hear the squirrel moving. (I've since set the frequency even higher).
The repeller, currently, doesn't so much repel the squirrel as give it pause for thought.

The pattern of behaviour seems to go something like this:
Squirrel enters loft.
Repeller activates.
Squirrel freezes.
Repeller 'squeaks' off.
Squirrel moves.
Repeller activates.
Squirrel freezes.
Repeller 'squeaks' off.
Squirrel moves.
You get the idea...

This is not exactly the desired effect and I have emailed the company I bought it from for their recommendation of where best to set the frequency control for maximum squirrel repelling power. I have in the meantime ordered some traps which, ideally, I will not have to deploy.

I have also now placed a motion activated light up there although this may just let the squirrel see what it is doing.

While putting the light in, I noticed that the ultrasound has apparently had one interesting side-effect. Since the repeller has been in place the squirrel appears to have gained an appetite for peanuts and chocolate.

Wii HD

posted by Dean at 11:39

I recently got hold of a Wii component cable that enables you to run your Wii at 480p on a HD TV.

It does make some subtle differences, as you can see here.

Definitely worth a purchase if you have a Wii + HD TV.

I also now have two as I accidently forgot to cancel one of my pre-orders. They're stll quite difficult to get hold of, so if you want my spare, unopened cable for cost price (£15), drop me an email dean.pullen@gmail.com and you can have it.

Here's a Youtube comparison:

Tokyo

posted by Dean at 09:18

As I'm off to Tokyo in a few weeks, I was interested to see a HDR picture of the night-covered city scape appearing on a few blogs.

Check out bigger sizes here - it's definitely worth it.

It seems you need a camera with a decent exposure range, but to be honest, I know next to nothing about photography and digital cameras.

I've got a Sony Cybershot DSC-N2 which anyone with any knowledge of photography would probably laugh at. I've no need for an SLR or anything as I hardly ever take any pics.

Discussions on the Photoshop HDR plug-in and the best cameras to use can be found here.

Related Products:

London Marathon 2007: Please Sponsor Me

posted by Jaitu at 16:12

Well, not *me*. George posted this plea at work.

Hi,
Well I have perhaps foolishly signed up to run the London Marathon this year - not so silly is the fact that I will be raising money for the Multiple Sclerosis Trust.

A few clicks is all it will take to sponsor me, and both myself and the MS Trust would really welcome your support. They are a very good cause - check out their web address below if you want to see the sort of work they do for the community.

So, please take a moment to sponsor me. It's really easy - you can donate online by credit or debit card at the following address:
www.justgiving.com/GeorgeAberdour
All donations are secure and sent electronically to MS Trust. If you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving will automatically reclaim 28% Gift Aid on your behalf, so your donation is worth even more. Please join me in supporting MS Trust and a fabulous cause.

Thanks and best wishes,
George

*** About donating online ***

It's very easy to support George online - just go to their page at the web address below where you can make a donation.
Web Address: http://www.justgiving.com/GeorgeAberdour
MS Trust Address: http://www.mstrust.co.uk
Donating takes a matter of minutes and is totally secure. You can leave a message with your donation too.

If you pay UK tax, Justgiving will automatically reclaim and add 28% Gift Aid to your donation at no cost to you, so it's even better for the charity.

There, you go

Not All Pain

posted by Jaitu at 19:29

After reading the excellent item by ElDiablo on Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev I decided to order some of his films. I already own Stalker (both on VHS and on DVD) and this morning placed orders for Andrei Rublev, Nostalgia, The Sacrifice and Solaris (not the Clooney remake). I also had a browse around the video library of Babel for clips from his films and was surprised to find more than a few.

While on YouTube I set off down one of those random paths that these sites are so good for and found the clip below. Not only does it feature music by Air - French Band, a group I very much like, but visually it takes a very simple idea and works it to great effect.

Related Products:

Party in a box

posted by Kahoona7 at 08:49

Well, it's now been 3 weeks since the Wii arrived in our household, and last night marked a truly remarkable occasion, my wife asked me if we could have a go on the console....she asked me to play a video game!! I think her exact words were, 'I fancy trying to get my Wii age down on Wii sports'.
Now seeing that her previous best was 64 I can understand her plight and being a gentleman I replied 'no worries'.

What I love/hate about the Wii is that my wife can actually compete with me at bowling. In fact the very first night we tried out the console it took me three rounds to finally beat her, much to her delight and amusement.

Since then I have demonstrated it to various friends all who have been impressed with the innovative Wii remote, with ten pin bowling again being the firm favourite. Who ever decided to package Wii Sports with the console as a launch bundle was inspired; it's simple, fun and great for multiplayer. Where I believe the XBox360 and PS3 are superior consoles their demographic appeal is somewhat limited, the Wii however is aimed at...everyone!

I also purchased Wii Play with the console, these 8 pub games give an insight to how the Wii Remote can be used. Like Wii Sports I think this has limited single player appeal but is great for playing with friends and family. I think my initial excitement with the console has started to fade, not that I don't love it anymore but I find that I need to be playing with someone to get that full gaming experience. Next step is to purchase a game like Zelda which I am sure my wife will gladly let me play on my own.

By the way, her Wii age is now 48.

Andrei Rublev

posted by ElDiablo at 23:15

From the 13th to the 25th of January The London French Institute is doing a retrospective on Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and on Saturday I went there to see his film Andrei Rublev. It is considered his best movie and I had missed it when (amazingly, given the unspeakable kind of crap that usually populates the TV schedules) it was shown last year on one of the terrestrial channels, so now I jumped at the chance. Although I was aware of his reputation as one of the great directors of the 20th century, before this I hadn't seen any of Tarkovsky's movies so in a sense I didn't know what to expect: I knew that the movie was roughly about the 15th century Russian monk and master painter Andrei Rublev, that it was long (just over three hours), mostly in black and white and in Russian with English subtitles; so it could prove to be a test of endurance. Fortunately in the end that wasn't the case.

Apparently the print we saw is the only existing copy of the film with subtitles in English. The subtitles are difficult to read when the background to the scene is predominatly white, which is often the case as quite a few of them are set in snowed landscapes. This sometimes makes the dialogs hard to follow. The movie hasn't got a clearly defined storyline but works as a series of episodes connected by the presence of Rublev, mainly as witness to events of which other people are the real protagonists. These include the punishment of a jester that refuses to entertain the ruler of the land, the struggle of envious fellow monk Cyril to accept his (in comparison to Rublev's) lack of artistic talent, a witches rave, the raid on the city of Vladimir by the Russian-Tartar army and the casting of a bell. Throughout the movie we also get an insight into the troubled spirit of Rublev by means of a series of conversations he has with his mentor Theophanes the Greek and his soulmate Danila. It is clear that he's at pains to reconcile his faith with his art: he gets commisioned to decorate a church with a fresco of the Last Judgement which he doesn't have the courage to turn down but then is also unable to complete because as he puts to Danila "he doesn't want to use his art to frighten people". It is only at the end of the movie, when a repentant Cyril opens his heart and urges him not to waste away his God-given talent that Rublev fully embraces his art as his mission in life.

Historically, little is actually known of Rublev's life, just records of his presence in Moscow and other locations during different periods of time so Tarkovsky and his co-writer Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky had licence to basically make it up as they went about writing the script. They used the characters to convey their feelings about human nature and the situation in Russia at the time: during the raid episode, after the church congregation gets massacred by the Russian-Tartar army, the Tartar commander asks the Russian chief about a fresco depicting the Nativity: "Who is that?", "The Virgin Mary" comes the answer; "And the one in the box?", "That's her son Jesus Christ"; the Tartar then replies "How can it be her son if she is a Virgin? But then anything is possibly in your Russia, isn't it?".

Visually the movie is breathtaking, Tarkovsky conjures images of stunning beauty: long tracking shots of rained-down taiga; close-ups of paint from brushes being cleaned creating hypnotic patterns when floating away on a stream; a recreation of the Crucifixion on a barren snowed landscape, the Cross towering over rows of kneeling peasants covering the hills. As if he himself was trying to paint, Tarkovsky seems to apply several visual layers on each scene: we can see Cyril scurrying in the rain to tell the soldiers where to find the jester through a small window in the hut where Rublev is sitting out the storm in the foreground. And he pulls no punches either, some scenes are as brutal as they are compelling: masons whose work didn't please the Grand Duke get circled in a forest and their eyes gouged at knifepoint; also during the raid episode a horseman being chased by Tartar cavalrymen tries to escape by riding up a staircase but is intercepted at the top landing, dismounted and slain, his horse then tries to back down the stairs but loses its balance and ends up falling spectaculary from a great height. I can't read Russian but I bet the closing credits didn't include the usual 'No animals were harmed during the making of this movie'.

The film was introduced by writer Sean Martin, author of a biography of Tarkovsky. He told an anecdote about British director John Boorman admiting during an inteview that he found Tarkovsky movies heavy going but that he "didn't dare to fall sleep because he was aware he could miss the meaning of life". When the reporter asked if he really wanted to say that, Boorman replied "Yes, absolutely." I'm not so sure about the meaning of life, but if you were to fall sleep during Andrei Rublev you'd be missing a truly intense and rewarding cinematic experience.

Related Products:

Magico

posted by ElDiablo at 20:21

On the YouTube website I stumbled upon this video [also at the end of this post - Jaitu] with stuff I last saw twenty years ago and I felt I had to share with you guys, because if you like football you must watch it: ten minutes long (the picture quality is not very good but even so) it is a cracking compilation of goals and plays by a player from the 80's who may be an absolute unknown to the football world outside Spain (where he played for most of his career) or his native El Salvador; but I can assure you, in those two countries the guy is regarded as an absolute legend, a ridiculously gifted player equal to Diego Maradona at his best. His name is Jorge Gonzalez (great surname if there is one) nicknamed 'Magico' ('the Magic one').

Magico Gonzalez played with El Salvador's national team in the '82 World Cup in Spain, where he was spotted by La Liga minnows Cadiz CF. Incredibly, no other team seemed to notice this outrageous talent, despite being named in the tournament's best 11. He signed and needed just a couple of games to become a god-like figure to the fans. He would play for Cadiz until 1984, move to Real Valladolid for a couple of years, then back to Cadiz for a second spell until the end of the decade.

Physically Magico was far from imposing: not very tall, skinny, ugly, with a big nose and unkempt curly black hair. But he was unique on and off the pitch: as a person he was as laid back as anyone can possibly be. He had no agent and seemingly no interest in money, being unable to remember the exact figure Cadiz should be paying him and publicly admitting he would be just content to make enough to buy a taxi, then retire. He would turn up for a training session (when he actually bothered to) barefoot after giving his shoes to a beggar. He had a tendency to fall sleep, although this probably was a consequence of his love of the night: David Vidal, his coach at Cadiz at the time, used to go looking for him in Cadiz's nightclubs, Magico would spot him coming through the door and run to hide in the space under the DJ's decks or behind a curtain. More often than not he would fall sleep there and be found in the morning by the cleaning lady. He was allergic to training: Cadiz would accomodate training to the afternoons to make it easier for him to turn up but even then he would ask Vidal at the end of a session "What are we doing tomorrow?"; if the answer was physical workout he would just tell him "I'm not coming" and that was it.

Nevertheless people loved him, he fit in so perfectly with the offensive, running-is-for-cowards style of the team and the chilled-out vibe of the place: Cadiz is a sunny Andalusian coastal town in the southern-most tip of Spain, known for its beautiful bay and beaches, its carnival and the locals' relaxed attitude to life. Magico enjoyed himself off the pitch but still thrived on it: his performances didn't go unnoticed but his antics were putting off big teams from making a move. At some point FC Barcelona asked Cadiz permission to take him on loan for a summer tour to the USA, with a view to a permanent move. Cadiz agreed and Magico was told to be at the airport next day at 7am to catch the flight to Barcelona. Knowing him, David Vidal turned up at Magico's flat at five in the morning to take him to the airport and make sure he didn't miss the flight. He rang the bell and surprisingly Magico answered the door immediately: "Because I had to be up early, I didn't go to bed last night" he explained. Once they got to the airport he asked Vidal for some money because he only had 2500 Spanish pesetas on him for the whole trip (that's about £10). Barca in the end didn't sign him. During the stage in Los Angeles, the fire alarm went off early one morning at the hotel where the squad were staying, all the players and staff made it quickly to the outside of the building - all except Magico; someone got up to his room to check on him: they found him in bed with a Californian woman, he kept protesting "it wasn't me, it wasn't me".

I used to have a video tape with a 'best of' compilation from La Liga in the 80's, with Magico featuring heavily. But my sister destroyed it by taping some New Kids On The Block crap on top. It was good to find this and be able to see again the genius in action.

My First Taste Of Wii

posted by Jaitu at 12:45

Kahoona7 filled my house with the wonder of his Wii last night.
The first thing I was surprised by was size. Not of the console unit, it perfectly fits the 'three DVD cases' description and is no bigger than my external DVD writer. The Wiimote controllers however are much smaller than either printed or TV ads would have you expect. Imagine something about the size of a cheap Nokia handset. Now halve the width and make it a little thicker. That's the Wiimote. It sits very comfortably in the hand and I can imagine the A button and B trigger being placed about right for most users no matter what their age. The poorly named Sensor Bar (it emits but does not sense) is also only about half the size I expected and sat unobtrusively on top of the TV. Naomi, who joined us later in the evening, didn't even realise it was there until Kahoona7 was packing it away again.
We worked our way through the Wii Sports pack (Bowling, Boxing, Baseball, Tennis and Golf) which all proved to be very entertaining. I suspect the fun factor ramps up when you have a live competitor but can also see these games being a suitable distraction for anyone with some time to kill. Each of the five games is a simple implementation of their real world counterpart. And each acts as an effective tech demo of the motion sensing capabilities of the Wiimote. None of them actually make use of the pointing mode during game play, it is only evident when clicking buttons to make selections on screen. The tilt sensing seems pretty accurate and it doesn't take long for use of the Wiimote to become quite natural feeling. The additional WiiPlay game collection adds further tech demo titles including a number of pointer based games which further illustrate the potential for this console to shine. The pointing is very easy and because of the sensor bar requires none of the calibration that older 'light guns' necessitated. Instead all the calibration takes places subconsciously in your own head. The on-screen cursor isn't exactly where you're pointing the end of the Wiimote at but it's close enough and moves with you such that you don't question it.

As TechMaster said before this feels more like a machine to have fun with the family or friends whenever they come over and not so much a "Gamer" system. Based on these titles I would have to agree but I believe it could hold it's own in the current market if the software is right. The potential for the control system (with the nun chuck attached) to bridge the gap between the traditional console gamepad and the PC style keyboard-and-mouse control schemes is obvious. The real test will be how more traditional games titles fare on this format as I don't see it surviving on party titles. I would be very interested in trying out an FPS or Need For Speed style game. We already know that graphically the system is at a perceived disadvantage but there are other qualities on offer here that, at present, cannot be found elsewhere. As the DS has proven against the PSP, it's not all about horsepower.

I will certainly still buy one. Naomi demands it.

Format Wars

posted by Jaitu at 17:58

Welcome to TechMaster with his first post here. Beating both Kahoona7 and Dean to the first strong stream of Wii.

TechMaster tells me that the site looks wrong on some other browsers. If that's the case then we don't need them stinkin' browsers. I'll look in to it when I can.

He's also correct in his observation that there is currently no option to comment on these threads. Comments are currently disabled but will appear in time.

My Wii Review

posted by TechMaster at 13:39

I thought I would add my comments on the Wii, I was lucky enough to get one of these for Xmas from Virgin, which included the Wii Sports but I also grabbed a copy of Zelda.

First impressions are good, it was easy to setup up, very small/quiet unit and the controller seems responsive with minimal delay.

It obvious that the Wii is not a powerful HD ready console, the free Wii sports title is pretty basic but great fun especially with two players. I haven’t had time to play Zelda yet.
You do need quite a bit of space, I can see how its easy to smack someone by mistake while playing some of these game

Negative points : Crap picture quality although buying a component cable made a big improvement, and once you buy the "must have" second controller, a couple of games it works out more then the current 360 Bundles (which one is better value, the 360 in my opinion)

I’m lucky enough to have a Xbox 360 HD , digital 5.1 setup and can say they are totally different gaming experiences, Gears of War for example is great along with the online gaming the 360 offers.

I see the Wii as a family "pick up and play" type console, I think the Wii is a great novelty and I am interested to see how they implement the controller in upcoming games. But for me it’s a good "second" console and no more.

Will Wii Rock You

posted by Jaitu at 21:39

I fixed the Banner (hours ago). It seems the Blogger preview is a lot more forgiving of randomly inserted characters than the browser is.

Anyway, Kahoona7 should be coming over tomorrow night to show off his Wii. The Nintendo Wii is a console I'm very interested in and will definately be the next one I purchase (when stocks allow). I respect the decision by Nintendo to bow out of the console arms race and take a new direction. I've never been a fan of any particular camp, I still have an original Playstation, a Dreamcast, a pair of XBoxes and a brace of Nintendo DSes. It's fair to say that I have never been a particularly early adopter though. The Playstation was bought second hand a couple of years after launch, I made the decision to buy a Dreamcast after reading that Sega was discontinuing production. My first Xbox followed the console's first price drop and the second was a year after that. The DSes, in fact, were puchased nearest their launch when I picked them up in Melbourne two years ago. Of all these machines the XBox is the format that sees the most use although if I had to pick I would probably say that the Dreamcast and the DSes are my favourites. This is probably as a result of my own perception of them as underdogs. Arguably so is the XBox but with Microsoft behind it it seems hard to think of it that way. The Dreamcast was a generally underrated machine in my opinion.
The DSes have taken a while to hit their stride but anything that can turn maths into a bestseller has to be something special.

Why was I writing this? I don't remember and don't know where I was going with it anyway.

So the Wii next.
It's small enough that I don't need to lose a device from shelves to make space for it. I don't need to upgrade my TV to HD for it. I don't need to find a way to squeeze another digital signal into my amp. It offers new play experiences. Okay so it doesn't have the latest graphic capabilities and it doesn't do surround sound and it doesn't have the computational capacity to model the Earth's weather systems in realtime. Does it need those things to deliver entertaining and involving gameplay? I don't think so.

I'll let you know what I think of the Wii though. I'll also try and convince Kahoona7 to give a more in depth review as a real owner of the thing. Dean too. He got one on launch day (along with every other console ever released it would seem). So we'll try and coax something out of him - assuming he hasn't already exhausted all the Wii puns over at his other job.

Up top

posted by Jaitu at 14:08

For some reason the RTDL2 header has gone missing from the top of the pages. It disappeared when I added the code for the search form and I don't know why. If I preview the template code the header is there but when published it stays gone.
Ah well, it can wait for another time.

We have at least one squirrel that enters our loft space on a far too frequent basis. I've found and blocked two points of entry previously but it seems the bloody thing just keeps moving further along the eaves looking for weak spots. I can't see any other places to get in or out but he's doing it somehow. I've got some tasty tasty poison up there all mixed in with peanuts and chocolate but so far no obvious sounds of death. Quite the opposite in fact it sounds as though something more like *this* is going on up there. Only in the dark, which would be so much more cool to see.
For anyone shocked and distraught at the use of poison I do have some PIR controlled repellent devices on order which will hopefully help keep the loft free of potential victims.

Hello to Dean and thanks for the first post.

We're all off on our (pre) Summer holidays

posted by Dean at 10:51

Woohoo. First post, and it's all good news.

Finallyyyy booked and paid for a 3 week (+1day) trip to Tokyo and Australia. Leaving 23rd March and coming back the 14/15th of April.

Oh yes indeedy.

Of course this is based around the wedding of our beloved Jules and Nim, when we'll trot on over to Melbourne to watch the lovely couple wed, but not before Tokyo, Sydney, and then Brisbane/Gold Coast. Oh YES indeedy.

Say Ah

posted by Jaitu at 07:31

I have my doctors appointment this morning and as is the way of these things the worst of my symptoms have already settled down. For the last three days the whole of the back of my mouth and top of my throat has been swollen. As a result of this every swallow had felt like I was trying to force down a golf ball. This was very unpleasant during the day and infuriating at night. I haven't had a decent sleep since last week. Yesterday I spent most of my time wrapped in many layers of clothing feeling uncomfortably warm and drowsy but still unable to get any meaningful sleep. Swallowing is now not so painful but still a little difficult. My throat is still sore and I still have that deep itch right inside my ears.
I'll go to the doc doc quack in a little over an hour and see what she says but I suspect it'll be that I have had a virus which is now hopefully starting to back off.
I'll be happy if I can get more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep.

Not only that but I missed work yesterday and expect I'll be absent again today.
I don't get paid if I'm not there and what with Christmas and New Year this will be the fourth week in a row where I've not done a full five days. A lean month ahead, I suspect, and less than three until N and I fly to Melbourne to get married.

I also haven't really ridden my bike since just before Christmas and am missing it a little despite the weather being rather poor. N and I rode 20 miles on the weekend immediately before Christmas Day and I have ridden once to work since. Riding is my only significant form of exercise and I'm too much of a lardy bloat to skip it. If my throat is better maybe I'll get out this weekend.

Echo Three to Echo Seven

posted by Jaitu at 08:37

Having spent the last week developing a progressively worsening throat infection I'm now on hold to my GP in the vain hope of getting an appointment today. Their hold music is a monophonic collection of classical classics but played as though it was a doorbell arrangement at half the original tempo. Not only this but rarely are more than four or fives notes played before the pre-recorded overly long "We're all busy please continue to hold" type message kicks in (also seemingly spoken at a decreased rate to make it easier to understand but just coming across as patronising.)

I'm sat here in the outfit I have adopted for the weekend. This includes but is not limited to a baseball cap and hoodie with a five foot square fleece blanket folded length ways and worn like a scarf. This leaves me looking like I'm about to hop on the back of a Tauntaun and brave the blizzards of Hoth to hunt down an overdue Luke.

Hello, Friend

posted by Jaitu at 16:04

The whole superinterwebnethighway is morbidly obese with pointless content and I am not doing anything to change that. It means that as consumer you have the choice. If you have trouble choosing then you're in over your head already.

I've *had* a blog almost since blogging first became the hot new thing oh-so many years ago.
It's moved home on a roughly biennial basis. Usually after stagnating for around 21 to 22 months or so. My blogs always start out written in a 'Hello, Friend' style with a few words saying how I'm having another go at this and how This-Time^tm it will be different and I'll make a proper effort and find something remotely interesting to chuck up on a website. This lasts about a week then posts become "Hey, this is cool and you should really take a look" for a month, maybe two, before the rains start and the covers come on and everyone leaves before Cliff starts singing.

So now I'm seeking help. I've proven (to myself - no one else has been looking) that I can't be trusted to do this on my own. I like to think I have some 'creative ability', don't we all, but there are genuinely creative people all around and I aim to shamelessly steal a little glory by association. Seeing as how I have wasted every hosted meg I have ever paid for I'm inviting others to do what they will with the opportunity. Some have had their own blogs. Some have made good use of them. Some have been as lack lustre as me. Some have been published in proper media. Some are slowly building their own digital kingdoms. All, I think, could contribute something worth at least as much as I can. Together, I hope, something at worst the sum of it's parts should emerge.
Let's face it, if I can get five others to write for the site then that's my readership increased five hundred per cent. You can check the maths, I didn't.

What should you expect to find amongst these posts? Well, that I cannot tell you with any certainty.
(*these* posts so far are what's left of mine after the purge. I'm talking about the posts that *will* (Read: might) appear here when those supremely talented and insightful individuals get up to steam and start churning out the wisdom).
We have people I hope to get tech info from, people I hope to get rants from, people I hope to get slightly surrealist adventure stories from, people I hope to get insiders views from, people I hope to get outsiders views from. We should see everyday man on the street stuff, fond memories and hopes for the future. What we did today, what we would have preferred to do today. Shameless self-aggrandizement and promotion. Almost without doubt huge periods of inactivity punctuated by "Hey, this is cool and you should really take a look"

Tunnel

posted by Jaitu at 21:02

Seeing as how I'm so very poor at self motivation there'll be some new talent joining the show.
I say talent, they're not.
Maybe having some other people posting something around here will encourage us all though.

My money is on everyone posting at least one item over the next month and then very little else happening for say, ooh, about 18 months I reckon.