2nd part of John Smedley interview (SWG)

You can read it here Interesting fellow.
Will SWG "beat the crap out of World of Warcraft"? I doubt it.

Introducing Spartan 458

Get a 360 and then DOA 4... and meet her.
"How can we say that with a straight face? Shut up is how!" :D

The internet is for porn...

Damn funny

A few bits for you

Have a look at this. It's an article about effects being used with the Source graphic engine (Half Life 2). It shows how the eye works (not literally) and how games will, and are, beginning to show 'real life' effects within the graphics engine.
To that effect, you will see varying focus, motion blur and even special "film" effects like ageing and colour correction very soon. Quite cool. There are some videos there (that I haven't gotten round to downloading) that demo the effects too.

An interview with John Smedly on SWG and what is happening to this particular MMO. Sounds like 2006 may be interesting after all :)

Anyone see Top Gear last night? That's what it's all about - fantasy. I love it.

Firstly...

...I've not been online much in the last week as I've been at home (taking holiday) and really didn't surf the net all that much. So there wasn't much to post!
Secondly, it was Gemma's 21st yesterday (Happy Birthday honey!). We had a really nice day too :)

Hopefully I'll be back to normal this week. But then again, it's busy here at work - so you never know.

I'm 27 today

It's really quite depressing.

Can't sleep either so that's why I'm posting at 1:25am!

But I did just come across this amazing find. A bloke collects cars and parts.. gets paranoid that they'll get stolen so he sticks it all in 21 trailors and welds them shut. He dies.. and they are opened up.

Worth isn't even funny... millions easily. SUCH a cool find!

XBox 360 commeth

It's XBox360 day at midnight tonight (Friday 2nd December 2005).
300,000 units for Europe, so around 50,000 in the UK. Pre-orders won't be met, let alone shelved machines...

Good luck to anyone going to try and find one!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Last night I took my mum (ahhh) to see the above film.
At nearly 3 hours, it continues the HP trend of keeping your bum in a seat and yet seeming only 90 minutes long. A clever trick indeed.
I can honestly say that this is the strongest Potter film yet - even if it feels like they've missed a good 70% of the book out (and I dare say, it was necessary too).
The film is pretty unrelentless throughout - hardly stopping for any real dialogue or character development. Simply plowing through one action scene to the next - and it's quite the ride!
If you've read the book, you may feel cheated. I did not; it's fabulous.
I'd give it a 9/10. Easy. My only concern would be for the littleuns. It's pretty scary for a childrens film and at 180 minutes it's also very long - but if they are like me (a big kid) then there should be no problem!

Ironically - looking at the films on at the moment, Harry Potter is not the longest. Nearly every movie on at the cinema is 2 hours long. Narnia is 160 minutes and King Kong is 210! Madness.

Play Quake 2 in a Java app

Right here. Clever eh?

Okay, I'm still downloading it (and it'll run like poo on this box) but I like the idea. I expect one day, all apps will be web-driven (installed/run from the host). Other than 3.6gb games of course... but then again... :p

Alias cancelled

I came to Alias late.. so I'm a bit peeved to see it ending after only 5 seasons. I understand why though.. mostly because it'd lose most of it's main characters. Still annoying though eh. :(

Shooting padlocks

Ever see in a film how the lead will use a handgun to blow a lock off a door?

Well... it can't be done. Kinda surprising what it actually takes to do it too! :)

Sci-Fi news

Gateworld is reporting that the very gorgeous Claudia Black has joined the full-time cast of Stargate SG-1 for it's tenth season.
She popped up as Vala Mal Doran in season eight in one episode (trying to steal the Prometheus) and the first six episodes of season nine. It says there that she'll be in the last two as well :).

More good news! Battlestar Galactica has been given a third season! See the news here. Along with season ten of SG-1 and season three of Atlantis - 2006 should be good for Sci-Fi! :D

Atari 2600

Are you old enough to remember the Atari 2600? (I know a few of you are... :) ) - well Atari as sort of re-released it.

The Flashback 2 is that very thing. It looks like the old '2600 but has the games built in. And for $30 (I assume that'll be £30) it's almost a bargain!

Okay.. it's not a 360, but you can't get those at the moment (especially here).

First 360 reviews up

Yup, 1up.com has the first reviews of games such as PGR3, Amped 3 and Call of Duty 2. Hmm... PGR3 is almost worth buying the machine for! Eek!

Hmm, Sci Fi madness

I was just reading on Scifi wire about a few crazy news items. First is the "Sarah Connor Chronicles". Um, why? It'll be pants. Surely it'll be pants? The Terminator without The Terminator. I assume it'd be her work between T2 and her death... or maybe not. Oh and it's a TV Show (see..)
Then there is Blade.. the TV show. This one is already in production. Um.. why? Again? WHY? WS was Blade, I'll find it hard to accept a tame, evening-style (no gore) TV show like this. Oh well.
Then there is the Robocop remake. This could go either "Batman Begins" and be great, or Batman Forever... and not so great. I still think the original is good (in a cheesy way) so I think it's a bit early to be remaking it.

Then there is Jenifer Garner not returning (rumour) to Series 6 of Alias. Since it's her show, about her character, that makes little sense to me. I can understand shows moving main characters on (as Alias has done); SG1 manages it nicely, but the main character? Nah...

At least there is some real news. X-Men 3 is nearly shot - Stan Lee is talking about his cameo (the above link). Fantastic Four 2 is on it's way; although Jessica Alba may not return (:()

Histories worst computer bugs

Here's a Wired article about the above. AT&T is in there, along with Intel and the Russians (Cold war baby!) and even the first ever "bug" (yep, it was a real one.. a moth). It's a good read!

Ah what a week

Not that anything usually exciting happens. This week my brother went and did gone done broke his left clavicle and right elbow. Silly bugger. He's now in twin-slings and can't do an awful lot.. at least not for the next month or so.
How'd he do it? Well he came off a downhill bike. While travelling downhill. I guess it's a pretty common sort of thing to happen - as accidents do - and he'll be fine in the long run (that's all that matters).

I found, came across, saw a review on The Register, a new phone. It's the Sony Ericsson W550i. It's dead funky, with a Walkman feature (would never use), 3D games such as Worms (would never use), a 1.3MB camera (would never use) and so on - pretty cool. I like the way it swings outward (instead of a clamshell) and can even have the screen work "widescreen" style. It's cool. I want. :)

I went to the Classic Car show last weekend. Really enjoyed seeing the classic metal (including four very nice DeLoreans, Mustangs and even a couple of General Lees) and meeting up with various club members and peeps. Roll on the next one!

Also, should be at the MPH '05 show next week (18th) too - looking forward to that one; the last show was excellent!

SEMA 2005

The Speciality Equipment Marketing Association Show runs every year in the US (Las Vegas this year) to show off new tuning parts/kits etc from the world of US and World modifying.
I came across this gallery page (or pages) today from this weeks show. Some amazing stuff in there!

Random random links for you...

First off, how about a Porsche Boxster that has some subltle mods to it. Now it looks like a 550 Spyder!. Okay, not quite.. but it's still cleverly done.
Are you parents Car People?. Interesting thread.. :)
I never thought I'd see a thread about good looking Volvo 240s... . But I was wrong. Clearly. :)

MMOs or MMORPGS.. free ones :)

There are a ton of MMPORGs (Massively Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Games) that you can pay for. There is the most excellent World of Warcraft, the old and dire Neocron, the "once-good-but-no-longer" Star Wars Galaxies, not to mention Everquest et al. TONS.
But if you would rather throw caution to the wind, and even save a few quid you could play a free MMO.
For instance, there is Dofus - which you need to actually go see ;) - or something like Guild Wars which is making itself quite the known one across the glove for being not only free, but pretty and giving you a "WoW" like experience... sort of. :)
To that end, go visit OnRPG.com for a list, and forums for, free MMOs (to save you manually searching!).

I'll chuck that link somewhere on the left for.. reference or something. Aren't I good to you peeps?