Two months ago I got made redundant, so the first thing I did was cut a mohawk as in the last entry. Since then its pretty much been a big holiday. I’ve applied for a few jobs. Had an interview at Woosh for 3rd/4th level System Engineer but unfortunately my networking experience wasn’t up to it. That would have been a sweet job. Applied for a 1st level support position at AUT supporting students and staff, but they haven’t contacted me back on them so I’m still looking.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Beach Hop: Easter Weekend

Went with Nick and Tesh and Brad and Jess to Beach Hop in Whangamata (Big hot rod show), stayed at nicks uncles and met Shelley down there as well a few other DF locals. Lots of nice cars there something like 70,000 people attended. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the classic car we were going to take going in time so it was another van mission.

Karipito Forest ride: Week before my birthday

Went with Nick and Tesh down to Wellington. Nick had a contact course to do so me and Tesh accompanied him. We stayed at Nick’s mates house in Upper Hutt. Much hilarity ensued. Bas is a fucking crack-up. Me and Tesh bought our bikes, which was a mission fitting a KX80 and a YFZ450 in one van, but we managed it, not without damaging one of the speakers in the van tho.

Ended up going riding in Karipito Forest not far from Upper Hutt with Tesh and Bas. I had my first crash. Came round a corner quite fast and couldn’t stop in time for some concrete blocks serving as a 4WD blockade. Bent my bullbars in quite badly but bike was sweet as, so kept going. Awesome riding. Very scenic with big uphills and big downhills, river crossings, we even rode up a creek at one time. It’s all rocks tho, big chunky limestones.

Wilsons Road trail ride: Weekend after my birthday
After going for a quick cane at the bike park on my birthday I went to a trail ride out in South Head that was 6k farm loop and 50k forest loop. The riding was excellent, forest enduro stuff, and most of it was sand tracks. There was even a track right out the back that I found that was just a huge long sandy straight through the long grass for ages, with little whoops every now and then. I was going full speed all the way along it.. was KICKASS!

LAN Party

Went to a LAN at my mate Jason’s, got a heap of new stuff and played Left4Dead for the first time, and loved it.

Bombing range

I been out the bombing range twice. Once with Shelley from Wilson’s road and once with Iydden from Rimmers. Both times was pretty good, hid the gas and lunch in the bushes and played around. Shelley had a bit of a hard time but it was her first time on sand so can’t blame her. Did a bit of forest riding with Iydden, got surprised by what we thought was a ranger driving down one of the forest tracks, and gapped it ask fast we could. Later we found that they were tourists as they were walking round the dunes.

Server Upgrade

Alkaif very kindly gave me his old server board and processor to use in my file server that died. I now have a nice Gigabyte board with a Athlon 64 3000+ processor and a gig of ram. I also bought a few hard drives and swapped some over with my system so now the server has 3 x 500gigs and 2 x 320gig. I’m currently have 1.1 TB of stuff shared. Probably not much compared to some people but I’m happy with it. Currently I have 3 computers in my room, with dual LCD’s setup on my computer which makes web development a whole lot easier.

Web Development

I have been working on a new site which is very close to being done. It is something I feel very strongly about and hopefully it will help other people become informed. But more on that when I launch it. Unfortunately the Telescum overhaul I was working on fell behind.

I am also currently playing with screen scrapers, spiders and web bots. I am currently scraping information from the web that I can use for at least 2 sites! But more info on that later as well.

Chopper

Went and saw Chopper live at Skycity Theatre during the comedy festival. Was absolute crackup. He was selling wristbands like the WWJD (What would Jesus Do) band you see, but they said on them HARDEN THE FUCK UP. He commented on the WWJD wristbands by saying something like “Hmmm.. what would Jesus do.. in this situation… Well surely, Jesus would just miracle himself the fuck out of there. ‘Argh I’m drowning!’ *flash of light* ‘Not anymore, hahaha!’”

Taupo trip

Went to Taupo on friday with my family to a timeshare down there. Then the next morning me and Mope went up Ruapehu to see the snow. Unfortunately all we found was ice but it looked like snow. We mucked around the moutainside, despite it being freezing as fuck up there. Altimeter said 1433m above sea level. Man I love the cold. Got back in the van, then got back out again to go for another walk.

Trail ride in Woodhill

Unfortunately I leave Taupo on Saturday to go a trail ride yesterday in Woodhill forest. It wasn’t that great. Mostly real tight forest enduro tracks but there was some open stuff where I got my speed up. I went on all the tracks even the highest difficulty. Still tricky as on a quad. Real technical steering and shit have to dodge stumps all the time. My chain fell of twice and I ripped off the plastic swingarm guard which I knew wouldn’t last 2 seconds. Overheard some guys talking and one of them said to his mate “Fuck doing that on a quad.”

And yeah, thats about it. Still looking for a place to live and still looking for jobs. Constantly being turned down for both is getting annoying as fuck though. So many people are looking for jobs. And landlords are completely age-discriminating, don’t want young people living in their houses so we’ve missed out on some real mint places.

Played it for about 5 minutes and quit.

You could liken it to Most Wanted. Except with crappy car control, crappy graphics, dumbass police AI, and no difficulty level. It is made for n00bs.

What the fuck are you up to EA?! You fucking butchered this series from Carbon, maybe even earlier.

EA sucks ass.

Edit: OK, I actually gave this a decent go and although its really “arcadey” its not too bad. The car models are good, the cop AI is not so bad. But the graphics are a little choppy.

I was reckoning this release would suck due to the fact a console developer was making it, and because we’re going back in time. And COD5 does suck.

• The guns sound like cap guns. Absolute crap.
• The graphics suck. I don’t understand how they could fuck that up using the COD4 engine but it looks almost exactly like COD2
• It feels like a console port. Fine for all you people using a controller, but COD is originally a PC game.
• WW2. I tried to like the setting, but its just been done before too many times. You could argue that they had pacific levels, but MoH: Pacific Assault already covered this.

COD4 was so awesome because it was set in modern times. Modern weapons, terrorists, and a fucking AC-130 Spectre.

So yeah, in short disappointing. Play it, see what you think.

First of all, the shadows, and the sun, works pretty much exactly as you would expect it to. I was walking into the sunset and the sun in my eyes almost made me squint. So I got out my map and held it up infront of me and the suns rays shone through the ring binder holes in the paper of the map! Where the edge of the map was half covering the sun there was glare!

Also what I thought was cool, was the jamming guns. If you pick up an old crappy gun off some dude, it is likely to jam and you have to hold down the R button to unjam it. It could happen in the middle of a gun fight or just as you are about to pop some guy. Definitely gets the adrenaline pumping. I even had an Uzi misfire and explode in my hand. My character yelled and threw it away which attracted the attention of the guys I was hiding from.

Which brings me to the next point. Stealth. It works pretty well. I can sprint into a bush away from some dudes and they’ll try to chase me, but I zig zag around a bit and circle back around them and they don’t know where I am. You can constantly change your attacking position by taking cover in the jungle and running around.

And if its night time they pretty much can’t see shit which means you have the mean advantage. I managed to take out a whole guard post without them even seeing where I was or getting a shot off.

Plus if you get the camo suit you can almost be invisible. Although at times the AI can be kindof dumb, they are really agressive. They’ll chase you down. If you speed through a guard post they’ll jump into the nearest jeep and come after you hammer down while shooting you with the jeeps mounted gun.

I managed to take out and entire camp by shooting 3 bullets into a propane tank with a sniper rifle. Propagating fire is another cool feature. Throw a molotov or use the flamethrower in the dry parts of the environment and shit will catch on fire and spread whatever way the wind is blowing – into an enemy camp perhaps. Nothing in the Jungle parts catch fire though.

I really like the game, I haven’t had too many repeatitive gimmicks that get annoying, and there’s usually a stealthy way around guard posts if you’re low on ammo or health, or cbf fighting anyone.

I also find it makes me think about africa. The poverty and the squalor. The dudes I kill in the jungle leaving a pistol or grenade lying around for some kid to find – even though there’s no kids in the game, there are these kind of conflicts in real life in Africa I am sure.

The one thing I am missing though is more wild animals. I want to see monkeys running through the trees above me, attacking Leopards or Lions. There are zebra, gazelle, wilderbeast and waterbuffalo but never in groups larger than 4. I want to see herds of them. The occasional Hippo or crocodile in the river ready to snap you in half.

But in reality with all these yobos running round with guns, I see the reason for there not to be any wild animals. But there are some really secluded places and deep jungle in the game.

I think its a mean game, I can almost feel the sticky humidity in the jungles and I love to explore the absolutely massive environment. Makes me want to go to Africa and drive everywhere exploring. I would probably die though.

Shelley’s friend Ella is apparently into pop and stuff but she came anyway. Didn’t ask her if she liked it though. Pretty sure Shelley liked it, Nick and Brad just thought it all sounded the same, and didn’t like the growling vocals. Everyone is like that at the start though. They played Colour of Sleep and Skin Coffin and Lacertine Forest but unfortnately not my favourite song in the whole world, Cruelty Incarnate

Was still good though. Dawn of Azazel and Metal Tower supported them. The bassist in Metal Tower had a Warlock Bass Guitar.

Anyways, here’s some of their tracks if you haven’t heard them before:

They were out of shirts by the time we got there too which sucked. I was going to buy a hoodie for $40 but forgot… (??)

Unfortunately, I am a lazy fuck and I never got around to putting my speakers and central locking cable through, before Sunday but no one else but Nick came with me. Brad went riding, as did Shelley and Tesh. It was a mean sunny day, had a bit of a jam, got yelled at by Nicks mum for distrubing the neighbours, and left at about noon.

I love roadtrips. Grabbed some subway at Bombay. Got down there at about 3, met the dude in New World carpark in a suburb called Gate Pa (wtf?). Checked the guitar out, no wobbly neck, sweet as. Dude gave me some cash for gas which was cool of him, and we decided to go for a drive and check out the Mount (Manganui). Quite a few people on the beach. Nice girls everywhere, including one of my types (black tshirt and jeans on a hot day) lol.

There were tonnes of dicks just driving round and round in their peice of shit cars though.

Left there, Nick had a sleep in the back, while I stalked some chick in a white skyline all the way back to Papakura. Don’t remember what time we got home. Tried out the guitar, its got a mean sound but only on that amp for some reason. Sounds like crap on Nicks amp.

Then stayed up until about 4am playing Far Cry 2 (awesome game).

Finish at 7am this Sat morning, I’ve gotta get some sleep, then get up, install my front speakers in my van, change the oil, hook up the drivers door central locking, and tune the amp for all the speakers.

Then going to the Psycroptic concert with Joe, Nick, Shelley and her friend Ella, get drunk off my nut, and mosh the fuck out. Should be mean. Gotta buy a Psycroptic Tshirt too. My brother wants to come but he is not 18 for another 15 days. Shame.

Then on Sunday (hopefully not hungover) road trip it down to Tauranga to pick up my gat and amp and hang around Tauranga if its nice weather.

Then on Monday I can install and play Far Cry 2!! Dave bought it in for me tonight, going to be SO mean! Thats another one I can scratch off my list Plus COD5 came out yesterday so hopefully I’ll get my hands on a copy of that soon.

Shit just remembered its my dads birthday on monday too… what am I going to get him… also skinny leaves for Wellington…

I can scratch one of the games off my to get list. Skinny kindly got hold of Pure, the quad racing game. Is pretty mean. Makes me want to get a quad even more. I’m currently trying to save up $5-6k for a Yamaha YFZ450. Should be fun. Want to get a matching covered and alarmed trailer for my van to keep it in too lol.

Unfortunately I want to buy a guitar now, but I think I’ll just wait until after I get the quad. I been jamming with Nick a bit, he’s got a guitar and I’ve got drums but we swap most of the time. He’s pretty mean on the drums. Cranks out some wicked blast beats. I’m… below average on guitar. But I’m trying. I want to downtune it to play some real brutal chords, but I don’t think it is the right kind of guitar. I borrowed it the other day when I got off nightshift and played all day at full volume, was mean.

Been helping Nick a bit with his truck as well. He bought another Hilux. Already got a Van and a V8 Hilux (the project 88), and now he got another Hilux (for free) and is going to do that up (thats what we went to get the engine for). He’s redoing the rusty panels and stuff in it. Pretty much doing a panelbeaters job, reckons it would be about $2000 work from a professional. Brochanics all the way.

I think lately I’ve been a bit extreme on the attacking religion front. Each to their own and everyone is free to take up a religion of their choice (or not) as per the human rights. So, sorry if I offended anyone.

Also had to say goodbye to a friend today . Shit was just fucked up between us. Sad that I won’t see them again, but thats the way the cookie crumbles.

1. Legendary:

In short, this dude opens the pandoras box unleashing all sorts of creatures on the earth. Griffins and werewolves etc. Great fun.

Engine: Unreal 3.0
RLS date: 21 October 08

Check out this video of some in game footage:

2. Need for Speed: Undercover:

Another title in the NFS series. Probably be crap considering the last couple of Need for Speed releases. I think EA fucked the series up, like they fail at everything nowadays. Could be worth checking out anyway though.

Engine: Heroic Driving Engine
RLS Date: 18 November 08

Check out the trailer and some gameplay footage:

3. Call of Duty 5:

New COD. Mean. COD4 was the shit, but a bit short, this one is going back to World War 2 with Veitnam and Berlin by the looks of things. Looks good. COD2 did Germany/Russia missions great IMO, so hopefully Treyarch can do just as good a job as Infinity Ward. I appreciated the Modern day weapons and theatre of COD4 but should be good to go back to the roots. I never played Call of Duty 3, developed by Treyarch, or any of their games actually (they look like a primarily playstation developer). I hope they don’t screw this one up.

Engine: Call of Duty 4 Engine
RLS Date: 11 November 08

4. Pure:

Looks like a fun quad racing game. Sure some of the jumps and stuff are rediculous but should be a fun fuck around game. And the environments look mean!

Engine: ???
RLS Date: 16 September 08

5: Far Cry 2:

While I thought the original Far Cry sucked ass, this one looks pretty groundbreaking. Things such as propagating fire, a real living environment, smart and aggressive AI and stuff make it look really promising.

Engine: Dunia
RLS Date: 21 October 08

Tech Demo:

Another one:

6: Mirrors Edge:

Parkour game where you have to defeat a totalitarian government. Nuff Said. Looks purrty, and free-running in Assasins Creed was SOOO much fun.

Engine: Unreal 3.0
RLS Date: 11 November 08

Gameplay video:

7: GTA4 (PC):

Finally GTA4 for PC comes out! I’m sure you’ve all seen videos of this so I won’t bother for one here.

Engine: RAGE, Euphoria
RLS Date: 18 November 08

8: EndWar:

An RTS from Tom Clancy that integrates with the other Tom Clancy game universes (Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, HAWX). Looks like fun, could give it a go. Looks really strategic and tactical though…

Engine: Unreal 3.0
RLS Date: 4 November 08

9: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway:

Latest BIA game. The others were pretty fun, and not too tactical, sometimes really hard. So this one should be fun.

Engine: Unreal 3.0
RLS Date: 7 October 08

10: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3:

New Command and Conquer game. Hopefully it will be good. Initial reviews are positive.

Engine: RNA
RLS Date: 28 October 08

11: FEAR 2:

The first FEAR game was awesome. Slow motion, kicking melee, incredible graphics. I still never managed to clock it but am keen for a go on this even if I don’t know the complete backstory.

Engine: LithTec
RLS Date: 10 Febuary 09

12: Fuel:

New open world off road racing game from Codemasters with 2 and 4 wheeled vehicles, 14 sq km of go-anywhere game world, dynamic weather and a full day night cycle. W00t.

Engine: ???
RLS Date: 2009

13: H.A.W.X.:

A jet fighter game from Tom Clancy which integrates with other Tom Clancy games and is even incorporated into the storyline of GRAW. Looks great.

Engine: ???
RLS Date: Q1 2009

14: Prototype:

This looks really amazing. And plenty violent too. The deal is you play a guy who doesn’t remember his past but has amazing super human strength and is kinda evil… Check out the videos.

Engine: ???
RLS Date: April 2009

15: Just Cause 2:

Sequel to the entertaining albeit boring game where you always have a parachute and a grappling hook enabling you to hook onto cars, boats, helicopters etc. Plus a huge natural game world with many opportunities for base jumping. I could never get into the storyline, but jumping off a huge cliff, deploying my parachute and grappling onto a boat as it speed past and para-sailing along behind it is a lot of fun.

Engine: Avalanche 2.0
RLS Date: Q1 2009

16. The Wheelman:

Mainly a driving game, The Wheelman was simultaneously announced with a movie of the same name. Wiki says that it also features on-foot missions in the game world modelled after barcelona. The game features a digitized Vin Diesel and the movie will feature the actor himself.

Engine: Unreal 3.0
RLS Date: 2009

So yeah. That should remind me to get them. Epic post. Look how many games are using the Unreal 3.0 engine! Goes to show you what that thing can do!

My brother was telling me about the game Timeshift tonight, and he was saying how it was Steampunk style or something I dunno I don’t usually listen to his rantings… but thats the first time I’ve heard the term.

But just now I was reading this story off Digg and it said something about steampunk.

This has happened to me a few times, I suddenly learn a new word and suddenly it starts appearing fukin everywhere?! Does anyone else get that?

Bet I’ll hear this word at least 6 times tomorrow.

He would be hard to play I reckon. So many swapovers between the strums and the long strums (??). Shit that reminds me, gotta get my ticket to the Chimaira/Korn/Biohazard/Throwdown/Bloodsimple concert. That’s going to be mean.