Stray Dog Strut

I’m pretty tired. Having one of those days where you wander through work in a dream-like state. Work was shit. Just really busy and lots of people moaning down the phone at my eardrum. I need to rest my bones and gather up my reserves to get through tomorrow, but as usual my mind is buzzing while my body is falling asleep.

To bring you all up to speed with what i’ve been up to lately, I was in York for the weekend with Falling. We had a good enough time of it, we bought both The Island and Crash on dvd. I’ve seen The Island at the cinema and I really enjoyed it, but Falling watched it for the first time and didn’t think it was so great. Crash was really good, that type of film (A bunch of people whose lives inter-twine) has been done before but this was well done. I got the feeling Sandra Bullock was just in there to attract a bigger audience though as her character was pretty pointless.

We caught the last 20 minutes of the rugby at the weekend: Scotland 18 – England 12 !!! For once we actually put in a decent performance and won a big game. Falling doesn’t like rugby much but I have to admit i’m getting more interested in it. It’s good seeing all the sports on t.v. at the moment – the Winter Olympics just finished at the weekend (I particularly enjoyed the Moguls and the Slalom events) and the Commonwealth Games which starts in 2 weeks should be interesting. Also, the Scottish Cup semi-finals (football/soccer) take place on the weekend of the 1st/2nd April.

The two big teams here in Edinburgh have been drawn out of the hat to play each other: Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian. Glasgow Celtic were knocked out earlier in the Cup but it’s nice to see another team doing so well (It’s normally the Old Firm, Glasgow Celtic & Glasgow Rangers, as the fore-runners) and i’d like to see Hearts win the Cup. Whichever side gets through will face a smaller team in the final: Either Gretna, Hamilton Athletic or Dundee which hasn’t happened in decades apparently. Should be good.

I just watched Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica. I think the SG-1 episode was from Season 9. It was totally different (I have the dvds upto Season 7/seen the start of Season as Jack wasn’t there at all and there was a new guy on the SG-1 team called Mitchell. It was okay, but I had a few niggles with it. I hope it doesn’t become watered down as cast members leave. I might stop collecting it after Season 8 depending on how it works out.

Talking of Season 8, the boxset came out on dvd this month. It’s £70 in the shops but Amazon are selling it for around £40 (Just over £50 if you buy it with Serenity which also came out this month) so if i’m a good boy I might treat myself to that after I’ve bought all my train tickets etc.

Battlestar Galactica was good – it was one of those episodes where there’s a reporter making life uncomfortable for the Galactica crew, every television show has one, and it worked because within 2 minutes I hated the reporter with a passion, lol. Don’t want to see anyone causing trouble for my little Sci-Fi family. Nice little twist at the end too.

I finished the last Earthsea book, The Other Wind. It was really good but I was sad to finish it. There is one more book, “Tales of Earthsea” I think it’s called, but it’s just a collection of stories and I doubt if it will be the same characters again. I might get it later when I have nothing to read.

Right now i’m reading another Ursula Le Guin book Falling got me: “The Birthday of The World and other stories”. It’s supposed to be science fiction and it reads totally differently from the Earthsea books. Without getting too explicit, let’s just say that the first part deals with a race of people who repeatedly go through a kind of puberty but can come out different each time – male or female – depending on who they first come into contact with, and then they all sleep with each other. It’s different but no worse than other stuff i’ve read.

My little nephew is ill again. He went into hospital today with breathing problems same as last time. They discharged him with an inhaler though and so long as he’s still eating they seem to think he’ll be okay. They think it might be a childhood form of bronchitis.

It’s Shrove Tuesday (Can’t say I’ve ever looked up what that actually means) today. To the masses that’s “Pancake Tuesday” – basically you’re supposed to stuff yourself with pancakes and treats before Lent starts tomorrow. Lent is a period of fasting (or just doing something different) to symbolise the 40 days and nights Jesus spent fasting in the desert, and it ends at Easter when we give chocolate eggs and roll boiled, painted chickens’ eggs down a hill (To symbolise rolling the stone away from his tomb). This is what Catholics do anyway, I don’t know about everyone else.

I was raised as a Catholic but I’ve given it up. I just found too many contradictions and to be honest church was boring. I don’t follow any religion at the moment and don’t feel the need to. I have changing beliefs about life and at the moment I believe that there are ghosts but the reason they exist is something like there being some unfulfilled action or something, i’m not quite sure. Enough rational people around me have said they’ve seen ghosts so I believe them. I don’t believe all those television mediums though, they’re just conning people out of their money.

I don’t believe in a heaven or something like that simply because eternity is too damn long. No matter how blissful the experience, I can’t even fathom eternity (because it’s eternity of course!) so I can’t see a feeling or an experience lasting that long. I believe when we die it’s like when I turn my monitor off or flick a light switch off. Just like that *snaps his fingers* the candle is snuffed out. Blackness. Nothingness. To some people that may seem sad but I find it comforting. If I live to be 80 years old i’ll be content to die, having lived long enough.

Anyway, these are my beliefs at the moment. I don’t blinker myself and ignore other ideas because I don’t feel the need to set my beliefs in stone. They may change. I may take up religion again later in life, who knows? At the moment I don’t need it, but I respect those people who do find comfort in it. I don’t know if there’s a greater plan. I believe in Mother Nature or Gaia or whatever you want to call it. There is a life force in life itself but whether that’s the result of aGod-like being..i don’t know. I generally subscribe to the Big Bang theory and no, I have not read the actual theory, i just know the layman’s version, so no doubt there are holes in that theory aswell, but i’m happy with it at the moment. To me it makes sense and also includes the possibility of life on other planets, perhaps not in our Solar System or even our Galaxy but possibly in others. Hey if it happened here…why not eh?

Okay, that whole episode just popped into my head so i’ve gone way off track. Where was I? Ah pancakes! I’m munching my way through pancakes dripping with margarine right now – delicious. I don’t have to do the whole Lent thing but I may make some effort just for the sake of it. I don’t believe you need a religion to remind you to try to be a better person – I have my “code of conduct”, my own set of morals, and I think that I was raised pretty good.

So I might just try to do that – be a better person. I can be either really nice or really nasty sometimes. In my pre-atheist days I gave up sugar in my tea and coffee during Lent and I haven’t looked back. I keep trying to convince dad to do the same but he won’t hear of it, lol.

I’ve been exercising the creative muscle recently so i’m going to tinker around with my little artistic dabblings again now. When I have something to show for it i’ll post it here.

G’night all you folks.

An article in the Metro newspaper today was quite interesting – it was about The Book of Cool which is a book and dvd set you can get telling you how to master all those ‘cool’ tricks such as spinning a pistol in your hand and swerving a ball in American pool – worth a look.

I’ve just finished watching tonight’s episode of Battlestar Galactica – it was GOOD! I love the tension. Seeing Commander Adama try to strangle the cylon Sharon (‘Boomer’)was quite funny, lol. It’ll be interesting to see how they get on later (she’s locked up in the brig because of what happened at the end of Season One – don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet!).

I’ve been trying to find out the exact differences between this BSG and the original version. It’s quite difficult as there’s not much plain info on the Battlestar Galactica website and alot of the original’s hardcore fans just post crap about how Starbuck was a guy in the original but now she’s a woman. Geez, get over it, Starbuck kicks ass, she’s one of my favourite characters (From left to right in the pic above it’s Cmdr Adama, ‘Apollo’, ‘Starbuck’ & ‘Boomer’).

I don’t think I watched much of the original but I recognise some of the characters and the basic story. Based on what i’ve seen I have to say I prefer the new version – I just can’t get past the cheesy look of the original, i’m sorry, my bad – but I’m pretty sure the new version is based on the same story, although probably not word for word.

I’ve started playing Tombraider: The Angel of Darkness again since I mentioned it the other day. I think the reason it was so badly received is because people don’t like change, least of all with such a well established icon. But some change is good – Lara looks alot better, much more smooth and rounded, rather than the blocky figure she used to be on PSX/PSOne.

The main difference, and I have to say I miss it too, is the lack of actual tomb-raiding. Alot of the environments are set in buildings and cities (France, Russia etc) so the exploration is a bit different. But they are gorgeous buildings though – the Hall of Seasons and the Louvre in Paris spring to mind.

One thing I noticed from the start that bugged me was the change in Lara’s weapons. Her unlimited ammo dual pistols are gone. Oh she has the pistols themselves, but you have to constantly pick up ammunition, and while this is more realistic, it forces you to avoid using weapons wherever possible. Did I mention the enemies are pretty tough? Shooting at first glimpse of Lara’s ponytail (and a nice realistically swinging ponytail it is too). Luckily Lara has stealth and hand-to-hand combat moves that work pretty well, but you have to get close enough first to use them properly – they look great though.

Lara still has all the same overall moves as before as well as new ones, but they all look so much better and some of the old ones have been enhanced. While crawling, for example, Lara can now lie flat on her belly and crawl like a marine too (aswell as crawling on all fours), this allows her to access even tighter crawl spaces. She can climb drainpipes aswell which looks believeable and does a nice step-off at the top. She can shimmy round corners on ledges too (I think this was introduced in an earlier game though, TR2 maybe?) but it’s still nice to see and helpful.

There’s also a nice upgrades system that’s been implemented – Lara will tell you if she isn’t strong enough to make that huge jump yet, but roaming elsewhere she will get some practice in to be able to make it. There’s also a grip meter which is more realistic – monkey swinging across a vaulted cavern ceiling is bound to be tiring surely!

I still like the puzzles, and this was the main thing I liked about the original (Tombraider 2 was a bit gun-heavy for my liking) so i’m pleased to see they haven’t dumbed them down much. Despite being an idiot I can still work them out and it’s nice to see it all come together at the end. I haven’t really been stumped yet which is good and bad. I like working at a problem (I once dreamed the answer to a puzzle in TR1 believe it or not!) but I also like to know where i’m going. I think that was the problem with alot of TR3 – it was too open for people to comprehend I think, and I still haven’t finished it myself – there’s lots of back tracking and getting lost and meeting tough enemies.

Another difference in this game, and I’ve just got to this bit, is that you get to control another character – Kurtis Trent. He’s like a rival to Lara, they seem to be after the same artefacts but what his reason is I don’t know yet. I’ve only done some jumps with him so far at the start of the Sanitorium level (Yes, it is spooky – I can hear the wails…) so I’m not sure how he handles himself or how long we have to control him for – i’m hoping we get back to controlling Lara again (please!).

Kurtis walks like a chimpanzee and he’s quite slow to pull himself up from a hanging grab. He’s certainly not as lithe as Lara, but he has a customised pistol hanging from a shoulder harness (It looks cool just to whip it out and to put it back again) and also his trademark weapon, The Glaive, which is sort of a razor-sharp frisbee (Think Xena Warrior Princess only more stylish than a plain halo shape). I haven’t used it yet however. I think he also has a bit of telekinetic ability too so i’m keen to see how that works out.

Overall I like the game. It looks beautiful – nice lighting, shadows and fire effects – and it’s more interactive than before – you can talk to characters and choose which questions to ask/which answers to give to get different responses. It has it’s faults – trying to run away from an invincible skeleton and press a switch to open a trap door to escape I actually fell through the still closed trap door, and pressing the action button on the first Russia level saw me talking to the same character although he was on the other side of the square – but those aside it’s a pleasure to play. Lara has never looked better and I can see the care that has been put into the environments. It’s just sad that not everyone felt like I do and Core Design lost their pride and joy – but Crystal Dynamics seem to be doing a good job with the new game, Tombraider Legend, so watch this space.

I’ve been messing around with a program called Skype. I used MSN Messenger for the first time in years last night and my brother msn’ed me to chat. He has a webcam so he was trying to get it to work.

I have a microphone and he has a webcam with built-in microphone. It wouldn’t work right though – I could see him and he could hear me but I couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t see me as I don’t have a webcam.

Anyway, someone told him about Skype. I’d heard about it but had no reason to use it. So tonight we tried it and it’s really good. It’s a completely free chat/video calling program. You can also ‘phone’ landlines at a cheaper rate if you buy Skype credit but i have no use for that. For pc to pc calls its excellent.

I can see my brother via video and hear him and he can hear me. I might get a webcam tomorrow so he can see me too. It’s great fun. There’s also a chat thing like MSN where you can type and send files and emoticons. You can also search for people, strangers and friends alike, and invite them to talk to you, and you can have conferences for upto 5 people, albeit without video as we found out (we tried calling random Americans but they snubbed us, lol)

It is a bit strange though, i’m kind of glad i don’t have a webcam as the thought of a stranger seeing my face is a bit up close and personal. I know chat rooms have enabled voice for long enough but I always thought it used voice synthesisers? I don’t know. Seems a bit freaky to talk in your real voice, lol, but still it’s amazing that technology can allow us to talk to people virtually anywhere on the planet.