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As part of the Zathyus Communities Create a Game contest, I have begun to run a small poker challenge on the support board.

Now, I don’t actually know anything about poker; but this is a learning curve for me, as well as a new challenge; which I thrive upon.

The challenge is only in round one; currently sat at the second round of betting, after the flop. Being run on a forum means there will be delays; issues; slow turns; and other bug type stuff. But all of that is a part of the fun.

I’m not overly sure as to why I started the challenge, I just had the idea, and posted a topic.

Hopefully game play will start to even out as everyone finishes their exams; leaving education forever, of just for the summer. Things should become a lot more interesting as the rounds advance, and I ramp up the cost of the blinds.

You’re welcome to head over and check out the challenge, and who knows; maybe you’ll be playing in the next one.

Not so long ago the ZetaBoards IRC channel was sort of semi took over.

A message from Kezzie & Tony: “On behalf of your supreme master, Stanley, this channel is now ours!”

As no-one seemed to be around it was decided that we would stage a topic change, on behalf of our beloved leader Stanley.

It may not be the channel takeover of the year, but it’s good enough! If anyone wishes to dispute it, Stanley will feast on your remains.

I went earlier this week to watch this movie, and I have to say “go and watch it!”.

This is one of those movies that has a good storyline; decent acting; suspense; and barely ever lets up. The basic plot:

An ex detective takes a security job in a burned out department store, all the while struggling with inner demons of his past. Freaky things start to happen in the store, (well I say store, it’s more like a mansion). Our ex detective starts to investigate and concludes there are evil beings in the mirrors. People die. Towards the end he solves the “mystery” . . .

There are a few moments where the suspense is built up to nothing, like a lot of “horror” type movies. That for me was a slight let down for the following few moments.

The actress playing the ex detectives wife (ex wife?) is hot. Seriously hot. She spends the best part of the movie in a wet top! :D

There is a little bit of swearing as well, which annoyed me. I see no requirement to have f-this and f-that in an argument. It de-grades the scene.

All in all this is a great movie, to watch and to buy. Get the beers in; the crisps out; and relax!

I have decided to splash out on an unlimited pass to the cinema. Yay!

This pass entitles me to watch as many movies as I wish for £12 per month, which, at four or more movies a month at student ticket prices of £5, will save me at least £8 a month.

Great.

I’ve already started my month with two movies today, Kung Fu Panda and X-Files: I Want To Believe.

I have to say I had high hopes for X-Files, but was disappointed with the story-line. Where where the aliens? The conspiracies? The truth being “out there”? The Mulder and Scully we know and love? Well ok, maybe Mulder and Scully where there, but the rest? Nope.

This movie is all about woman disappearing; a priest having visions; dogs barking; not giving up; some Russian dialect; and some questionable surgery. In short it’s an extended episode, that could have been a lot better if it wasn’t about .. well I won’t spoil it.

I’m not an “extreme” fan of the X-Files, but I went to watch this movie based off of what I had seen from the tv series. In my view it’s not drastic if you miss it, but for die-hard fans you may understand the story-line much more and enjoy it more.

Oh, we also received a free dvd that was swiftly hustled into a bag somewhere so I’m not actually sure which movie it is. This one or the first one.

Now, as for Kung Fu Hustle. This movie is great! With various funny moments throughout.

If you feel you have to borrow your niece or grandchild to go and see this don’t worry about it. The action/martial arts sequences are enough to keep you entertained; then you have comedy moments from Po the Panda, with the voice of Jack Black, who was the reason I went to see this movie in the first place. I’m glad I did.

If you get all mushy at animated death scenes, you know, with the conversation; the advice; the goodbye; the ‘what the f00k, your dying’ moment; then take a tissue and sniffle quietly.

Watching the progression of Po go from slob to hero is something in itself. With food being both his problem for over-weight-ness and the solution to his training. The scene with the dumpling is one which a master of martial arts can be proud of. As well as a food guru, mmm dumplings.

*runs off to cook food*

There is a sense of predictability with the movie, with a non-hero type introduced; the hero types introduced; old and wise person has a vision; bad-guy lurks about a bit;¹ non-hero type turns up randomly; hero-types rush off to save the day; hero-types loose; bad-guy returns; non-hero type kicks bad-guys behind, thus saving the day.

The story behind the animation is actually a good one. It sets thing up nicely. I recommend this movie to everyone. If not for the comedy then the martial arts.

I wonder what movies next. You know, I haven’t managed to see The Dark Night yet. Hmm, I’ll drag someone next week.

1: There isn’t exactly any lurking, I just didn’t want to spoil the plot.

I went to watch this movie on Wednesday, which just happened to be Orange Wednesday so the que was out the door.

If you’ve seen the trailers for this and thought “hmm, that looks interesting!” then your thoughts would be right. Hancock is one of those films you buy on dvd after watching it at the cinema, it out does the trailer in every way.

Most movies put the best bits in trailers, but Hancock is different. It gets better in the movie.

General storyline: Hancock is a drunken bum that is hated by everyone; doesn’t care about it; fights crime in his own way, causing destruction to anything and everything possible, including the moon; sticks peoples heads up other peoples bums; shaves with his fingernails; and wears an outfit that’s a little tight.

Through most of the movie there is something funny taking place, then when there isn’t it becomes touching, which is awww.
At one point I think there’s a goof, when Mary (Charlize Theron) goes to get in a car to leave Hancock’s trailer home thing .. there was no car when she arrived. If anyone else noticed/notices this post a comment, that way I know I wasn’t seeing things.

The storyline isn’t much about being a hero saving the world, it’s more about a hero finding himself.

If you haven’t been to see it yet get going, you’re missing out. Just don’t go on a Wednesday, if you’re not on Orange.

What a faf on!

It took me about an hour to get this set up to run on my Xbox 360, through my new laptop. The first issue I came up against was codecs to play an .avi movie file on the laptop, that was easily solved with a download. The next issue was lack of codec support on the Xbox and the movie not wanting to play in media center. Humph.

After a few googlings I found nothing worth doing, so I tried accessing the videos section through the media tab directly to play the file. Nothing there. OK, change the settings to hunt down the laptop across my network and we’re good to go. Or not. After finding some files I need to download another set of codecs for the Xbox, so off I go to sign in to Live to retrieve these “updates”, or so we think.

What’s my password thingy again? Oh yea, I forgot!

This is where most of the hour was used up, trying to guess the four random button presses that could be any number of combination’s.¹. Why it couldn’t just be a word amazes me. After fruitless attempts ² to guess the button mashings, with plenty of button mashing, I gave up and decided to google again for help. All I found was four posts stating that the support team could help. Pfft, another hour on the phone I see.

I trundled off to the Xbox Live site to find an email link, which I did find, and sent them a descriptive letter; as during the attempted password recovery process I managed to run through the initial console setup thingymawatchit, which was bad since you can’t get out of it unless you know your password or set up a new gamertag.

I didn’t want a new tag so I submitted the email and began to feel disgusted with myself for forgetting something as frivolous as four buttons.³ However, after a final last ditch attempt, I think you can guess, well I did. I somehow managed to input the correct combination to sign in to Xbox Live.

Yay! Well that was a waste of email typing.

I downloaded my required update to play un-protected music and mpeg-4 movies; made my way back into the video’s section; found my file; and had a good giggle at it for a while.

All in all it’s turned out good. I can now use media centre on my Xbox.

1: If anyone wishes to count the possible combination’s I’ll write you a whole blog entry about it. Seriously.
2: That’s the first time I’ve ever used that terminology!
3: .. and that one. I don’t get out much.

Well season two has now finished over here. Finally. What a boring; pointless; and dull waste of telly time. I myself had missed three or four episodes this season, but don’t really care to much.

I dare say if the writers strike hadn’t of taken place the story would have been a lot, if not just a bit, better. From the episodes I saw everything was being squashed together, making things move to fast but seem boring at the same time.

The only good thing to come from this season was the finale, with Syler “coming back”. We can’t deny we don’t like him, and in a way I at least want him to take over everyones abilities just to see what he is capable of.
We now get the summer off to reflect on season one, and to forget season two ever existed.

Here’s to hoping season three, “Villains”, is a lot better.

My sister’s had this game for a few weeks now, and it’s really enjoyable.

I decided to have a quick go of the basketball game, similar to what you may see at a fair, where you get three attempts to get the ball in the hoop to win a prize. The difference with the Wii version is you have un-limited balls and a time limit.

My first attempt at this netted me 7 points, which was poor. I was, in my defense, trying to do it correctly though. My second attempt netted me around 36 points, which was better but still warranted a third go.

This is where it got interesting! Having picked up a technique, I scored myself a whopping 75 points. This prompted both of my sisters to get angry and begin trying to beat me. They had a few go’s each for a while, until I decided it was my turn again.

Can you guess what happened? Well I’ll tell you.

I not only broke my record of 75, I smashed it at 95 points. I think I have been banned from playing that game again. I’m now sat in the top three slots on the leader board, at 95; 75; and 72 points. The lame 72 coming after the 95.

If anyone has scored more, or has a high score, post it up.

The credits are still rolling as I write this, and I have to say it’s well worth the watch.

Basic story is a pathologist starts a new job where his colleagues play a game at night, your basic “guess the cause of death”. One member of the “team” kills a person, and the rest have to figure out how.

The story picks up towards the end, especially within the final scene, as it all becomes revenge against the two lead characters. That’s not to say it’s a slow start, in fact it’s quite enjoyable, especially the opening scene.

I recommend a night in with a rental if you haven’t already watched, if not for the cutting up of bodies; display of bodily innards; and sexual activity, then for a decent movie for a change.

Doctors, let’s have a look inside.

Just watched an episode of SG1 earlier, I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve noticed one on tv.

As I only have the standard terrestrial channels there is no sky one to watch any episodes that may be on there, especially Atlantis.

Channel 4 tonight, or this morning technically, showed Reckoning (Part 1) which is from like season 8, so three years ago.
I should really update my telly box, I’ve missed/am missing/may never see again one of the greatest programs ever. *scours the inter-web for free episodes*