Monthly Archive for March, 2005

Aisha’s Wedding

Published on March 31, 2005 4:59 PM - 0 Comments

Spent the Easter weekend and pretty much most of this week up in Bradford with family and friends, since my cousin Aisha was getting married. It was good to see everyone together again after the last time. The wedding festivities were spread across five days basically, (I love Asian weddings.) nothing to elaborate I’m glad to say. Will post some pictures soon.

Had to drive to Leeds just to get a decent WiFi connection, the Starbucks in Bradford didn’t have a HotSpot. Fortunately it was enough to remote into my computer at home and perform all the monitoring tasks I had on my list for the weekend.

I had not realised how bad the center of Bradford had gotten in terms of retails stores, 2 of the old shopping malls have closed totally, all of the regular outlets are still there, before there used to be 2 or 3 shops all over, most have moved to a new retail park in the new part of town, which is nice but has left the old historic buildings all empty, and I’m guess they can’t really do anything with them since most of the them are listed.

Hostage

Published on March 20, 2005 2:43 AM - 0 Comments

Just watched the new Bruce Willis flick Hostage. It ain’t half bad, had read some of the reviews prior to last night hailing it as his best film since Die Hard, which I think is a bit harsh because he has had some good films since, namely The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable (I’m sure there are others just can’t think if any.)

I liked the plot, the story setup is quite unique you should definatley see this film if you like action thrillers. I should point out that Hostage is not an action film.

Constantine

Published on March 13, 2005 1:55 PM - 0 Comments

Watched Constantine last night, now I was expecting it to be pretty good, however it was way better than I thought it would be. Some of the scenes are just amazing, recreated exactly from the comic novel.

Keanu Reeves does a great job of playing John Constantine. The visual effects are great and well used, the plot is true to the novel, having said that I should really order the book since U have note really read it properly. The supporting cast are pretty good, Tilda Swinton play the Archangel Gabriel, and Rachel Weisz plays the Detective trying to find out what happened to her sister.

I’m still looking forward to Sin City and The Fantastic Four, ooh and Episode 3 doesn’t look to bad either now that the final trailer is available online and screening at the cinemas.

Nintendo DS

Published on March 12, 2005 8:36 PM - 0 Comments

Well much to my own surprise, I was compelled to shell out for a DS. Got Mario, and have placed an order for Wario Ware. So far my impressions of the unit have not changed I think the DS looks a little odd, but the button arrangement and controls are a hybrid of the original GBA and GBA SP. The hinged upper screen even seems like the SP, however since the hands are not so close together it feels better.

The Mario game is pretty good, it is like the Mario 64 game however the storyline is different, which is probably a good thing a total re-hash as a console launch title may annoy Mario fans. Hopefully F-Zero will also be out soon. I quite like the Metroid demo, infact I have been playing that more. The control combination of the pen and the buttons takes a little getting used to however it is quite easy to master.

Still playing MGS3 on the Playstation, so I have not even opened up GT4 yet, however I might need another memory card before I can play GT4 since I had to trash some save games just to make room for MGS3.

I am also heading out this evening to see Constantine, wanted to go to the 9pm show however friends can’t make that one so it looks like we will be doing the late show as usual.

Gran Turismo 4

Published on March 10, 2005 8:13 PM - 0 Comments

Well Gran Turismo 4 has arrived in the UK. For some reason I had it set in my mind as being Friday for the launch, however it was released yesterday. Was going by the HMV at the Trocadero and saw the posters in the window, so I had to go buy it straight away.

I was going in anyway since I hadn’t browsed for CDs in a while. Plus I also got a chance to play on a DS, still in 2 minds about the DS. Have been reading reviews and checking out the game release schedule. The only games which have got my interest are Mario Kart, Metroid and Mario. The fact that I can still play my GBA games is a nice thing as well. I don’t really play my GBA enough since my train rides are reserved for the iPod. Must come up with some crazy mixing cable which can mix the outputs nicely.

Rails

Published on March 8, 2005 11:08 PM - 0 Comments

Have been playing with Ruby and Rails for a bit know and I have to say I am quite taken with the system. Ruby is as a language I have not really played with much, however I am sort of being drawn to it.

What I really would like would be something like Rail but written for Python, I know people with immediately say well try Zope. The problem with Zope is that it is not as simple as say Rails, making things work does take some doing. I should really go back to Zope and have a look again since it has been a while since I played with it. Another point is that for shared hosting environments PHP is still the most supported. I have not seen any reason not to continue recommending PHP for small websites and webapps. Especially in the case of dealing with small businesses.

Will make another entry on this topic at some point at the moment I am working on a number of ideas.

Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater

Published on March 7, 2005 10:35 PM - 0 Comments

Bought MGS3 yesterday, well what can I say, Meets expectations, already cleared the first bit in the first play. Now on the main story, like new camouflage and inventory screens. The healing gimmick is quite nice as well, but I can see that annoying me at the later stages of the game.

So far so good, the difficulty level is okay, I can see myself completing this quite quickly however I will probably play the game over and over, just like I have the previous titles.

One thing I love is the intro, it has obviously been styled like a James Bond theme. The song is actually better than some of the recent Bond themes in my opinion.