Nintendo DS Lite

After thinking about it for a few months on and off I finally gave in and bought one. I opted for the black version, it might show more marks and fingerprints but it looks so much cooler :P



I also got the Brain Training game and after the first day tests I apparently have a brain age of 56 -_- the best you can get is 20 so I have some way to go still. I'll be interested to see in about a month if there has been a change. I'm not sure what game to get next, I have a few ideas but my inability to make decisions is legendary.

Digital photography is addictive

I've never been really interested in photography until I saw a fairly cheap 1.3MP camera about 5 years ago and bought it. I was snapping away, taking pics of almost everything and loving the ability to preview pictures I'd taken and delete any I didn't want. Unfortunately, I then experienced the problems of buying a low spec. camera, lots of noise on images taken in low light and shutter lag meaning taking pictures of anything moving was virtually impossible.

Being thoroughly addicted after a week of snapping away at random things these problems started to annoy me even more so after some research and shopping around I found what looked like a great camera for me, the Canon PowerShot A70. 3MP camera, 3x opitcal zoom, an automatic mode for basic point-and-shoot, some other modes for scenery, portrait etc.. and the ability to manually change all settings in, funnily enough, manual mode. The small movie mode was fun too, not very practical though.

Alas, after 4 years loyal service I started looking for a new digital camera with my wallet hoping I'd fail to find one. Well my wallet is suffering once again because I settled on the pretty tasty looking Panasonic DMC-LX1. An 8.4MP beast capable of taking photos in 16:9 format, movies in the same format, as well as 4:3 and 3:2. Leica lens, in camera ability to crop, resize, change aspect, RAW shooting mode and a lot of other things I won't list here (click the link if you want to know more) the massive 3840 x 2160 maximum image size has made me happy and seen me snapping away all over again.

If I have any complaints about the camera it would be to do with a lot of reviews I read mentioning high noise levels at higher ISO levels but I think that's to be expected. The only other thing I don't like is that there is no optical viewfinder at all, you have to use the 2.5" to frame all pictures. It isn't a really big issue unless it's very bright and you're trying to frame a small object against a bright background, for example when I was trying to capture a bird flying in the sky when it was pretty bright. I couldn't make the bird out at all and it was hardly going to hover for me until I could. Other than that I love the camera and hope this will last me a long time because I'm going to be paying for it for a long time! -_-;;

Cheap WiFi router?

I've been thinking about setting up a small, home WiFi network because I'm constantly tripping over cables and anything I can do to remove another from the floor is great. It's also pretty cool being online from the back garden :D The downside is that a WiFi router isn't really practical because of the cost for me. I know they don't cost a lot but the price is something I have to justify and I can't so when I read a news item on the BBC website about cheap routers I read on with great interest.

Basically it's a company that claim they want to help spread WiFi access and are offering routers for a very low price ($5 US or €5, delivery and taxes to be added) as long as you use their software. The software that you use just lets your WiFi router serve as an access point for anyone. If you are a member of the site you are classed as either a Linus, a Bill or an Alien. Linus' share their connection so they can access any other connections for free, Bill's get a cut of money that Alien's have to pay to gain access. If it works as it claims then you can earn money from sharing your connection using their WiFi router and software. I want a cheap router but if I can make money from it too bonus! :P

The joys of friends

/rant on

I love it when so-called friends suddenly turn psycho for no apparent reason and flip out on you. I don't know if I subconsciously attract these freaks or just have bad luck but it's getting old. If you're gonna be a psycho that's fine, just be a psycho with someone else, it's getting old.

While I'm on a rant, am I the only person that finds some friends just change and stop talking to you for no reason? There's never any explanation given, not even a message to say they don't want to talk to you any more, they just stop talking and replying to you completely. Is it so hard to give a reason? Hell make one up if you have to I don't care, I just get so frustrated when they can't even be bothered to tell you. Swear at me, call me names, whatever... just tell me you don't want to talk to me and preferably give a reason.

/rant off

In other news, I have a 'fun' eye infection! So sore, so red and oozes yucky stuff at regular intervals. I have eye drops but it'll still take a few days to clear up, in the meantime I'm wearing shades.... while it's pouring with rain and grey outside. I don't know if I'd get more weird looks without the shades or with them but I'm keeping them on, they make me look cool *struts*

To trust or not to trust? That is the question...

I'd arranged to meet somebody today at 12pm to goto the movies and was so nervous, but also a little worried that they wouldn't show. I managed to convince myself that I was being paranoid and get myself out of the house with plenty of time to spare so decided to wander around a few shops and see if there was anything that demanded my cash while I waited. Nothing really caught my attention and the time was around 11:50am so I sent a text message to ask where she was and let her know that I was doing a few things while I was out.

Anyway to cut a long, and rather boring story short, it was about 12:15pm and still no sign of her so I sent another text saying if she wasn't there in 10 minutes I'd be leaving. She didn't turn up, so I went to get something to eat, got a magazine and went home feeling a bit upset but angry. I'd worried a lot that she wouldn't turn up and she hadn't, no messages, nothing.

About 3pm I get a message from her number (supposedly not her) saying that she'd fainted, hit her head badly and was in hospital. This is the dilema I've got now, do I believe that and give her the benefit of the doubt or cut my losses and run? I wish I knew what to do because part of me wants to really rip into her for not showing but there's part of me that wants to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'm too trusting for my own good....

Too much chocolate...

It happens every Easter yet I still haven't learned. The chocolate addiction that sees me eat so much that I feel ill for hours afterwards but still want more o_o I have this pretty big egg that's very thick chocolate, inside that is a smaller chocolate egg, inside that are three pieces of delicious chocolate and that is all sitting on top of a small bag of mini-eggs. It's EVIL! EVIL!!!

Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time

Being a guy at times it feels like there is a gene responsible for making you say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Everyone does it at one time or another but I have the ability to do it virtually every day somehow. I'd much prefer a mind reading ability or be able to fly (it'd be cool, admit it!) but instead I have this 'fun' ability. Maybe there's a way to overcome this condition, perhaps some ancient ritual lost forever involving sacrifices and strange dancing. Either way I wish I knew how to avoid it other than not talking all day.

Being ill sucks

Like a lot of guys do, I blow any kind of illness out of proportion and whine lots to anyone and everyone. I don't know if it's a genetic thing or just done because it's almost expected. I've gotten a cold and sore throat for the second time in less than 2 months and I hate it. Blocked nose, sneezing lots and a sore throat. After all the cures for various diseases, how come the common cold and flu are still going strong?

conspiracy on
Maybe the tissue manufacturers are keeping the cure hidden so they can never go out of business! :O I doubt it but it gives me something to think about while I'm sneezing.
/conspiracy off

The evil inside: your subconscious!

I've noticed an increasing trend lately whereby anything I've been looking for in my room (a cd / dvd, .. erm... ok so that's the only thing I lose) is buried under a large amount of clothes, computer magazines and other things that need to be tidied up. It's probably my own fault for being so lazy and not cleaning more often but I'm almost convinced now that my subconscious hides things I want under the junk just to make me have to clean up once in a while.

Speaking of cds / dvds, it brings up another bad habit I have. I'll try to make this simple with a few graphics and limiting it to 3 games.

A	B	C
in PS2	in B	in C

OK in the above table there are 3 games but this could easily apply to music cds, movies.. you get the idea. "A" is currently in the PS2 but I want to play "B", a sensible idea would be to take "A" out of the PS2 and put it back in box "A". Sensible perhaps but that is far too much work for someone as lazy as me. Opening two boxes? Bah! I'll just put "B" in the PS2 and put "A" in box "B" and change them back later. Now I want to play "C" but another bout of laziness has struck and so "C" goes into the PS2 and now "B" ends up in box "C". So from the above example you end up with something like this.

A	B	C
in B	in C	in PS2

It's relatively simple looking at it that way and wouldn't be hard to find the right game if it was only 3 games but if these three are then mixed in with more games and it continues on this way and you forget which game is in which box it gets very hard to track down the disc you want.

Hopefully that and the very untidy state of my room will give you a rough idea of what I'm dealing with and help you understand why it took me over 2 hours of cleaning, tidying up and searching through boxes for the one I wanted. Every time it happens I swear I won't do it again and then I feel lazy and slip back into the old habit. Am I the only one that does this sort of thing? I hope not.

So Confusing!

I don't have the greatest attention span when it comes to learning new things but trying to learn various techniques for creating website pages is proving extremely frustrating. A blog here is a good way to start but it's very limiting in what you can do and experiment with. Having said that, the templates on this site are difficult to understand with my current knowledge.

Anyway... I was trying to follow a few tutorials about creating dynamic pages when I ran into a brick wall. To go further I'd need a web server with application support, something I don't have. To complete the tutorials I'd need a basic hosting service with FTP access and application support for whatever language I choose. Oh and money to pay for it all.

Learning new things and paying for it? BAH!! Somebody read my mind and do it all for me! :P

Life's a beach

I was at the beach yesterday when it was strangely sunny (not for very long though) and noticed these bird-like sculptures. I don't know how I missed them at first considering the size of them.

There are odd looking things like this all up and down the coast at various points, including some large pear-shaped people that remind me of subuteo that I'll get a picture of when I see them next. For anyone who has never seen subuteo before these little guys are meant to be football / soccer players. The base is flicked to send them around a pitch against a ball in an attempt to score a goal. You're supposed to take turns but I don't know how well it worked as I never really got into it, primarly because flicking the damn things hurt!

The last thing I noticed was this sign which looked like it was surprised / shocked. I don't know how you surprise a sign but this one was.

Sticking to one task is easy?

I thought I'd start today by learning a little html so I can change things around more to suit how I'd like them even though I quite like the template I'm using right now. That was the plan anyway. I got the basics from a strange source (my ISPs webspace) which was better than I expected given their terrible CS. It included links to other, more advanced techniques such as CSS, XHTML among other things but took me away from the information I set out to read.

To cut a long story short, what started out as wanting to learn the basics of HTML has somehow ended up with me editing photos realising that I need to focus more on what I want. No wonder I have trouble cleaning my room when I keep moving from one thing to another like this!

And so it begins....

Well I never thought I'd be one to join the long list of bloggers but here I am with my first post wondering what I should say. The idea of putting personal thoughts and feelings about myself up for anyone to see on a semi-regular basis is a bit weird when I think about it because I tend to keep things to myself but if I do that here then there isn't going to be very much to read is there?

Maybe it's something that has been instilled in me over the years by growing up in a family where nobody shares things like feelings but I doubt I'm alone in that. This blog might be my way of trying to overcome that or it may turn out to be a list of my favourite game and anime characters! I think that'll do nicely to end my first post so... um... bai!! o_o;