By popular demand

So yea, at the request of the masses I have to write stuff here. Quite a bit has come n gone this last month so its about time I was given this little push in the general direction of the keyboard.

Now as I am still a student, reenrollment was the second biggest thing from the tafe side of news in recent weeks (the biggest being my recieving an award for my awesomeness) and looks like I'll be quite a bit busier next year then I ever was in 2008. Aside from the two core subjects I can look forward to doing practical placement in some building of professional writing peoples (no idea where yet), non-fiction writing project, myths and symbols and professional publishing. So yea, bit of a jump from the 4 subjects I blugged my way through this year.

The one that I'm generally paying most attention to for 09 is non-fiction writing, because as the good nerd I am I will be continuing the writing of the videya games in that class. Instead of a full book I've been given the ok to write a series of essays on a particular subject, so the plan is for a series of essays with each detailing the growth n elements of specific game genres. As it stands now I unsure which few will get the special class treatment so I'm open to requests, will report on more about this later in the holidays.

And to end the suspence on what is going on about getting a 360 or PS3 I shall bring it to a close here and now. First on the list will be the PS3 this upcoming week thanks to a surprisingly good deal from Harvey Norman (of all places!) for an 80GB console with LittleBigPlanet, collectors edition Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge and blu ray copy of Casino Royal. The 360 is still on hold until at least another $100 is wiped off the pro bundle prices. Yes the system is cheap enough now, but for something that is going to stay offline (thanks to no built in wifi) it doesn't deserve $400 price tag. That and the bundled games don't interest me, at least not compared to some of the other bundles going on around the world.

So there ya have it, you happy Jordan!

Cheers

P.S. In a vein attempt to look more professional there is a new contact email for the potential new clients. Email is nobodygaming@gmail.com (and dont worry others who know me, ill be using the ol email for personal use still)

Stoiboi and his new Toi

xmas decided to pop in a tad early this year for me, and Santy Clause left me a little something (heavily emphisise the 'little'). After a year of complaining about the disc drive in my Inspiron 6400 being mostly for decoration and avoiding the 'ctrl' and 'backspace' keys to keep them attached I can finally say screw you to Dell and upgrade (or is it a downgrade?) to an Acer Aspire One netbook!

As a student who is on trains for hours every week with nothing to do a netbook is perfect for me. Although in a somewhat opposite direction I opted for the XP version over the super streamlined Linux model, simply out of fear of change like a politician born in the baby boomer generation. The strange part about coming off a laptop that was once touted to be comparible to standard desktops to a netbook is very little has been lost over the transition. After a day of making the machine my own I've noticed that any attempts to really 'push' the Aspire One will show its weak point. The Aspire One simply isn't built to handle multiple beefy applications that you would run without a second thought on a half decent laptop/desktop.

That said, keeping the interface clean and tackle things one at a time the Aspire One it holds up surprisingly well. It can even pull off a mean gaming machine for WoW or anything below it in terms of demand on the CPU (abit with some sliders turned down). I've just come off playing through Sam & Max - Abe Lincoln Must Die and the experience was identical to what I had on my Inspiron, both chugged at the car chase with giant Lincoln but otherwise had no problems. I wouldn't feel bad now picking up the ol' Fallout games just to see what all the fuss is about Bethesda pooing some guns over Oblivion and calling it Fallout 3.

One strange thing is bugging me about my new Aspire One though, there is no external volume control. No sliders on the side of the machine, just the volume control options from inside the lappy itself. This is making it a little more annoying to adjust the volume when someone is nagging me to turn the sound up/down, but like the disc drive before it I'm sure I wont miss it after a few months. For now I should get to work and finish my final essay for tafe (and maybe some game reviews)

Cheers

EDIT: Actually it looks like the proper writing will be temporarily postponned for now. It seems the 60 day trail for MS Office 2007 (why only a trial when Linux gets full Open Office I have no idea) doesn't want to cough up an activation key. So to you Microsoft I say NO. I will not jump through your loopholes just to temporarily use a program that should have been ready as soon as I open up this machine. You probably wont see revenue from me when I go obtain a full version in the next week just out of sheer annoyannce from tonight, thank the dark lords for the internetz insistance on piracy of software. Now where did I see that link to a cracked download of Office 2000...