Feckoff.net

Its still really hot here but I’m getting used to it. Its nice to not have to worry about getting pissed on every time you want to go and do something outdoors. Hot and sunny climate ftw. I’ve booked myself a flight to Las Vegas ($300 return from Lubbock) and accommodation in the MGM Grand ($250 for 3 nights, sharing a room and splitting the bill \o/) during September. Really looking forward to it. I’ve been working hard since I got here, some downtime will be nice. Also, I’ll be reclaiming that Irish bank holiday I got screwed out of by being over here in the form of Labor Day in early September

I’m was almost tempted to buy an Amazon Kindle, even though its wireless functions will be utterly useless outside of the US, until I discovered that they won’t even sell ebooks for it unless you’ve got a US billing address on your card. I’ll get some kind of ebook reader though, and this is due to the rapidly growing stockpile of books I’m building here. I’d like to bring them all home when the time comes but I don’t think I’ll have the room in my luggage. Ebooks would solve that problem. I tried using an ebook reader on my iPhone, but that sucks. I can’t read lots of text for long periods on that small screen, plus the battery life is not sufficient.

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Worms 2: Armageddon was released on Xbox Live Arcade yesterday for 800 MS points. It is fantastic. Its like being in the golden age of 2D Worms again! Works beautifully over Xbox Live, and even uses those stupid NXE avatars to announce each player’s turn. I spent several hours at it last night. Holy hand grenades, banana bombs, exploding sheep, etc. Great

It is a much more complete experience than the first Worms game on XBLA, mainly because at the time the first one was released, XBLA games were restricted to being a maximum of 50MB in size. Worms 2 is over 170MB.
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Usually I find events like E3 to be a big media wank-fest but there’s some solid gold coming out of this year’s E3, such as:

Left 4 Dead 2 (PC, Xbox 360). Due November 16th, 2009. Yes, only 1 year after the previous one, but damn it looks good.

Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360). Due October 2009. Several years after the previous one, which I loved. Trailer.

Also, they’re remaking 1990’s PC/Amiga classic The Curse of Monkey Island for Xbox 360. One of my all time favourite games. Video here. They’re also making a new episodic Monkey Island game.

Recession? What Recession? I’m going to have to drop the cash for all of these.

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As seen on last night’s Questions and Answers. This is the most moving thing I’ve ever seen on television. Please repost this video on your own blog or whatever to bring as much attention as possible to it, and thus as much shame as possible on the government and the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland. Maybe then they might admit some responsibility and treat the victims properly.

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Saw this on RTE2 this evening:

Surprise win from RTE.

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Today I hooked my PC up to my nice 32″ HDTV using a DVI-to-HDMI adapter and a HDMI cable. The picture looks wonderful etc. However, there’s a problem. The main reason I did this was to play games like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 on the big TV rather than my small PC monitor.

The problem is nVidia’s graphics drivers do not support running things in full screen mode on a secondary display. Huh? Wtf? A quick google reveals that people have been complaining about this since at least 2004. The only current solution is to make the TV the primary display before playing games, then change it back (manually) to the monitor when I’m finished gaming. What a pain in the ass.
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I started watching Mad Men for the first time last weekend. In less than a week I burned through the entire first season. Great stuff. I love the 1960’s setting. Despite not even being born then, they seem to have it nailed.

Also, Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan Holloway in the show is HOT.

See? 0_o

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Rome, Italy. Actually its, Zurich, Switzerland – blue/white tram and all. As seen in “The Unit”, season 4 episode 20. Muppets.

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The browser game comes of age. This is impressively good for a browser based game. Still requires Windows though, but they say they’re working on Linux and Mac versions.

Its pretty much exactly the same as Quake 3 was when it came out 10 years ago, except that the computer I had back then couldn’t run it

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These guys are awesome. Check out this video clip of an impromptu performance on the Paris Metro.

Here’s their current track, “Wall of Sound”, which is also fantastic.

Thanks to John for pointing me towards them a couple of weeks ago.

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