Stace and I decided to take a couple of days off and head down to Phillip Island as neither of us had been before. It was a short drive, only about 2 hours to get there and with the good weather we had it turned out to be a pleasant drive.

We stayed at the Silverwater Resort which was a pretty nice place with plenty of rooms, pool/spa/sauna, restaurant, billiards table and a bar. Pretty much everything you would need. Rooms included a full kitchen and fridge.

There are a few things to do while in Phillip Island including a couple of different nature tours. The one we decided to visit was the Penguin Parade which has you see the penguins at sunset as they leave the ocean and make their way across the beach. It’s a very unique scene, and was something i’ll remember for sure. Well worth checking out if you ever make it to Phillip Island. Only costs $20.

Aside from the penguins, we checked out a few restaurants and walked around the main street in Cowes a little bit. Seems like a nice relaxed town, although phone reception was lacking with no 3G signal.

In other news, Beijing on Xbox 360 has still been getting plenty of play time. After completing olympic games mode, we have moved onto breaking world records, and trying to collect the achievements, which are no easy feat! Giving the game more replay time, as achievement often does!

It had plenty of events, and they were easy enough to play and get hooked on. Multiplayer definitely made it more interesting as competing against your friends is for bragging rights!

So my gf Stacey and I got stuck into the game and were very competitive about it. We tried our hardest in every event, and eventually ended up with blisters on our hands from either scratching across buttons A and B to get fast running speeds, or from placing our palms on the analog sticks and rotating as fast as possible. Everyone found it funny that we were so dedicated that we got blisters before deciding maybe our hands had been pushed enough and to stop playing.

When Stacey bought Beijing 2008 this weekend, we both knew we were in for some long hours on the xbox as well as some sore hands, and the possibility of blisters. Lets just say we were not wrong… the game is great, events are fun but tough, and there is more events than Athens had. Unfortunately we were also right about blisters, as we both finished the weekend with a couple each.

The game is great fun, and very well executed. I especially like that they created an olympic games mode in which you have daily targets, for example there may be 5 events on day 3, and your task is to qualify for the finals in at least 2 of them. This tasks change day to day, and get harder as the games progress. By the end you’ll be required to win 4 gold medals from 5 events, which is a very difficult task considering Kayaking is just damn impossible for us, haha. As you complete days you are rewarded with points (depending on your results, and records broken, perfect attempts, etc) which can be used to purchase upgrades to improve your teams stats (eg. speed, power, agility, etc). I feel this gives fantastic replay value, as competing in an event with no reward eventually grows old.

If you are looking for a good single player challenge, that’ll keep you satisfied. While multiplayer will always remain fun to beat your friends. If you enjoyed Athens i strongly recommend Beijing. If you are just looking to get into the olympic spirit then you may also enjoy cheering yourself on for a win in every event. A good game overall if you ask me.

Since force feedback has been around, i’ve had a go on a PC with it a few years back and thought it was much cooler. I figured i’d splurge and buy the official xbox one and give it a go, since i have 2 games (Test Drive Unlimited, and Project Gotham Racing 4) which are both fully supported. So i ventured down to my local EB Games, who happened to have it on sale for the same price.

After having the wheel for a few weeks now, i can safely say it is very cool, and it all comes down to the force feedback! It just makes the games so much more fun, when a car bumps you and the wheel fights to turn, or the vibrations when you run off the road or hit a wall, the force feedback is just awesome. An important thing to note is that if you haven’t got a table to attach the wheel to, its no where near as much fun, and balancing on your legs is just not the same.

As a bonus you also get a Forza Motorsport demo with the wheel, which i was quite happy about since i don’t have that game. I’m pretty sure you can download the demo for free anyway though. Come to think of it i’m sure you could download most of the support racing titles as demos for free, to get more use out of your wheel.

I would highly recommend picking one up to anyone who enjoys a car racing game, it just makes it that much more fun. But don’t expect to race better than usual, i’m still better with a controller

Firstly, Army Of Two - So far alright, i admit i haven’t played through very far yet as my co-op gaming partner Stacey is being slack and we haven’t played through much yet. But so far it seems interesting, it has a big focus to whoever is shooting the most (providing cover fire) will get the attention of the enemies allowing the other player to run around and flank the enemies without getting noticed. Neat feature… yes… but a little too much emphasis if you ask me, its a little too easy to run around without anyone shooting at you. Anyway, more on that as i play the game some more.

Second, Kane & Lynch : Dead Men. So far this game is pretty damn awesome if you ask me, i was a little worried when i read some average reviews on the game, but after playing the first 2 or 3 levels i have found it great fun. It is very full on, expect to shoot plenty of cops, rob banks, and have your family kidnapped (and thats the first two levels!). So far i’m enjoying this one a lot, and look forward to playing some more. It looks nice, and plays well.

Third, and last. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - Friggin awesome! I’m a big fan of the first episode and this just takes the little things that it lacked and not only fixes them but makes them cool. Like designing your own character and getting stats was only for online, now its everywhere! I mean from story mode, terrorist hunts (kill all the enemies to complete the mission) to co-op story, and even online gaming. No matter what mode you are playing, you are collecting stats and improving your characters abilities, all the while unlocking new weapons and outfits for your character. Very cool, very fun, and so easy to play and get into. Fantastic do not miss this one whether you own R6V1 or not!

I’ll return soon with some tips for planning a holiday (as i’m currently doing), if i remember to check the end of this post before writing a new entry peace out.

Tags: xbox

Basically it allows you to integrate all your online accounts and manages updates and the like all straight into your browser and notifies you. This means no more visiting all your accounts every day just to see if anyone has left you a message or posted a new photo.

The question is: are the benefits enough to keep me using the browser, or will i get bored with the whole online social thing and move back to Safari? (yes i have a mac). Time will tell and i’ll post a follow up in the next week or so.

For a quick look at what it can do, take a look at this link: Getting Started | Flock

Tags: flock, browser, web

Thats all that i have been up to in recent times so not much else to talk about. Did go and see We Own The Night this weekend also though. I was very surprised on the direction that the film took, from the previews it gave me the idea that the film we focus around a drug crack down that eventually led to the captain running into his brother and his brother being involved in the drug ring. However without giving anything away i can say he meets his brother very early on, and the film focus is more about how thing unfold from then on. Overall i was suprised by the direction but not overly impressed by it.

Stay tuned and i’ll announce when the new band website is up and running!

So why do i want to talk about Ruby on Rails today? Well mainly because i’m currently learning it so its on my mind, but also because i wanted to mention some of the amazing things it can do. Those of you who have ever developed an application in a web environment will appreciate what it can do. For example even starting a new application causes Rails to build a basic structure for you, with folders for views (html etc), classes, code, etc. This is a great way to get the developer to follow standards, because the classes are already there, they just edit and add to them, rather than have to create them.

Now i know that sounds basic, but when you start to issue commands to create your database tables you see the real power of Rails. Say you want to create a database table for a User, you would issue a command such as “script/generate scaffold user username:string age:string country:string” and it will create the database tables for you (mySQL for example). Not only is your table now setup but Rails will also use the “scaffold” command to build basic Entry and Edit pages to work with this tables data, as well as links to List and Delete the items as well. Basically in one line you have not only create a basic table, but also List, View, Edit pages that allow you to maintain these values. As a developer i can honestly tell you, holy crap that friggin rocks!

This is only a glimpse into what Rails can do, and as i said i’ve only just started learning it. This strong standards approach really does work though, and cuts development time dramatically for maintenance pages (which are often a pain). So if you are a programmer/web developer check it out, i do warn you though its a bit of a pain to setup and you might want to google for some instructions. But once you get it going, its very interesting how quickly you can get a working environment.

I’m not going to get into a debate about whether i think its right or wrong, or how bad it is if Microsoft take charge of so much of the internet. Lets not forget Yahoo is more than just search, they also own things like Flickr. But what i want to talk about is how huge of a purchase this would be!

First of all, if i owned 1% of Yahoo i would be all FOR the sale. Because 1% would give me $446 million… now i don’t know about you, but i think that’d set me up for my ENTIRE life! I would never work again and still be able to spend a fortune every day. On a quick calc, 446mil divided by 65 years of my life left, i could spend 6.8mil a year without running out of money. Ahhh the life!

Secondly, i don’t think i can comprehend the amount of work it would take to combine the services of Microsoft and Yahoo… being a programmer i have a little insight into what might be required, and all i can say is whole crap. My approach would probably be a global replace of Yahoo logos with Microsoft logos and job done

This year was no exception with headlining act Rage Against The Machine wrapping up another long day out. For those that have been, they will understand that it can be a very long day, and you spend most of it standing. By the end of the day i was wrecked and could barely stand up anymore. To add to this pain there is a lack of shade since the venue was changed from the Showgrounds, which leaves most people sunburnt as well.

I checked out a range of acts from weird dance acts, through to aussie rock bands. Highlights were definitely aussie rock groups Mammal and Karnivool. Of course RAGE were also great, however i felt they could have been better… maybe they are a bit rusty? haha.

Until next year, goodbye BDO.