Playstation 3 The Weekend

Motorstorm became frustrating in the single player mode as it doesn't really matter what you do in the first two and a half laps of a three lap race as you can still catch up as long as you're not too far behind. However sometimes it's a plus sometimes it's a minus and it just makes you want to complete it even more when you finish 0.03 off getting through to the next level three times in a row. I then played online and earned legend status. A little over the top perhaps given my 3 out of 22 win ratio but I was often in the top three (not unlike my poker stats).

Resistance: Fall Of Man arrived through the letterbox on Saturday morning. I'm not really into shooting games especially in the first person but since we've only got 2 games I thought I might as well have a go. Phil had told me how hard it was but I was pleasantly surprised to find I was ok at it. I then found out I had it on easy and he had it on hard. This was after he challenged me to a duel beating me 200 points to 10.

It's very good and I'd recommend anyone who has ever played a game and who has plenty money to buy one as the media centre capabilities make the price tag not wholly unreasonable.

Playstation 3 Day 1

Phil and I went to collect our Playstation 3 from Game in Huddersfield at 7am yesterday when it opened. There was a queue of about 30 people in front of us including the guy directly in front of us who had forgotten to bring his order form in. He was very unhappy at not being allowed to collect his console after queueing for almost an hour and swore at the guy who told him he needed the order form. What an idiot!

Once it was working, we downloaded Gran Turismo HD Concept 2.0, and a demo of Formula One Championship Edition which kept us entertained for the morning. On GT we set the fastest time in Europe on with a couple of cars on the reverse tracks although this isn't because we're great, it's because only 3 other people had posted times. The graphics on the formula one game were so good they were better than watching a live race on tv which i suppose is to be expected since the tv coverage hasn't reached high definition yet.

The afternoon and evening was spent on Motorstorm, a dirt racer which again has awesome graphics and provides good racing entertainment. I was however very tired so had an early night. Such a tough day you see.

PS I did try to write this last night but I think my laptop objected to being on all day and kept freezing. Hopefully this will not continue.

Toph The Innovator

I'm normally among the early to late majority when making big purchases but tomorrow I become an innovator. I'm picking up my Playstation 3 at 7am and have taken the day off work for the pleasure. I was going to say i'm going to play with myself all weekend but people might get the wrong idea so i'll re-phrase that and hopefully be playing on Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall Of Man on the 42" HD beast for three days. I'll let readers know how it's going when Phil is having his go.

Ireland have now qualified for the Super 8's in the cricket world cup which is good. Hopefully England will join them at the weekend.

We didn't do well in the quiz with 76 out of 139 partly due to not texting anyone or using the internet but mainly because we didn't need to be good as we still came 6th out of 10. I was especially crap but won a decent bottle of wine with mine being the first raffle ticket out for the second week in a row.

Yawn 2

I went to bed at 12:00 getting up at 2:00 this morning and am off back to bed when I finish this. The grand prix is over. Kimi Raikkonen won with Fernando Alonso 2nd and new brit Lewis Hamilton 3rd. He'll be the next British world champion. Jenson who?!

It is also the end of St Patrick's Day today/yesterday. Ireland were unlucky in the Six ations rugby with France taking the title in the last minute of their game. However in cricket Ireland shocked Pakistan by knocking them out of the World Cup may now progress to the Super 8 stage of the tournament. To be sure (to be sure (haha)) to qualify they just need Zimbabwe to lose their remaining two games which is very likely as they're rubbish!

I'm going to my grandparents for lunch with my dad. Not really sure that's how Mother's Day (grandma cooking for all of us) is meant to work but never mind.

Yawn 1

Australian Grand Prix qualifying has just finished. I went to bed at 11:00 and got up at 2:15 to get a quick sleep in and will be returning shortly until around lunchtime hopefully. I'm not sure i've posted this early/late before. Ferrari seem dominant but Massa's gearbox failed so he is 16th.

In a seamless link kind of way, this signals the end of another March 16th and i'm still a single man. I'm not bothered either way really on most other days of the year so I should be happy on the inside again when I wake up.

CASSH Dinner 2007

Friday 2nd March saw this year's annual dinner at The George Hotel in Huddersfield. Having been on the committee for a while now I took a slightly more active role in the preparation stages though I don't like to be in the limelight and quite enjoyed the event itself as everything seemed to run smoothly. Well done to Cheryl, Sam, Mel, and Emily for ensuring things ran smoothly and to President Thomas whose grace and speech went well, so well in fact i'd like to make an early nomination for him to do both next year!

Not many people at worked seemed up for it after recent happenings but we had a respectable turnout in the end with Tom and Adrian on the top table and Greg, Adeel, Chris, Michael, myself and Jodie made up the attendees from work. We were on a table with Joanne, Vicki, Toni (who danced a lot which is always good), Neil and Kane. I wrote the quiz which was hard as most of the questions were from 15 to 1 with the winning team getting 26 out of 35 after a tie break (to which I was very pleased to hear that DJ Dave had the music for Play Your Cards Right (which is where the tie break came from)). I also got the questions for True or False but got questions wrong quickly as I hadn't really checked the answers!

Some people went to Revolution afterwards, probably about midnight and then some went to Tokyo afterwards where the bouncer asked me where my yellow mini was (new movie out soon I believe). Truth is though I'd had far too much to drink to be driving... until mid afternoon the following day! Bucks fizz, a bottle of red wine to myself, then slowed down a bit with 5 Bacardi Breezers and a Smirnoff Ice. Anyway by 2:30 I'd had enough and was glad I didn't have to get up in the morning. Well done to those who stayed out late including Kane, Neil, Tom, Jodie and Jenny.

I think this was my favourite Huddersfield dinner so far (all reviewed on here in March of each year). Hopefully i've not missed any names out. Good luck to Emily and Sam who are moving on to the City of Leeds shortly.

Low Flying Planes

I'm less confused now but one thing that has been puzzling me since just after Christmas is that planes are flying much lower than they used to over where I live. There's no obvious reason for this given that i'm about 15 miles (as the crow flies) from Leeds Bradford Airport but they are definitely flying lower since Christmas and it's becoming more and more regular to see them at the same altitude as i'd expect to see the police helicopter. Well I think so anyway, it's quite hard to tell obviously but they're noisy anyway. I took a picture from my drive on full zoom to show a plane flying low. It's not good as there is nothing to compare it to but you can see it's a plane. Can anyone solve my puzzle? Why are planes flying lower???

Clan Clean Sweep

The Cricket World Cup started today, with West Indies beating Pakistan. Not much else to say about that.

We were back to a team of five at the quiz last night but came 7th out 7 with a respectable 85 out of 138. I was pretty good last night getting more than a couple (thanks to Ed (sorry no link but not sure how the new blog thing works yet and i'm not messing around being semi intelligent with HTML tonight) for your couple of answers) of answers right (the irony being i'm currently listening (on Listen Again) to Comedy Dave saying "Let's Get Ready To Ramble"). Anyway we were beaten by a couple who got 93 and came 6th so the quality was high and we won a box of Quality Street for our efforts.

Then came the raffle. My palindrome 494 came out first and I won a bottle of rum and cola mix or something. After a couple of conversations I've had today with Steph and my dad, i've decided to add this to the Mother's Day present for the year along with a box of chocolates. Anyway, back to the subject, Kate's mum then won a Guinness t-shirt, Lucy's dad won a fridge magnet and Caroline had her first win (i think) with a DVD of Legends Of The Fall so as the title suggests, a clean sweep for people connected to the Clan.

Upgraded, Jacko Sacked, Bradford Double

The blog is now upgraded to new Google account thing. It appears I have a Google account even though I don't know what one is so hopefully nothing has changed but if it has I'll try and fix it when I can be bothered.

I can't remember or be bothered looking when I last updated about the quiz so the last two weeks have gone as follows. The first one we got 5th out of 7 with 94 out of 132 without JJ and Caroline but with Google's and Ed's help. Then last week we got 5th out of 8 with 79 out of 141 without Caroline who was "tired".

We had a department trip to HD ONE on Friday for a couple of hours which was nice and I went to see managerless Huddersfield play managerless Bradford on Saturday lunchtime. We got rid of Peter Jackson during the week, not exactly a shock but shock timing, and they're rubbish and sacked they're manager a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't a classic and both teams struggled but we won 2-0 in the end thanks to goals from Paul Hayes and Danny Schofield. They look a team destined for the drop (only one point from safety at the moment) and we are ten points ahead (eight off the play offs) looking destined for mid table obscurity.

I'm a bit confused at the moment over a few things. If I expanded, this post could go on another hour and would make no sense so i'll end it now while the going's good. Hopefully I will be able to see the wood rather than just trees next time I update.

Old Into New

The fantastic Blue Square Poker software which has served me so well over the last 18 months or so is being "upgraded" onto a whole new poker network due to the closure of all American poker rooms due to the crazy stupid new American laws on online gambling. It's the whole luck vs skill argument and the law currently believes that poker is luck. If that were the case, why do the same people win and lose over and over again? Toph wins.

I was meant to update my blog to a new version in December but I didn't and the time is coming nearer when it will have to be updated. There shouldn't be any visible changes although that's what Rosie thought!

I have ordered Windows Vista for my laptop which should be arriving in a couple of weeks. This'll be quite exciting butI find it a bit intrepidating stepping into unknown areas.

I am also buying a Playstation 3 later this month for the launch date of 23rd March. I hope it's awesome as it costs a lot of money.

Premier League Darts

On Thursday night me, my brother and his mate Gary (who's not called Gary but I can't remember his real name) went to watch the Premier League darts at Sheffield Arena. There was over 5000 people there which is one the biggest (if not the biggest) crowds ever to witness a darts match.

The first match saw "The Tripod" Roland Scholten beat "Jackpot" Adrian Lewis 8-6. Lewis is known as jackpot after winning about $40,000 on a slot machine when in Las Vegas when he was 20. However he was not allowed to claim the money as you
have to be 21 to gamble there. The match had to be halted for about a minute as the plasma screens showing the Sky TV coverage showed a shot Blackburn Rovers and Wales international footballer Robbie Savage and the crowd hurled insults at him which would continue through the evening. It was quite funny really and he'll be used to it!

The second match saw Dennis "The Menace" Priestley beat "Jaws" Colin Lloyd 8-5. The atmosphere for this match was good as Priestley is from Yorkshire and so had a lot of fanssupporting him and quite a few in full Dennis The Menace fancy dress.

The third match saw "The Raging Bull" Terry Jenkins beat Peter "One Dart" Manley 8-5. No-one in the crowd likes One Dart due to his previous disagreements with The Power so he was booed regularly throughout the match but he plays on the boos very well and it wouldn't be the same if people liked him.

Then came the big one, the best two darts players of all time battling it out again. "Barney" Raymond Van Barneveld led Phil "The Power" Taylor 5-1 at the interval but The Power came back and won 8-6. A full review of the night's action can be found here.

It was a very loud evening with great atmosphere especially at the end and going into each advert break for the TV when everyone does the Sky darts dance to Chase The Sun by Planet Funk. I can also confirm that there was a lot of beer being sold as you would expect so while darts is just a game played at the pub, it's a big commercial sport, the traditional drinking side of it seems to remain in place.