A Week In Boredom

OK so I've been trying to find things to do with no money (thanks to Ibiza and the car) and being stuck in the house. So mainly all I've done this week is watch films and play games.

Watched Charlie Wilson's War the other night that was a really good film that both me and the wife enjoyed, very entertaining.

I was told by a friend of mine to watch a film called Session 9, he said it was one of the scariest things he'd seen. We put it on the other night and it was possibly the worst film to grace our DVD player. It felt like I was watching an Aussie soap rather than a US film, and it was about as scary as my dog.

Our dog may be named after a popular TV serial killer but believe me he isn't scary. Suffice to say we didn't watch the whole film.

Another film we watched was Son of Rambow which was very good, the kids in the film are very funny especially Lee Carter. Definitely reminds me of my childhood, me and my brother always used to grab our folks video camera and make our own movies....

I downloaded the demo of The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition on Xbox live yesterday, I love the new look of the game and cant wait to spend some time with it again. I didn't see the demo through I'd rather wait until I grab the full thing and start from scratch.

Better now

Feeling much better than I was now, all I have left is a tickly annoying cough. Not allowed back in to work for another week, so it's fair to say I'm more than a little bored!

I'm not officially house bound anymore so I went for a couple of drives around in the beast listening to the new Subliminal Sessions CD mixed by Eric Morillo. Well worth a look if you love music of the house variety.

For Better or For Worse?

OK I admit it I committed the cardinal sin in the world of football I switched allegiances, last year I turned my back on PES for the first time since the great war started.

Now I've always dabbled with both games throughout their history but I would often not buy FIFA, however you could guarantee I would buy every PES or International Superstar Soccer (as it was once affectionately known) released.

Last year however I didn't buy PES not even on budget! I got hold of the PES demo and quite frankly I was disappointed, now it's very shallow to judge a game on a demo alone but with PES 2009 it was difficult not to. Some might say it's even harsh to judge a game on it's presentation and for the most part I agree.

I just felt that after so many years of putting up with the cheesy front-end and woeful commentary, I thought I deserved more, yeah the game-play has always been the jewel in PES's crown. But I've been playing this game since I was a teenager, PES has little to prove here. That aside I did think the demo felt a little unresponsive, but I think you always feel a little like that when the annual update comes along.

The one thing that FIFA does well time and time again is the presentation. You have great music playing throughout the menu system and everything looks very slick and polished.

PES on the other hand looks like a mid nineties Sky Sports broadcast, whilst great back in the 95 /96 season, these days it's simply lost it's edge and isn't good enough.

The debate has been raging for over a decade now and I think we can all agree that as a games player you takes your choices. I mentioned I switched to FIFA I think it was more in protest than anything else, as I don't enjoy FIFA 09 as much as I enjoyed PES 6 or PES 2008 on the PS2 or 360 (yeah I even had both versions of PES 6!). Yeah I know, cutting your nose off to spite your face is not big or clever.

That said I firmly believe you have to give credit where credit is due. And EA to their credit have clearly pushed and pushed to bring FIFA in line with PES and in all fairness they are about there.

I bring this up because it's nearing that time of year where once again the great debate will crack open. In my opinion PES needs to do only a few minor things to get itself back in shape and I will be a loyal follower all over again. But it looks like FIFA has some great ideas up it's sleeve such as the 360 degree control of the players.

It will be interesting to see how they fare this autumn.

Breaking News:

Alien Breed is on it's way back.

Our good friends over at Team 17 have today released 3 screens on Eurogamer from the Alien Breed remake they are currently working on. It's titled Alien Breed Evolution.

I'm very excited about seeing this, I'm sure my brother will be as excited as I am, we spent many weeks on the original game as kids.

See all the pics here..

Eurogamer

Nottingham Forest

As most of you know I'm a massive Nottingham Forest fan. Looks like we may even get a strong enough side to push for a playoff spot in my opinion.

We made the signing of Paul Anderson permanent which was a genius move. One of the best players we have.

We also managed to capture Lee Camp from QPR who had a blinding loan spell with us last season. After his magnificent performance in that infamous game against the sheep I think most Forest fans will be happy to see him sign.

On top of that we signed Dele Adebola from Bristol and David McGoldrick from Southampton with apparently more signings on the way. I hear on the rumour mill that a young Jermaine Beckford may be City Ground bound.

Defiantly looking forward to the new season.

Yoooooou Reeeeeeeds!

Fitness Update

As some of you may remember I set up this blog to track my fitness amongst other things. I kinda failed with that, but I now plan to get that all back on track.

Clearly this will have to wait until the pig flu has subsided but I'll be hitting the gym hard in the coming months, not least so our little daughter (when she arrives) can say "My Dad is bigger than your Dad" with some pride rather than embarrassment.

I plan to do this with a steady diet, regular games of squash and football and hitting the gym at least 3 times a week.

I'll keep you informed.

Nursery

My wife and her sister have recently finished our nursery wall for when our baby girl arrives around October. I saw some amazing pictures on Deviant Art by a guy called Orioto

http://orioto.deviantart.com/gallery/#Videogame-Remakes

We particularly liked the Yoshi's Island image Orioto had produced so we got Jodie's sister Hollie to paint a picture on the nursery wall inspired by Orioto's original work. The image at the top of this blog shows the results.

As you can imagine we were very happy with the results.

Man Down, Man Down!

Well apparently I have swine flu. Or at least I'm a suspected case so I'm now officially house bound for the next seven days.

I feel quite shocking, tiredness, head aches, upset stomach, aching limbs and a very sore throat amongst other things. But the main thing I'm bothered about is my pregnant wife! She's my designated flu buddy.

She's adamant that she is staying around even though I have the plague, bless her. Don't worry though any sign of oinking and we'll get her a flu buddy and house bound like me. :)

The funny thing is I was working out in San Diego for 2 months when the whole swine flu thing kicked off. I spend a week in Ibiza and three of the nine of us come down with the virus.

Damn you piggies, damn you!

Back from Ibiza

Well I got back from Ibiza in the early hours of Saturday morning. We had a great time out there and went to some amazing club nights.

Highlights for me were Harry Choo Choo Romero's set at Pacha and the legendary Sasha at Cream. I really enjoyed Tiesto at Privilege too. As much as I hate to say (if only because my mate Bob was right) my long time favourite DJ, Paul Van Dyk was a bit of a let down.

The Ibiza Rocks hotel was pretty poor, they just seem to be set up to suck money out of their guests in any way possible. And whilst we weren't expecting an amazing room it would have been nice if the theme of all the rooms followed the vibe of the actual hotel. Simple things like having pictures of the Ibiza Rocks branding in the pics on the walls rather than some chintzy riverside scene. Ours was clearly left over from before the place made the transition to Ibiza Rocks.

That said the facilities were half decent and it didn't put a downer on the holiday.