March 30, 2007

Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer

The wait is over, the trailer has been released and everyone and their grandma have either seen it and/or uploaded it. So, as one of those that uploaded it to YouTube, here it is...



March 28, 2007

Saving up monies

Gah, it's impossible when you have people that expect you to buy stuff on EVERY occasion in the calendar. Especially when you have a missus that likes to 'celebrate' every possible event, she's a sucker for the corporate holidays that squeeze you for money at some unknown shit holiday they made up and if I don't get anything or give her less than £10 for any of these events, misery shall follow.

I've gotta admit that it pisses me off, I wouldn't bother with it all as I like to keep my money for stuff I want to use it for, not because of some 'Day', but when you think about it, there's one of those 'Day's' at least 8 times a year.

  1. January: 25th Burns Night (Scotland)
  2. February: 14th Valentines Day. Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day, not really that important)
  3. March: 18th Mothers Day. St Patricks Day (Ireland, not really an occasion, just a big celebration)
  4. April: Easter
  5. June: 17th Fathers Day
  6. September: 22nd Grandparents Day. Another corporate idea to get you to buy a card and a present.
  7. Then we're safe until November 5th, Guy Fawkes Night (don't really count Halloween in October as it's not particularly something 'celebrated' due to being about nothing)
  8. The Main Event: Christmas.

Then you have the matter of Birthdays to consider, I reckon I should be safe after Easter and be able to resume saving money until the kids Birthdays 3 months later in August, that's if the missus doesn't come up with some bullshit excuse of an idea just to get cash out of me like she usually does. "What do you think about...." NO! Don't bother asking coz it ain't gonna happen. I know it pisses her off that I don't waste my money by spending it on shit we don't need, but that's just tough, she can't stay in all day, she has to go out to town or somewhere that involves spending money. She's one of those that aren't happy unless they're spending money, yet I prefer to buy only what I need and no, I know I don't 'need' games or consoles, but due to not really needing anything, the money I've saved not buying shit for the sake of it provides funds for indulging in stuff like that.

March 26, 2007

Who invented Mondays?

It's been so boring today, no news worth putting up on Mental Gamers and I'm not going to join the rest of the internet going on about the PS3, I already said it was a failed launch, nothing I can say is going to make any difference to what everyone else is saying. UK:Resistance have pretty much everything about the failings of the PS3 in Europe featuring a photo from most of the 'events', including the pretty much non-existent one in Birmingham. It seems I'm not the only one that thinks it was a failure, fosfor gadgets also think the same and the fact is, it was a disappointing launch despite the announcement that it's actually the fastest selling console by selling 165,000 over the weekend.

I've sorted the social bookmark problem by using a different version that doesn't involve using icons, but just text links to what are probably the mostly used 'services' by people. I'm trying to 'get around' to like-minded bloggers and hopefully get some linking going and become part of a kind of social network, which is why I'm changing my blogging style slightly to not only include personal stuff, but to mention more about stuff I'm into and if there's anything happening about the stuff I'm into.

I. AM. SPARTA. n shit, yo...

{Posted when on 'own' space}

I’ll make my mind up

Or is it make up my mind? I suppose it depends where you come from, but anyway, as you can see, I’ve gone back to using the Say It 2: Electric Boogaloo WordPress theme because I really liked it before and despite searching through 100’s of other themes to find the ‘ideal’ theme, it seems I’d already found it and hadn’t properly realised it.

One of the things that bugs me a bit is why the social bookmarkers don’t ‘work’ properly, they work fine in the first post, then they go all spread out in the other posts and don’t even appear on the previous page by just leaving text links that messes up the whole thing. It’s not the theme that’s the problem as it’s the same even with the default Kubrick theme, but for some reason, it just doesn’t seem to look the way it’s supposed to, so I’ll be looking at some other way to have ’social bookmarking’ in the event someone actually visits and finds something remotely interesting.

I saw Melanie C on GMTV earlier and have to say she’s looking rather lovely with her longish straight hair and level fringe, she looks pretty cute. I don’t really bother listening to the radio or watching MTV or whatever, so I wasn’t too aware of her releasing a new album that’s apparently due on April 2nd and her new single, I Want Candy is out today. That reminds me, I still haven’t got her previous album Beautiful Intentions and although it’s cheaper at Amazon, I also want to get Night At The Museum and that’s on offer at Play.com for £11.99 for the 2 disc special edition, so it looks like I’ll be getting that from there.

Ok, so that’s it until I find something else worth blogging about, keep it chill dawg …. n stuff..

{Posted when on ‘own’ space}

March 24, 2007

aceman Onblog is 50 posts old

Well, I never thought it would last this long due to me usually losing interest after a month or so, but here I am, 50 posts and 3 Vlogs later and I still have the interest to do more.

I'm still deciding on a theme that I want to stick with for as long as I can, this one is nice, but it doesn't work well in IE, so I'm still on the look out for a decent 3 column theme that's a bit more tweakable than this. One of the things that b0rks up the style is because I use Flash/Javascript elements and they tend to make things go wibbly and cause some things to break the style. I've changed it to 2 columns to see if it works any better and enabled the sliding thing at the top (the bit you click on Open/Close to see/hide), but anyway...

I suppose I'll mention the PS3 and oh|so|failed launch where I don't think they've even sold half of the UK's allocation. I checked on line to see who had stock yesterday, every Argos store within my postcode had stock as did GAME, Gameplay, Amazon and a few other sites I looked on. I had to laugh at the lack of interest at the 'launch event' when only about 125 turned up and apparently about 20 of those were press, so it was hardly the most exciting thing to happen and despite what the Sony execs say, it was a failure.

Well, that's it, time to go looking for more themes and do other stuff...

March 18, 2007

New style ahoy!

I've decided to go for a 3 column styled theme and although I wasn't that keen on the 2 sidebars on the same side style before, I think it doesn't look so bad now that I've become a bit more used to seeing so many themes with the same kind of style. The main reason for going the 3 columned route is because I don't expect visitors to scroll down so much to see all the gubbins I have down the side, I only have 6 posts showing on each 'page' (instead of like other blogs which have pretty much every post ever on the front page, therefore taking a tonne of the visitors CPU, RAM, bandwidth and time to load up) and with the amount of crap I stick on the side, it was longer than the length of the posts.

The 2nd sidebar still needs sorting out, so I'll be sorting that out after I've finished this post and to see archives, categories and stuff, there was a link you could click on to 'Open/Close' menus at the top, the only problem with that is, if there was a shitload of links that have been added, it could get very big indeed and possibly become too much to handle, so I'll be sticking them in the sidebar or something.

Well, that's it for now and maybe I'll be doing another vBlog soon, but for now, time to have a look at tweaking this thing..

{Posted when on 'own' space'}

March 15, 2007

Today was a good day

I was just thinking of that Ice Cube tune for some reason, which is why I’ve used it as the title. As mentioned in the previouspost, I was going to see if the missus could basically exchange my PSP version of GTA:VCS for the Ps2 version and waddya know, she did!

That’s what I originally wanted, so I’d just like to say that Gamestation are FTW for giving £18 for the (mint condition, NRFP) PSP version and price matching Woolworths who are selling it for £14.97, thus leaving me with a £3.03 credit note. It’s not that often I buy new games and especially ones that have only just been released, I usually leave them until they’ve been reduced, but then again, with internet prices being so low, it’s not so bad splashing out on a new one now and then.

I have to say that I’m not one of those people that have to have all the big releases on the day of launch, it doesn’t bother me if I’m not playing the latest and greatest with everyone else, I buy games when I want to and not just on launch day to fit in with everyone else. Anyway, I r happy bunny now I’ve got the version I wanted, now I’m just waiting for Theme Park and Sim City for the DS…

March 14, 2007

Action stations!

Kind of got the carpet sorted in the small bedroom where the daughter No.2 sleeps, but it wasn't quite cut by a proper carpet fitter and so looks like your dad in the jacket he got married in, still fits, but is a bit short where it matters. The one corner of the room has a hole where the old water pipes still go down, so with a bit of luck, I hope we can get that sorted before we have a new carpet fitted in there as it's basically the size of half a floorboard.

The missus knows about someone that might have my unopened PSP GTA:VCS and give us £20 for it, if so, I'll let her sell it to get the PS2 version of the same game, which is what I wanted to do originally, yet they (R*) decided it wasn't going to be released on the PS2 until about 6 weeks ago when they announced that it was and that's why I had the PSP version for my Birthday. Although GTA: San Andreas Stories hasn't been announced (yet), I'm definitely going to hold out until the PS2 version is released and not make the same mistake again if they do decide to do S.A.S.. I don't trade in games, I don't see the point in paying all that money for the sake of buying the game, playing it constantly until I'm sick of it about a week or 2 later, then trade it in to get another game. I only buy games I want and will play again and again which is why my collection isn't that big, I'm not going to pay £35-40 for a game to go and lose around £15 when I trade it in after 2 weeks when it's still pretty much brand new, if that's what others like to do, fine, but they must like losing money because they're not gaining anything.

So, Sony have decided to announce a new PSP that's going to be slightly (and I reckon it will be ever so slightly) smaller and lighter, I don't know why the PSP gets such a bad rap when it's capable of so many things. Ok, so the games aren't that spectacular, what did you expect? It's a portable PlayStation, you know, the old 32bit console?! I think it's a decent piece of kit that can be used as an MP3 player, image viewer and video player as well as play games and that's not including the home brew side of things. Anyway, not only that, but fuckinell they've impressed a whole load of nay-sayers with the announcement of Home. Wow! It's damn amazing and I think it could be the thing that will sell the PS3, not the Blu-Ray bullshit or the games, Home is what people will want to play with, I know I'd spend quite a bit of time on there just chilling out and doing stuff. It's like an immersive Xbox Live using characters ala Mii's to wonder round a virtual lobby not too akin to in like in Anarchy Online, I don't care what anyone says, Home is fucking impressive and if done right, will be what Sony need to get the PS3 on top.

March 09, 2007

vBlog 3: Yarr! Piraaaates!

It's Friday, another video blog, 5 minutes of your time is required for viewing pleasure.

Well, the whole TV situation is getting me down a bit, so I might seem more dopey than usual...

The cba entry

I’ve been in a kind of ‘cba to play/do/pfaf about with stuff’ mood coz of my shitty telly keep going off and then we had very short notice that the central heating was due to be fitted (we were told literally the night before), so it was a bit of a mad dash to get things moved out of the way. Then that meant I hardly had access to the PC for 2 days while it was being fitted, so mentalgamers.com has had a lack of news updates since Wednesday, and just as I was getting into the swing of things by getting news up and hits were improving. :/

Anyway, I feel like doing a vBlog, so that’ll be the next post…

March 05, 2007

Back to the old theme

It's no good, I just had to do it, as much as I liked the Say It 2.0 theme, I've gone back to this more simpler style theme.

It still has a bit of tweaking to be done in the way of colour, but it's simple look is what I'm after, there are some nice themes out there with fancy graphics and whatnot, I don't want that though. A blog doesn't need a load of fancy bells and whistles, people don't visit because of what it looks like, people should be visiting because of the content and although I'm hardly the most interesting blogger ever, I like to think my ramblings appeal to some people.

The kids were rather excited earlier, especially the youngest who couldn't wait, Viva Piñata has started on Nick Toons and due to watching the episodes I used to download on the Xbox 360, they were soon sitting quiet, ready for it to start. They had already seen the episodes that were on, but at least it's on TV now and they don't have to keep bugging me to ask about new episodes on Xbox Live. Now I just need to get them to stop asking about if there are new votes on the Everybody Votes Wii channel...

{posted when on 'own' space}

March 03, 2007

vBlog, back with avengeance

I might start doing a video blog every Friday or something, it's not like anything major ever happens anyway, but I was watching a video blog of some kid who was saying that YouTube is addictive and that it should have a warning that it's so addictive. I don't think it's THAT addictive, although, I do see his point a bit, I sometimes sit here and look at the webcam wondering whether to record something and upload it, but then I think;
  1. It's not like I have that many people visit my blog anyway
  2. I don't think people would care that much about what I've done every day
  3. I'm not a daily blogger, I blog around 4 times a week about 'stuff', it's not like I would find that much to say
So, while I could do a vBlog every day or even twice a day, it wouldn't be worth it and I reckon people would get a bit fed up of seeing so many vids up, you only need to look around on YouTube and the comments for serial vBloggers, some aren't that nice. As usual, click 'See more..' to see the vBlog.

Lastly, it appears WordPress 2.1.1 was somehow sabotaged and a couple of files were changed that could allow hackers to gain access to your site, anyone using WordPress should already know this, but I'll be updating as soon as I've entered this post...