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Hopefully tomorrow’s opening kickoff of the 2008-2009 Premiership season will be as entertaining as my virtual game in Fifa ’08 on the Xbox 360 this evening – final score was Sunderland 4 – Liverpool 1 Somehow, I think it’s still being slightly optimistic to expect a similar result tomorrow!

I’m going to try watching the match via foxsoccer.com which holds the broadcasts rights over here in the US – our pitiful satellite can’t pick up the actual Fox Soccer Channel, but I’m going to try streaming it online. The first three Sunderland games of the season are being broadcast, and the lads at safc.com have also just fired up the podcast again after doing nothing last season Providing the internet doesn’t disappear in the morning, will almost be as good as being at the Stadium of Light with dad having a pint at half time…

Okay, maybe not. But I will have the new strip on that my parents brought over a couple of weeks ago!

Well, the warm weather at the start of last week was just a teaser. It cooled down again the middle of the week and froze over, and then the last couple of days there’s been some gentle blowing snow most of the time covering the ice. The tundra is still very bare + exposed so it’s kinda a mixed look outside, and still staying down around 15F (-10C) with windchill. Haven’t been out on the snowmobile anyway as the tundra is all exposed around the houses, and don’t really have anywhere to go on it with the weather swinging around!

A few more locals have been getting boats ready though – one of them by the river had a big pile of broken ice next to it which looked like someone had lost control of their sled after being ice chipping, but then the inside of the boat was thick with ice and it’s owner had been breaking it out! I’ve seen a couple getting towed along the river too, again, probably to get out seal hunting along the coast:

Isn’t quite as gruesome as some of the photos recently published out of Canada though, honest.

On the plus side (segue from clubbing seals…?!), GTA IV arrived through the mail this afternoon – about time, as I pre-ordered it last summer, even though it’s final release date wasn’t until this past Tuesday Pretty cool though, so can’t wait to get to stuck into it later on this evening

I’m also heading into Anchorage on May 12th for a few days, partly just to get out the village for a bit! I’m meeting up with a friend who lives there, and hoping to get an introductory flying lesson (TSA approval required for anything more) and pilot medical done whilst I’m there. Slowly moving forward I guess. Should be good, and Damond used to work in Denali National Park and has lived around the Anchorage area all his life, so I can pick his brains for when we head out at the end of July when my parents fly over Can get some shopping done and mail stuff back to keep us going over the summer as well – think I’ll have one box just of mosquito repellant!

Yesterday afternoon Nick, Dana and I went fishing up to the Gallic River where the locals ‘apparently’ go fishing. I say ‘apparently’, as we saw no fishing holes and could barely keep on the trail up there as it’s not widely used! We had the auger so cut a few holes within 5-10 minutes (damn sight easier than using an ice pick to break through existing holes!) and started fishing, but had about as much luck as fishing downriver from Tunt. It was a nice afternoon though, around 5F without much wind, and the ride was pretty cool through the soft snow and across bare tundra without following a trail. I’ll see if Dana had any good photos I can post. Some of Dana’s family are coming up here tomorrow so Nick wanted to check he could get out to the fishing holes and see if there were some holes already cut, but I don’t think I could find my way back there without getting lost as the wind covers the trail pretty quick

I got my PC up and running over the weekend too – genius that I am brought over a bunch of game CD’s and applications for photo + video editing, but not the driver CD for the system board, so that took a while to download them off the internet. My graphics card (256Mb ATI Radeon 9550) seems to have gone belly up though, probably with bouncing around on airplanes when I moved over here. Works fine just on the desktop, but get all sorts of tearing, streaking and artifacts on screen at low-level (such as BIOS or OS splash screen is loaded) and anytime it kicks into a game. Tried different drivers, flashing BIOS, etc. but simply putting in a basic 32Mb don’t-ask-me-to-do-3D card works without problems so it’s not the system board. Annoying as it would still run at 50-60fps, just can’t make out what the hell it’s trying to display on screen! But, Amazon have a $30 mail-in rebate on a GeForce 8600GT with 256Mb DDR3 bringing it down to $65 delivered which is daft considering they were $150 a few months ago, and will kick the pants off the 9550 I paid the same for a couple of years back. That’s PC technology though, especially graphics cards.

One bag of Mia’s dog food arrived today thankfully, and she didn’t seem too bothered with switching back to dried dog food as opposed to the variety of our food she’s been getting recently. More importantly (depending on whether you’re Mia or not!), Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360 also arrived in the mail today I played Guitar Hero II to death, and the latest version is pretty much just a gradual improvement, but mainly it’s the completely new track list that’s important. The boss battles throughout the set lists as part of the encores are a bit weird, especially the final gig (not going to spoil it for anyone!), and they doesn’t really fit into the game as it’s not like it’s telling much of a story. It is a little more involved that Guitar Hero II, but to be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention to the cut scenes cartoons, just waiting for the next set list to load! The first couple of gigs are fairly slow in getting started, but then the tracks pick up nicely and some awesome solos in there.

And in other good news, McLaren gave Alonso the boot and he’s likely to drive Red Bull at the back of the grid next season! Sorry, it was a “mutual parting of the ways” with Alonso “agreeing an early release from his contract”. Yup, definately reads like he was politely asked to naff off. What a shame

A couple of months ago whilst continuing my quest to read the Internet at least once, I came across various forums and articles on ‘freebie’ sites. To be honest, it all sounded well dodgy – you complete a trial offer such as DVD rental program like Netflix or music clubs with discount CD’s, right through to weighloss pills and stop smoking programs. You then need to get a certain number of people to sign up and do the same thing. After figuring it out, it’s not like a pyramid scheme when it builds up and you need dozens of people to get anywhere – for most rewards, 5-7 referrals is often enough depending on what scheme you attempt.

You’re still left trying to convince people to sign up for the offers, unless you hit somewhere like the Anything4Free or The Free Lunch Room forums where people looking to make a little extra money will complete the offers for you for say $10 or $20. Again, to me, that sounded even dodgier, but it’s easy to play safe and stay sensible.

Fast-forward to a couple of days ago, and Nick arrives with two Nintendo Wii’s – one for me, one for him (after he also cottoned on to how easy it is)

I’ve been after a Nintendo Wii since they first came out, and I spent 3/4 days in Anchorage popping into every game store and electronics department we came across trying to find one! No luck, so stumped up a little more money and bought an Xbox 360 instead. Haven’t regretted it as I love it and probably waste too much time playing it (though it’s not like I have much else to do, is it?!).

But, the Wii looks so appealing from a fun perspective, and Kat was also really drawn in by the TV commercials, so was still wanting to get one. The Xbox 360 is great when Nick or Jason come round to play video games, but there’s not much that Kat’s interested in, and with Wii Sports and Wii Play having fun little games such as tennis, bowling, golf, boxing, table tennis, etc. it’s something we’d both like to play. Not working made it a little difficult from a money point of view aside from actually being able to find a Wii stock, especially online, but thanks to a scheme on ClickPerks, I paid out less than $60 to complete a trial offer and then ‘hire’ enough referrals to do the same

Kat loves creating the Mii’s, which are little characters you create based on your appearance – I’ve also found a nifty little script called Mii Transfer for OS X that let’s you transfer your Mii from the Wii controller onto your computer, and you can then edit them online using Mii Editor. You can see the Mii’s Kat and I use around here It’s pretty cool replicating your appearance (or make yourself look however you please!), then see yourself playing golf or tennis in Wii Sports. When Kat first saw the Wii and looked at the TV to see what I was playing, she went “Wow, it’s you!”

The motion sensing controls on the Wii are are an awful lot of fun, and even though I’m used to high definition graphics on award-winning games like Gears of War on the Xbox 360, you’re not paying any attention to lower quality graphics of the Wii whilst you dodging + weaving punches with a controller in each hand or lining up your tee shot on the 2nd hole in a quick 9-hole round of golf. Whether the novelty will wear off after a while remains to be seen, and this is one of the main concerns over the Wii all over the Internet, but the games are so addictive and easy to pick up and play (Kat beat me first time on the bowling game…) it’s something that’s always going to be around when you just want 20 minutes of fun. I’m also really looking forward to hooking it up to the Internet to download Virtual Console games since you can pick up original NES titles to rekindle my childhood!

Slightly downplayed from the Wii, but I also received a Playstation 3 from ClickPerks a few weeks ago too This turned out to be a bit of a disappointment – though considering it cost less than $150 to complete the scheme, I wasn’t that bothered in a $500 state-of-the-art gaming system failing right out the box. For a full read on the hoo-hah getting it sorted and my opions on the PS3, check out my gaming blog on Live Space. A dodgy slot-loading Blu-Ray drive required a return right back to Sony for a replacement unit, a process which took a month. Poor customer support from Sony turned me off, and although the PS3 is actually a pretty impressive unit, I think I’ve spent too long playing the Xbox 360 to look at it objectively.

Still, it’s a nice system to have, even if a lot of the major titles coming up over the next 12-18 months are also releasing on the Xbox 360. I’ll always get the Xbox 360 title simply down to the achievements system, something sadly lacking in the PS3, even with Playstation Home and their trophy idea – that’s only one per game, a limit of 12 in your cabinet, and you must be online to show them off. But, considering various taxes, shipping, and warranty exchanges (easily bringing it close to $700), I’m not complaining for $150. Hell, even with the Nintendo Wii, around $200 has got me $750+ worth of video game consoles

Now that I’m spoilt for choice with an Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, I’d also ran out of space on the TV cabinet! I managed to get hold of a few sheets of wood and time in the workshop at school to knock up nice little shelving unit to hold everything:

I got a set of component video cables for the Wii to allow me to hook up all three consoles via a Impact Acoustics A/V Selector (cut price deal on Amazon ) and I also have a Netgear WGR614 802.11g Wireless DSL router sat in another corner of the lounge pumping the Internet around the house including to all the consoles to stop me getting bored. Considering I got somewhere in excess of $800+ worth of video games consoles by the time you add on taxes and shipping for around $200, I’m not complaining Certainly all keeps me entertained!

I’d signed up for Xbox Live last week to see how it worked on the internet connection at home. It was really good fun on the original Xbox I had back in England, but that was on a much faster connection (3Mb at one point in Gateshead!). Although it would happily download various updates for the Xbox 360 itself and the different games, online gaming just isn’t gonna happen Keeps disconnecting from EA servers on Burnout Revenge and Madden ’07, and after a few rounds of Gears of War with so much lag I couldn’t even get a shot off, have decided to call it a day!

But, means my gamertag now gets sync’d online whenever I plug the Xbox 360 into the network:

The achievements are a cool idea, rewarding you for completing various levels on a game, or winning a basketball match with a certain number of assists or free-throw percentage for example. Some games handle achievements better than others, but it means on games like Burnout Revenge, there was more incentive to go back through and perfect different driver levels and race formats to gain extra achievements and points. Keeps me entertained during the day, and is fun when Nick or Jason come round to play – when they were playing NBA 2k7 on Friday night I just watching and it was more like a real game in terms of graphics!

I was pretty impressed with how quickly Gamefly managed to send out my first couple of video games – they arrived 4 days or so after adding them to my queue which is pretty good considering the mail up here! I sent back Lost Planet and Rainbow Six Vegas on Monday or Tuesday, so logged in to see if they’d arrived yet. Wasn’t expecting much, but it seems Gamefly use a ‘Fast Returns’ system whereby if you return the games via a postal sorting office which scans the barcodes on the outside of the envelope, Gamefly will be notified the games are on their way back and automatically send out your next games. Very cool, and means turn-around should be pretty quick as they’re not having to go all the way to California before the next games are despatched.

I guess the Anchorage sorting office does the scanning, as I’m pretty sure Tunt’s post office doesn’t quite have that facility

The last couple of days I’ve felt terrible – think I’d picked up some stomach bug going round at school. Either that, or was something I ate on Thursday. Spent all Thursday night with pretty bad shooting pains in my stomach and wanting to vomit, but started easing up yesterday. Seems okay today which is good since it’s pretty nice outside and we’ll probably go for a walk later on.

Has been really cold the last few days, down to -20C though closer to -30C with the windchill. Seems pretty calm today without much wind and is very clear – can see half a dozen aircraft trails through the sky which is weird as they’ve all got to be heading to/from Anchorage yet that’s over 400 miles away and we’re an awfully long way of the airways for planes that fly the routes to the lower 48 states!

But, my two games from Gamefly had arrived on Tuesday which I was impressed with considering they’d only been sent out on Saturday. Really been enjoying Lost Planet Extreme Condition as it doesn’t require a whole lot of thought apart from hitting ‘reload’ on your gatling gun every now + again Haven’t been able to get into Rainbox Six Vegas as the controls feel pretty clunky – not at all like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfigher it’s partially based off. Maybe things will start picking up later on though.

I signed up for Gamefly yesterday to see what the service is like, as they have a couple of pretty cool introductory offers. Either go for a 10-days free trial, or first month half-price and includes 12-month subscription to either Offical Xbox Magazine or Playstation Magazine. I went with first month at $12.95 and Xbox magazine subscription as the way the mail works up here, could sit for a week into the 10-day free trial before getting any games through!

It works very much in the same way Netflix, or Screenselect back in the UK, works whereby you add a load of games you’d like into a queue, and they send out the first two available on your list (number of games out varies depending on your subscription plan). You play them as long as you want, send them back when you’re done, and the next available game is sent out. Works nicely since there’s no late fees so if you really like a game, can keep it for a couple of weeks, yet if a game isn’t too hot, can return it the next day and you haven’t blwon $60 on buying it brand new. Plus, as they’re meant to send out all the manuals and stuff with it, should you like a game there’s an option to keep it for about $45 on average, which is about what you’d put for 2nd games from Gamestop.

First two games coming out are the ones I had at the top of my queue but were on ‘Short wait’ last night, so guess they must have come into the warehouse this morning. Should be playing Lost Planet: Extreme Condition and Rainbox Six Vegas in a few days, both two games that look very cool and have wanted to play for a while, but didn’t really want to cough up $120 for the pair of them