The answer to all your wayward hamster related problems!

In other news - spam, spam, spam! What is going on?!

There's an Apple event on September 5th! I'm guessing at new iPods.

Possibly iPhoneified ones, with touch screens. Definately with the iPhone interface as far as coverflow and stuff are concerned. Maybe flash memory - up to 32gb? Or a bigger HDD.

*claps hands excitedly*

I. Want. This. Game.

There are piccies up on my Flickr page of our afternoon up the mountain now, if you want a look-see.

Liz had received a kite for Christmas, but she hadn't had the chance to play with it. What better place than up a mountain, on the moor?

Well, as it turns out it wasn't that windy, but after a bit of kerfuffle we get her kite up in the air, and mine went up in no time at all. Paddy hobbled up there with us and flew his own little kite from a chair. Bless.

Any pics on here can be seen bigger and better on my Flickr page if you're at all interested.

So, my brother and his girlfriend are down for a visit this weekend, and yesterday we decided to go to the beach. Paddy opted out due to his leg being in a cast - very wise, can you imagine getting sand in that!? - and so stayed at home with the doggies. We piled into my car and off we went!

When we used to visit my grandparents, we always used to go to a place called Pendine, on the Pembrokeshire coast. That's where we decided to go. It's a long flat stretch of clean sand, where they used to do the land speed record attempts. It's really beautiful. At one end of the beach are cliffs with caves and rock pools beneath them. That's where we always set up camp, it's more interesting, there's a bit of shade if you need it, and there's a path up to the cliff top.

You used to be able to drive onto the beach, but they stopped that a few years ago citing safety reasons. In all the years we spent summers there, I don't remember anyone being hurt by a car on that beach. Oh well.

Anyway, there was a bit of traffic as we came into Carmarthen, which added a bit of time to the journey, but we had the stero on and it seemed to go quite quickly.

This is where we ended up!

That's our stuff in the middle, the two empty chairs. Considering how big the beach is, and how nice a day it was, it was almost empty!

Elliot and Liz went down to the sea, and I stayed to look after our things, with my book. I took this shot while they were walking away, cos Liz hates having her picture taken.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, so sunny and warm. We had some sandwiches I'd made, and a drink, and I read my book in the sun while Elliot and Liz explored the rock pools. Then I noticed that I could no longer see the Gower peninsula on the horizon...

It was a bank of mist, almost like a wall! It came closer and closer, first enveloping the beach to the left of us, and then the cliffs to the right.

We had loads of fun running around in the mist, and took loads of pics of each other in the distance, all faint and spooky!

It was like something from "Silent Hill"! Really eerie. The mist muffled all the sound. There was a kid walking round banging two rocks together, and it echoed off the cliffs - but we couldn't see him. Very strange.

Even thought it was misty, the sun was still quite strong overhead, and it was still warm.

Elliot likes to play in the sand (well, who doesn't?) and he always makes sand sculptures, like this one:

But we decided to go a bit further. This involved lots of digging:

And this was the end result!

The hole was so deep it reached the water table under the sand, and we had a puddle in the bottom that got deeper as the tide came in - which completely flumoxed one little girl who was sat near us, because the water kept draining away in her little hole in the sand when she poured it in. I tried to explain it, but I don't think she really understood...

So we hung around until the tide came in:

And then went home. Or rather, tried to go home.

You see, at Pendine, the cliffs form a sort of little cove, with one end sticking out onto the beach. Which means, when the tide comes in, the area in front of the cliffs is cut off from the rest of the beach when the sea reaches the point.

The rest of the beach is the other side of that rocky bit. We were ok to paddle round, but there were people behind us who were not even getting ready to leave!

So that was our day at the beach. We drove home, had a barbeque, drank beer and wine, played on the Wii and went to bed knackered and sunburnt.

...I went to the beach! Yay!

It was a lovely day, we got some fantastic pics, which I will post later when we get back from flying kites up the mountain!

See you later!

So in light of circumstances beyond my control, it would appear that I will be getting my car taxed so that I can be the designated driver for the next few days at least.

You know the Fiat Bravo advert with the car driving through all the surreal landscapes? I love the music, sounds like remixed Swan Lake.

CLICKY TO WATCH IT!

I can't get the music. It was apparently made speshly for the advert.

Hope they release it.

I'm looking into flights back to the UK for Christmas. Sorted, not as cheap as I'd have liked but not awful either.

Then I started looking into car hire, so we can get around once we're here.

Arse.

Quite expensive, really. I think I was a bit naive to think it would be, like, £30.

Can anyone reccomend a good car rental company? Hertz are best so far, I've also looked at Avis who were pretty close to Hertz, and NCR who were more than twice the price.

In other Radio Un inspired news type stuff, we watched the GODAWFUL pilot of the new Flash Gordon series the other day, and one of the characters is a bloke called Joe Whiley!

Anyway, if you were a fan of the 80's film you won't be disappointed - it hasn't moved on very much!

Just kidding, it's actually quite different, they changed a lot of the story, but the special effects are terrible. Paddy said he didn't think it was too bad for a pilot, they probably had a low budget.

But then he saw one of the gadgets the Mongoan people used.

You know when you go to a pantomime, or a big organised bonfire, and they sell cheap gimicky light up things for the kids? There's normally a sort of clear globe thing on a stick, with LEDs whizzing round inside when you press a button.

Something like this:

(if that pic doesn't work, click here)

Bet you didn't know that was an alien scanning device, did you?

Oh, and the acting was utter utter shite.

Aquaman, on the other hand, has promise.

For more info on the new Flash Gordon, see here.

Yay! Got a new car.

Boo, no tax.

Yay! Got insurance and MOT type bits of paper.

Boo, realised it was near the end of the month and thus a complete waste of money to tax my car.

Bugger.

Oh my GOD can someone please please please tell Chris Moyles that it is not OK for him to spend the first ten minutes after 9am playing snippets of theme tunes backed by him and Dave wailing and playing a tin whistle. Just play the bloody theme tune if you must, no need for the crap.

It is not entertainment, it is just boring.

Does it make me really immature if I really like "Grownups" on BBC3?

Cos I do. Even if it is mostly peurile toilet humour.

Do you like my musicky widget over there --->

Tells you what I've been listening to! Magic. You can get one too!

Note to self, be careful what you listen to from now on.

In my post about Transformers the other day, I joked about awkward questions arising from kids younger than the 12A rating watching the film.

Cue my nephew, Liam, aged nearly 7, asking my sister what masturbating is.

Apparently it means doing schoolwork in your bedroom, basically another word for homework.

Could be interesting back at school, when his teacher asks what he did the night before.

I've set meself up a Wordpress blog. Just to see what it's like, I'm quite happy here, thank you very much.

I've been clicking through their version of the "next blogs" thing.

Nine out of ten sites were religious. Either a blog for a ministry or a chapel or just some religious nut spreading the word.

I don't think I'm going to fit in...

Oh it was worth waiting for. I was so excited, and fully prepared for Paddy to take the piss, but he loved it too.

Stunning visually, action most of the way through. Funny in places, I was very impressed with Shia LeBeouf. Seen him in a few things, from Even Stevens to Constantine, and he's come a long way.

Considering it was a 12A, the cinema was full of kids, and as CJ said in his review, I bet the parents are regretting it. I can hear it now - "Dad, what's masturbating mean?"

I would love to see this film in HD. The robots were so intricate, even if Megatron did turn into a sort of alien plane, not a gun. I can live with that, it would have been a bit daft, really. It would have been nice to have him turn into some sort of big weapon though, to keep it in line with the cartoon. Oh well.

Absolutely fantastic scene at the end with Starscream disguised as a USAF fighter jet, amid a group of real USAF jets, repeatedly transforming mid-flight to attack them and then changing back into a plane to hide.

Marvellous marvellousness. DVD can't be released soon enough!

Now all they need to do is make a good He-Man film and I can die happy.

Stolen from Paddy:

TEN FIRSTS
First best friend: Russell Oakes
First screen name: Snoopy
First Pet: Sadie, a lovely mongrell
First Piercing: Left ear lobe. It didn't suit me and got all infected
First Crush: Kim Basinger
First Record: Oh good god I'm not saying, shut up Paddy.
First Car: Metro
First Love: Perry
First stuffed animal: Barney! A bear.

NINE LASTS
Last alcoholic beverage: Vodka and coke on Saturday night
Last car ride: From home to work
Last movie seen: In the cinema, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; on DVD, The Number 23; on television, The Howling.
Last phone call made: To Helen
Last CD Played: Jokomo
Last Bubble bath: Last week sometime
Last time you cried: Can't remember...

EIGHT HAVE YOU EVERS
Have you ever dated one of your best friends: Sort of
Have you ever been arrested: No
Have you ever skinny dipped: No
Have you ever been on TV: Yes
Have you ever kissed someone, and then regretted it: Oh yes
Have you ever had a sex dream about someone: Yes
Have you ever had sex? Yes

SEVEN THINGS YOU ARE WEARING
1. Pale yellow short sleeved shirt
2. Grey trouser
3. Sort of mottled brown shoes
4. Brown socks
5. Black and red boxers
6. Ring
7. Specs!

SIX THINGS YOU'VE DONE TODAY
1. Been woken up. Bastard.
2. Had a shirt ironed
3. Texted my sister to see if she's had her baby and not told me
4. Updated the move to Ireland ticker
5. Drunk coffee
6. Been grassed up about "enhancing" my 'A' Level results

FIVE FAVOURITE THINGS IN NO ORDER
1. My Nolly
2. My pets
3. My laptop
4. My books
5. My family

FOUR PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ALMOST ANYTHING TO
1. Paddy
2. Ami
3. James
4. Rebecca

THREE CHOICES
1. Black or White: Black
2. Hot or Cold: Hot
3. Chocolate or Vanilla: Vanilla

TWO THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
1. See more of the world
2. Live in a house with a round room

ONE THING YOU REGRET
Not saving better for Ireland!

Time is flying past inordinately quickly.

It's quite scary. My boss has just pointed out that tomorrow is my last day working with one of my co-workers. She is off on Thursday, I don't work Fridays, and then she's on holiday for two weeks. I finish on the 6th September.

In one months time, we will be on a ferry, bound for Rosslare.

Oh god.

Still want it to be sooner.

Bleugh. My belly is all bloaty and churny. I have eaten crap today, self inflicted. Pasta and sauce out of a packet, toast, chocolate and cheesecake. And I'm craving crisps. Mustn't.

Finished The Book of Lost Things. Nice story but a bit obvious. Well, not a nice story, really. A bit twisted, really. Good story, then. I really must get around to posting on my book review blog.

Not sure what to read now. Finished all the His Dark Materials books. Finished the newest Kelley Armstrong. Finished all the Jim Butcher ones I have. Finished the gabillion books I borrowed from my friend Ami. Hmm. Maybe Weaveworld again.

Watching Dexter. I got the first three episodes. Quite a good premise, but I'm a bit bored by the padding. Maybe it'll pick up.

So on Thursday, my old friend Natalie (old as in I've known her a long time, not that she's 87 or anything) came down for a visit.

As I think I said before, I've not spent much time with her over the last ten years or so. Her mom and my mom are good friends - that's how we know each other - so we see each other at family parties and weddings and the like, but that's about it. Every time we see each other, we make sure we have current contact details, but never use em. We're as bad as each other.

So a few weeks back, I succumbed and created a facebook profile. I spent some time flicking through people's profiles, searching for friends. One of the things I did was find people I used to know, but didn't want on my friends list, and look through their friends lists for people I might want in mine!

During this process, I stumbled across Natalie! We started exchanging messages, and I told her about Ireland, and she told me she had the week off and invited herself down to visit.

I was really excited, but also a little bit worried that we may have grown apart. I needn't have worried. I went outside to meet her, we hugged and it was like old times. We chatted about crap, what friends and family were up to, that sort of thing.

Paddy came home, and we went out to show her the sights. We had lunch at Carreg Cennen, and then took the dogs for a run and a play in the river. Paddy has posted some pics, but here are a couple I love:

At home that evening, we had a comfortable evening, chatting, watching Eastenders, talking about TV shows, music, films, books - it's amazing how much we still have in common! - and the move to Ireland. Oh, and sweets!

I cooked a stir fry, we had a few bottles of wine, and had a lovely time.

Friday morning was spent going through our music for stuff she could steal, copying some DVDs - The Lost Room, fantastic! - and playing on the Wii. Natalie went home at lunchtime, after extracting a promise that we would pop in to visit her and her partner the next time we are in Birmingham.

The rest of Friday was spent doing nothing in particular - reading, playing on the Wii, playing with the dogs - and then fiddling with my iTunes library. Beans and much toast provided by Paddy for tea!

Saturday - woke up fairly early for a weekend, but stayed in bed. Got up at lunchtime and took the dogs up the mountain.

Here's another pic Paddy posted, but I love it!

Sarnies when we got home, lazy afternoon. Foster kid came to visit to use the computer for a couple of hours, and then in the evening I had fish and chips for tea and Paddy had chicken fried rice. From the same place, I might add - our local chippy is also a Chinese takeaway. They appear to have new owners, the menu has changed, they have started a delivery service and the food doesn't taste as good. Oh well, we're moving soon anyway!

We watched Tomb Raider 2, and then The Number 23, which was quite good, but the end seemed a bit flat. Paddy found it didn't hold his attention. I thought it was a great idea - so many things can be made to fit the theory if you try hard enough!

Today? Nothing special planned, slobbing about on the sofa, a couple of episodes of Dexter, and I'll probably finish the book I'm reading - The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly.

I'm off now - need something to eat! Bye!

Just received this in an email. Oh my God, warn everyone you know!

We were raised on chocolate as kids and even into adulthood. Throw yours away whenever you get given any from now on. It seems as though nothing is safe to eat anymore.

This is what happens when you eat chocolate! This is a warning, tell everyone you care about. It could happen to you...or them.

Chocolate makes your feet small!

Have you seen my previous post? The one about racism in computer games. If not, go have a look and then come back.

Ok, now go and have a look at the Black Looks article again - click here to take a look.

Notice anything odd? Nor did I, but someone commented on it.

Every time the author uses the word black, she capitalises it. Not white. Just "Black".

I find that offensive. Talk about subtle and sinister ways to promote racism.

I have no interest in going back to read her other posts to see if this is a theme of hers.

First off, I don't want to tell people what they should or should not be offended by. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

This post is about accusations of racism in the world of computer games. I stumbled across the issue on Ark-888's blog.

The two games involved are Resident Evil 5, and - amazingly - Locoroco.

There are links to original articles at the bottom of the post.

A bit of a storm has blown up over a couple of blogs with the same subject - the trailer for Resident Evil 5. One of the posts is sort of reasoned, the other two are knee-jerk and uninformed. They all represent the opinion of the author, none of them excuse the ignorance of a "journalist" who has access to the internet - it's their medium, for God's sake - and can check things out easily. Several of the articles are incendiary and just plain silly.

The trailer in question shows the protagonist, a white man, in a town/village somewhere in what appears to be Africa, fighting off hordes of zombies. The zombies are black people.

Both the blogs I referred to above cite this as unacceptable racism.

Resident Evil is a long-running series of survival-horror games, where the story has evolved from game to game, but many characters are recurring, and the action moves from place to place to keep the story fresh. The majority of the games have been set in the USA, with the majority of the zombies either white or unknown because of horrific disfiguration.

In Resident Evil 4, the story took us to Spain, and the "zombies" (actually mind controlled people, in this game) were Spanish.

Resident Evil 5's location is unclear, as I said it appears to be Africa. The people there are African. When they become zombies, they are still African. The protagonist is a recurring character from the series - a white man. He has killed hundreds of white zombies.

Why is it an issue all of a sudden? Is it any different for a black protagonist, such as the one in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or Bulletproof, to shoot and kill white people? In my mind, if you want to look at it that way, it's worse because the people in GTA and Bulletproof are not zombies. Many of them are people going about their daily business.

But at the end of the day, this is fiction. It's a game. It's not real. The bloggers I refer to above seem to think it's a sinister allegory for real life, and that the "white man" is teaching kids to hate black people because they are different. I'm sorry, but no, it's not. There are racist people who might play this game and enjoy the fact that the zombies they are shooting are black, but I'm quite sure the vast majority are like me and did not even think about that when they watched the trailer. It's the setting of the game, part of the story. If the other Resident Evil games are any guide, an important character will be someone from the local community who has survived so far, they will probably be a playable character. And as for this slur being perpetrated by the "white man" - well, Capcom is a Japanese company, and the game is made by Japanese people.

Someone has said that in the trailer, even the people who are not zombies are portrayed as zombie-like. I dispute that. They are sinister and creepy - but that's for atmosphere! This is a horror game. Watch any number of horror films, and you will see characters who are not central to the plot but are used to create atmosphere. Creepy butlers, creepy villagers, creepy family members.

These sentiments and more are all displayed in the comments on the actual posts linked below. Although some people just hurl insults, there are some good points, and a few great ones. Very few of the points are adressed by the blog owners, and often the ones that are are the insults.

Here is the trailer in question. I didn't put it higher up because I wanted to talk about it first:

What do you think?

And now I come to Locoroco. I had a demo of this game on the PSP, and I loved it. It's such a happy game, totally different to the usual platformer. You play a blob who has to roll around the landscape, collecting other fruit, tickling flowers, making the moon wake up - bizarre cutesy stuff.

There are some enemies. There are spiky things, and floaty things, that eat bits of your little blob.

One of the blogs who talked about Resident Evil 5 linked to a post about Locoroco, written last year.

It states that Locoroco is racist, because the enemies are coloured black, and have red mouths. They must be modeled on gollywogs!

Here is a video of the game play of Locoroco. If you want to skip to a bit with an enemy, there is one at 2:00.

Oh, and just as I am certain there will be a black non-zombie character in Resident Evil, some of the blobs in Locoroco are black. I suppose they represent "collaborators".

I find it sad that some people see conspiracy in everything. Locoroco is a unique game, designed for kids. To suggest that it's secretly some sort of mechanism to promote racism is heinous and paranoid.

The people that insist that this sort of thing is racist are determined to see the worst in the world, and the people in it. They have surely been the victims of racism. Experience has coloured their perceptions. You can read racism in all sorts of things if you try hard enough.

I know that racism exists, I just don't think it exists here. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think so.

So, do you think these games are racist? If so, do you think it was intentional?

Links to the posts I mentioned above:

Black Looks original pos
Black Looks response to comments
Village Voice
Microscopiq
Gamingtruth response to some of the above articles

Locoroco article - please note that the image at the top of the page is created by the author to illustrate his point.

Meh.

Not in the mood today. Too excited about my friend coming to visit tomorrow!

Paddy just stamped on my foot.

I'm having soup for lunch again, and trying to pretend that it's not really hot and sunny outside so it's ok to have soup.

Do you like my new header image? Paddy finds it unnerving. Four arms, four legs - I'm spiderman!

I quite liked this one:

But I'm loving this one:

24" glossy widescreen display
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
320GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory

Free Shipping
£1,149.00
(£977.87 ex VAT)

Cheapy RAM upgrade from Scan.co.uk, and away we go!

It's so thin!

But, on the downside, we'll be in Ireland, and the Irish price is €1749, which works out to £1189, £40 more than UK price. Arse.

Apple store is still down. So I can't even see how much I need to save. *sigh*

EDIT:

And now it's broken!

"Did not receive any response from application. It is possible that the application does not exist, or that the requested url is incorrect."

Bunch of arse.

Of course, it could be the strain of millions of sad tossers (like me) pressing apple+r (or clicking "reload") every few seconds.

EDIT (again):

Back to the post-it note. *sigh*

Brushed aluminium and shiny glass. I'll take one, please!

Payment you say? Can I offer you a button? Some cheese, perhaps?

What? Money?

Naaah, you don't want any of that. Dirty stuff. Do you know how many bacteria are on a typical coin? Lots!

*sob*