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The what? June 28, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Rants , add a comment

The Happening has to be one of the lamest serious movie titles I’ve ever laid eyes upon. It’s possibly the exact opposite in movie titling mistake to Snakes on a Plane.

In the first, you’ve got the most general title for a film/book/play ever conceived. I mean seriously, how many of these things are there were there is no happenings, no events? I can’t think of anything where something doesn’t happen, where there is no happening.  Things must happen in order to create something interesting, it’s just the way these things work!

On the other hand, you’ve got Snakes on a Plane, which essentially sums up the entire movie before you’ve even planned out your weekend.  I’ve not seen it, so I can’t be sure but I must assume that there is a plane, which through some kind of event (happening if you will) has been filled with, presumably, many snakes.  Samuel L Jackson, being the bad ass that he is, will somehow save the day and get rid of said snakes, probably with some tasty phrases thrown into the mix.  I don’t really think I need to see the movie.

Back to The Happening - you may aswell have just called it “Event” or perhaps even “Title” or “Movie”. Seriously guys, lets sort this out, maybe it was just an attempt to make the title so vague people would go and see it just to find out what it’s about, on a whim perhaps,  I can’t imagine that anyone is going to assume some kind of original and mind bending cinematic experience with a name like that.

May Balling it Up May 20, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, School , add a comment

Yes, last Friday it was indeed that time of the year again. I mentioned it last year although it didn’t get its own shiny post dedicated to it.

Unlike last year, this time round I had a bit more time to prepare myself. Back then I had 3 hours of exams the afternoon before the May Ball and barely had time to put clothes on before friends were turning up to be taken there. I had a much more relaxed time this year and we arrived not early but not late either.

Although our invites told us that we needed to be there for 6.45pm to have the photo taken at 7pm it was much closer to 7.45 when the photo actually got taken. We hung around eating sweets and throwing around innuendo in the entrance bit. Unlike last year the photo was taken inside and thus required a lot of squashing up to fit everyone in it, I assume that the photographer did get everyone in, he seemed to take quite a lot of photos so it will be pot luck whether I look ok in the one that is chosen as the “official” photo.

At this point we all sat down to eat. Being that my sixth form friendship group consists of me and 3 other people it was pretty much guaranteed that we would be sat with another group of people although till we got there we didn’t know who. I was quite pleased to find we were sat on table F (for failure, obviously) and were with a group of people similar to ourselves in terms of popularity. Perfectly nice people so that was all good. Last time around we basically had the table to ourselves as a couple of people on it didn’t show up and the ones that did just left the table and didn’t come back.

When it comes to the food I can’t help but feel I’m on my own with my opinion. The starter was a tomato soup with croûtons and bread rolls which I thought was very nice and the staff checked who was vegetarian (on our table it may have just been me, I’m not entirely sure as I was at the end). Main course I already knew was going to be lasagna and chips (strange combination…) and mine was basically a lasagna with all the meat replaced by vegetables, which works fine for me and I quite enjoyed it. From what people were saying in tutor period this morning however, it didn’t seem to go down well. Maybe the meat version was far inferior or perhaps they are just fussy. I don’t know. Pudding was a profita roll type thing with quite a lot of cream. Nice but for whatever reason I was just too full to get through it all.

Once everyone was close enough to finished they brought on the band whose name I couldn’t really hear properly so I won’t try and tell you who they were. They played last year and have band members ranging through a few years although most do not go to our school anymore.  As expected it was pretty crappy pop-rock with rather boring lead even if it was technically correct.  They also had some quite weird line up changes, with some songs the singer was just singing whilst his younger brother played bass but in others the singer played bass as well and the other guy just sat out.  The drummer also did a small bit of playing guitar and singing whilst they were setting up for their second set which was really quite bad and a very good example of why drummers should never be allowed to play guitar.

I also noticed this time round that they had really quite craptacular amps, I think one of them was a Marshall MG (the first amp I got, they are awful) and the other was some other quite small and uninteresting amp.  No one used any effects and the drum kit was a bit lacking in options, although I’m not sure if they would have been used if they were there.  I think that completes my criticisms, to be fair on them, they weren’t really that bad.  They did what they did perfectly well and although the songs they played weren’t really to my taste they were generally good choices for the audience they had, I don’t expect stuff I like to be played.

On the note of band playing though, it would be good if we could get Opium Toad on for next years May Ball, probably just for a small opening set since we would of course be bringing the metal.  I have a little more faith in the will-be-then-year-12s as I know quite a few of them and there is a bigger rock/metal presence in their year. It wouldn’t really be strange for us to be there either, since 3/5s of the band will probably be going to that sixth form and the rest of us are still about.

That’s a bit of a tangent, back onto the ball.  Once the band had disappeared it was just the DJ, a typical balding, middle aged overweight guy if I remember correctly.  Of course from this point the music was just god awful.  Filled with crappy rap and pop, some of the shit was played more than once and that particularly annoyed me because they could have used that time to play Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.  It never was played, of course, because any requests for it would be fighting against a flood of requests for rubbish.

At this point the night mostly turned into watching drunk people, such as our friend David, get drunker and drunker and do amazing things.  Sights included seeing my tutor (and IT teacher to friends) attempting to do the Macarena (something I tried last year but there wasn’t enough wine for that this time around) and my friend getting a hug and drunken future encouragements from another IT teacher.  It was gold.

The night culminated with a bit of Don’t stop me now by Queen followed by Livin’ on a prayer, which enticed our drunken David to the dance floor, where his swaggerings kept us all raving away.  Once we were shortly into Livin’ on a prayer David bolted off the dance floor without a word.  Of course, without his swaggering we had no hope of staying on the dance floor, dancing is really not our thing, particularly with my blood alcohol level, it just wasn’t going to happen.

Naturally there was confusion as to where he had gone and after a couple of minutes my friend returned from the toilet with some amazing news: Vomit.  Or more specifically: Vomit Explosion.

As it happens, he had headed to the toilet once he realized something was up but the bodily processes were already in motion and things were already well underway before he was in the door to the mini-corridor that lead to the actual men’s bathroom.  To sum up the damage, there was vomit on the carpet before the mini corridor, vomit on the floor and a bit of the wall of the mini corridor and of course all over the floor of the bathroom as well.  Presumably he got some in the toilet as well but I didn’t really want to get that close, the smell was a pretty potent spectacle to behold and as he exited the building (which he did in a great hurry) he left a great trail of smell behind him.  It was amazing.

The few great sights alone made the night worth it really.  I left out a few bits which I can’t remember in enough detail or can’t really write about in a reasonably anonymous way (eg the awards).  Of course David gets left out of the vague anonymity because of his amazing performance.

Still to come, the report from Saturday, which will hopefully be a bit shorter because this has grown to rather an epic length…

Hangin with trolls April 26, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Instances, Internets, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Last night we made some progress in Zul’Aman, or at least, I think it was progress for the guild, it definitely was for me.  We took down the first three bosses (Bear, Eagle, Dragonhawk) with the Bear going down within the timed event. No lewts for me as it was mostly DPS cloth that dropped and a resto druid belt but I’m just pleased  that we got them down.  Be imba puts my performance level as only just inside the first 25 mans, not even able to do well in ZA but still me and the other healers who are of a similar level I think (it was two resto druids last night) got right through those bosses, actually one shotting the first two (if you don’t include a very quick fail and recovery on the bear, oopsies).

I think all in all this puts many of us in good stead to start the 25 mans all we really need is the numbers, it seems we don’t have enough for even two Kara groups going at the same time yet so the next level is a bit far away.  It’s healers that are mostly lacking I think which just puts a bit more pressure on me to be active.

I think we’re going into ZA again tonight although my internet connection is being very temperamental when it comes to WoW, I’m constantly experiencing 1000+ms latencies whilst the rest of the stuff I do on the internet is fine.  We’re gonna be trying out Halazzi the Lynx (again, gonna be a first for me) which, according to WoWWiki, is a gear check for both tanks and healers. With that in mind, I will be very surprised if we down him.

Guild based mayhem April 4, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Thoughts, World of Warcraft , add a comment

A couple of days ago I logged into WoW only to notice after about 30mins that I was completely lacking a guild.  More than that, my realm (EU-Ghostlands) was completely lacking my guild.  That evening a discovered from a friend (who was friends with my guild leader when he played WoW) that the guild leader had disbanded the guild and transfered realms.

This left me in something of an interesting position, I had been considering leaving the guild in search of a more progression based one for a while due to little hope in even seeing Kara again as our raiders seemed to be leaving just as we had enough for a trip.  Now I could try and join any guild I wanted to, I have reasonable gear, mostly purples and blues with 3 greens that I haven’t managed to replace yet, nothing special but good enough for a kara guild.  So I quickly made my mind up to apply to a guild that I found that were currently kara on farm and ZA 2/6 with a view to start 25 mans.  Currently my application is being looked at and I’ve been told I will be contacted in game although no communication has arrived yet.

The real problem emerged when I logged on to see if I would be communicated with and saw, to my horror, my guild leader + 2 other high level members sitting in Darnassus with our guild tag under their names.  When they saw me I immediately got a guild invite with the leader whispering to say that after a small breakdown she was trying to get the old members back together.  I was left really not knowing what to say just looking at the guild invite.  I ended up sending back a bit of an uncomfortable message saying I had applied for another guild and that I didn’t know whether they were going to accept me or not, with a confused smiley.  She replied with an “Oh…” (or along those lines) and then logged off so I don’t really know what to think.

Now if I can get into this new guild then that would be great, it would give me a good shot at progression and a chance to do the thing I’ve wanted to do right from the start of playing but there is a decent chance they won’t accept me, they’ve had applications from better people and they don’t need more holy paladins. I’m hoping that my application form filling in skills haven’t failed me (in a previous MMO I was an applications officer in my guild so I should know how to write an app myself) and that I will get on based on a sort of “gear can be gotten easily, personality and skill are harder to find” sort of a basis.

I’m really not the guild hopping sort (aforementioned previous MMO I stuck with the same guild from as soon as I got into the guild scene to when I retired and am still a retired member when I last checked) so I can’t really be sure if I’d ever be up to actually doing the deed and leaving my old guild.  As with before I was with them from level 15 or so right up to 70 and into kara (albeit only for 2 runs).  Because of this I really saw the disappearance of my guild and its leaders as a blessing because it was really a chance for me to get out and experience more of the game, something I promised myself I would do.

It could definitely be argued that the previous MMO really got boring at the end because the game sucked and the guild just weren’t progressing (it was a PvP based system there but we were essentially a mediocre guild for the entire time and probably still to this day) and I don’t want that to happen again in WoW because there is so much more to do at endgame.

Given that I listen to WoW podcasts and read WoW blogs all talking about endgame I don’t really think it’s unfair that I want to experience that for myself even if it means leaving my beloved old mostly-social guild behind. I hope I’m making the right decision.

The Sword at Rock City - 25/03/08 March 26, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Fun, Music , add a comment

Last night me and three friends went to see The Sword live at rock city. We grabbed a the nearest bus to all of us and got there at about 7.30pm and waited a few minutes to be let in. There wasn’t a huge gathering of people outside and although I didn’t know before hand this confirmed my suspicion that it would be in the basement. This isn’t hugely surprising but at the same time Freya is on guitar hero 2 so there was always the possibility of a larger turnout.

Anyways, we headed in and into the basement (if you’ve never been there it’s not really a basement but its got a low ceiling and is quite compact and is primarily used for metal so I guess that is how it got it’s name, don’t really know) and the band merchandise was to the right as we went in, something I haven’t seen before. We just hung around for a while waiting for the first band, Black Cobra, to come on. When they did, we were a bit surprised to find out they were only a two man band. Musically, they were OK, not the worst support band I’ve seen but not particularly good either. Essentially we all agreed that they should just leave out vocals and be instrumental because the lyrics are totally inaudible over the screechy vocal style, which is pretty horrible within itself. Maybe those vocals are part of the sludge genre, I don’t really know because it’s not something I listen to generally.

When they went off we took the opportunity to move forward a bit and waited again for Saviours to get ready. Having listening to Saviours a bit more before coming to the gig I was expecting better of them than Black Cobra and aside from a few technical difficulties (which meant we heard the first two riffs of their first song three times) they didn’t dissapoint. Again, after they left the stage we moved forward a bit more to be nearer the action for The Sword.

It didn’t take long for them to set up and they started with a song I didn’t recognize, which was kind of the trend for the night. They played a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard before, which is kinda surprising given that I thought I owned their only album. As it happens, it’s all from their new album, apparently released at the beginning of April (even though it seems to be available for buy and download on iTunes right now) which I intend to buy on CD when I can.

In all honesty, I would have liked to hear more stuff I recognized as I can get into it a lot easier and really feel the groove but they did play a few goodies such as Barael’s Blade and Iron Swan. Freya was saved for the encore, which started with a cover song that neither me nor my friends knew. They got a bit of heckling for that choice which is understandable. I did like how Freya was introduced: “Now for a song by the other greatest band from Texas” which confused me for a few seconds before they started off into the first riff.

Overall it was a pretty good night, my only real complaint being that I would have liked to see more of The Sword and less of the other bands (although I did enjoy some of Saviours). There were also some weird issues where the guitars didn’t quite have the oomph that I would expect, the sound just seemed to fall apart at some bits and it sounded a bit odd. I don’t think it was the fault of the band or a lack of skill on their part I think it was a pure technical thing, whatever they used to obtain the sound on the record probably couldn’t be done live for whatever reason. I picked up a t-shirt on the way out which I’m wearing as I type and I’d definitely go and see them live again, hopefully at a point where they don’t have much new material and I’ve managed to soak the new album into my brain.

My All Time Top Games part 1 August 20, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Fun, Gaming, Life , add a comment

I kinda wanted to make a list of my all time top games, just to think about how much time I have spent playing different games and in that sense how good they are because quite frankly all I really play now is World of Warcraft but it doesn’t make the games I’ve played in the past bad and they still deserve a good mention.

I’m gonna go down in (to my best recollection) amount of time played, starting with the most. It’s going to be a 2 part post, the first part doing 1-5 and the next finishing it off, hopefully with 6-10.

1. Runescape
Ahh, runescape, my first taste of that fickle genre, the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, but I’m sure you already know that). This comes right at the top because I played this game pretty much every day for over 2 years. Runescape was really more of a job than a game because it didn’t matter what you wanted in the game, it was all going to take a lot of work. You want that cool barrows armour? You’re gonna have to work. You want to be level 100? That’s a good 100 hours of grind right there. The only real merit is that some of this work didn’t require much attention, fishing for example was just waiting (quite realistic really…) and occasionally moving spots or going to the bank when you were full. What excitement.

The only really thing that kept it going so long was the pking (that’s player versus player by the way). Really, in itself, it wasn’t that exciting. I mean, most combat on these things does boil down to attacking and then waiting as numbers appear on you and your opponent but with others there’s usually some hardcore mashing of a few keys and running around in circles. With runescape all the real skill came down to timing of when to eat, which also relied on a nice net connection to make sure your timing didn’t go to waste.

The big thing about PKing was the revolutionary idea that when the enemy died you actually got to take the things they were holding and wearing. Unlike most MMORPGs, in runescape PvP was a big gamble, essentially a balance between the best equipment and what you could afford to lose. The possibility of reward and fame from pking was what kept it alive but really I should have quit much sooner. I was never that good at it really and it turns out I’m actually quite reasonable at WoW PvP which, despite having mediocre rewards, is actually a lot of fun.

2. Battlefield 2142
The latest in the battlefield series, it’s a bit of a difficult in terms of placing. I must have played it every day for a good few months before it finally got boring. It’s definitely a game worth playing and as with most of the games on this list it’s the multiplayer that really keeps it going. Gaining ranks and unlocks through the online play was a lot of fun and as with many of the best games it had those difficult to achieve unlocks that really keep you going. Unfortunately now its drifted away and I’m not interested in it any more but I will buy the next battlefield game, providing it is on PC, as BF2142 has provided me with a lot of fun.

Here’s where things get a bit difficult to classify as its really difficult to know how much time I spent playing these games, I’m going to try and put them into the best order I can though.

3.World of Warcraft
Yep, the beast of the MMORPG world. Whilst playing runescape I heavily criticised WoW so to anyone who read some of my forum posts about it back in the day would probably be tempted (and rightly so) to call me a hypocrite for playing it. It just turns out its much more fun than I realised it would be, both the PvP and PvE is a lot of fun. I’m particularly enjoying the concepts of different classes playing different roles in a group which is something that didn’t really exist in Runescape although it of course plays a big part in most MMORPGs.

I imagine I’ll be playing WoW for about another year, or until I get bored. I doubt I will carry on after going to university. I haven’t found it as addictive as runescape once was but its good fun and I have vowed to make sure not to play it beyond the point of having fun because that would be making the runescape mistake again.

4. Age of Empires 1 & 2
The original age of empires was first real experience of PC gaming and one of my early gaming experiences entirely. I’m not sure what it was that made it so great but it was just a brilliant. At first I could only play for very limited periods of time which kept it very fresh and left me longing to play more. When I finally had a computer of my own I quickly got AoE2 and played that for a while, after I finally got online with it that extended the game a bit longer but it eventually just faded away. Even though its not a series I ever play any more it is the sole reason that I grew to love the real time strategy genre, which brings me nicely to the next game.

5. Starcraft
It’s difficult to know where to place this gem, so I used a bit of chronology here. I was first introduced to this game by a friend who had 2 macs in his house both hooked up for LAN games. He, actually owning the game, tended to beat everyone who faced him at it but when the time came I bought my own copy thanks to those versus matches.

Really, the attraction of starcraft wasn’t in the single player game, which I found too hard, what was really great about it and remains so to this day is Blizzard’s Battle.net. What with the Starcraft editor being changed lots of great custom maps appeared and I spent many, many hours playing things like Simpsons massacre and sunken/tower/stargate/whatever defence. That’s what really kept it going as a great game and still keeps people playing today. Unfortunately, I can never seem to get onto battle.net any more, I do go on starcraft occasionally though as it is such a great game

I’m going to continue this post another day, with hopefully the 6-10 of my all time top games.