Quite a boring day today , spent most of it trudging back and forth from Gibbet Hill where all of my Biomedical stuff is located. First a lecture in the morning with roll call (11am) , then a 15 min walk back to dorms where i cooked lunch (instant noodles) , then back to Gibbet hill for 1:15pm to get a photo taken , we had to queue until approx 2:30pm. Walk back to cryfield , walk back again at 4:30 for tutor introduction – my tutor is a complete failface who doesent know wtf is going on.

After that , chilling in my room for a while then went out for drinks.
Shared a pitcher of vodka and red bull with some guy. Half of them went to queue for club , the other half went to sit around SU. I got bored and couldnt really be bothered with either so i went back to my room to chill out a bit. Played WoW for about 15 minutes to collect moneys from my mailbox then got bored and went to the common room where everyone was sitting around playing this weird blink game.

Basically all the guys sit on chairs in a circle and then there are girls behind each boy. One of the chairs is empty. The girl has to blink/wink at guys to get them to go into her chair. Girl behind you has to stop you from escaping.
I was wearing a hoodie , the girl behind me was crazy.
I got choked about 4 times before i could escape.
Im not very good at that game ;_;

nothing much else happened today. And i think im gonna head to bed shortly because i my fucking lectures start at 11am tomorrow and its BS. I also have to do a 1500 word essay on something by 9th october. Which is mad BS.

On the brighter side , i bought tickets to see Pendulum w/ the hoosiers for £25. No idea who the hoosiers are but dil said they were decent – which means they’re probably pretty bad but pendulum will make up for it i hope.

Ill think of some post titles that arent generic as hell next time i promise. (i probably actually wont but ill at least try.)

After sitting around in the common room a bunch of us (read: All of us) decided we should try and cook dinner at the same time. I feel really bad cooking little horrible meals when everyone else seems to be going all out , there was a pizza cooked , fajitas with peppers and sauce , some sort of pasta with mince , pasta with cheese , toast cheese and beans , and i cant really remember what the girls had cooked but it was equally nice looking.
I looked in the fridge and eventually decided i would try and make a bacon and egg sandwich (my fridge inventory currently consists of Bacon , Eggs…. err….i think i have some apples in there… and some milk..

…

=/

i actually thought i had more in there before i typed this up. shit.

So the party thing was semi-lame , semi-cool. It was lame in that there was nothing particuarly special going on , but somewhat cool in the way that it made it easy to approach everyone and introduce yourself. I dont think ill be able to remember any more than 5% of the names i was told during the night but we’ll see i guess.

Another half of the students came today , since yesterday was A-L surnames , today was everyone else so there were lots of people to meet. Our small posse thing turned into about 8-12 strong.

After a fair bit of chatting to randoms and such we decided to head out to the Student Union for a bit to see if we could get in. It was packed and  there was an entrance fee We decided to try and find ‘Varisity’ or whatever it was called ,which is a pub/bar sort of place. We ended up walking all around campus for ages taking all sorts of routes.  We EVENTUALLY got there and got a drink , after buying a £2 card you get a fair bit of discount I got a bottle of bulmers for like £2.60 or something which isnt particuarly bad – moreso considering how much of a bad drinker i am and that one bottle is enough to get me a little ‘funny’. Its odd how a little alcohol can bring people out of their shells , i dont know why that is , maybe alcohol overrides the part of your brain that does self control , maybe you feel like you can blame it on the booze if you do stuff thats completely retarded…

The pub shut at 11pm (what the fuck.) so we had to journey AAAAALL the way back to the student union – which wasnt actually that far away we just took the longest route possible to get to varisity.
There was an outside DJ and stuff playing music. We hung around for a while there bopping along to pendulum , oasis , killers , basshunter and probably a load of other stuff im completely omitting.

We then went back to Cryfield (at around 12ish) to find a group of people in the common room , two of which playing guitars. We sat around for some more and chatted until now where i decided to write this up (1.30am) , Geroge – who was one of the guys playing guitar was an absoloute beast and was playing Tenacious D, reel big fish , and err… other… stuff. I cant really remember the other stuff but having a group of about 3 of us singing along to ‘fuck her gently’ was definately the highlight of my stay here so far. Yes there were girls there too. No i cant sing well but i couldnt really give a shit i suppose.

Rather nastily i havent actually tried using the bathroom showers yet , im kind of scared of using public showers but i know im going to have to eventually…

Tomorrow i have to attend a lecture at 11am at gibbet hill , i dont even know where that is but i met another Biomedical student next door to me so hopefully ill just tag along with him.

Im not quite missing home yet , although i do wish i had said a proper goodbye to Hassan (im sorry bro , i meant to on the friday but i was just so busy with other stuff , then i was hoping to tell my parents in the morning to give me a lift to your house but then i forgot ;_; )

Heres a picture of my room by the way.

i tried to be all cool and do a panorama thing , it didnt work very well but you get a rough idea of whats going on.

Everything seems a blur , we arrived at the university of warwick at around 1pm ish. Went to the dorm reception and was asked to fill out a form , they then gave me my room keys and make us write our room number code on a piece of paper along with our name and then take a mugshot photo. Im HOPING this was for their use or something and it will not end up as some sort of ‘lets make fun of the freshers’ sort of thing and be a poster.

Moved all my stuff into the room , painfully. Especially the computer , which weighs a fucking ton. Thanks antec – Great design but you couldnt make that shit lightweight huh.

This is my first time at warwick uni since i never really bothered to go to any of the open days and such.
My initial impressions – Wow , this place has a lot of grass and trees. Also. Wow , this place smells like shit.
My dad tells me the shit smell is because we’re so far out from the city , i panic a little.

Whilst unpacking in my room i meet some of my neighbours. Across the hall is a socialite girl called Helen , she deemed it neccesary to bring a bottle of vodka with her.
Next to me is a stairwell , i cant really say anything bad about a stairwell.
On the other side of me is a quiet girl called… idk. I forgot.
On the other side across the hall (its like 2 rooms just outside my room) is a cool surfer like dude called Ben , which we promptly nicknamed Malfunction Man because he just can’t do shit with electricals right – for example he put all of his stuff in the freezer (including peppers , cheese , carrots… – who the hell brings peppers with them anyway) , then he tries to make toast and practically breaks the toaster , it took him like an hour to get his internet working , etc etc.
2 other dudes which i seemed to group with is a large talky talk type guy called Tim, the one who knows a shitton of useless knowledge and isnt scared to share it with everyone. And an odd person who looks like Simon Amstell called Ian, he seems to be addicted to beer since he just kept drinking that shit casualy yesterday.

Walked around and got my uni card and finance and stuff sorted out, then came back and just chatted with the other people in my dorm for a while. Night eventually came and we decided we should try and go out and be social. unfortunately this night at the uni is basically a freshers night thing and you need to buy a shirt , of which none of us did. We ended up just chilling on the piazza and talking to randoms , we went to tescos with a group of people and came back with some food for the night/this morning and Tim bought a rather large bottle of SELEKT vodka , which they say tastes absoloutely horrible , i didn’t try because proper smirnoff vodka in my opinion tastes like bleach so i cant even imagine what horrible vodka tastes like. I also bought a bottle of apple sourz , i figure it may come in useful at some point when we decide to play some drinking games.

Sat around and talked in the kitchen for an hour or so with a girl we found on the way to tesco called Margarita (which i cant spell properly , i think). Ben brokee the toaster at this point.
We headed back to the piazza to try and make more friends , we ended up talking to randoms again , lots of randoms.
Everyone went back to the common room around midnight and they stayed up talking to about 3am , i left at about 2:30am because i was tired. Of course i was then enticed by cross to play a ‘little’ WoW , and ended up sleeping at 5:30am

Woke up at 10 this morning from the sound of my mobile phone ringing , parents want to take me shopping for crap , i accept as i know it’ll save me some money. Turns out it saved me rather alot of money as i needed quite a bit of crap. Still need to buy some PC speakers at some point though as atm to listen to music im just turning my headset way up and leaving it on the desk. its more than adequate noise level wise but im concerned it’ll explode my headset sooner or later.

Theres a cryfield party thing at some point tonight , i know nothing of it but hopefully someone else will. I think im gonna go and try and socialize now since ive been typing this on and off all morning.

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii

keep watching…

Saying ‘pictures don’t do this game justice’ is like saying ‘people with no nipples are strange’.

…

Well what i mean by that is that you really have to see crysis warhead in motion to comprehend how amazingly beautiful this game is.

Im playing on everything high (not very high) and shaders on normal and the effect is the pictures below.
Putting shaders on high basically puts on 18 different types of bloom and HDR at the same time. The result is a much brighter crysis where the sun shines through leaves and the shadows seem alot more contrasted.
The performance hit is of course rather big , at 1920×1200 i was getting 80fps with shaders on normal , and then 25-35fps with it on high.
I think ill take my silky smooth frames over a little extra sunlight.

The game is Sykes (Psycho)’s version of the original Crysis. This takes you on a different route completely but under the same events. Im not too far in (about 2-3 hours) so i dont know if you get to see Nomad (the guy you play in the original Crysis) or not.

I do question whether crysis warhead should be an ‘expansion pack’ or not , since it only really expands on the story. All of the gameplay elements are more or less identical to the original Crysis. Infact if you’ve played Crysis already, this is essentially the same game with more polish.

The fine details are certainly all there. When you get into the frozen area for example , your reflex sight has condensation over the front of it and your gun becomes all frosted.
Walking through frozen plants causes parts of them to shatter.
The sounds are all amazing , walking on ice and snow are exactly how you would imagine it to be.

There are a few issues with enemy AI , but for the most part they work well (occasionally they wont notice you – on other occasions they shoot you through 8 miles of shrubs and foliage)

Other little things like debris landing on the camera , blood on the camera , blinking when you get shot by a rocket or something – really makes you feel like you’re in the game rather than playing it. Little things , but big effects. Blurring is also used very nicely in the game which is nice , for example when changing stuff on your weapons , the background becomes blurred out and emphasis is focused on the weapons themselves (whcih are all stupidly detailed by the way.)

I really liked the original Crysis , and thus Crysis Warhead is the same stuff but with more visual flare and better optimization (or maybe ive just gotten a 8800GTS since i played the first Crysis)

Sorry about the recent nega-blogging.

Its the last week at home before i move out to Uni and hence ive been out a fair bit.

The times i have been home have been pretty much spent playing WoW and you guys don’t really want to know about that so i’ll leave it out of this blog. – If you’re intrested in that stuff all my stats and gear are here

Yesterday was spent with Frances , meatball sub for lunch and then off to lakeside for a lookaround. Had my last shakeaway for a while – Aero Mint , which came out extra extra thick and was amazing. It reminded me of the old style McDonalds milkshakes.

Today was spent dossing about and playing DS, played a bit of WoW then went out to dinner at the carvery – which for those who don’t know is basically a traditional english roast sort of restaurant , you get your plate and ask for a certain type of meat – Gammon (ham) / Turkey / Beef , or you can have some of each or 2 types. Me being… me. I had some of all of them. You then take veggies like brocoli , carrots , potatoes, peas etc etc etc and then help yourself to cranberry sauce and gravy and then take it back to your table and nom that shit.

Im beginning to think about packing , i leave on saturday and so far ive packed my duvet covers and a towel. I have clothes strewn over my sofa still and i really cant be fucked to do anything about it. *sigh*

Im in one of those moods again.

To send off some of those who are going to uni tomorrow (20th Sep) we decided to go bowling.
I have to say , i forgot how expensive bowling is. 2 games = £10 , yikes.

I finally managed to find my exact positioning and shot and managed to get some fobtastic strikes in.

Also managed to get a new record of loudness of the ball hitting the floor and distance down the lane before the ball hits the floor.

For the idiots , this is what bowling is supposed to look like. You throw the bowling ball nearish to the floor and along it.

Advanced tips and strategies from a bowling prodigy.

Loud Bowling™

To be able to turn heads of the people around you (to see your potential strike) i recommend this technique , its called Loud Bowling™ and basically works by pretending there is a sandcastle below the floorboards of the bowling lane. Alternatively you could imagine it as a nest of spiders / birthday cake / your ex’s face / black person / Swan etc etc.

By bowling like this , not only will you feel amazing knowing that you’re getting your moneys worth of bowling by costing the management hundreds of pounds worth of damage to their floors , you also turn heads and will be able to feel popular and professional.

Xtreme Bowling™

Tired of how easy normal bowling is? Then its time for you to try XTREME BOWLING™
The ultimate goal of Xtreme Bowling™  is to be able to hit the pins and get a strike WITHOUT LETTING THE BALL HIT THE LANE , obviously this is very hard to do unless you’re built like a tank , Try your best to throw it as far down the lane as possible. (My personal best is about 3/5 down the lane)

Aside from look really cool , you get to give yourself additional challenge. Spinning the ball is not recomended but you can if you want. If your ball flies into another lane you do not get any kudos or points unless you get a strike in that lane.

Patapon 2
^ More patapons , missions and items sounds good to me.

http://www.siliconera.com/2008/09/11/getting-into-the-groove-with-groovin-blocks/
^ Groovin Blocks actually sounds really good as well. If you cant be bothered to read the article , think lumines + Columns with techno music and you get additional score multipliers if you drop the blocks in time with the beat. Pretty innovative if you ask me.

Nirin

^ Road Rash Arcade?

Yggdra Union
http://www.siliconera.com/2008/09/09/ygdra-union-this-was-once-a-gba-game/
^ Looks amazing and it comes out in North America Tomorrow, i just hope my PSP will run it because i havent upgraded my firmware in about a half year.

S4 League
^ Open Beta now , for those who havent heard of it , its basically a futuristic Gunz Online.
And we all have to admit , we all liked gunz online for a small period of time.