Sexy certificate for me. Clicky. Not much else to say. I'm staying at the same university next year for my masters (they gave me a scholarship thing and Edinburgh didn't) and then I'll consider other universities if I decide to do a PhD. I'm also thinking about taking a gap year. I want to travel somewhere and there are teaching opportunities in China, which would allow me to stay for a year... with free accommodation and a little monthly salary too. Oh I just realised. It was my sixth anniversary here a few days ago. Time flies.

I had a coupon for 50% off a dominos pizza order... the catch: when you spend over £30. So I just ordered: 1 large plain cheese pizza, Chicken "kickers"... nuggets, basically, Chicken strips, Potato wedges, Cookies, More cookies, and a bottle of coke. Total: £30.20... so £15.10.

I imagine this will feed me at least three times. I hope it tastes good reheated. >_>

Yeah, I applied for a masters degree in philosophy... at the University of Edinburgh. Really hoping that I am accepted and given funding for tuition, living costs and a stipend... but only two people will be given that kind of funding... so best not to count my chickens before they hatch. Plan B hasn't been thought yet... although I think there are other funding opportunities... but not quite as substancial.

Also I had my last exam today... at least until my final ones in June. Feeling mentally drained right now. Zzz.

Edit: I recieved a conditional offer from the university. I need to get a 2.1 or first, which should be fine. I'll find out about the funding in late March. Fingers crossed. >.>

So I moved into my new house for my final year last night. Have to say, my room is pretty substandard. The bed had stains on and everything. The couch has no cover, rips in the carpet.. etc etc. I don't expect much (although considering the price I should really be getting something nice) but this is really unacceptable. I'm going to contact the landlady sometime soon to say it's not good enough. I'm not sure if she will do anything. However, she doesn't have my money yet so we shall see. It's also pretty cold here. People don't want the heating on to save money so that kind of sucks.

Anyways, I'm starting to settle again. I left all my gaming stuff at home. I did manage to beat Mass Effect 2 on Insanity shortly before leaving, though. That was an ordeal but it made me into a real man.

So I haven't posted one of these in a longgg time. It feels odd writing this. I've been absent due to university but I reckon I'll be posting again until the end of the summer, so happy days. Not much of interest that I'm willing to share really, although uni is going well and I'm thinking to do a PhD after my final year, which starts this September. The PhD would be in Philosophy again, though I'm unsure as to what area and where I want to go with it.

That aside, my 360 broke (again). Luckily MS are fixing it for free, even though it's over 4 years old. The guy said he'd extend the warranty another three years too. I'm not sure if that's because it's the three red lights issue. I haven't really been playing many games lately. I did want to play through Mass Effect 2 but, you know, so now I'm just playing Everybody's Golf on the PS3. Strange choice maybe but I find it so addicting and I just can't be bothered with anything too involved.

Other things to note: I saw FOB live last year. I'm not sure how I feel about them no longer making music. I also saw Funeral For A Friend again... they were awesome. I also no longer use a Mac. I chose better hardware over software. Even if Windows sucks in comparison, I'll suffer it for the sake of a HD screen and bluray on my Vaio. Bit of a poor show that Windows can't play Blurays through its media player, though.

Cookies for those who read this. I'll try repay the favour.

The Friday just gone was the night of my first ever concert so it was pretty awesome. Well, first concert of my choosing, since I have seen Status Quo a couple of times when I was about four... or something. I was pretty confident that it was going to be good seeing as their latest album was an improvement over their last, but that didn't really matter too much. Straight away they said they wanted to take this chance to play their older stuff that they hadn't played in a while. Of the new album they played about five songs, about three from Hours and then about half of the Casually Dressed album, finishing with Escape Artists Never Die, which was amazing. Everything was amazing, though, to be honest, even the songs no one expected them to sing, like Your Revolution Is A Joke and History They also played Into Oblivion, from Tales Don't Tell Themselves. That was the only song from that album... and I was glad... but I think some people took it a bit far when they started throwing the odd bottle on stage, especially when they'd said they were making a point of playing older stuff. What made the night even better was being able to grab the drum stick that they threw into the crowd at the end. I had a good place to stand... middle, front, about four bodies back... but I didn't really see it coming. It just kind of popped up in front of me. I just grabbed it and yanked it out of a few people's hand and shoved it down my jeans. So yeah, pretty cool thing to remember the night by. It's got Funeral For A Friend engraved down the side and stuff too. See... Clicky clicky. Thanks for reading... and I'll get around to your blogs soon. I just haven't been that active recently so I've got some catching up to do.

Today is that day. Fortunately, it's been a pretty good day for me. To cut a long story short, I needed an A and two B's in order to get into university (college). That's exactly what I got, plus an extra B from General Studies. I got my A in ICT, which I was relying on to be honest. That subject saw the majority of my attention throughout the last school year. The two B's were in English Language and History. I was a little disappointed with those because I dropped from an A in English (an A from last year) and, in History, I was only 7 marks away from an A. Funnily enough, I scored full marks in one of the three units (European) but then managed to get an E in the last unit (Scramble for Africa), which dragged my overall grade down. Pretty similar stuff to last year, when the same happened in ICT. My teacher says it'll be sent off for a remark in the hope of gaining those 7 marks. But, whatever the case, I'll be studying Philosophy at the University of Manchester this September, so all is well and there's not much point in worrying about the finer details, and thanks for reading.

If you thought I was leaving, think again. I'm just bidding farewell to the GameSpot we know right now. If you haven't already heard, there's a new design being brought in that's currently a Beta (beta.gamespot.com). I don't know if it's wrong of me to say this, because I really don't know who has worked on it and to what extent, but it's horrible. I really can't like it. I've already ranted in the thread on OT so, to save time: "Every website uses that wider setup and I have to say that GameSpot, as it is, is one of very few that actually looks attractive... because of its narrow design. The wider setup stretches the content across the page and doesn't look tidy at all. None of the sections look proportioned at all. I've had to design websites before, without getting into the technical aspect of it, and it's extremely hard to make something look appealing when there's zero symmetry, as can be seen in this Beta. With the narrow design, that's not the case. I mean, just look at the profile pages. There's so much wasted space. The left column contains our emblems, level and name; apart from that it's just blank. I fail to see why that tiny section can't be stuck in one of the other two columns, making the page narrower. It might not fill your browser but you're not missing any content. You probably get more on the current setup because of how much more compact it is. The new GameSpot header already takes up about four times as much room, at the expense of the inbox section that's crammed into the corner. So that's my main gripe, but the rest of it isn't much better. The font colours are bad. That yellow is just awful, and there's no need for two luminous colours (orange too). The sections of the website are very bland - just boxes, really... if that - more like boxes for headers and nothing to define the content below." I'd also like to add that this design will probably come with its own share of glitches like the last redesign, and I'm not going to be as forgiving this time, knowing that the glitches are a result of regress. From what I've gathered, most people seem to like the new design. I'd like to ask how many of you actually like the new design over the current one or whether you're just happy that it's something new. I can't imagine GameSpot going back on their decision to change things, even though change is not needed at all, unless, of course, we all moan like I am... but that's obviously not going to happen. I did leave feedback asking them to leave the page width but even that'll be ignored, I bet. Oh, and apparently it looks like Giant Bomb. Well, yes, the colour scheme and the navigation do look very much like it; there's no denying that. I heard a few people saying Jeff stole the designs on his way out of the office. I seem to remember saying that as a joke in the old Giant Bomb launch thread... so erm, coincidence, or will people believe anything?

On GameSpot, that is. Technically I started out on GameFAQs, so I haven't been posting for here for three years... more like two and a half. I'm not sure what to say, other than it's been fun and all that stuff usually said in a post party. The main reason I've stayed so long is because of the Off Topic board. In the beginning I posted more in unions and the PSP board but, as the unions died out and the initial excitement of having a PSP faded, I made the switch to OT. I think it's a permanent switch. If ever I post elsewhere, it's in System Wars, and I don't think anyone could stay there for long, heh. I think we need a stat rundown: 43,207 posts, 71 blogs, 5 reviews and 588 friends. Hmm, yeah, that's quite a lot of tracking there at the end. I'm now expecting no less than 588 comments on this blog as a result. So, I guess things will continue as they are until the end of summer and then I go to university, at which point, I'm not sure what will happen. I can't see myself stopping though, even though friends tell me I should. I'll always have time to burn and there's no place better than here for doing that. That reminds me of the old minutes counter they used to have on the forums page underneath the post count and messages read stats. If they still had that, it'd be very.... scary, probably. I was going to go into town today to get my broken disk swapped but I slept in until the afternoon and it's raining... I'll wait until Sunday. I can work on beating MGS4, GTA4 and Grid for now. Oh, and thanks to those who always read my blogs and comment. Your suffering does not go unnoticed; I usually comment back, I hope. That can be my target for the new GS year then: to comment on more people's blogs, because I really don't do it enough, save for a on a select few people's.

It's times like this that I wish so badly that the 360 didn't exist. It may have the better library of games but the console itself is absolute trash. If it didn't exist, all of its games would be on the PS3 and how I would love that. I've known that the 360 was a terrible system ever since I received my third one in the mail having seen my other two RROD on me. This time though, it's either a fault of Lost Odyssey or a fault of the DVD lens thing. The fourth disk of the game just will not load. It hits the menu and then wham, disk read error blah blah blah. I've tried it over and over and over. The game itself is great... so great in fact that I'd actually like to beat it. Too bad then, that I can't. Now if the game had been on one disk I wouldn't be having this problem. So much for "well, changing a disk isn't much of a hassle" because it sure is when one of the disks doesn't even work. I don't know whether to ring Microsoft, again, or to just get the game switched. I'd do the former but it seems it's just that one disk that makes my 360 go into a noisy frenzy, but there appears to be nothing wrong with the surface of the disk at all... no scratches, scuffs, or anything. Returning the game might be a problem though. I don't have the receipt any more; I figured something as simple as a game should just work these days. I haven't kept game receipts since forever. I've never needed to. My plan is to just ask for the fourth disk exchanging. It came in a little paper wallet so I'll just take that with me. If they say I need a receipt, I'll ask how anyone would possible gain anything unfairly through the swapping of the last disk of a game. If I don't have any luck, I guess I'll never finish Lost Odyssey, which would be a shame. Either way, though, I can blame Microsoft for 1) developing the game and 2) for inventing the 360. On a more celebratory note, I reached 10k gamerscore points the other day and tomorrow is my third anniversary here on GameSpot. I might make a blog about that tomorrow... maybe.