I ordered it off Amazon a few days ago, knowing that my 360 was on its way back to me having been out of commission for quite a while. Well, when I say my 360, that's not quite true. Microsoft decided to send me a brand new one, which I thought was quite nice of them. It's just as noisy but at least it works. They also gave me a months free subscription to Xbox Live to compensate for the month I just paid for whilst being 360-less. Now that I have it back, I plan on finishing Oblivion and Bioshock (when I get it). Other than that, however, my interest is actually leaning more towards the PS3. There are at least five games coming out soon that I'd quite like... Lair, Heavenly Sword, Warhawk, Haze and Folklore. I know Lair is supposedly awful, but it looks cool and the controls can't be that bad. I was impressed by the Heavenly Sword demo; impressed enough to buy it anyway. I could actually buy warhawk now, but I'd rather not pay £20 for a file. I want something to own. At least the higher price of the Bluray version is justified by the inclusion of a headset... and a manual. That'll make for some nice bedtime reading, I'm sure. I'm actually reading something rather good at the moment though. (Notice how I linked those paragraphs so seamlessly... That's talent for you.) Erm, yeah... I'm reading Harry Potter again... the whole series. I just started the fourth one today. I'm not sure why, but the last book had some kind of an effect on me. I even watched all the movies, and, to be honest, I always thought of them of disappointing. Speaking of movies, my Bluray collection has recently grown larger than my DVD collection. That might sound like a lot, but I only have around 14 DVDs, so it's not all that impressive. The last one I bough was Reign Over Me. (I only bought it because it had Adam Sandler in it). Nevertheless, it was a decent movie, despite the fact that he played a serious role for once which might put people off. Oh, and there's an extended version of Alexander out now, but only on DVD. I had to restrain myself from buying it, just so could enjoy it more in HD... but now I have to wait. There's a release date for those of you in the US, but, and not surprisingly, there isn't one for the UK. Perhaps I'll be able to import it. But then again, would I want to. It took weeks for me to recieve my copy of 300, so it seems as though the US doesn't like sharing its wealth of Bluray titles. Not to complain too much, but the box was weird too. It was really skinny and the front cover had nothing on it but an image. There wasn't any mention of anything; not the film studio, the actors, nor the rating- not even a recommendation to big itself up- and it left the cover looking empty. Maybe that's how you like your films over there, I don't know. I'm going to stop writing now, because I'm almost certain that I'm boring you to death discussing the box art of 300.

Today I went back to school to pick up my results for my AS exams. I'm not sure whether I'm happy or annoyed... probably both. I'll list the grades... History: Unit 1- D, Unit 2- B, Unit 3- A Overall- B English Language: Unit 1- A, Unit 2- B, Unit 3- A Overall- A ICT: Unit 1- E, Unit 2- B, Unit 3- A Overall- C Maths: Unit 1 (C1)- D, Unit 2 (C2)- Unclassified, Unit 3 (Stats)- Unclassified Overall- Unclassified General Studies: Unit 1- B, Unit 2- A, Unit 3- C Overall- B As you can see, I failed maths completely and won't even be getting a qualification for it. I'm not surprised as I'm not continuing it next year, and I kind of gave up towards the end of this year to focus on my other subjects. Getting an A in English was a bit of surprise, and I expected a B in History. However, it seems that on one paper I did terrible, getting a D... so I plan to re-sit that paper next January. Once again, my ICT was not what I expected. As with my GSCE's I was told that I'd be getting an A, but it appears as though my teacher had no clue as to how to mark my work, as the examiner has given me an E for one section. I got an A and B in the other two units, so I have no idea what when wrong in Unit 1. Overall, it's not too bad... ABC (not counting General Studies), but I need at least ABB to get into the university I want. Hopefully retaking a History and ICT unit will bump up those grades... or I'll just have to do extremely well in my A2s next year to make up the extra marks.

I rang Microsoft for the third time today, to sort out my underperforming Xbox 360. It's been getting worse over the last few days and it has come to the point where it crashes/ freezes almost every half an hour. I even turned it on once to see the picture flickering... so I'd had enough, basically. They'll be sending me a label through the post and in the mean time, I need to find a box to send it back in. I should probably get some bubble-wrap too. I'm happy that I don't have to return my HDD. I really didn't like the idea of sending away my game saves. I'm now hoping that this whole thing will be sorted out before the good games start to be released, particular Bioshock. I also have my eye on Skate, but I could get that on the PS3... if I have to. I've also ordered 300 on Bluray. The UK release date is scheduled for late September, but I took a risk and ordered a US import, having read that all Warner Brothers' films aren't region locked. I hope that is true. I think the packaging might be different though. In the UK the cases are the same thickness as DVDs, but apparently US/ European (not inc. the UK) cases are very slim. I'm very picky, and I don't like the idea of having an "odd one out" in my collection, so to speak. Ah well, it's what's in the box that counts...

I hit 20k in early February of this year, and now I'm one post away from 30k. I'll be making the party thread tonight, after I get back from work. It'll probably fade away quite quickly like my last two, so I might as well make the thread when OT is at it's busiest. Consider this your formal invitation, not that one is required... of course. If you can't make it, hang your head in shame. You can now find the party thread here.

After someone prompted me to do so, I went ahead and made a union. Not just any union though; The Jessica Alba union. I know you all like her, so get over there; no excuses. There's not a lot happening at the moment, hence this blog post of advertisement. Just be sure to read the stickied directory, which explains one particular rule of importance. I'm not sure how successful this union will be but it's worth a try. It's you who'll decide it's fate. Dramatic, I know.

Indeed. I subscribed to Gamespot. Now I get a pink username. I'm so delighted, it's untrue. Oh, and I get some other stuff... you know... no ads, HD videos, and new themes... but who cares when I have a pink username?! I figured it would be worthwhile though, considering the amount of time I spend here. Anyways, so where's the secret subscribers hideout I was promised?

I've never blogged about an emblem before, but this one caught me by surprise and I have nothing better to do than to write about it. So, there I was, innocently clicking my profile, when it appeared in all its orange glory; the fishy emblem. Apparently I go against the grain, which I find strange since most of my ratings are similar to the GS ones. I haven't seen many people with this emblem either. It'll probably be gone by tomorrow anyway, but for now I shall call my fish Patrick. ^_^

Now that I've finished my exams, I can start to play my mounting collection of unfinished games a bit more than before. One game in particular that I had neglected for some time was Dead Rising. It was an impulse buy a while ago that I never really played much at all. One thing that put me off was the difficulty, and I'm not one for struggling through a game. I maintain my belief that games should be fun, and not cause me to work myself into a rage. Anyway, if you've watched the Gamespot video review, you'll know that the save system for Dead Rising is atrocious. If you die, you have to start again, basically, or load from the last save point; those are pretty much none existent. I won't linger on that though, because I overcame the difficulty factor through some good ol' fashioned leveling up. I actually started the game with a maximum level 50 character this time, since you can retain your level after death. I flew through the story much easier and actually enjoyed myself. It turned out to be an amazing game. I liked the story mainly, and it was somewhat satisfying to see the credit roll at the end. Maybe I cheated a little; I don't know, nor care. If you haven't seen much of the game, this video pretty much sums it up nicely. I'm not sure what to move onto now. Perhaps Oblivion, though I've tried that several times to no avail. I need a guide...

I never really planned on doing this, but the other day I bought a Nintendo Wii. I guess the reason why, was because I had one almost thrust in my face. Well, not really, but my manager at work, who knows of my love of gaming, had somehow managed to save a Wii for me that had been sent to our store by mistake. The delivery of three Wiis was intended for our large store, but somehow they ended up in our warehouse. Two of them were sold within minutes, leaving a crowd of disappointed people. So far, I've only played Wii Sports, which seems pretty fun. I've ordered some kind of cable which will allow the console to display a 480p picture rather than 480i, along with Zelda. They won't be delivered until late next week, though that's probably a good thing since I have an abundance of coursework to complete at this very moment.

Okay, so you made me suffer Windows for many years, but now you've just completely ripped me off.
I bought my Xbox 360 sometime back in October, I think, but today I saw the beautiful three red lights, also known as the "ring of death". It wasn't very spectacular, but it has rendered my 360 almost useless. I have no idea what caused the problem, as I was happily growing Pinatas at the time. After I restarted the console, everything seemed fine, except for the fact that the controller wouldn't connect. Another restart solved this, but I noticed that the picture was very grainy. It certainly wasn't as it should be, but I carried on, hoping that the problem would fix itself. I also noticed that I wasn't connected to Xbox Live anymore, and when I tried to reconnect, it said that there was a network error. Thinking that it might be a problem with my netowork, and not the 360, I tested out PSN. That was fine. I decided to leave it for a while, but when I turned it on a few hours later, the controller wouldn't connect again and the picture quality was somewhat worse. At this point, I'd had enough, and I boxed it all back up again. I still have the receipt and I plan on returning it tomorrow. I doubt I shall be getting another, although obviously this isn't an easy decision, since I've spent a lot of money getting online and of course on the games. Frankly though, I'd rather have the money for the console. I don't want another poorly made console that might brake again, and I certainly don't want to buy any more games for a console like that. I may keep the games I have nevertheless, as trade in prices are terrible, and this also means that I still have the choice of returned to the 360... or the Elite, which is a more likely possibility. Anyway, I should never have left Sony, and I'll certainly be supporting the PS3 fully from now on.
On a more positive note, I watched two Bluray movies over the past two days, and I was impressed. The movies I watched were S.W.A.T. and Casino Royale. I enjoyed the first one quite a lot, but I wasn't amazed by the latter. I can't say I liked the new Bond that much and the story seemed to go nowhere. But, it was still nice to watch, even if I was just staring at the pretty pixels. Just so you know, I ended up getting a new one through the warranty. I needed to play those games. >_>