I picked up Saints Row on a whim on Sunday - well, actually it was because I was stuck with nothing to do in town for an hour and I wasn't looking forward to going back to work on Monday.

So anyways, I'm enjoying it so far. Initially it felt like a really bad GTA rip-off but once you get passed that you start to realise that it's actually improved on a lot of areas that GTA didn't do so well.

I'm also partially way through Advance Wars and Castlevania on the DS. Really enjoying the little DS. I though I'd probably just use it whilst being stuck on the plane to NZ but as it happens I've been going back to it quite often whilst being laid out on the sofa or enjoying the odd coffee in Starbucks.

So I'm on my return leg of my trip to New Zealand. I'm currently stood in a free Internet kiosk in Singapore airport waiting for my flight to Heathrow.

Just a quick word about New Zealand - it's stunning! Living in Wales I'm fairly privilidged with some nice scenery, but NZ blows everything else clear out of the water, and I'm including the Canadian rockies there as well.

Anyways, I've been really pleased with my Nintendo DS. Not only have the four games I brought with me kept me entertained, but the battery life of the DS has kept me going on those looooooong plane flights where no power point is available for a recharge. I can highly reccomend a DS to anyone who's going on a long, mind numbing trip and doesn't want to live in constant fear of the battery running out (PSP owners take note!)

Anyways, I need to crash out before my flight arrives.

TTFN!

So it's 3am and I'm sat here waiting for my Taxi to take me to the bus station so I can endure a 3 hour bus ride before enduring a 12 hour plane flight - I think I'm gonna cry.

Thankfully I've packed plenty of books, mp3's, nintendo DS games to keep me occupied for my hellish 3 day trek to New Zealand!

If I can get anywhere near a computer whilst I'm over there I'll try to post some updates. Hopefully I can try and go two weeks without needing a technology fix though!

Well, looks like Heathrow will be lifting some of the more stringent flight security requirements tomorrow which means - I should be able to take my DS onboard with me now.. wheee!

So far I've got Animal Crossing and Partners in Time lined up. I'm thinking of getting Advanced Wars : DS just to round that out. Between those three and the couple of books I'm taking on I should hopefully have something to keep me occupied on my 12 hour flight and 10 hour stop over in Singapore.

Jeff was right, this game is flat out broken. If it wasn't for the fact that I've really been enjoying playing the singleplayer game, I think I'd have already gouged my eyes out with a rusty fork in utter frustration.

I can't connect to any games, I can't host any games, I can't do **** basically. I think there's some crazy firewall ports that might need to be opened in order to get it working properly. Why couldn't it use the same ports as all the other Live! stuff though??

Arrgh!

So, wouldn't you know it. I buy a shiny new Nintendo DS to take on the looooong flight to New Zealand with me and a week before I'm due to fly some terrorists try to smuggle explosives on a plane. So now I won't be able to take it on the flight with me because it's too 'high risk' to take onboard.

Some airlines are apparently even banning passengers from taking on books.

I can see this is going to be fun.

Woo! Managed to finish first in two races last night. Then things took a turn for the worst as I proceeded to tumble all the way back down to the back of the grid again. It's those damned American tracks with the shaded spots - get me every time.

Rounded the night off with some Zuma. Got into Stage 4 - 3 lives left. I saved my progress at that point since it was 1:30am - eek! Where did that hour just go?

Oh, I'm also considering getting a DS Lite to take on my trip to NZ in August. I've got a considerable amount of time to kill on the journey so I'm thinking some Animal Crossing might go down well.

I spent a good couple of hours trying to master Rockstar table tennis last night. I made it all the way to the finals of the easiest tournament only to be beaten by some Brazillian bird who kept destroying me with a lot of top-spin smashes (biatch!).

I also had a quick blast on NHL2K6. Although graphically it looks pretty dated (bad port from the original xbox version methinks) the gameplay is pretty fun.

Sadly I didn;t have time to polish my burnout skills up. It was 1am and my eyes felt like they were hanging out of the sockets. Maybe I'll find some time tonight if I can tear myself away from that damned ping-pong-paddle.

Sods law, just as the demo comes out the full version of the game hits my doormat this afternoon.

Luckily after giving it a blast for an hour I can already tell I'm going to get very addicted to this simple yet decievingly difficult to master tabble tennis game.

I've got NBA2K6 and NHL2K6 to work my way through this weekend as well. Hmm.. might have to ring all my friends and colleagues and tell them I'll be living in a cave for the next month or so.

I dusted my copy of Burnout Revenge off today to sit down and have a good multiplayer session. What ensued could be described as total ownage by a pack of American teenagers who jeered me as I crashed into every single object known to man.

Gonna put some more time in tonight and re-learn the track layouts & short cuts. I'm sure with a bit of practice I can at least manage to finish in the middle of the pack!