Alright, so I have a lot to say today (or tonight, which is probably more suiting) - my last blog was pretty low, the most depressing thing I've probably ever written here on this website, possibly because at the time of writing I felt like a wreck and I was probably acting like one to people who were around me then, but I assure you this blog won't be the same. Over the last week the condition of my mother has definitely improved; she's still not fully recovered, obviously, but she's doing a good job of recuperating - in her words, "cancer is a total b**** and it doesn't care who it clings to", and I couldn't agree more... we're also having some company over soon to assist us, but I'm not going to reveal exactly who that is quite yet, you shall know when they arrive, because I will be acting quite differently then. Let's just say the family's spirits are on the rise, and so are mine.

Unfortunately, I've been down off school for the last two days, right before half term ensues. I've had the worst coughing fits I've experienced since a few years ago, not to mention all the phlegm that regurgitates whenever these fits start... but I'm not going into detail about that, because its just not meant for a blog. Yeah, so I've been off school. I've been asleep most of today and yesterday; in fact I'm feeling quite nocturnal, I was in an unconscious state all morning and only did it improve towards late afternoon, by which time I was wide awake and wanted to play t3h gameZ.

And oh yeah, I also, to many gasps, wrote two reviews. The first I've written in a while. The first of these was actually posted a while ago, but I only reveal it now, and the latter I only posted this afternoon. These are two of my first stabs at reviewing music records, and they may or may not be worth a read. Just please take a look and tell me what you think, I would definitely appreciate some feedback on these.

So, where was I? Oh yeah. Tonight, I've been doing some extensive gaming, and I'm going to tell you just what I played and described the events that ensued in both.

The first game I played was some Unreal Tournament 2004 with my good buds Andy (andywilliams24) and Nodham, again raiding the Funhouse server for some maniacal action and redeemer flying. We played this incredible map, one of our collective personal favourites, its this map that resembles everyone's visions of what hell might look like, and its a huge towering map with three stalactites riddled with passages and staircases and drawbridges, often suspended hundreds of feet in the air, while plasma blasts hit and crumble rock and rockets fly in all sorts of directions, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once and detonating against the walls, tearing chips out of either them or the unfortunate receiving monster. We were just messing about until we eventually pulled ourselves together and started co-ordinating a massacre, destroying wave upon wave of relentless monster with missiles of large blast radius and soaring bombs of whitehot shrapnel - it was only when Nodham accidentally drove his deemer into the floor, when I fell off mine and somersaulted into the magma, and when Andy accidentally stepped into a pool of lava when we lost the game and the monsters roared in their triumph. B******s.

After that, I went to do some reading of a book called Ptolemy's Gate, but thats irrelevant, and I joined in some Half-Life 2: Deathmatch with Andy and Dan (danny204), later to be joined by Ash (painkiller101) which was pretty fun. I'm not a personal fan of HL2 DM - I think HL2 is too methodical and precise a game to be indulging in random firefights; I don't think it works, really, but there you go, it was good clean enjoyment. And I won two games. w00t.

Then I guess it was time to unwind and indulge in some Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, of which my addiction is steadily surfacing again. I decided to start the career mode in Soaked! which I guess is quite challenging once you get to the Tycoon-level objectives and even Entrepeneur... so I think that the addiction is going to be consolidated.

And finally, some PC Far Cry, which I haven't made much progress in for a while. Still as enjoyably tactical as ever, with jawdropping visuals, seriously just LOOK at that water, and that palm tree, and that enemy right in front of my face... ah crap, I'm dead.

So thats it for now, I'll catch you guys later!