Hottest 100

I finally got around to voting for the hottest 100 songs of all time with JJJ. It was a hard list to compile as there are a fairly large number of songs that I love to bits I know won't get a representation. As such I left songs like that out and made my vote count. I feel bad for doing it but had to face the fact. Anyway here is the ten I chose at the time and the list would probably be a little different now. This list isn't in any particular order.

Radiohead - Pyramid Song
Rage Against the Machine - Renegades Of Funk
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Regina Spektor - Apres Moi
Rolling Stones, The - Sympathy For The Devil
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
White Stripes, The - Seven Nation Army
Beck - Gamma Ray
Chemical Brothers, The - Elektrobank
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.

Looking back I am happy with that. Perhaps I would change the White Stripes song...
Sticking with music news I got my hands on Jungle Blues album of C.W. Stoneking. Great album.
My housemate has taken up listening to Regina Spektor which is a welcome change to the experimental screamo deathmetal pop rock spoken word stuff he usually listens to. Consequently I have learnt what a godawefull singer he is and that he likes to share his singing. Oh well, he'll get sick of it one day... or I will get a restraining order on his singing.

In other news I have cold hands so I put some gloves on. One glove had a nest of spiders in it...
Needless to say there was much "Ew ew ew" and shaking of the hand. The surviving spiders then ran up my sleeves... Oh what fun spiders are!

That is all

Sunday cometh!

This Sunday is the big date of my planting day. All the neighbors of the property are coming along for a look and hopefully to take part. Some of my class are going to come and help for a bit and some of my teachers and my course coordinator are coming along as well. Other than that we will hopefully get some people from the community to come along and help. Should be a fair turn out, which I will be great full for as we have 1400 trees to put in. In perspective, that really isn't a lot of trees but its an eye opener for myself who has to organise everyone to plant them.

There are about a dozen different species of plants from ruby salt bush up to white box with everything from drooping sheoaks to hedge wattle. The EVC is something like plains, white box woodland which is apparently fairly rare and degraded these days. But then again, most places are in rough shape. I'm delivering the plants tomorrow afternoon and then I'll have to set about making guards for them all... that's small mountain of guards! Ah well we'll be alright. The ground has been ripped so there will be less muscle work involved in digging.

I shall be taking some pictures throughout and may throw some up. Hopefully we can get them all in the ground on the day but I'm quietly confident we will pull it off.

That is all.

Learning every day.

I bought Far Cry 2 awhile back and played it through a few times. I thought it was pretty impressive in regards to the open map, fire effects and such. The fire added an interesting element to the gameO opening up tactics like using the wind and a Molotov to burn through a camp. Or when firing an RPG and having a fire start in the long grass at your feet forceing you to run like hell.

I played it again the other day just for something to do and discovered some whole new things within the game to distract me from homework. I was ambushing some guys with a light machine gun in the middle of a scrap yard setup. A guy ran out into the open and I opened fire. But alas I ran out of ammo mid burst! after reloading I go to finish him off but lo and behold one of his mates is carrying him off!
After some experimenting with shooting to wound I found that some guys will kneel down and take pot shots at you with their pistol. Others will crawl away and find some cover and pop you with their pistol if you get too close. If these guys can hide long enough for a friend to come, they will get 'healed' and rejoin the fight.

This is an element of realism that can really add a lot of immersion during an epic firefight. It adds some nasty tactics too, like wounding a guy out in the open to draw his mates out. Although it's callous and evil to shoot to wound, the ability to do so really does help the games atmosphere. It can lead to grisly outcomes though. After one particular firefight I was flat out of ammo and had about 3 wounded guys lying around. Do I knife them and put them out of their pain? But have to hear their screams and see their faces as I do it. Or do I leave them to their fates in the African jungle. Giving them a chance to live or curse them with a slow agonising death if their mates don't find them? I had a hard decision my hands till I found some ammo and decided to put them down. Many games have only alive and dead versions af bad guys and many games with wounding ability's lack the realism and imersion granted by this game.

CoD: WaW had some brutal fire related deaths and bayoneting moments. But the wounding wasnt so prevailent and that game lacked the imersion factor for me. I think it was the bloody Russian sniper guy screaming at me all the damn time. I wanted so much to tell him to "Shut the hell up you tool, for the love of god!"
All the Americans did was complain or be supermen. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game and decent multyplayer. Although my most played level was the on rails flying boat section which oddly enough had the highest imersion of a game for me. WoW was good for that too but everytime someone forgot they had a whole keyboard to comunicate with, it kinda ruined it for me. That and the people dressed in pink... so much pink armour in the first expansion. Well I shall finish complaining and just say that I look forward to the realism in many games these days. But it leaves me wondering if there is a limit we will get to with how real we can make a game?

Another Gaming Tip.

Yes it's time for another gaming tip! Today we learn that Incoming fire has right of way. It's a pretty simple concept really. Again, snipers are the exception of the rule if they are using a one shot rifle. You won't likley see the shot till it hits you so it's too late. However for automatic weapons being employed in the spray and pray technique you can predict where you should give way. Rockets and grenades are a good example as there is a delay in which you have time to get the hell out of the way.

Which reminds me of a sticker I saw on a car today. It was a sticker identifying the the car dealer who went by the name Hunt & Lobb. It sounds like a fun game to play on a map with plenty of camping spots. Or hunting thugs in Far Cry 2 at night and molitoving a camp, person by person till they run away... mmm cocktails are fun.

So now for some environmental news. On the 28th of this month I will be in charge of planting 1400 trees on a small property near Bendigo. I'm quietly terrified of the aproaching day, but I'm hoping my unique brand of blind luck will get me through the day. I'm also hoping we get tons of rain for the next few weeks so the trees don't all DIE and make me look bad! But they probably will all die and Landcare will hunt me down for wasting their money. But really, if I didnt waste it then someone else would have!

That is all.

Torpedo

Because icebergs are a bit too conspicuous...

Because I'm so damn polite.

I made the trip into town today to get a new scientist and some paint for my models.
Instead I got a lottery ticket and a pepper pie that was more pepper than pastry. Considering I didn't buy any magical items like beans, shoes or small European cars, I think I did pretty well.

There was also a small army of dedicated people out on a mission to make me repent my sins and become born again. People like this and door to door salesman are my kryptonite. I'm too polite to tell them to move along and leave me be. As soon as I show any interest to them I am bound to listen till they get bored of talking. Because of this, I have invented a number of games to play while they share their story. The first game involves subtly moving your position and seeing how many times you can make them spin around in a complete circle.

The second involves kiting them to see just how far you can get them to follow you. Extra points if you get them across a road and/or lost.

The third game involves staring at something behind them at head level while pretend you are still looking at them. This is really off putting for them and they either try to move into your line of sight or they quickly figure out you are messing with them.

That is all.

Tanks!

Because I love tanks. Tanks are just Awesome. This is a leopard 1 tank of the Australian army. These have been replaced with the American abrams tank. Note how the tank almost gets airborne!

Gaming tips!

A quick tip for the gamers among you. If the enemy is in range, so are you! Snipers excluded because they are everywhere and you always seem to be in range. Luckily the vast majority of them are not much of a shot and think grenade warnings don't apply to them. Personally, I like to sneak up on them, stick my knife in their back and see how pissed off they get!

I think the best thing about online gaming is that every time you get a kill, someone, somewhere in the world goes "DAMMIT!" And because you never see the person that kills you, you can visualise them as a hugely obese guy in a basement and say to yourself "I don't need to worry about him beating the living snot out of me because I'm cooler than him in real life!" Theoretically anyway...

Birth of a monster!

It begins! Actually it has been happening for awhile already but I'm yet to figure out exactly what it is. I should be working. Chances are you should be too but thats beside the point. I should be writing a flyer to get people to come to the planting day I've organised. I need to get 1400 plants into the ground and enough people to accomplish that to turn up on the day. Thankfully I don't have tom pay for any of it and anything that doesnt get planted will simply be returned and used somewhare else. No pressure FTW!

At this point I will give a shout out to the blog that got me interested at having a crack at it myself. I first heard of these guys on the radio and went to their blog The Somewhat Ambitious and never looked black. From their I joined Twitter and now it all goes downhill in a screaming spiral of social networking with strangers I've never met before. Nice strangers though. But since I'm an super advanced cake consumption and creation machine I can handle it... at least I could if social networking was cake. Although it is somewhat comparable! Cake is addictive and often shared with friends and must be eaten over a plate to avoid mess. Social networking is also addictive, shared and depending on how you roll, can make a god awful mess.

I visited my favorite book store today and picked up some things. A German dictionary ( I don't know why either, but now I have one!), and some books about escaping from POW camps which will come in handy for keeping scores of human prisoners in their camps after the the robot revolution. FOR FREEDOM and so forth...

Till then goodbye, thank you and come again.