[Plasma Shield]

Chuck tells the story of a computer geek called Chuck. Chuck works at a computer store called “Buy More”, as a part of the “Nerd Herd”, think Nerds on Site. Chuck has been working at Buy More for a couple of years, and he’s bored out of his mind, but he doesn’t know what else to do. The monotony of the Nerd Herd gets to him, as does the disappointment he feels about himself. After all, Chuck did go Standford. Chuck envisioned himself a successful software developer 5 years after he leaves school. All his dreams and ambitions were shattered his best friend betrayed him and got him kicked out of Stanford.
Just as Chuck finishes up a game of Call of Duty, he receives a email from his old Stanford roomate, the same one that got him kicked out of Stanford. Whilst not exactly being on speaking terms with his old roomate, Chuck opens the email and the attachment out of curiosity.

The attachment was an executable, a line reminding Chuck of his old text based RPG he wrote appeared, figuring out that it’s a kind of a authorization pass, (more…)

I don’t sleep well. I guess not going to bed has something to do with that, but still. So naturally, when I see a psychological thriller about an insomniac I’m immediately drawn into a connection with the main character. When I see the rest of this fantastic game from Remedy (the guys who did Max Payne), I’m sucked in completely. I’m probably going to go out and buy a 360/upgrade my computer (I’ll get to that) immediately when this is released.

The Hip:

It looks SPECTACULAR. The developers are boasting Photo-realisitc graphics. If the demos aren’t the final render, I’d believe that they could actually replicate real life here. Because the demos look FANTASTIC. (more…)

I found a book review I wrote a while back, thought I’ll post it here.

Ah, the tangled webs of conspiracies begin. Dan Brown writes amazingly intricate and complex storyline that keeps you lost and confused, in a good way, in your armchair as you progress through the plot in his books. Deception Point is no exception. It lacks the historical mythology of The Da Vinci Code, but it more than makes up for it with Digital Fortress styled modern edginess and mystery.

Deception Point
by Dan Brown

The story begins with an NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) employee called Rachel Sexton, her father is a prominent Senator residing in Washington DC. Rachel Sexton is the security liaison for the white house, her job is to summarize and analyze intelligence data and turn them into one page briefs. (more…)

Normally, I’d do an intro. However, I figure the contents of this are pretty obvious. Five mini articles about the top five geeky fashion items/accessories. These are the items that are so geeky and so awesome that people who aren’t geeks would seriously consider buying them. So without further Ado:

5. Rubik’s Cube Key Chain

Prove that you too have too much time on your hands… or on your keys for that matter.

The Hip: Just being able to solve these things impresses those that can’t. It’s an easy way to keep a constant source of awe in your bag. Plus, for that reason, chicks dig Rubik’s Cubes. You have no idea how many times solving a Rubik’s Cube on a date has ended well*. I know, logic defying. (more…)

Hooray for dark humour! A new series has boldly taken on this style where the big studios wouldn’t dare. The drama is only AMC’s second ever series for the channel which originated as a movie channel. Breaking Bad is a very grim and depressing story of a high school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine cook (Not an area of specialty of mine) [Ed: I dispute that notion]. Breaking Bad has received initial critical acclaim where it has even received decent rating on Metacritic with 74 points. The show though has not been receiving the hype that it deserve as it is not being aired on a major network. It’s time to shed light on the little dull gem.

Basically Breaking Bad is about a fifty year old chemistry teacher going through a not so dull midlife crisis. Walter White’s mid life crisis is marked by doctors diagnosing him with stage 3 lung cancer giving him at most a few year to go. Instead of cowering and pinning Walter is “awakened” and gradually becomes fearless and ruthless. This change of heart is the meaning of the title ‘Breaking Bad’ where in the south (US) means to let loose, go crazy. Walter’s attitude helps him to deal with the many hurdles going in his life such as the never ending debt, a son with cerebral palsy and then a child on the way. Walter is lured into cooking meth when he goes on a raid for fun with his DEA agent brother in-law. (more…)

Ladies** and gents, I’m getting angry. I’m currently sitting under a mountain of homework.

Wouldn’t it be convenient if I could turn into a hulking green giant that could take care of things?

That leads me rather nicely into one of the few things I’m NOT angry about: the new Hulk movie. Edward Norton will be starring as Bruce Banner, a scientist that was bombarded with Gamma Radiation in an accident. As a result, whenever he gets angry he turns into an 8ft tall, 1,400lb, mean green fighting machine. When like this, his strength is limited only by his anger, so he’s infinitely strong. So, if, say, the US Army wanted to track down Bruce Banner whilst he’s trying to find a cure for his condition, capture him to try and turn Hulk into a weapon and say, perhaps, pissed him off a little while doing it they could be in; oh I don’t know, what’s the technical term?; deep shit. That’s the premise for the hulk movie.

The Hip:

Edward Norton. I have weeks where Fight Club is my favourite film. This guy is the lead in Fight Club. See what I’m hinting at here? No? This guy is an AMAZING actor. Absolutely fantastic. So good, that if I appeared on ROVE live and he asked me “Who would you turn gay for?” I would answer “Edward Norton”. (more…)

Well, I finally got round to watching it. After hearing my friend rant on for a little bit about it, I decided “What the hey?” and went to go see it.

Thank god I did.

I have officially had my mind changed about comic book movies. No longer will I worry about them sucking. This was amazing.

The Hip:

Oh my god, the special effects. I really do mean wow. Explosions haven’t looked this good in a while. His suit’s all sleek and shiny. The fight scene’s spectacular. The action exceeded my expectations. Which were extremely high, as they were the one area I knew this movie would do well. (more…)

Again i have gone off track with something that has caught my eye and my hippocket. The Sony Errison X1 is touted as the phone people are going ga ga for after the iphone. The X1 is Sony Errison’s up coming flagship model of Sony’s new Xperia range. It was first presented in the World Mobile Congress last february and has recently been announced to be realesed in Q2 2008. The new Xperia range will be a line of smartphones catering for the elite buisness world.

The reason why the X1 is recieving so much hype is that is packed full of features and new concepts by Sony. The phone which has been designed in conjuction with HTC is the first device to be powered by Windows Mobile by sony. The X1 like the Iphone is a jam packed smartphone sporting:

3″ 800×480 touchscreen, qwerty keyboard, 3G phone with video talk, push email, 3.2mp Camera with 30fps video, Bluetooth (A2DP), aissted GPS, WIFI, microSD expansion and Windows Mobile 6.1 on top of Sony’s Xperia panel

From the list you can easily tell where it get’s it’s hype from sporting nearly every modern phone functions. The X1 is basicaly a windows mobile smartphone tweaked by Sony. (more…)

Craziest… Idea… EVER…

Marvel Comic has just announced that in October this year, they will be releasing “MARVEL APES”. A mini-series in which all your favorite marvel heroes; including so far: Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage and Wolverine; are… wait for it…

MONKEYS

Yes, that’s right. You will get to witness a Gorilla in a Captain America outfit, more banana jokes than you can handle and; as has been severely implied by the series’ writer, Karl Kesel; your favorite comic book characters flinging their own feces. Quite honestly, what more could you want?

The Hip:

THEY’RE FREAKING MONKEYS!!!!! I mean, what could be cooler. Honestly, until they come out with Marvel Ninjas/Pirates, this is the coolest thing they’re going to do for a while. Also, it features Gibbon, Marvel biggest loser. The WORST villain of all time. Marvel has officially stated that he is the Biggest Loser in their comics. And he’s not on a diet*. Notorious for having nothing go right for him (as in, born a mutant, has had two additional forced mutations, been poisoned and burnt AND MORE), he must now save a universe filled with monkeys. Yes, that’s right, FILLED WITH MONKEYS. And it’s also filled with monkey puns. My favorite one they’ve shown us so far is Spiderman now being Spider-Monkey. (more…)

Recently I installed Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron, on my (relatively) old toshiba laptop.

I had a few problems with installation where when I installed with the automatic partition it would hang indefinitely when it tried to detect file systems, so I had to do a manual partition. So I I’m hoping it didn’t screw the laptop up.

First impressions? This is awsome! Everything lags on this laptop, and I do mean everything. Clean install xp and you open up word and it’ll start lagging. I think I may be the only person in my area that’s still using 256Mb RAM. Hardware complaints to the side. Ubuntu worked like a charm.

The packaged applications were carefully chosen, the only thing I had to install that I need was BasKet Note Pads. I’m surprised such a full fledge and functioning OS can fit on a single CD.

Initial Gripes: I’m still not used to the top and bottom bars, and it really cuts down on my screen real estate. Actually, I’m going to remove one of them now.

Firefox is largely the same, and actually a bit better. It’s kinda cool how when I enter a password a bar pops up below the URL as opposed to a window in Vista.

If I had a laptop, even one with better hardware. I think I’ll be using Ubuntu, it’s speedy and although initially I was a bit apprehensive about the range of software available, but the repositories have everything I need. Except for CoD 4. Hmm…

I’m still going to use Vista on my desktop though, my crack like addiction of games needs windows.