Civilization

Today I decided to play Civilization. Despite the fact I have the modern wonders of an XBox, Gamecube and 2 high-spec PCs, I instead played a game that struggled to maintain its stunning 256 graphics, and glitches now and then to send screeching DEATH out of the computer speakers. To get an impression of this, try feeding James Blunt through your speakers, backwards, at 10x speed on a never-ending loop.
Anyway. The game is still fantastic. More complex than most turn-based strategies, you even have to choose the political system your empire follows. A huge array of units, maps and buildings improves it further. It spawned a wave of slightly-less-amazing sequels, then the excellent Alpha Centurai. Which I also have.
My only complaint is the combat system. For some reason I've seen a bowman take down my tanks. I'm sorry, but that doesn't happen. At the end of E3, people decided that the new focus wouldn't be on graphics, but on physics. But gameplay is a lot more important. I could draw the graphics from Civilization on paint in half an hour, but that doesn't make the game any worse. Go play it.

Flight

It's just not a normal day of news without the USA violating human rights in some way. The latest example is the scandal about flights from the EU to the USA. In the increasing and pointless paranoia after the Twin Towers attack (I refuse to call it "9/11", for reasons I will explain in another blog) everyone travelling from the EU to the USA has their personal details sent to the US goverment. So somewhere, presumably in the NSA or CIA, are my details, because I went to New York after the bombings.
I've done nothing wrong. I don't even live in the USA and yet my details are over there. My DoB, address, who I was travelling with, everything that the airline company I flew with knew are now known over there.
They have no right to do this. It's certainly a more subtle attempt than the forms they get you to fill in when you fly there ("Are you a nazi?", "Do you intend to assassinate the President?" et al) but that doesn't make it any more acceptable.
Perhaps even more outrageous, the USA has now said that if these details aren't sent, the airline will be fined $6000 dollars for each flight, AND denied landing permission. Die Hard 2 comes to mind.
America need to learn they cannot control the world.

PR

Public Relations people are often very incompetent. As nothing more than corporate sleezebags hired to make someone look better than they are or advertise some awful campaign, they are not immune to the region of horrendous mistakes. A few examples :
This week, the Pope is apparently visiting Auschwitz. Or however you spell it. This is a man who was in the Hitler Youth. I'm sure there is something in very poor taste there...
Michael Jackson, having been cleared of paedophile charges (for some reason) is celebrating by taking a trip to an ORPHANAGE. Nice move.
Kudos goes to whoever in the U.S. goverment decided to rename The War Against Terror after they noticed the rather unfortunate acronym it spelt. Thumbs up to the stunningly able and money wasting American goverment, who have so far spent $450bn on T.W.A.T.
This could prevent total world poverty for dozens of years. Instead we go and invade some countries and murder tens of thousands of innocents. But that's a rant for another day...
Lastly, I would like to congratulate the man who said that John Prescott is now in charge of "Domestic Affairs".
Couldn't have put it better myself.

Blue

Why is the blue the standard negative colour in computing? Two obvious example spring to mind :
1. The dreaded Blue Screen of Death, on PCs which insist your computer has done something illegal and will shortly combust. Very rarely does your machine sort itself out after this.
2. The "game loading" screen on Halo 2, where everything is blue and you can't help but suspect some tit is busy cheating while you're unable to play the game. Some computer designer somewhere decided all errors and bad things had to be blue. Look at the Windows XP title bars. BLUE.
Some others things that are blue and suck :
The Conservatives.
Water (people drown in it)
If anyone else can think of another reason why the colour blue should be banned, buried in a pit, and the pit towed to another planet, please post a comment.

Online

I have spent considerable time playing with American teenagers/idiots on various games, mainly CS : S and Halo 2. And I have reached several conclusions. If you are an intelligent American teenager who isn't inbred and reading this, you probably don't play online games :P
They ALL sound inbred. Listen to "Cleetus" on the Simpsons for an idea.
Their ONLY insult is "Oh mah gawd you fuckin' faggot."
Now and then "You fuckin' nigger."
Thus, all American teenagers who play online games are racist, homophobic, and generally xenophobic.
"Fuckin' Brits"
"Fuckin' Frenchies"
And the like.
But these are all the generation who've grown up in the increasing isolationism of modern day U.S. of A. The country with one of the lowest reportings of International News in the world. Many can't even find Britain, their closest ally (much to the embarassment of many vaguely intelligent Brits)
But this is not the blog entry for a rant on the U.S.A. That will come some other time.
For now, I suggest they all stop playing online games, learn how to stop inbreeding, and simply learn something about the rest of the world.

"I want you to meet mah mother and mah sister."
"Ok, where are they?"
"THEY?"

N-Gage.

To begin this blog, I will discuss the worthless device that is commonly known as the N-GAGE.
The Dreamcast of the mobile phone world. Let's pay £400 for a grossly obese mobile phone which can also play games. What games? The stunningly amazing Tomb Raider I, which seems convinced Venice is rampant with wild dogs and men with shotguns hiding in fountains. Or is that Tomb Raider II? With the exception of the level with the floating spectral statues which shoot LASERS, these games have really failed to have an impact on me.
Perhaps the new Tomb Raider : Legends is better. I'm in no position to say. But I feel the superb Decline 2 summed up the N-Gage :
"Oh my god. This guy actually bought an N-Gage."
"What an idiot."