Personality

Because I've been too busy stockpiling Dance Dance Revolution dancepads I've been too busy to really put together an impressive blog entry today. Because of this I will instead attempt to regail you with this quiz I've put together. Find out - if you somehow didn't know already - whether you are a chav, a gamer or a bureaucrat.
Simply tally up the points you get at the end of each question and discover your true calling in life! Or go out and mope around a supermarket, whichever suits you better.

Question 1.

What is your favourite object in the whole world?

A) One of those stupid toddler BMX bikes that morons ride around on. -10 points
B) Something technological. +10 points
C) My Early Learning Centre Accountancy set. 0 points
D) Ma bling. -20 points.


Question 2.

What do you call your CD player?

A) Ma beat-box. -10 points
B) My CD player. +5 points
C) An audio device for the transmission of sound packets and the interpretation of digital data on an optical disc which normally has a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. 0 points
D) CD player? I use my Xbox/PC. +20 points


Question 3.

You inherit a large supply of bank notes for some reason. What do you do with them?

A) Lick them to get the cocaine off. -15 points
B) Place them in a financially stable trust-fund in a Swiss bank account and prudently investing the interest in the stock market after carefully analysing the current trends for the next five years. 0 points
C) Spend them on a game. +10 points
D) Buy some shizzle. -10 points


Question 4

How do you greet people?

A) Yo' yo' izzy yo' wotz 'appenin ma niggaz 100,000 FUCK YOU points
B) Wazzup y'all -10 points
C) Good afternoon fine sir, would you like to sign this above-board and legally binding greeting contract to certify that we have met here at [insert time] and therefore enable me to fill in Human Interaction Forms 42B - F. 0 points
D) Hi. + 15 points


Question 5

What is the next computer game you intend to buy?

A) Gears of War +20 points
B) Starcraft +150 points
C) Fifa Streets. -40 points
D) FS Maintenance Manager Reset to 0 points


Question 6

Where are you going on holiday this year?

A) Blackpool -50 points
B) Spain -10 points
C) Not sure, I'm still looking for the best health insurance deal 0 points
D) Nothing, I'm saving up to go to what little remains of beautiful E3. Sob. +20 points
E) I'm spending my summer in a 1337 korean internet cafe playing Starcraft. +70 points


Question 7

How do you spend your Saturday nights?

A) Levelling up on XBL +10 points
B) Ma bling krew is goin' muggin' nannies n shizzlenit ho pimpa lyk! Quiz discontinued.
C) Gettin' pissed innit. -15 points
D) OMFG I HIT LEVEL 70 WITH MY NIGHT ELF SO FUCK YOU FAGS!!!!!!!!! -50 points


Question 8

If you were Prime Minister (if you know what that means) what would be the first law you introduced?

A) I don' know wha' tha' post is shizzle! -652 points
B) Abolish asbos lyk coz' they is stoppin' mes from pimpin' -40 points
C) Kick out anyone who answered A or B from the country. +20 points
D) Carefully analyse the economic situation of our country and further political discussions with the European Union with a view to further integretation into the continental and international political arena with the ultimate intention of numerous benefits for our nation which can be redistributed across the population using an extremely prudent algebraic formula ensuring everyone gets an amount appropriate to their needs. You fail at life.
E) Introduce compulsory IQ tests for life, but particularly XBL. Also force companies to release games at the same time everywhere. +30 points

SO, HOW DID YOU DO?

If you got a negative score, that means you a CHAV. This means that you a worthless waste of human resources who should not be allowed to live on this Earth. Chances are you listen to rap music. More importantly than all of this, I hate you, and that counts for a lot in this world.

If you got a score of 0, you are a bureaucrat. You achieve nothing with your life ever. You may however bore all those around you, and you have a chance to be responsible for the deaths of millions. You probably find this offensive, so if you want to sue me you can email me form X54-1/5.1 using the email address now in my profile page.

If you got a positive score, chances are you're a gamer. As such you are worthy of living on this Earth and chances are I like you, unless you take the console war to be the most important thing to ever happen. NOTE : it is not.

If finally you got a score of 315, you will be killed in a korean gaming cybercafe by a maniac who takes Zergling rushes far too seriously.

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Post what you got in the comments!!!

Soon

Today we're going to have my first thoughts primarily on Gears of War but also on a few other upcoming games for the first half of the entry. The second half is going to be a nice, old-fashioned rant about other people's stupidity.

Gears of War

Anyone at the LAN will have carefully noted that upon getting my hands on this game I swiftly shunned all social contact for an hour or so and giggled uncontrollably. This is a damned good game!
Firstly, the graphics are surprisingly close to photo realism. The environments are incredible and I expect it helped we were playing on an HDTV at the same time...
The weapons are good - when you shotgun someone, they actually explode and then you can kick their various limbs around on the floor. The music is excellent, the combat superb, the ability to play co-op online will no doubt prove excellent...

Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess

Oh crap oh crap oh crap. While this game may look decent, the simple fact that Link can now morph into a wolf opens the door for so much horrible furry fanart. A future entry will discuss just how much I hate furries. The quick answer : I really, really hate them.

STALKER : Shadow of Chernobyl

Back in the day, Stalker looked like it could actually turn out to be quite a good game. But from what I've seen recently and with the goodness of Halflife 2 : Episode 2 and Crysis coming to our screens soon, it suddenly looks rather dated. Oh well.

Halo 3

There is currently a forum on Bungie.net for people to suggest weapons they'd like to see in Halo 3. I wouldn't mind if they actually consulted those with some gaming knowledge who aren't just silly Xbox fanboys who've only ever played Halo as their taste of gaming. Anyway, here are some of the crappiest suggestions.

U.B.D- Universal Bomb Deployer, basicly a big weapon (big, very big) but heavy grenade launcher that makes a big big explosion. Its avadable at the last level, and in multiplayer. 1 ammo

Almost every other suggestion was for a superweapon (HEY! LET'S HAVE A MOBILE NUKE LAUNCHER LOL) and this was the dumbest I could find. So basically, reduce multiplayer to nothing else except scrambling for a single level? And make the end of campaign stupidly easy because you just get this awful clone of the BFG and blast stuff? Brilliant idea! Go back to playing Daikatana.

How about a weapon that makes you trade places with your enemy, a more strategical approach to the game.

Why didn't I think of that? While this "weapon" does no damage and no use to anyone, the worst thing is that it is totally STUPID. Strategical? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Where is the strategy in your team and their team suddenly changing places, thus giving them just as much benefit as you? Get off my planet and get back to drawing furry fanart with baby wolves hurling soiled nappies at each other or whatever it is you people enjoy.

bring back the assault rifle with more powerful bullets, more ammo can be stored for a longer supply, a scope for longer distances, and a cooler look. imagine a long range assault rifle ripping through people's shields and automatic fire. AWESOME!

You know what guys, fuck every other weapon in this stupid shitty game. Let's just have one gun that everyone uses that kills everything and can't be beaten! Who needs weapons that might require some skill to use when you can just spray and pray with your megaweapon. It does sound totally JAWSOME, just like the Street Sharks.

3)Anti Air Turrets (for shooting down those babies ^^^^^)

I have no idea what the relevance of babies is. I think it refers to his suggestion to add Pelicans and Phantoms to multiplayer gameplay, but I cannot stand ^^^^^^^^^^. No-one has that many eyebrows you fool! Read a biology textbook, or throttle yourself with your own vocal chords. Both work perfectly!

LAN

Today we have a report about HaLAN 3, the third instalment of the sort-of twice-yearly Halo 2 LAN (Local Area Network) gaming event. The first time there were 8 people (4 teams of 2), last time 12 people (4 teams of 3) but this time 16 (4 teams of 4) which reaches the limit that Halo 2 can manage in a single game.
There were three rounds of five identical games against each of the other teams. At the end were 6 games with all four teams vying for victory. This made a total of 21 games. I would list the 4 teams but that would be mainless meaningless, suffice to say that I was on green team.

Here follow a brief report of three of the most entertaining games and some highlights of the rest of the 20 hours without sleep.

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1-Flag CTF
Relic
Against Yellow team

We were on attack first. Everything went well at first – we rushed the hog up to the flag, grabbed it, and drove off the relic. Someone followed Hayden off and landed next to his hog while I was running to help him. I decided that hurling a grenade would help Hayden. The grenade killed his pursuer, killed Hayden (earning me a betrayal) and sent the burning remains of the hog spiralling into my face, counting as a suicide. I therefore single-handedly allowed their team to manoeuvre into position and hold back our victory for considerably longer. Not my finest moment.
Their first attack was quicker than ours and got them an instant capture, and then we got a second, far smoother capture the second time since we rock. Intense spawn camping followed their second attempt for a capture and in the end the flag returned, at which point we raced back through the teleporter they'd originally opened to defend the base for the last few moments.

2-1, green team win.

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Shotgun Slayer
Turf
Against Yellow team

This game was absurdly close. For the first half of the game the teams were exactly even until around 25 kills a piece at which point yellow team pulled ahead to around 45-38 or something similar. It seemed a fair bet we weren't going to win, but then Hayden and I between us got around 7 kills in the best part of 10 seconds and basically closed the gap up. After some careful owning we somehow emerged victorious with the tiniest of margins, despite our team racking up a good five betrayals.

50-49, green team win.

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Slayer
Lockout
Against Red team

This game wins the award for most ownage during the entire tournament. To cut a short story even shorter (the game took around 3 minutes I seem to remember) I whored the sniper and the sword, Hayden had the shotgun and we held both the battle rifles. I got a nice spree of 17 kills before being dispatched by a lucky stick but by that point the score was 23-1. To us. Upon losing my two weapons (they fell off the map) our incredible ownage decreased a little but not enough to change the tide of the game. And let's just say that when the sword and sniper respawned, I was already waiting for them. My personal score was 24-3.

50-24, green team win.

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Other highlights :

The games with all 4 teams in were generally very close. One was won 100 kills to 97 while another team finished with 5:00 of time in the Hill, only 5 seconds ahead of those in second. No-one except Richard got higher than a Killtacular (4 kills within 2 seconds of each other) except in the later zombie games which really don't count.

On the 4 vs 4 ascension match, I didn't realise at first that only dual weapons were on the mpa (for those who don't know, this means one-handed weapons). Thus, I jumped to where the Rocket Launcher normally spawns to find a needler in its place. What a sick, sick joke.

A last amusing note - some of you will know the importance "hosting" the game makes. If the game is effectively being played on your Xbox and others are connected to it, you are faster than everyone else. Only by a little, but it does make a difference. In one game where Richard was clearly host, I was complaining about his blatant hax. Richard replied "Well, I'm just better" at the same time I hurled a plasma grenade onto the floor. For those who don't know, plasma grenades are big, fizzy and shine with bright blue energy. They are impossible to miss. A second after declaring his incredible skills, Richard walked straight onto my grenade and blew himself to pieces.

We later watched Die Another Day and ripped that pile of shit to pieces. "Hey, I know! Let's add an 'electrocute self' button to my power suit! That's a great idea!" was one of the complaints about the Korean-Swedish businessman/balloonist/hockey world champion Gustav Graves.

I played around 2 or 3 hours of Gears of War, and my impressions on that will be coming tomorrow. However, anyone who was there will probably know my impressions already from my early comments.

Conclusion :

We won, but by a much narrower margin that last time. Between rounds were different things including a Halo 2 Quiz, blindfolded campaign and a warthog race.

This is where we were particularly cunning. Half the teams chose Metropolis because it is a short level but they forgot that you do infact have to kill the pair of Wraiths next to the building, and killing things while being directed with someone else is fairly difficult. We cunningly landed upon High Charity which can be zoomed through without being forced to actually get a single kill.
The hog race on Headlong was a nice change from the regular matches, and 16 players in one place gave me a nice opportunity to crash into them all like a game of skittles.

Finally, watch the video!

Knight

Starknights - A Whole New Universe Of Crap!

Today we take another dive into the horrible things you can find that are classified as Shareware. After the 100% luck-based game of Turbo Cars and the spyware-infested family-fun craptravaganza of Batter Up Cat, I was wary this time. I decided to go for something that might not have been made by a couple of morbidly obese Hello Kitty fans in a basement somewhere - this actually appears to have had some effect put into it.
It's therefore a shame I'd still rather watch Time Bandits than play this.
This is an outer space RPG, a genre perfected by Freelancer. There is simply no point in attempting to compete with that game, but yet they do. This game lacks 3D graphics, characters with any worth and any originality.
The basic plot is that there are nice guys called Starknights and bad guys called Darkknights. There we go. You can play as anyone of these useless fools who actually gain no advantages over different races - they just have a slightly different collection of pixels that make up your character.
But the originality doesn't stop at good-guys-and-bad-guys-who-were-once-good! No, take a look at the spaceships you can buy. Point in case : that thing on the right.

IMPORTANT : It is not a Death Star. It's a Dark Moon. There's an important difference. It's good that after one of the largest grossing film franchises of all time, no-one feels the slightest urge to cash-in on the ideas that George Lucas probably didn't actually come up with. A Dark Moon you say? It might not actually result in death, merely power shortages.

As you proceed through the game you collect all different kinds of useless crap which doesn't actually appear to do anything. This ranges from "Processed Salmon" to "Paperclips", the latter of which probably has something to do with the Health Index of your starfighters. If they don't like you as a leader, they all explode and turn into aliens or something.

In my short time playing this before I removed my eyes with a power drill, I was unable to work out how - in the duel option - you actually won. It claimed I gained Credits at the end (another nice original sci-fi touch I thought) but I didn't seem to. In addition, my Darkknight character didn't have a victory dance, which sucked.

Last but not least, I was amused to find a site called Gamestats. It rates all games from 100 to 0, I think based on both how good they are and how popular they are. Starknights has a lovely rating of 0. As far as I understand the FAQ on this site, it means no-one likes Starknights, no-one plays it, and no-one wants to play it. Good stuff.

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LAN IN 2 DAYS!!!!!!!!

David

As someone said in a book recently but I can't remember which book it was - "Is there no end to human folly?"
If your name is David Blaine and you had a devoted base of people who hate you for being the stupid attention-seeking pratt you are, the answer is no.
David Blaine's latest foray into the world of the clinically fuckwitted involves him strapping his stupid body into a gyroscope and seeing what happens. You know what's going to happen David? I've got £10 riding on you feeling sick and vomiting all over the people of New York you stupid waste of space, food and oxygen. The nutrition spent on him would be better spent on training an army of tiny, tiny gnats to respond to certain kinds of food. No reason, just for the sake of it. That's how worthless David Blaine is.
Thus, I have devised a short list of things I think David Blaine should turn his stupid eyes on once he's finished vomiting over the Big Apple.

* Die.
* Crawl into a hole and die.
* Die in public.
* Die in private.
* Try to set the world record for time spent on fire.
* Try to set the world record for dying quickly while on fire.
* Staple his face to a train.
* Set the world record for train-to-face staples (43 to beat).
* Try to catch a falling meteor in his mouth.

I also feel David Blaine has a chance to deliver some really good products into the consumer-filled marketplace we currently live. One such item would be entitled "⁴⁄₃ π r3 of asshole" which is effectively a small paperweight containing a model of David Blaine. Modelled on his original pointless stunt in some other city I don't care to remember, every day you can use him to weigh down a few sheets of A4 paper, a far more worthwhile task that these inane things the real David Blaine gets up to.


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One note :

ARGH! ARGH ARGH ARGH! FREAKING POWERCUTS! And every time the power goes out, house alarms start outside and annoy me even more. ARGH.

Borat

Borat : C.L.O.A.F.M.B.G.N.O.K

The first laugh in this film comes with the BBFC certificate screen when you see the film's name (Borat : Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan) stretch right across the screen. From that moment you just know this is going to be excellent.


This film only lasts for 84 minutes – a fraction over half of that of Casino Royale – but it is 84 wonderful minutes of laugh-out-loud comedy that had the whole cinema in uproar for the majority of the time. It’s hard to review properly without ruining much of the film, but I shall try my best.

Sacha Baron Cohen plays Kazakh journalist Borat who is travelling to the US to to make a video for the Ministry of Information ands help improve Kazakh culture and image, despite Kazakhstan supposedly having the world's “best Potassium”. However, as would be expected of a film like this, things go wrong, often resulting in hilarious scenes…

There is honestly too many absurdly funny moments to recount. The film included the line "My moustache still smells of your testes", which has got to be worth something. Every minute has at least one scene that results in a comic delirium. At one point Borat manages to destroy $500 worth of plates in a store, and attempts to pay for them with bags of pubic hair - "Very valuable in Kazakhstan!"

The vast majority of the scenes involve unsuspecting Americans who - in many cases - are persuaded into voicing some of their true opinions to this unsuspecting Kazakh. At one point Borat enters a gun store and asks "What would be the best weapon to kill the Jews?". The store owner doesn't even blink and point him in the direction of what would appear to be a gold-plated 9mm handgun. Later, one redneck instructs him on how to look "less Muslim" by losing his moustache. It excellently exposes the semi-standard racism in certain Southern states...

No film is worthy of 10/10, but Borat is closer to the 10 side than the 9 side, so it earns this most prestigious of awards. The very instant this gem comes out on DVD I intend to buy it, because it is just too funny not to.

Casino

This weekend we have a double update thing with not one but two film reviews! Yesterday I journeyed down to Bristol to see Casino Royale & Borat, supposed to be two of this years best films in their respective area of cinematography.

Casino Royale

Before I say anything about the latest Bond, let me go back a few years and make a comment on Die Another Day. I fucking hate that film. It is an utter pile of balls. You’ve got a henchman with diamonds in his face – top marks for realism there – and a guy who starts off North Korean and then suddenly becomes a Swedish banker or some shit. After 30 minutes I removed my toilet paper roll and replaced it with the Die Another Day DVD.

When Daniel Craig first got the role for Bond, everyone insulted him and said that he really wasn’t going to be very good. Having seen him in Archangel on BBC – the best thriller I have ever read – I thought he was going to be quite good. And – guess what? I was right. Didn’t see that one coming.

Casino Royale is the very first Bond film of the series, originally made in some godforsaken form where Bond dies and goes to hell. Luckily, this film actually makes an iota of sense. Bond is sent to play poker and rob a terrorist banker of his cash. Before this however, we have a black-and-white flashback about how Bond acquired his 00 status – “You need two kills to be a double-oh.”

Anyway, the opening action scene is a chase through a building site somewhere in Madagascar. It was an exciting first scene – one of the better Bond opening scenes – and quite realistic too. Bond was unable to do some of the things the man he was pursuing could, and actually got injured through-out the chase. There are numerous entertaining moments as well during this chase, showing that Bond isn’t completely humourless. It was certainly more entertaining than that bit on Die Another Day where the Korean-Swedish Balloonist electrocutes his father with his power suit. That sucked.

Strangely, I found the long poker scene to be one of the best. Anyone who understands poker will get a lot more out of it than those deprived individuals who don’t, if only because you find yourself trying to second-guess the players, especially in the final hand. The plot is also far more complex and intertwining than previous films with far more twists and turns than your normal Bond.

My only real complaint was the final third – you were never sure when the film was going to end. It seemed like maybe half a dozen potential endings strung together one after the other. This wasn’t especially bad, but it made things odd – not so much suspense but repeated surprise that the credits aren’t yet rolling. Even in this final third, there are more twists and turns than the rest of the film, and by the end I wasn’t even sure Bond was on his side.

The last point to mention – Fleming appears to have tried to make Le Chiffre as bizarre as possible. In addition to having greasy hair and mismatching pupils, he bleeds. From his eyes. In conclusion, it’s a good return to form, a nice change from the Bond who never does anything wrong, it sets up the next film to be even better, has a satisfying final line and has a good amount of character development - rarely seen before in Bonds and welcome here.

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Depending on the results of the hit-counter, we’re thinking of moving to an actual domain. This would give us far more control over our content, it’ll have far fewer fuck-ups than incompetent blogger and will let different people contribute more. Lastly, I think that people will generally be more inclined to visit a website than a blog – it suggests a greater guarantee of matieral.

Anyway, we’re currently looking at www.t-r-i.co.uk, but I’d like anyone else to suggest domain names.

The second film review – Borat : Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan – comes later today.

Pack

Windows XP Service Pack 3

Hello! We're glad that Windows Updates has downloaded this and forced you to restart your computer at the most inopportune time! We'd like to take up even more of your time to explain to you the amazing new additions that service pack 3 brings to your Windows system!

• The error report system has been made 63% more annoying according to our surveys. Instead of simply offering to send a report about programs Microsoft has never heard of, it also insists on coming up even when you close programs normally. This is to help us decide why you normally press the 'X' in the corner so that eventually - sometime in the future - there will be no need for an 'X' button. Simply happiness.
• It has come to our attention that some people aren't too keen on the blue screen of death, so we've come up with a brilliant way to make it better. Having teamed up with assorted spyware companies, when the blue screen comes up you will now be offered adverts based on whatever you were doing before the crash - like Battlefield 2142!

• We recieved some feedback about the little bubble that pops up, declaring you have unused desktop icons. Despite this being annoying and pointless, we've been wondering why no-one ever pays attention to it and actually deletes the offending icon. Because of this, a message no longer appears! Instead, any icon that hasn't been used within the last ten minutes is deleted - and not just the shortcut. The entire program goes! We think this'll help clear up your desktops.
• There are too many themes avaliable in Windows XP - three is simply absurd. No-one needs that kind of choice! We've now reduced it to only the standard blue design, and also disabled the use of things like Windowblinds. No longer can you customise your newly-itemless desktop!
• Everyone loves Clippit! Therefore, we're adding a whole new interactive dimension to Clippit! Following on from the popularity of mindless tripe like Pokemon and Digimon, Clippit can now mate and have little Clippits! These have less functionality than the original, but if you care for them, over time they can become just as useful!

Hope you enjoy the brilliant new updates for XP while you await Vista - filled with such treats as the taskbar that vanishes if you don't feed it daily, and windows that have a brief logic puzzle when loading up to keep your brain healthy and in shape.

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Thanks to everyone who I asked to suggest the worst things about Windows for today's entry...

Politik

Well, it's been a while since a post about the state of the world and current news, so this seemed a good time to do one. In addition theres a veritable menagerie of notes to go with this one.

Mid-terms : This is the first good news to come out of the US in longer than I can remember. Finally Bush has some slight limits to his power, and for once the general American public have spoken in favour of a sensible party. That said, the Democrats aren't that much better - the majority of them voted for the Iraq war too, and I hate Hilary Ban-All-Video-Games Clinton. Nevertheless, I can't help but fear that two years hence, another Republican will get in power. With the two leading Democrats being either black or female, do they really stand that much chance in certain southern states? None at all.

The PS3 : For most generations of consoles I generally seem to end up getting two consoles. I'll have one initially and then choose which of the other two offer the next best selection. Since the Wii is such an awful, awful thing, there is actually a chance I'll get a PS3 some time in the future. But I can't help but be amused that after it's been out for 3 days, backwards-compability glitches have already sprung up. That and you can buy them on eBay now at some absurd price...

Labour whining : I honestly don't care who wins the Labour leadership. All this political whining is getting dull. Gordon Brown may be slightly more left-wing than Blair but they're still both raving Thatcherites. They're total sell-outs as far as I'm concerned and don't deserve our interest.

NOTES & QUERIES

1: Some of you may have heard of Garry's Mod. It is a program which allows you to spawn any object from Half-life 2 and CS : S, then pose the ragdoll models. This in addition with the realistic physics (mainly friction, weight and bouyancy) means that you can create almost anything. Last night, Tom and I created a suspension bridge. Click the |>

2: The Zombie film - the original intention was to do a 50's style "education program" about zombies, with the corny music and learning tips and whatnot. The intention was to go into town as a zombie (cue amused looks from bystanders) and film the various kinds of zombie - the cultured zombie, the something zombie, etc. However, it then seemed perhaps more sensible to do this at the LAN party when everyone is around anyway, but change it to a fight between a collection of zombies and a non-zombie.
However, I fear doing it at the LAN party will have problems. First and foremost, the Halo 2 tournament is unlikely to end until just before midnight, judging from last time. This means we won't be able to make any noise, and everyone knows zombies groan. Secondly, from a looking-like-a-zombie fake blood point of view, doing it in a seperate day seems easier when we have more time, and aren't distracted by Gears of War on the 360. Thirdly, we can't get any amused looks from bystanders.
I'd appreciate it if you posted in the comments thoughts about this, and which seems like the best option.

3: On Saturday the 25th will be the LAN Party. After that and the resulting entries, there is a fair chance the blog is going to stop. Spurling is working on a hit counter, and once that is up I'll see how many people visit the blog. If the number is far lower than I think, then the blog will likely close because it's not worth the effort of being creative and working on the blog so often for such a small audience.
However, you can save the blog if you simply bring in more readers. I've done a lot towards this, so it seems reasonable that everyone can try and help to bring in new readers.
Otherwise, after the LAN report + the Gears of War info...it may all end. The zombie film will come later even if the blog stops per se.
But on the other hand, I might be pleasantly surprised with the number of daily readers, in which case everything will continue.

Chef

Urban

Scotty looked around the clearing. The stench of death was everywhere. Flesh, bodies and bones were strewn across the battlefield. Rubble interspersed the destruction, and the roads ran with blood. Someone off in the distance, an artillery strike boomed like the drumkit of oblivion. Overhead, a plane screeched across the sky like someone pulling a pick over the guitar of pain.

Hi! I'm your host for today, Angus Wellington! As part of my community service I'm being forced to give this talk about Urban Warfare, and why it doesn't always have to be as depressing as the above paragraph. According to this script I've been given, with just a few simple notes and advice, Urban Warfare can be fun for the whole family!
Buy my new books on Amazon.com, including "How Furries took over Second Life" and "Delving into the mating habits of Redneck States - an insider's view".

Do :

• Give your weapons names. As a certain Vietnam war film showed, this is clearly a good idea and never ever leads to a murder and a suicide in one scene. If you are particularly lonely and so inclined, you can ever name the weapons of your fallen opponents and play out a little story between them. Guns with chainsaws attached make this even more entertaining.
  
• Make sure you're wearing the right kind of camoflauge, and appropriate clothing. Appropriate clothing includes massive gauntlets, steroid-filled arms and enough back-space to hold three different weapons. Appropriate clothing does not include anything bright, anything cheery, or anything that doesn't seem to be packed with pointless amounts of styrofoam.

Don't :

• Go nuts. Your team-mates aren't going to appreciate it when you decide to play out your aforementioned gun fantasies. Keep them in your own mind, don't share your interior hell with your comrades.
• Crowd around specific places. Lots of different parties are going to want to fight where you are, and it's just greedy to hog all the lot. In war, there are no winners, merely those who find the Orb of Agility first.
• Be a weapon whore. As most battle-seasoned veterans should know, every weapon is potentially a noob weapon in the eyes of the right American gamer. Even weapons you spawn on the battlefield with (due to new military "Spawn-O-Shoot" tech) are noob weapons, simply because your foes are too incompetent to fight them off.

And so, with these helpful hints, no longer will you dread Urban Warfare.

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Today has various notes. The next 2 weeks are going to rock, because I'll be seeing Casino Royale, filming our zombie documentary (more info tomorrow), going to the 16-player LAN and seeing Gears of War.
Also, I compiled all the userbars that apply to me. Since it is slightly too large to fit on the blog, it can be found here.

Terms

I thought I'd take this time to outline the Terms & Conditions of reading my blog. There was some trouble recently with a certain legal battle I'd rather not go into, but I'd like to clear things up.

T&C of TRI INC

1 (a) (i) By reading anything on this site, you are agreeing to the following terms. You agree that you concur with all statements, including those about destroying Mars simply for the purpose of creating an entertaining fireworks display one day in the future. Any disagreement posted in the comments section will lead to a bet involving an Oxford English Dictionary which inbred morons will lose because they don't understand the English language.

1 (a) (ii) If you choose to read any section of this blog, you acknowledge several things. You acknowledge that when I eventually take over the world, several changes will be made. These changes include compulsory IQ tests on Xbox Live (a limit of 60 would remove 95% of players), giving me free games consoles, removal of everything shit on this Earth and destruction of all Star Trek DVDs. VHS copies may survive for the amusement value.

1 (a) (iii) The purple is taking over.

1 (b) (i) You will agree to tell people about this blog in order to increase the hit count. More on this topic at a later date, which will be after the LAN party.

2 (a) (i) See all above.

2 (a) (ii) I own all property and land rights to your house.

3 (a) (i) All blog entries must be commented on, and nothing may ever take preference over such an activity. Even if your house is being torn down around you as a giant Bender and Dr Zoidberg do battle, you must still comment.

3 (b) (ii) In conclusion, TRI is owned by TRI and all TRI subsidiaries of TRI. Any attempt to insult said subsidiares or said TRI will result in said penalties, including six months of cabbage planting and peanut butter manufacture.

4 (a) (i) Lastly, you agree to not be too concerned when a below-standard entry should come along.

Kombat

Mortal Kombat 4 : Krazy Kombat!

[Credits sequence. Screen is entirely black, and then it slowly pans upwards to show hundreds upon hundreds of needlessly mutilated corpses. Blood seeps out of the corpses onto the ground to form the title in a stylised blood-font. After it has been on-screen for a few moments, a huge explosion rips apart the corpses and the flying limbs wash away the blood.]

[First scene. Sub-Zero and some other new pointless character are standing at the docks.]

Sub-Zero : So, another Mortal Kombat tournament.
New Guy : Yes. This is my first.
Sub-Zero : Really.
New Guy : Yes.
[Note : no emotion or acting skill can be displayed here. Acting must be so wooden that entire forests are put out of business.]
Sub-Zero : I see.
[Scorpion is moving stealthily across a roof or whatever. Despite being killed in every Mortal Kombat film and in fact being nothing more than a skull in a mask, he is nevertheless still alive and trying to kill people for reasons the "plot" fails to explain.]
Scorpion : Get over here!
[Scorpion fires his wrist-missile thing and pulls in Sub-Zero. They fight for no reason, even though Scorpion is actually pursuing Quan Chi who freed the Oni Moloch from Outworld (or the Netherrealm) and is in league with Shang Tsung to rise the Dragon King's ancient army while at the same time Cyrax is trying to recover an orb for the Vampire whose name I can't remember which is in lava. In addition to all of this, the other Oni (the smelly one) is being plauged by flies.]

[Second scene. Raiden is trying to recruit people for his weatherman club while trying to impress them with his lightning tricks. He is unaware that everyone can see the hydroelectric plant behind him supplying him with all his "power".]

Raiden : We must unite to defeat this new enemy!
Bo' Rai Cho : What is the problem this time? If it involves burgers, count me in? You've all seen my fatality, haven't you?

[Collective sigh.]

Raiden : Yes Bo' Rai. We've all seen you literally flatten someone down to one pixel with your bulk. Anyway, back to the plot.
Jax : Plot?
Raiden : This time, some evil-doers are trying to take over the world by winning the Mortal Kombat tournament!

[Dramatic drum-beats.]

Bo' Rai Cho : How does that work? How does winning a tournament let you rule the world?
Raiden : I honestly have no idea.

News

Today we have a round-up of the world's most exciting stories to hit the headlines today!

In a shocking relevation, tyres were today thrown off a motoray bridge! The workers there said it was a miracle that no-one was badly hurt, and they were even surprised that such an exciting event didn't get more news coverage! Said one "This is the most exciting thing to happen in Devon since that chicken competition. We're all so excited! We even made the BBC site!"
Others were less jubilant. One man who got a disasterous mild injury from this horrible accent said that his car was mildly dented.
"That might cost me nearly fifty pounds!" shouted the irate man. "I blame the Government."

In other news today, PS2 players were completely owned when a new fitness machine came out. Designed to make people move while playing games - something which distracts from both the exercise and the gaming resulting in you doing both of them badly - has become an additional extra for the Playstation.


Said one braindead parent who thinks this is a good idea - "This means Johnny can now exercise."
Exciting stuff folks!

Also, World of Warcraft fans are in terrible disarray as an extended maintenance period was announced! Said 'Pzi Kel'Thuzard' - "owned imo". Other such inspired quotes were abound on the forums as the WoW players mourned the loss of such exciting places as Dentarg and the Steamweasel, whatever the hell that is. One said : "My server will be down all day Tuesday, so that means there won't be anything to do except sleep. And sleep. Just about everything bores me lately, like watching TV gets old, and with Norgannon being down, I should just sleep."
A tragic tragedy for the players of WoW.

There you have it, the most incredible news from today's headlines! Nothing more fascinating has happened in the entire day in the whole world - just think about that.

Diaries

The Leprechaun Hunter Diaries

Day 1

This is the diary of Angus Wellington, author and explorer extraordinaire. I am writing this to keep track of my adventures in deepest Ireland, and in case I die this will preserve my incredible adventures for future generations. For those who don't know, my latest book - I have a perfectly healthy sexual appetite (auto-biographical) - is avaliable on Amazon now.
We set off today, my tour-guide and I deep into the Irish jungles, wholly unsure what we would find. There are legends in this place, legends of very small creatures with very great fortunes. I wonder if these are similar to the Akakakaaai beasts I describe in my horror novel Bloodstorm of Final Destiny (or as I call them, dramatic terror narratives). It is now avaliable on Amazon.
Late in the day before setting up camp we noticed a horse. That is all.

Day 2

Today was very, very dull. We went deeper into the forest, encountering a rare bird here and there. Other than that, nothing happened.
I'm going to take this time to tell you about my latest romantic novel, Twists and Turns. In it, we explore a vicious love circle between four mass-murders. Each wants to love one but murder another, and it ends up in an epic final duel inside the International Space Station. It has gone down to rave reviews on the Furry Anime sites I frequent, so that must mean something.
However, very late, we spotted what may have been a leprechaun in the twilight. It was hiding behind a series of verdant bushes and it fled as soon as it caught sight of us.

Day 3

We're in the money! Quite literally, concerning the legend of the leprechauns with the gold and the rainbow and whatnot. We found leprechaun droppings once it was morning, and my guide informed me these were fresh. This reminded me of the plot of my latest novel, The Hunter becomes the Hunted, where a group of demon deer attack a games-keeper who is psychic and has witnessed visions of the End of Days. The plot twist is that the deer are infact the telekinetic representations of the hunter's mother, and he is forced to soul-search for the remaining chapters before realising he can only regain an ordinary life if he travels on a voyage of discovery into the Alps.
Anyway, we followed the trail into the forest, and we think we've found the nest. We'll check in the morning.

Day 4

Alas, we were two late. The matriarch (or "mother" in scientific terms) noticed our arrival and took all of her little babies away. I feel angered that we've missed our best chance at catching a leprechaun and have been left with nothing but an empty next filled with clovers.
Maybe soon I will go on another expedition, but only time will tell. For now I will stick to taking over this blog once in a while and advertising my superb novels, all avalible over Amazon.com.

Leprechaun Hunter Diaries is now being made into a film, starring Tom Cruise in the lead role.

Squid

Finally, we bring you the much-awaited expansion to the Story of WTF!
Updates :
> 3 new areas on around 150 new pages
> 2 new happy endings
> Assorted new spoilers
> Less death, both in the expansion and the original
> Multiple paths through one area
> The beginning of a puzzle
> And more stuff too damned amazing to talk about here.
The new areas are accessed through the Ocean and Mars. The old map can be found a few entries back in "Feedback" if you get stuck.