radiac.net

I swear I read that the next hitman was coming out on the 6th of June, but it appears that I am wrong, it's not out until September. I am slightly broken, but then there is San Andreas in just over a week, so that's something. I have too much work to be playing games anyway, they'd just sit in the drawer like half life - I've only just reached level 12 there (where you go into the big hole-diggy thing).

In other news, I bought the domain radiac.net 5 years ago today, but the site wasn't launched for another 17 days. For a while now I've been aiming to do something for the 5 year thing; the original aim was to re-do the whole site, but with 17 days left, the amount of work that I still have left doesn't bode well. However, CAPMS is coming along nicely, and the first interactive cd is mostly finished, so things are good.

Had a very enjoyable weekend in Bath and saw some people who I had not seen for a long time. At least 2 weeks. May see some more on Friday, but I know all you student types have imminent exams, so maybe that will have to wait until after.

Last night I decided that it was not enough to have an ankle with torn ligaments, so I grated my index finger with a nutmeg grater. Ok, maybe that's not quite how it went down, but the end result is the same - a bleeding painful finger with the skin shredded with lots of deep cuts from side to side. And of course it's on my right hand, and just on the corner that makes typing and writing painful. Oh well, could be worse!

Going to see Sin City tonight. No idea what it's about, but I watched Under Siege last night, setting a high standard for it to follow, so it had better be good.

So today I did the Home-to-Bath journey again, only this time I stuck to the speed limit (partly experiment, partly poor driving conditions). It took me an extra 40 minutes. So screw that.

Just got back from seeing Sin City - what a fun little film. I think I see what they were trying to do with the black and white and violence, but I wasn't convinced that it was anything special. It seemed to just be Pulp Fiction in stylised black and white, I've seen more stomach-turning scenes in an episode of ER. But it was definitely still good fun, and well worth going to see.

Yesterday was how all good days should be - productive and yet fun. During the day I did a lot of work on my CMS (I'm making a programming language for it!), and then Leela cooked me macaroni cheese, which was very good. Followed by chocolate pudding, also good, apart from the unwanted ice cream. After that we watched Mean Girls, which is a film about American bitchy high school girls, quite amusing.

I am also thinking about doing something I've promised myself I would never do - buying a mac. I figure I need one to test things I make that need to work on them (websites and flash projectors), and mac minis are cheap enough to be an acceptable price. The only problem is that I have no idea about mac specs. Any suggestions as to whether I should get the cheap one, the expensive one, or the cheap one and upgrade?

After the joke of last weeks indian takeaway meal where they gave me the wrong meal, I decided to try again, and this time they got it right, hurrah! So Tristan and I ate that while watching Anchorman, fun.

I'm starting to doubt myself with this CMS thing, and wondering if I'm suffering from solitary group-think - that's probably not a good sign, especially as I haven't got very far. I find myself wondering if it will really do what I want as well as I hope it will, and if it does, will that be what other people need it to do? Only one way to find out I guess - barge on regardless, and see what people say once it's done. It's a major departure from the previous CMS things I have done, so I think I'd be allowed to have a short period of pre-beta testing where people can play with my concepts, and in which time I am allowed to change things very drastically. I'm quite sure that nobody really cares about it, but then thats probably because I never go into the details because I'm boring enough as it is. And I really must finish that game I started writing, otherwise someone else will have the idea and come along and do it before me, and that would suck. But as ever, fun after work, and I have a lot of that at the moment. So much for a year off!

It's the time of the year for people to do exams. However, someone forgot to tell my eyes and nose that I finished my formal education last year, so they have started the annual attack of the flowers. Yes. Anyway, I bumped into Simon on campus the other day after the first compsci exam. Hope everyone's doing ok, good luck to those who have lots left.

I chose the wrong time to install mysql on my debian machines - Sarge has gone stable since my last apt-get upgrade, so I'm downloading all of those packages at the moment. Up to 228 (lilo) at the moment. Joy. Tenner says something doesn't work after it's finished, pony says it's my e-mail.

Update (2am): you all now owe me £35. Hey, this is a really neat way to make money. Tomorrow I'm putting £100 on the sun coming up.

So, it's just gone 7pm and I am finally installing San Andreas. Work sucks - despite getting up at 6am (not actually to get to the shops for when they opened, just happened to be when I woke up), I only bought my copy at just before 4.30. Oh, comedy, they ID'd me! And with other things to do after that, I have only just reached my computer. I have decided to take most of the rest of the day off, and to instead steal cars and run people over.

I'm not going to be able to play it properly for a while, seeing as I'm in Sevenoaks and my good computer is in Bath. I don't want to make the same mistake I have made with most of my other games, where I get the game on this computer, play it for a whole bunch of levels, then forget to take my saved games back to the other computer and get bored playing them all again before giving up. Peter is clearly going to beat me to 100% again - I still haven't completed Half Life 2 yet.

Well, it has still not finished installing. I think I will go and take my contacts out.

They broke it.

It's a foolproof formula. Take a successful game such as Vice City, change the textures, change the story, record some other people talking, and put some different tunes in. Gives us a new vehicle to make us excited, then press, print and badge it San Andreas.

But no. Somewhere along the line they went and broke it.

Overlooking the obvious and inconsequential menu bugs, the game suffers from a chronic case of we-know-better-than-you-itis. In this particular case, Rockstar think that they know where I want to look. And as usual when dealing with this condition, the developers were suffering from cluelessaemia. It is a supposedly 'intelligent' camera - you can keep your intelligence, thanks. A small example; I drive my car around a corner, and the camera keeps on facing the way it was facing, and slowly pans round to the same direction as my car. That's great, only now I can't see where the hell I'm going. Mouse control over the camera is nice, but it's no replacement. Why does nobody seem to take the attitude that if it's not broken it doesn't need fixing?

Well, maybe it won't be so noticeable when I'm playing at a higher resolution than 640x480x16, and maybe I'll get used to it. Yeah, sure, and maybe I'll learn to crap gold - screw you, Rockstar!

Ok, maybe I was a bit quick to condemn San Andreas. Yes, so I may not get on with the camera, but the game does have some redeeming features, such as being able to play pool, go betting on horses, or base jumping off the top of a skyscraper.

For those of you who don't know the new GTA series, they block off part of the map until you have completed some missions and the other parts of the map become relevant to the story. This one is based on 3 islands, and the bridges between each island are closed. This worked quite well in the first two games, but in this one you can swim or fly a plane over. Which I have now done 5 times. However, when you leave your island, you get maximum wanted level that even going into a pay and spray doesn't fix. How annoying! Never mind, guess I'll just have to start playing some of the missions soon before I can go exploring the casinos...

In other news, my CMS is making good progress - the first 3 test pages are working, but now comes the complicated stuff! Looking good though.

Right, I'm heading back to Los Santos for a game of pool.

I forgot to say that on Thursday, just in time for San Andreas, I upgraded my graphics resolution. I have new contact lenses, and it's like going from 1024x768 to 1600x1200, which is nice.

I am writing PHP things at the moment, and getting very annoyed at the 'language'. True, I am rather biased towards Perl given how I have spent more time doing that, but PHP isn't all that. I don't see how it has such widespread adoption, it really sucks. But then it is the language of the masses, and if I want what I write to be used, then PHP it must be. Anyway, a language is only a means to an end - my CMS now processes 2/8 test files correctly, and is well on its way to getting the third. Now it's nearly better than SSI #include! But not quite.

As a matter of curiosity, I installed my second year group project today - a personal information manager. Surprisingly awesome, and I have started using it to keep track of my hectic diary, although whether I'll stick with it is another matter.

I have now upgraded San Andreas from 640x480x16 to 1600x1200x32 with full anti-aliasing, and it is pretty. I've been playing it a little bit and am now about 10 missions in, running around in a green hoodie, camo trousers and a leopard-skin cowboy hat.

I'm not a fan of playing until I am done and then saving - if I die or am arrested, I will reload my saved game and continue; as we all know, freedom comes at a price (God Bless America and all who sail under her, by the way), and I don't like losing all my guns. However, the problem is that the first time you are killed or arrested, you have to sit through a long un-skippable explanation of what just happened. So, anyway, to avoid losing all the weapons I will pick up on my way through, I decided around mission 5 to let myself get arrested and killed. I feel dirty.

And it's a bit of ridiculous game, too. You have to dress and feed your player, work out at the gym to build your muscles, and get a haircut and tatoos. That's nice, but I think it's taking the interaction to a bit of an extreme. In a way I'm playing a game to escape the mundane day to day things of real life, and have a bit of fun driving around doing missions and having shoot-outs with police. If I wanted a real-life simulator, I'd buy the sims. But then Rockstar do have a habit of encorporating other games into the GTA range just for the hell of it - that taxi game, Dance Dance Revolution, and I'm guessing I'll come across some more swallowed games as I play on through. Having said all of that, it is a lot of fun.

Back in the real world, I can't figure out what to buy. I want some neato shiny goodness. I am thinking perhaps a video camera and editing software, or maybe audio sampling software, but then I don't have time to do my work, let alone start a new time-consuming hobby. So perhaps I should just get the replacement servers I've been meaning to get for ages. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Ooh, only 192 days until Christmas!

Having not been to the pub in about 3 months, I have now been two nights in a row. The first evening was with Tristan and Mark, and I had three pints of beer and became intoxicated. Yay for regaining lightweight status! And then last night was with Leela and Hannah and Laura for an end-of-exams celebration, although I did not drink as much as the night before, so did not become intoxicated. Still fun though!

It has been a full 5 years since I opened radiac.net, and this also just happens to be news entry 1000! How exciting!

As you may have noticed, I have half done the long-awaited redesign! Only half-done though, have only had time to do the design and basic structure, the rest of the content will follow along once I get my CMS finished. Although I have added the 'caption of the day' at the top right of each page - it changes once a day!

So, 1000 entries in 5 years. A lot has happened in 5 years. Well of course it has, 5 years ago I was in the 6th form at Tonbridge, sorting out some music competition, having revelations that were unrelated to my 20-can-a-day Sprite habit, watching Jennicam, and spending almost every waking minute on TR. Those were the days when Force 9 had server outages, when nobody could argue that Quake 2 wasn't the best deathmatch game ever, when I was still new to the joys of teaching, and before I had passed my driving test. So yes, I guess at 17 there's a lot of scope for a lot to change in 5 years, and it certainly has. I didn't expect I'd be sitting in my girlfriend's living room writing this entry, for a start. But really I think that as long as the next 5 years can be as interesting and varied as the past 5, I'll be doing well. Let's wait and see. Here's to the past 5 years, and here's to the next. See you at diary entry 2000 :)

I have been in Cornwall for the past few days generally messing about and having a few days off work. Although I have been doing some planning of my CMS, and have sorted out a flat for next year, so it's not all been lazing about in the sun.

I would also like to just say that anyone who saw my previous diary entry and new design and who then did not comment is a meanie!

However, that is enough of that, for tonight I have a story to tell you. It is a story of joy and shame, of hardships and adventure. For today, dear readers, I joined the National Trust.

No, I have not gone through a worm hole and emerged as a 50 year old man in slippers with a liking for classical music, although, to be fair, I do have slippers and a liking for classical music. No, it is far more sinister and shameful than that. I joined voluntarily.

Today, Leela and I went to Lanhydrock, a large NT property near her home, where she used to work in the holidays. Entrance was £4.40, and with membership at £17.50, we thought "Hey, we could go to some other NT places and save money!" So we now have our membership packs and are awaiting our membership cards. Oh the shame.

Still, as Leela said, at least we're not on crack.

"The State Department of Environmental Conservation must unequivocally deny Radiac's permit to continue operating a nuclear waste storage facility. Not in this neighborhood - not in this borough."

Yes, spurred on by a comment from Rob, the drummer from the Dutch band 'Radiac' reminding me that I am not the only person using my name, today I bring you a handful of classic quotes from the results of a Google search for my web name.

The above quote is from an article that appears to be about a nuclear waste facility in Brooklyn. It also states that "Radiac has not implemented sufficient emergency systems".

And from separate results, apparently, "Mini-Radiac is the perfect unit for firefighters", but "Please, I urge you – do not chance my life with Radiac". "Radiac jeopardizes the lives of thousands... We need to take action before something tragic happens". And according to someone else, "Porn shops cannot be located and pedophiles cannot live as close to a school as Radiac". Glad we got that cleared up.

On Friday we had a compsci barbeque, but only just. For those of you not in the south of England, this last week has been incredibly sunny and warm - in fact, it was probably our summer. However, these things can't last, so Friday morning I was woken by thunder and heavy rain. Miraculously though, it cleared up just in time for us to set fire to the barbeques, and we cooked meat until it was edible. Mmmm.

Then last night was the Bath University Summer Ball. I was accompanying Leela, and all the compsci people were there too, so we all got to meet up again. We wandered around and went on the dodgems (after an insane queue), we sat and had a drink in the Claverton rooms (while Peter, Tom and I threw things at each other across the table), and tried in vain to play in the casino (damn those queues!). It was a lot of fun, and I have a lot of photos which I will be putting up soon.

I have put up my photos from the ball! You will find them here, in the new-look gallery section. I also have the higher resolution unprocessed originals if anyone wants them.