Gaming, Technology

Xbox £360

I really want an Xbox 360. I mean, mostly because it’s new and fancy and I’d like to see what hi-def games look like on my plasma screen, but at least partly because I want to play the new Elder Scrolls game.

But: that’s probably the only game I want to play, and to get the kit I need to make my Xbox 360 useful as a console (Premium pack, second wireless controller, the Elder Scrolls game) I’d actually have to spend £360. Which is outrageous.

Sadly, with the PS3’s delay and rumoured pricing (apparently around £350 for the console alone, if rumours and misquotes can be believed, which, apparently, they can’t) — the price on the 360 is unlikely to drop for a while. So I guess I’ll hold tight – and see what they come up with. If they release Halo 3, then I may break, but odds are that will be delayed till November as well.

Damn my tendency to want instant gratification, and my lack of limitless funds…

Writing

Imaginationing

I’ve spent the afternoon dreaming up my world — understand a little better now why every other time I’ve started writing I’ve collapsed into a self-conscious vortex and given up. Setting the context in a structured way is giving me so much more scope to visualise characters, peoples, cultures, political drivers, and – crucially – is getting me really excited about getting started. I’m going to keep a reign on writing until I’ve decided on a broad plot structure, which is yet to take form, but its reassuring that there are a few ideas beginning to crystallise.

Also decided on a few protagonists, the principal of which is going to be a girl, I think. Not sure I’ll be able to successfully write for a heroine, but we’ll see how we go. Her name is Elieonor. I’m not sure about the spelling, but I like the name.

I will, at some point soon, start asking my friends slightly peculiar questions on how they think certain personalities might interact, on what kinds of life forms would evolve successfully on a slightly dry world with two suns, on what kind of weather an Earth-type planet could have if in orbit around a binary star system (if such a thing could be, I think it its theoretically possible) – on cataclysmic events, on the nature of faith, and how to weave humour into a fantasy novel and not make it seem like I’m (purely) paying homage to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. But I’ve a bit more thinking to do myself first.

Technology

Themeatic issues

I’m getting tired of this look for the blog. Apart from anything else, it has trouble with my blogroll – doesn’t separate the blogs from the links, which is irritating. But: every other theme I’ve found is either too hard to customise again with all my lovely sidebar content or just mings, plain and simple. Doesn’t help that I’m set on getting a theme with expandable sidebar components (like WordPress’ new widgets).

Ah well. I’ll find a way around it eventually. Or just get someone else to customise me a theme ;)

Music, Technology

Multi-room audio

So, my brother wanted us to sort out multi-room audio for him for his birthday. Easier said than done; all my research turned up expensive, bespoke systems with remote controls the size of toasters and slightly annoying file library systems (all non-networked). Thanks to a little hype and a lot of research, we decided to go for Slim Device’s WiFi Squeezebox, with an accompanying Qnap NAS drive. Whilst expensive, we managed to get it all set up and working, and were quite impressed.

Setting up the Squeezebox’s and NAS drive (we got 2 boxes and one NAS drive) took about 10 minutes – sorting out the music collection – thanks to the mess that is iTunes – took several hours. Squeezebox, frustratingly, can’t play M4A or M4P files (both DRMed and non-DRMed AAC files) – so had to convert them all, which required finding (and paying for) a batch conversion program. On the plus side, that worked and was good (from imtoo.com I think).

So: Squeezebox rocks but would be better if it could cope with iTunes files, iTunes sucks and it would better if it used MP3s. And my music collection has been 100% converted now :)

Writing

Commence writing…

Well, I’ve almost started. There’s been more life-admin than I’ve been able to easily handle, but I’ve written a few things down on my first A3 sheet.

    Magic
    Characters
    Science
    Technology
    World

The idea is to begin to piece together the characteristics that define my world – yes, its going to be a fantastical novel. Not really sure whether its going to be more like Gaiman or Pratchett or Eddings, but we’ll see. Probably some bizarre hybrid.

Still quite exciting though!

Television

Withdrawal

Finished watching season 2 of BatGal and am now anxiously awaiting the next one… It is really, really well done. Par for the course with its end season cliff-hanger, but what a cliff-hanger!! Bring on July…

Miscellany, Technology

Logitech Premium USB Headset 350

Ok, so I’ve got hold of a new USB headset for Skype purposes after accidentally eating my old one*.

I’ve never before understood why there’s such disparity in price for USB headsets, which I always thought should be commoditised. But my new shiny Logitech headset is a thing of awesome power and functionality. No outside noise, no fuzz, noise cancelling and crystal clear sound quality. Well worth the £40 or so pricetag.

Now if I can just stop accidentally hitting the mute button mid conversation…

* strictly speaking, it just broke… but where’s the fun in that?

Personal, Writing

On loving characters

One of the things on my to-do list is to write up a bunch of blog posts on specific topics is to write a few posts that have been brewing in my head. Before I forget why ‘Batgal/Buffy/Serenity-loving characters’ is scrawled on my to do list, I thought I’d fire off a couple of posts.

Arvind’s written about the hero mythos before (as have others…), but I’ve noticed of late that all my favourite television is massively character driven. Buffy and then Firefly/Serenity, Stargate SG-1, LoTR, the Bartimaeus trilogy, the Peter Hamilton novels (ok, all my recent sci/fi & fantasy) – but also books like Catch 22 (still on there as one of my favoure books ever), and Chabon’s brilliant Adventures of Kavalier and Clay — all really focussed on character development, and making people come to life that you really care about. The Sci/Fi / fantasy element is only necessary for the additional enjoyable escapism, I think – its the character led fiction that I love.

Thinking about my own writing, I want to try to go down this route. Every time I’ve set pen to paper in the past I’ve always led with something pathetically post-modern or puerilely philosophical. The next challenge has got to be working the philosophy and plot around characters my readers will like. Which is why I plan to make use of the A3 pad my sister bought me yesterday to sketch out some ideas and characteristics I’d like to see…

It’s so exciting! Feels like I’m actually getting somewhere. At least I now have a new list of thank yous to write in the acknowledgements of the book – when its eventually written – “Buffy Summers, Earl Hickey, Bill Adama, DEATH, Arthur Dent, &c’ – characters and heroes, one and all.”

Personal, Television

Procastination and inspiration from Earl

Have found that I’m putting off the most trivial things lately – replacing the blade on my razor, doing the laundry, erm, blogging, and more. The attitude of ‘I’ll get to it eventually’ has me standing knee deep in a pile of slowly mildewing laundry and dust an inch thick around the base of my monitor.

I’ve bought a dustbuster, and made a list, inspired by Early Hickey. I’m going to cross off everything on my list if it’s the last thing I do (I haven’t yet written down ‘lose two stone’ but that may find its way onto the list…)

Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.