Journal
December 28, 2005 | Movies
A great Christmas and a bunch of new films watched. Time for the second of my monthly Movie Roundups 
Ghost Dog - Way of the Samurai
A wonderful film with Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog, a hitman who follows the teachings of the Samurai. His master is a gangster who saved his life and is now his employer. A simple mistake, which wasn’t his fault, means that the gangsters want Ghost Dog killed which leads to a him fighting for his life. Ghost Dog is a solitary person who’s best friends are a Haitian man who only speaks French (which GD doesn’t understand), and a young girl. Forest Whitaker isn’t the first person you would think of as a Samurai hitman but he plays the role perfectly and I can’t imagine anyone else as the lead. I really liked this film and would recommend it to anyone.
Batman Begins
I …
I can’t work out whether I like the idea of force feedback headphones or not. It sounds uncomfortable whichever way you go.
Sound should be more than just heard. It should be felt, pulsing through your body like a grenade exploding at your six or the rumble of heavy turbulence. Your doctor will probably disagree, but what does he/she know about gaming anyway!
The fact they say the “doctor won’t like” it when trying to sell them should set alarm bells ringing surely?
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December 21, 2005 | General
Well, towards the end of last month, the 9rules team had a round of submissions to join their network. I submitted Binary Moon, never really expecting to get in, and on the first of December got an email from Paul, the head honcho, asking if I wanted to join.
I said yes.
Why did I join? Not sure really. Obviously there was the traffic aspect, there’s no point blogging if no-one reads what you’re saying, and I recently found out you get an Aston Martin and gold plated iPod when you join (mines in the post - right Paul?).
9rules
I know a lot of my current readers don’t have a clue about the 9rules so here’s a little background info. The 9rules is a blogging collective - a group of blogs & bloggers that are about many varied topics, connected only by their love …
December 20, 2005 | General
About 5 months ago my Mum started using Ebay, she asked me to take some photos that she could use to show off what she was trying to sell - which I did. Problem was they were massive, I always take my photos at the highest size my camera supports (4/5 mega pixels, can’t remember exactly and too lazy to find out) and uploading a 3+ meg photo that will then be shrunk to 400 x 400 is pretty pointless, so I would go in cropping and scaling the photos.
To start with it was ok, the odd picture here or there, but when she started doing 20 photos at a time it took longer and longer to do. Also, me being busy (erm… lazy) meant she also had to wait for me to edit the photos. I decided it would be easier for everyone if she could edit the pictures …
I’ve played all the Grow games and think they’re great so thought I’d mention that the latest one, Grow Ornament, has been released. It’s festive so get on over there and have a play.
This time there are only 6 objects in the puzzle which makes things a lot easier to work out. In fact this is the first one I have completed, on my own, without any help.
For those who haven’t played a Grow game before I’ve listed the others below.
And for those who want to cheat - the solution is below (highlight to read)
Christmas present, heart, Cloud, Light Bulb, Red Tape, Star
December 16, 2005 | Links
I like free stuff.
Mark from FamFamFam has released a whole stack of free icons, and I like them lots. I emailed him about some visual issues with his website and he tells me he has 150 icons ready to be released in the new year.
On the subject of icons, this is old news now but Icon Buffet have redesigned their site. One of the new features is free icons once a month. The cool part about this (apart from free icons) is that there are many different icon sets and you only get sent one, but you can send icons to other people - this is a great form of viral marketing amongst designers. If anyone has the Oslo icons I’d love a copy (in fact i’ll take anything but they’re the ones I like the most)… I’ve got Shanghai Tech and Taipei buddies 1 if …
Binary Moon
Free Games 4 Bloggers
Gun Wing
Bubble Blitz
Rocket Boards