Random stuff
by Chris on April 19th, 2008 @ 6:34 pm - Tag (Life, Website) 3 Comments. 6,648 Views
I recently purchased the Railroad (Team Fortress 2) Litho print. Have to admit the quality of the print is awesome and now takes pride of place on my bedroom wall. You can also see my collection of Valve plushies 
the only one i’m currently missing is the companion cube.
Some website updates as well, first major one was updating to wordpress 2.5 and i’ve also fixed the issue with my site breaking in IE5.5 and IE6 by using overflow: hidden;.
Team Fortress 2: Meet the Scout
by Chris on April 19th, 2008 @ 2:02 pm - Tag (Games) No Comments. 21 Views
Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brother, I hurt people.
The comedy and timing is spot on as with all of Valve’s “Meet the…” series. The animation and quality of directing is excellent and i would literally kill to have a weekly show produced.
12 Days to go till GTA IV
by Chris on April 16th, 2008 @ 11:00 pm - Tag (Games) 3 Comments. 242 Views
Only 12 days to go till Grand Theft Auto IV hits the street. Below is the UK tv trailer…i will be awall for the entire week of the 29th 
There’s an interesting article over on eurogamer.net about how well GTA IV could sell.
All work and no running makes me…FAT
by Chris on April 8th, 2008 @ 12:26 am - Tag (Life) 1 Comment. 763 Views
So with the weather getting a bit warmer I’ve started to run again. The above image shows one of my current routes. The red line shows the first stage of my run, the blue line shows the second stage and the cyan line shows my cool down walk back home.
It’s a total of about 4 miles. Currently I’m running roughly 9 minute miles, so 35-40 minutes start to finish. Not my best, but not a bad start after 4 months of sitting on my ass in the pub drinking beer :).
Basic Web2.0 text logo tutorial
by Chris on April 7th, 2008 @ 12:33 am - Tag (Tutorial) 1 Comment. 106 Views
Step 1:
Start by creating a blank canvas (I’ve chosen to go with 800px*512px) and click ok. Fill the background with a colour or gradient of your choice.
Step 2:
Create a New Layer and select the text tool. Pick a font that is fairly strong then enter a word and choose a colour that stands out.
Step 3:
Right click on the text layer and select Blending Options. Check Outer Glow, the image below shows my settings but these will vary depending on the font and size of the text. Try and match the proportions in the image.
Step 4:
Create another new layer then Ctrl + Click the text layer. This will create a selection around the text. Now make sure you are on the new layer without loosing the selection and fill it with white and deselect it Ctrl + D.
Step 5:
Now select the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Drag the tool over your document to create a squished circle and position the center in the middle of your text. Make sure you’re still on the new layer that we filled with white and hit Delete.
Step 6:
Clear the selection and lower the Opacity of the layer till your happy with the strength of the shine on the text.
Step 7:
Duplicate the text layer then create a new layer. With the new layer selected and above the duplicated text layer merge them together Ctrl + E. With this new merged layer selected go Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Now hold shift and drag the layer down till it snaps just underneath the original text.
Step 8:
Right Click the layer and select the blending options again. Check Gradient Overlay and create a gradient that’s the same colour as your background and transparent. Click ok then set the layer Opacity till your happy with the reflection effect.
That’s it your done
St Patrick’s day
by Chris on March 19th, 2008 @ 4:41 pm - Tag (Life) No Comments. 1,467 Views
This Monday was St Patrick’s day…which is pretty much an excuse for everyone to get smashed and Guinness to make a fuck load of money. One thing that always entertains me is how all of sudden everyone some how has Irish roots.
Now Guinness is not easy to drink, it’s like blending up a Sunday roast and serving it in a pint glass. But it seems common practice now that if you manage to down 4 pints of the stuff, you’re rewarded with a cheap felt hat (see above picture) most likely made on mass in China. How very Irish.
We purchased our first 4 pints only to be told they had run out of hats. Apparently the 100’s that were stapled to the wall in order to dress the pub couldn’t be taken down. So i took it upon my self to steal a couple off the wall. Unfortunately some other people had the same idea and i lost out to bigger boys.
Gem insisted that she needed a hat to complete her first every…legal…St Patrick’s day. So i did what every good boyfriend would have done. I sat back down and finished my pint. Lucky for me a very jolly man with green face paint was handing out extra hats, Gem was every so slightly please when i returned hat in hand…i think she was drunk, but assured me otherwise. (i will get hurt when she reads this)
p.s, I’ve now actually made it onto the photo wall inside the pub…i think it’s time to visit another pub.
Zero Gear - Go Kart Mayhem
by Chris on March 11th, 2008 @ 2:33 am - Tag (Friends, Games) 2 Comments. 893 Views
An old core friend of mine (David ‘Zaphod’ Marsh) is working on go kart racing game called Zero Gear. It’s shaping up to be a very pretty looking game. I can only hope that i get my grubby mitts on it soon to see if it plays as good as it looks and knowing Zaphod it will.
Check out some of the latest screen shots and videos at NimbleBit.
Jeff FAFA Dunham DOT COM
by Chris on March 11th, 2008 @ 2:09 am - Tag (Comedy) No Comments. 4 Views
Recently my girlfriend sent me a youtube clip of a ventriloquist comedian called Jeff Dunham. His act consists of various different puppets in a stand up act. I strongly suggest you find a copy of his DVDs. One of the characters i recommend you check out on youtube is Peanut…who’s some kind of Alien thing who has a Jalapeno on a stick for a friend. I kid you not, some of the scenes with these guys had me in tears.
NNNeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww.
Jeff Dunham is quiet amazing in how he’s able to keep a joke going over 3-4 different characters at once, all the while making you believe these puppets are alive and not from a single voice.
As for Jeff Dunham himself, he’s a pretty good stand up comedian though this often seems to get overlooked because of the puppets. All in all i suggest you spend an hour or so on youtube looking up clips .
Earthquake upsets bored house wives
by Chris on February 28th, 2008 @ 6:21 pm - Tag (Life) 1 Comment. 893 Views
The 27th of February will go down in history not as “the strongest earthquake to hit Britain in 25 years”, but as the day we had too hear from Joanna Smith, Manchester, who provided us with such factual information as “It was really bad.”.
Jemma wasn’t the only one to provide us with such award winning facts, so don’t get your knickers in a twist thinking I’m picking on her. Just to show I’m not sexist…but just liked the my choice in title, here’s what Philip Norton, a BBC reporter for Look North in Hull, said: “Everything started wobbling.”. FANTASTIC STUFF.
The BBC just seem to fill half of there articles these days with awful comments from “regular” people. It’s like reading The Sun sometimes. Why on earth do i want to hear how a house wife of 3 spilled her glass of vodka during a earthquake.
We had an earth quake and stuff shock, that’s all there is to it. But it did make me think, how many kids will now think a monster lives under the bed. I made it my personal goal to tell at least 5 children that day about the bed shaking monster. I believe I’ve succeed in scaring a few of them for life.
Why not share your experience and leave a comment…
Keyboard Ahoy
by Chris on February 1st, 2008 @ 1:55 pm - Tag (Hardware Review) 4 Comments. 894 Views
Due to excessive use of the P, N, O, and R keys my Saitek Eclipse keyboard died on me recently. A moment please for the departed… 
This kind of forced me into the situation of getting another keyboard. Sadly, Saitek of recent have been taking vast amounts of unsexy drugs. The new Cyborg Keyboard actually made me blind for a few days.
I’ve always heard good things about the Logitech G15 keyboard. But the massive size has always put me off…and it’s tripped out with nasty common as muck blue LEDs. Thankfully a second revision of the keyboard has just come out. The overall size as been reduced and instead of blue LED’s it has nice red glow (fits in perfectly with my new rig).
Overall i’m very impressed with the keyboard. The build quality is fantastic, i feel i could land a fist or two on it while a rogue dances around me in a never ending stun lock. It still has the macro buttons from the first and a macro record button. One unique switch on the keyboard called “Game Mode” actually disables the windows button. So if you’re like me and sometimes get a little sloppy while smashing buttons you need not fear of knocking your self out of a game. The LCD screen built into the keyboard is a nice bonus, but if i’m honest i see no real need for it. Maybe it will prove more useful to people who setup complex macro’s on the keyboard.
This is a keyboard i would highly recommend to anyone who has recently suffered a loss. The only real issue i have with the keyboard is the price tag. You will be looking to pay around £50 for this one guys.