I'd bought my DS Lite on the UK release day back in June 2006. Despite the complaints regarding the hinge cracking on the left side of some early units, I never had any such problem. I was lucky... or so I thought. 

   

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I actually kind of like travelling. I especially like the journey - sometimes more than the place/attraction/person that we've travelled to see. As I'm blessed with lacking the ability to drive a car I almost always find myself in the backseat. The only stress is deciding what to watch/listen to on my iPod and I can watch the world go by. And side note: I actually like buses as well. I like waiting for them (providing they show up at some point around the time they're supposed to) and I like watching the other people. And I like reading the Metro too.

But I have a condition, and this condition can sometimes ruin the enjoyment of a journey for me - as it did yesterday on my plane home from my holiday. It can only be described as "arse-cramp" and it's horrible. Once it takes hold it's impossible to sit comfortably, and nothing I do to try and take my mind off it seems to work.

What's strange is I haven't yet figured out a correlation between the journey and the condition. Originally, I thought it was related to the length of the journey, ie. the longer the journey the worse the arse-cramp, but I've been forced to abandon this way of thinking. Back in June I sat on a plane to New York for 7 hours, and coming home I was sat for 8 or 9 hours due to turtles on the runway. Neither of these flights gave me any trouble.

So I have a new theory, I've already mentioned that distractions don't seem to ease my pain, but I do wonder whether boredom is the cause to begin with. For example, on my flights to and from New York I had my own little TV from which I could pick and choose from countless TV shows, movies and music albums. So I lost myself in The Simpsons, Yes Man, Top Gear, the US-version of Life On Mars, the first ten minutes of Seven Pounds and The IT Crowd, amongst others. On my flight to Menorca I watched The Simpsons, Lead Balloon and Top Gear with everybody else. But on yesterday's arse-cramp flight back all that was on was Piers Morgan.

And this theory stays strong when I think about the situations I find myself in before the cramping attacks. I'm usually bored of the stuff on my iPod (or I've left it at home) and the car window offers nothing but a continuous stream of boring motorway and the chance to watch boring people in their boring cars get from one boring place to another in their boring lives.

So that is my conclusion. Sitting in a moving vehicle is just fine. But as soon as you as boredom to this mixture it's miserable. You're frustrated because you're not at your destination yet, you're bored and now arse-cramp has decided to join the party. And if you're really unlucky, Piers Morgan will be on.

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OK, so I'm going on holiday to Menorca tomorrow, and I'll be gone for a week. That (probably) means no updates [unless... hmm, possibly...] - OK, let's assume there will be no updates then anything else is a bonus.

I did hope I'd be able to post a "Second Opinion" kind-of post for Okami before I left, but as I haven't even started it yet that looks unlikely. Though I will have lots of pictures and video to post from my holiday, so that will be spiffing I'm sure.

Anyway, see you guys on the other side...

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The Wii version of Okami fell through my letterbox this morning - I'd ordered it Monday afternoon from GAME.co.uk for as little as £4.98. I hadn't read any reviews on it, though I had heard that it was a very highly regarded game, so I gave it a shot. The following thoughts come after about an hour and a half of gameplay, so it's safe to say these are very early impressions.

It's also worth noting that this game was originally released on PlayStation 2, and that I've never played that version.

First of all, some bad news: I don't think much to the story so far. It probably doesn't help that when you first start Okami the actual playing of the game is delayed by 10 or so minutes whilst it gives you a story to read. I'm all for games giving you a bit of background, but I was already bored when I finally gained control.

OK, so not the best start, and things continue at a fairly slow pace whilst you completely a little training level. However, GOOD NEWS, the controls on the whole feel nice to use. They're responsive (for the most part), they're intuitive - it certainly doesn't feel like a game that originally used a standard PS2 controller. In fact the drawing bits make you wonder how they did it with PS2, as waggling an analogue stick can't have felt the same. The only place the controls are a bit of a let down are during combat. Waving the Wii-Mote is a touch unresponsive (gasp), and if there are new attacks you can learn later on, I can see myself struggling to get the game to recognise one waggle from another.

But moving on now, let's talk about the graphics. This game is beautiful. It uses a mix of cel-shaded visuals and an East Asian kind of brush painting known as "sumi-e" in Japan, and it suits the Wii perfectly (ie. it can handle it). Everything is consistently sharp, although there is the occasional bit of pop-up here and there.

The music is also a treat, and reminds me very much of a Final Fantasy game. The other thing that reminds me of an FF game is the way it deals with saving. Rather than giving you a save option in the pause menu, the developers created specific save points. I guess it comes down to personal preference, but I absolutely HATE this sort of saving system. There's nothing worse than making loads of progress in a game, then realising you can't find a place to save your progress. I guess it'll depend heavily on how frequent these save locations are.

All in all I'm actually really looking forward to playing through Okami, despite the overwhelming amount of negativity shown here. It's the kind of game I could easily see myself getting addicted to. However, it also reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which is worrying as that game bores me beyond belief. We'll see...

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I think this officially makes me a geek, just in case there was any doubt previously.

I'd submitted a "Top 5 Gmail Labs" list to Chris Pirillo which he very kindly read out on his live show. Chris is an avid blogger and continues to run Lockergnome, a blogging network which he created. He'd previously presented the TechTV program Call For Help. Chris can now be found at his personal blog (chris.pirillo.com) or at live.pirillo.com, which showcases his live video-stream from his home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Update: Chris has posted the list complete with my reasons for choosing them on his blog. Naturally he had cut things out for the video. If you'd like to read it, it can be found here.

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So, Wii Sports Resort, the latest casual serving from Nintendo was released in the UK yesterday, and thus my brother - being the huge Nintendo fanboy that he is - picked it up. I have to admit, I was sceptical. Whilst Wii Sports was fun, it's main appeal was that it came free with the console. I wasn't convinced Nintendo could make a sequel worthy of the £40 price tag (basically, I thought Nintendo were cashing in).

I was wrong. Wii Sports Resort is fantastic. And here's a run-down of some of my favourite games so far:

Basketball
An absolute blast. You can play either a 3v3 game or have a shoot-out - both of which can be played against the CPU or a friend. What amazes me most is how well it emulates the feeling of playing basketball (nearly). Every slight moment of your wrist actually has a tangible impact on your shot. This is the kind of thing that pressing buttons will never be able to achieve. Quite simply the best basketball game I've played.

Hit-a-man-with-a-stick Duelling Game
Yeah, I can't remember what this one is called. But it's great fun. This one offers three game modes - duel, speed slice and showdown. Duel is your standard 1v1 affair where the aim is to knock your opponent off the podium (think Gladiators). Speed slice throws various objects at you, along with a direction in which to slice it as quick as possible (ie. before your opponent). But showdown is my favourite. Your Mii runs through a level, and you have to fight off numerous enemies at once. It reminds me very much of Dynasty Warriors. Again, this game is a great ad for the Motion Plus, as your Mii accurately follows the way in which you slice, block and hold your sword. It makes me want a proper Star Wars lightsaber game even more.

Bowling
I always had a problem with Bowling on the original Wii Sports game. Unless I bowled in a ridiculous, unrealistic way my ball would always swerve to the left. Not the case with Resort. Other than that it plays much the same as the original, it just feels like you're in a lot more control this time around.

Now, I don't want to mention all of the games - mainly because I haven't played them all, and even some of those that I have played haven't been given a proper go. But so far I'm getting a very positive impression. It's really pushing me to go out and drop £20 on a second Motion Plus, and like I said earlier - it's a great demonstration of what kind of things the Wii could do in the near future. Nintendo, somehow you've won me over with Wii Sports Resort. Well done.

And to those gamers that say Wii Sports is the only game they play on the Wii, here's another to add to that list.

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I stumbled across this on YouTube and immediately emailed it to a friend - she's going to Canada in a couple of days.

It's from the same YouTuber who gave us the Talking Cats Translation.

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Another video from my trip to New York last month. The job cuts must've really hit hard in the world of children's TV, as Spongebob, Shrek and Elmo took to the streets to steal money from naive kids and their parents.

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I like Gmail. I like the filter options, spam protection, labels, interface, speed and labs features. But there's always been one area where it lets itself down, and it's not what you'd expect.

The Gmail message search function SUCKS! Whilst it can do some useful stuff, for example I can use the "in:" operator to specify which label I want to search within, it still fails when given some basic search terms.

First of all, you can't do partial searches. Go to Google.com, and search for "face". Facebook.com is the first result. How come when I search for "face" in Gmail none of my Facebook messages are returned? OK sure, if I was looking for messages about Facebook, I wouldn't search for "face", but what if I was searching for messages about podcasts? Searching "podcast" won't bring back any messages featuring "podcasts".

Now, in any decent search engine you could just use a wildcard! Yay! Except "podcast*" returns the same results as "podcast". Gmail search doesn't have a wildcard feature.

What's most surprising about all of this is that Gmail IS Google! Y'know, only the biggest search engine - by a huge margin! How can it be this bad? I've searched the web (using Google - of course) and I can't find any substitue for using an asterisk for a wildcard - making partial searches a complete no-no.

And one other thing - why do Google feel the need to have a seperate box for quick contact searching? Couldn't this functionality just be moved the main search box?

Rant over.

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Just been reading the latest post "What Difference Does It Make?" from the blog Cigarettes and Parkbenches. It's about the writer's perception of her own work.

Read it. Then read it again. Then comment. Then explore the rest of the blog. Superb.

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