So what am I referring to? Why – the greatest cup final…ever. Last nights Champions League final was fantastic – non-stop entertainment, 3 fantastic Milan goals, a great comeback from Liverpool, a goal that wasn’t offside, a penalty that never was, tired players and then a fantastic penalty shoot-out with the old Grobbelaar legs back on display. That for me had everything and it must have been destiny – Liverpool put out Olympiakos when they looked dead and buried needing three goals and then put out Chelsea with a goal that never was. Great TV and how a final should be, not the bore’s that they have become recently. Just hope Eufa back down and let Liverpool defend their title.
24
The fourth series of 24 has just finished (for those of the downloading community that don’t watch or can’t wait for Sky). Brilliant. Best series since the first one. This had everything from…well – I guess I’d better warn that there maybe spoilers ahead.
Star Wars Revisited
Hopefully seeing Revenge of the Sith tonight and in preparation I’ve watched Episodes 1 & 2 again.
Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace
Oh dear. I really struggled to sit through this film. Stilted dialogue, uninspiring acting and laughable interaction between the real and CGI actors. If we hadn’t seen episodes 4,5 and 6 I really doubt that anyone would have signed up a follow up based on this. Out of 5 I’d give it a 2. Taxation of trade routes – is that the best they could come up with? Pah!
Episode 2 – Attack of the Clones
I liked this film. Maybe it was after the high expectations of Episode 1 and the subsequent let down but even watching it yesterday after at least 18 months or so from the last viewing I still enjoyed it. Far better plot, more action and better use of the main characters. A geek pleasing Yoda fight, more darker tones and more impressive CGI than the first one – no Jar Jar. Dialogue still painful, especially the love scenes between Anakin and Padme. 3.5 out of 5.
Which leaves Revenge of the Sith. Most websites are reporting that this is the best of the three and based on trailers alone this does look to be a cracking film. I still have doubts though – maybe the lack of expectation will again increase the enjoyment.
There’s been a murder
Last week we spotted a mouse outside. Next day it was in our kitchen. Little bugger. I popped of to B&Q and picked up poison, traps and a weird bait type box. The mouse has spent the last few days ignoring the traps but enjoyed the baited food – but when will it die? Today, that’s when. Popped down the stairs this morning to find the mouse in the baited food gasping for air….and another mouse caught in the trap. Joy of joys. Hopefully that’s the end of them.
However it highlights how much we miss having a cat around the house. A good friend and handy if we do find another mouse. The Cat Protection League hasn’t been too successful so far…must widen the hunt.
Rangers – SPL Champions 2005
15 minutes ago I didn’t think I’d be writing this but well done Rangers and Alex McLeish on winning the SPL. A goal from no goals Nacho as well. How sweet. They think it’s all over…it is now. Get in!
DOA Hi-Def
If your pc and bandwidth are up to it check out a 400Meg Hi-Def trailer of DOA4. Just watched it – amazing. If the rumours are true this is on a 1/3 power 360 as developers haven’t got the full blown machine yet. November can’t come soon enough…my new TV may have crept into this years plans.
MSN Desktop Search
A new version of MSN Desktop Search has been released. After trialling a few others this has become my default search tool and one of the most used apps on the pc. It searches instantly, returning searches in real-time and the presentation of the results is excellent. It covers all the file types I need but surprisingly for a Microsoft app it supports add-ins, is feature rich and allows you to add shortcuts and functionality of your own. The latest version tarts up the presentations and adds some new searching features.
The searching is pretty powerful allowing you to use NOT, date ranges and size ranges. You can also search against document properties, so ‘author:richard sent:march’ will find all mail sent by Richard in the month of March. A nice feature is that clicking on the green arrow on the toolbar will open up results in a desktop search windows, allowing you to click on the mail or doc and see a preview in the right hand pane. You can also view by result type (mail, document, mp3) to get to the results quicker.
Shortcuts can also be added. Typing in the following ‘@delicious,http://del.icio.us/tag/$w’ will allow you to do quick del.icio.us searches by typing delicious forza which will return all del.icio.us entries with the tag Forza. More desktop shortcuts can be found here. You can also add shortcuts to apps, so @word,=winword will allow you to type word to launch Word. Very cool and unusually adaptable for Microsoft. The indexing doesn’t add any noticeable overhead either – all in all a recommended app and my first install on a new machine after I lock it down with security apps.
PS3
Well, E3 has delivered and the PS3 has been unveiled. Spec highlights:
Still early so I’ll post more later – some screens to finish including an amazingly bad looking controller.
Continue reading “PS3”
Halo…..Cheats?
Despite the patches there are still glitches galore in Halo 2. How do I know? We were glitched on Friday by some cheating dog Americans (“your an idiot”). Then again, it’s easy to find out how they did it if you look hard enough. High Impact Halo is a site dedicated, and I mean really dedicated, to glitch hunting. Want to find an advantage in Halo – you’ll find it there. Want to jump to an unreachable spot in Zanzibar – here’s how.
Eight pages on how to cheat and total dismay when a member reveals how it is done in March, one month before the patch from Bungie. They were so annoyed that this particular glitch might be patched so they didn’t have an advantage. How sad. How American. I saw that as it’s mostly Americans that are obsessed with glitching and cheating – from Moto GP to Halo 2 the Americans try their hardest to cheat their way to the top. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when the biggest cheat is leading their country.
Getting Organised
I’ve found myself getting more and more disorganised. Maybe it’s an age thing, maybe it’s getting lazy and letting things pile up, maybe it’s something else entirely. Whatever the reason action is required.
First step – e-mail. I’ve always struggled to get an organised inbox at home and especially at work due to the volume of mail. Home is easier as there’s less of it and I can keep as much as I like – no nasty disk quota’s. Work is a different beast. 25 Meg inbox, 2 gig archive and still running NT. I find mail gets ‘lost’ as I flit from one task to the next. I used to run rules to push mail into folders but this took time to keep up to date and some mail didn’t have a rule so defeating the purpose. I struggle to find mail thats somewhere between my inbox and archive. I’ve now followed some advice from the guy that runs 43 Folders and made over my Inbox. This now forces me to manage mail and act accordingly. At home it works a treat with Outlook 2003 as I can add a count to each folder and see exactly what’s still to do. I’ve installed MSN Desktop Search as I’ve found that to be the best desktop search tool – it suits my needs and allows me to find what I need quickly and accurately. I would do the same at work but I’m 4 weeks away from an XP upgrade – until then I’m stuck on NT.
Task management was next on the list. I’ve standardised a list of categories for home and work and I’m managing to make use of my Tungsten again using Keysuite which keeps Outlook talking to the Palm nicely. This has not been going to well so a bit more discipline is required. Once work upgrade takes place I can get a cheap usb sync cable for the Palm. Joy.
Finally I’ve ordered the Getting Things Done book from good old Amazon. I don’t intend to follow everything it recommends religiously but I’m sure it will give me good pointers that I can adapt for myself. Hopefully this time next year I’ll have remembered Lewis birthday before the day rather than after.