It’s game time….

Psymonkee    Basketball    

Finally! After months of waiting and reading the new NBA basketball season has begun. It officially tipped off last night in Boston with the Celtics raising their 17th (!) championship banner to the ceiling.

However tonight my team, the Houston Rockets take to the court in the first of the demanding 82 game season. Tonights matchup is against the Oklahoma City Thunder (formerly the Seattle Supersonics) who last season fared particularly badly winning just a handful of games since losing Ray Allen to the Celtics.

Tonight should be a good test to see how the new team works out in the 2nd year of Rick Adelmans offense system and seeing how the aquisition of Ron Artest over the summer changes things.

Here’s hoping to a an injury free season and hopefully a deep run into the playoffs!

Tip off is tonight at 7.30pm EST

What a disaster….

Psymonkee    Gaming, General News, Humour    

So as per my previous post I was away at a LAN over the weekend. Good fun for all involved with a chance to chill, chat, drink and play games. Only not for me this time

All the problems began when I got to the venue and realised I’d forgotten my booze Yeah I could buy some more but no one seems to carry my current favourite drink (Bacardi Berry fact fans ). Then came the worst bit ever.

A LAN is primarliy my chance to play games, lots of games completely uninterrupted on any format I can get my hands on. However after sitting around on the floor neatly wiring up my PC (no idea why :p) I pushed the power button and got…..nothing. Well actually that’s not true – the on-board speaker let out a single long beep.

No problem I thought! I’m in a room full of computers and computer enthusiats, surely someone will be able to help diagnose this. Answers came back thick and fast that it was GFX adapter or memory. Not a real problem then as I had changed the GFX card before heading out to the LAN (7800GT -> 9800GT). Quick reseat later and turn the power back on.

*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP*

****!

In the end I gave up and played on the 360 instead. Then a little shopping picking up Fable 2 (£30 @ Sainsburys ) and Farcry 2. However with both games having a single player story I proceeded to play Rock Band with anyone who I could convice into playing.

Come Saturday I had another go at fixing the PC. Even went as far as removing the CPU and rebuilding everything. Still no joy. Then a fellow LAN attendee (Ultra_Extreme) tried dropping his GFX card in which was a less powerful nVidia 6250. BAM! It boots. The celebration ends when windows decides to install updates, determines a hardware change and then undoes everything.

After that debacle I just decided to leave it till I got home and keep playing the 360. Luckily that worked ok all weekend

Sunday saw me travelling home and dropping Nokkon off on the way. 3.5 hours to his place and 4 back to mine. Heck of a drive but the weekend was worth it. That is until I get approximaely 100 miles from where Nokkon lives and notice my phone is lit up. That’s odd I thought and took a closer look. Nokkon had called me 3 times.

Bluetooth headset on and I called him back. Then the 3rd bit of bad news struck. Whilst I had dropped him off at home OK (and probably in slightly better health than when he left ) I still had his monitor in the back of my car. Over 100 miles away….

Never good. A quick chat and we decided we’d both cocked up and we’d sort out shipping it back to him ASAP. Only problem being that every man and his dog will happily pick up a package and deliver it elsewhere for under a tenner with one small snag. They refuse to offer compensation on computer monitors. That meant the cheapest insured way to send it was via Parcelforce at some £31!!!

Luckily a cheaper option prevailed. Although not next day I have found an alternative carrier that still offers no insurance but only charges in pints of beer Turns out my parents are heading to roughly the right area for a weekend away (Peace at last! ) and have offered to take the monitor back with them!

SHORT VERSION FOR LAZY GITS:

Went to a LAN, No booze, broken PC, stole someone’s monitor…

Not the best weekend on record….but there’s always next time

LAN Time!

Psymonkee    Gaming, General News    

That’s right That crazy time of year again where I make trips in the order of 700 miles plus to play computer games in another part of the country. With strangers. I’m wierd me

I’ll be online at the LAN and no doubt be uploading photos and chatting rubbish. Anyone else thats going and is reading this then I’ll see you at GT14!

Another one bites the dust….

Psymonkee    TV Shows    

A TV Show that is. Angel to be precise.

It’s a show I started watching some 5 years ago whilst working in a petrol station that at its peak had 26 customers a day. This of course allowed me plenty of time to sit around watching TV. I had free money so I bought Angel boxsets and started watching. During work of course

Sadly the petrol station closed as the business went into administration and I was only partway through the 2nd season. Then I hit a patch with no money and went a long time without finishing the story. Recently at the nagging of a certain Mr. Wud I finally got around to buying and watching the entire 5 season DVD Boxset. Infact I posted about it way back in August with some pretty bad pictures.

*****SPOILERS*****SPOILERS*****SPOILERS*****SPOILERS*****

Due to work it’s taken me some 2 months to get through the whole thing but damn what a journey. Following on from where Buffy season 3 ended we find Angel in LA killing the bad guys. Of course he runs into a few new friends and makes some pretty big foes too.

All sorts of interesting twists and turns happen along the way but it all seems to hang together quite well (in the context of the Angel universe) including a trip to an alternate reality, the birth of Angels son and the re-birth of an ancient demon know as Ilyria. Of course this naturally leads to yet another apocalypse which is sadly where we leave the show for good

*****SPOILERS*****SPOILERS*****SPOILERS*****SPOILERS*****

All in all for £80 I feel it was a fantastic bargain and somethign I can watch again and again. I thoroughly recommend this series to anyone who has a passing interest in supernatural type shows or has seen any of Joss Wheadons other work

**** YEAH! I AM A ROCK GOD!

Psymonkee    Gaming    

Well sort of….

For the last 2 months (at least) I have been trying to finish off Rock Bands Expert guitar career. Only a small stumbling block of Green Grass & High Tides (GG&HT) to get past. A 10 minute long southern rock track. With 2 solos with a combined length of around 8 mins. Always fun. First ever go and I failed at about 34%. Not very good but it was anew song. Then as time went on the failing happened further into the song. Then I hit a point where I could fail at exactly 85% each time. Anyone reading who has played this song knows EXACTLY where I mean.

Getting easily frustrated with it I gave up until this week. Really hammered this one song since Monday (in excess of 50 attempts) and started failing at a crushing 96%

Thought I’d have afew goes post work and failed at 85% again 3 times in a row. Then it happened….

10/10/2008 – A Glorious Day! (P.S – Davey I beat you! :p)