Afternoon people! Almost didn't blog today, but then I got bored...

Yesterday's college day was pretty much as I expected it would be - long and tiresome. After a couple of free and easy weeks it was the one we needed to have to catch up on all the missed lessons and boy did we have some to catch up on! The worst being Maths after only having one lesson it about 5 weeks. Normally I can do Maths quite well if I get the theory behind it but I had no idea what was going on yesterday! After not getting a lunch break either and then a double Highways lesson it felt like the day would never end. Getting there at 9am and leaving at 7.45pm is just far too much to take in on one day. To make things even worse I had to pay for my course yesterday which was the quickest 1000 pounds I've spent without actually getting anything in return!

Apart from that I've had a very low key week which has been nice. Nobody's been hassling me with deadlines at work or wanting to give me more to do which is great for a change! I've been a bit bored today but I really don't want to start anything new on a Friday afternoon. The invite for the Christmas party were sent out this week and unlike every other year they say in the email that if you don't want to come, then don't feel you have to, which is a first! Normally they make it seem like the end of the world if you don't go but obviously they'd rather not spend the money on people who'd rather not be there. Also this week they've told everyone that if possible, could we all take three days unpaid leave and that will apparently save out division for the time being.

In gaming, I've finished 15 of the 18 levels that the game has to offer. I would say that the final set of missions based on The Last Crusade are the weakest and have the least interesting characters. The levels have also been really quick and not really worth the time they take up (which is barely anything at all). I've tried not to race through the game but as it nearly takes longer for the Xbox to start up as it does to complete a level, I've not had a lot of choice but to complete it quickly. Unfortunately the developers obviously thought the fact that a Lego based Indiana Jones game would sell itself as it can get very repetitive and enemies die easily and although the puzzles can take a bit of thought, they're all basically the same wrapped up in a different package. All that makes it sound like I wish I wasn't playing it which isn't the case. I'm just finding that it's a bit of a lazy use of two fairly large brands.

On tv.com, as I'll probably mention every week, this week's podcast features Spooks, Mad Men, and V. I know somebody who works on Spooks but I'm trying to find out what he actually does on it. From the sounds of it (and seeing how much money he has!) he runs his own production company which is why I want to know if he's the guy in charge of making the show!

As for TV, I've watched:

90210 'Women's Intuition'. Even though we're almost halfway through the season there still isn't much of Annie to speak of. She featured a bit more in this episode but the focus has shifted a lot this season already. I'm not sure I like it quite so much this time, especially without Ethan as he was the only guy who didn't really get on my nerves.
Gossip Girl 'The Grandfather: Part II'. This season seems to be moving along quite nicely and I'm pleased that Hilary Duff has slotted into the show so well. I'd have thought she's more suited to 90210/Greek but this actually seems to be a better fit for her. I think they're struggling more now that they're all in different locations but they still seem to be seeing each other quite often. I'm not familiar with the geography of the area they come from, is it likely they would meet so regularly or is it just convenient for the show?
Melrose Place 'Gower'. For once this was actually quite good. I still don't like how there seems to be so many dark moments between characters with that strange music they put on to make it seem mysterious. It was probably better than 90210 this week which makes a nice change.
The Big Bang Theory 'The Cornhusker Vortex'. I haven't mentioned TBBT much this season as it seems to have settled nicely into something that doesn't really standout any more, yet is still consistently funny. Sheldon is great as ever and his Cylon toast was pretty funny. Penny isn't very good this season as she doesn't seem to have as many good lines as she used to.
Burn Notice 'Season One'. Out of the two new seasons I started watching this part week I think I prefer this one. Michael Western is a very likeable character and I love the voiceovers and insight he brings when explaining how things can be achieved. I'm not so sure of the supporting characters Fiona and Sam. I can't stand her and he's tolerable but they really need someone else to help him out that is more likeable.
Flashpoint 'Season One'. Although I prefer Burn Notice, this has been a surprise hit with me. It's a straight laced cop show that doesn't bother with the boring investigation stuff and deals with the far more interesting stuff like hostage situations. It's got a fairly big cast although obviously has its slightly more main characters. I'm not in love with any of the characters and they could do with a Heroes-esque trimming to leave just two or three. It's been a solid season and with all episodes being pretty similar there aren't really any standout or terrible episodes which is quite nice. It may not be the best show but at least it's consistent in what it does.

Good - Melrose Place 'Gower', Gossip Girl 'The Grandfather: Part II', Greek 'Friend or Foe', Castle 'Famous Last Words', Bored To Death 'The Case of the Stolen Sperm', Dexter 'If I Had a Hammer'.

Indifferent - The Big Bang Theory 'The Cornhusker Vortex', Two and a Half Men 'Give Me Your Thumb', Brothers & Sisters 'The Wig Party', Sons Of Anarchy 'Fa Guan'.

Bad - 90210 'Women's Intuition', Mad Men 'Shut the Door. Have a Seat'.

My album for the day is JLS by JLS.

My shuffle song for the day is 'Standing On My Own Again' by Graham Coxon.

My thing to ponder for today is: Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?

Afternoon people! I think this might be a much better week than the last few...

As mentioned on Facebook yesterday, I've finally made the switch to Firefox after IE caused me more problems than I could handle. It always used to crash when I had Vista and expected that to be fixed on a new OS but no such luck. Add in the fact that it would no longer let me copy by using the keyboard shortcut. It's not that I dislike Firefox, I've just never really used it. After only a day using it full time I'm in love with it as it's so responsive and so much more customisable than IE. Speaking of Firefox and Facebook, anyone who uses both should really get Facebook Boost. It's an incredibly handy little tool with features such as auto homepage refreshing, rollover a picture with your mouse to get a full size view without having to actually open the picture, and the option to remove the ads and suggestion boxes on the homepage if they annoy you.

No tennis this weekend as the match was cancelled due to the really bad weather. I had one singles match towards the end of the week, which I won 6-5 although that technically counts as a draw as you have to be two games clear in that league to get the win. I only needed a draw so I didn't have to try too hard. He was a frustrating player as he's not very good so he just lobs everything into the air meaning it was hard for me to finish off a point without getting frustrated and hitting it out or in the net.

In gaming, my progress through Lego: Indiana Jones has been lightening quick so far. When I saw that there were 18 levels I thought I would be on the game forever but each one only takes little over 20 minutes to complete, if that. I've so far completed 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and 'The Temple of Doom' which means only 6 levels left to go. Getting the achievements has also been fairly easy up until now although I think I have most of the ones I'm likely to get now. I like getting 10 points for completing a level as it's not too many that it feels like easy points but it's also nice to get a little bonus. The game is incredibly easy apart from a few frustrating puzzles as you can't really die. When you do die you just fall apart and get rebuilt in the exact same spot. It's pretty similar to the system used in Prince of Persia. As predicted I haven't got the foggiest idea what's going on without dialogue in the cutscenes. I'm just enjoying it as it's still pretty funny and the Lego influence is brilliant.

On tv.com, summaries are still not editable which is becoming a major pain. Strangely you can add new summaries if you create a new episode so I'm not sure why they can't make it work normally.

As for TV, it's been slim pickings this weekend but I've watched:

Rita Rocks 'Season 2 episodes 1-9'. I don't normally start with an averagely popular comedy show but I just felt I had to this time. WHAT IS WITH TV SHOWS AND PREGNANCIES?!! I know it must be hard to come up with original storylines are so many years of television but there is more than one that they can reuse. In the case of this show they don't show enough of the kids that they already have so bringing in a new one isn't going to help. Plus, how is a baby supposed to help a show? It just means someone is either going to be depressed for an entire season or they're going to be stuck with a baby and without a decent storyline. It's still a greatly underrated season that's actually quite funny although it is highly unlikely that a new next door neighbour would move in and would a) be a musician, and b) play the exact same instrument as the previous occupant.
Sanctuary 'Hero'. I don't know what they're feeding the writers this season but it's so far so very good after four episodes. It's funny, much more interesting, and the cast (although mainly unchanged) is so much more likeable this time round. It was also nice to see a guest appearance from Chris Gauthier from Eureka as well.
The Vampire Diaries 'Haunted' which didn't take long for it to be complete garbage again. That's all.
The Mentalist 'Red Scare'. Yay, it's back on track! A great episode and it finally happened! At least one case of sexual tension/frustration has been resolved this TV season as god knows there's more than enough that need to be dealt with!
Ugly Betty 'The Wiener, The Bun and The Boob' which just proved the show has finally found its feet again. It's still not my number one and never will be but it's the best show of it's type again.
Heroes 'Strange Attractors'. This was a strange one for me as Claire's story seemed to be more at home on Greek than Heroes. Samuel seems to have no limits to his abilities and as soon as Sylar remembers who he is then they could make an incredible team. If they could join up then the others would have to step up and we might finally see some interesting fight scenes again. Parkman and Sylar's scenes are still the highlight of the show whenever they put some in.
Bones 'Pilot'. With nothing to watch we made a start this which seems to be similar to Castle in a lot of ways. For a pilot episode it was actually really good with a decent enough cast and an involving plot. It's such a shame that there are 89 or so episodes to catch up on as it'll take forever!

Good - The Mentalist 'Red Scare', Heroes 'Strange Attractors', Sanctuary 'Hero', Ugly Betty 'The Wiener, The Bun and The Boob', It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 'The Gang Wrestles for the Troops', Bones 'Pilot'.

Indifferent - The Office 'Koi Pond', Ghost Whisperer 'Head Over Heels', Sons of Anarchy 'Potluck', 30 Rock 'Stone Mountain'.

Bad - The Vampire Diaries 'Haunted'.

My album for the day is Live From The Royal Albert Hall by The Killers.

My shuffle song for the day is 'The Reason' by Hoobastank.

My thing to ponder for today is: Why are there locks on the door of stores that are open 24/7 365 days a year?

Evening people! Had a great week for a change, still room for improvement though...

After spending nearly a week trying to get my Windows 7 download into something I can actually use, Microsoft finally released a downloadable ISO file so that it could burned straight onto a disk for a clean install. I really didn't want to actually do it as I feared I'd end up in some limbo between Vista and Win7 without a computer to use! Luckily it was really easy to install from scratch and after taking screenshots of my programs, I knew I could get most of them back at a later date. There's a couple that came with the machine that I've lost but I'm hoping that it came with disks to reinstall them now.

On first impressions I wasn't overly keen on it as it seemed to remove most of the usable functions that I liked such as the docking bar at the top. After speaking to DJ I only then realised that it was a Dell only thing so I was able to reinstall that. I also didn't like the look of the new Explorer but after some hunting around the internet I was able to return it the view that Vista had. The only other major dislike that I have is the new taskbar. No matter what I do to it I still hate it. The icons take up so much space in the quick launch and the fact that some programs stay there rather than minimizing to the bottom right is a pain. Plus it's harder to tell how many windows of the same program are open and using the quick launch to open say a new window of IE is one more button press than it used to be/needs to be.

On the plus side, the new Aero features are neat although I will probably only use them for novelty value. I've also been able to install the 64 bit Professional version of Win7 so it runs a lot smoother and uses less power (I think) so that's a bonus. In my honest opinion, if you've got Vista already and you can't get it for the student discount price then I probably wouldn't bother (unless you have to have the new OS that is ). If you've got XP then I'd still upgrade (skipping Vista) as it's definitely a step forward from that. For anyone else it's entirely up to you! I think that Vista introduced some nifty features that Win7 improves on, but it also unnecessarily changes some things that didn't need an upgrade. If you do get it though I'd recommend having a look at this website which has invaluable tips at making it better and also reintroducing some of the missing features they should've included.

In gaming, I did what little I could be bothered with on FIFA 08 and have put that game down to a silly mistake as I never really had any intention to play it properly. Last night I had a bit of spare time so I made a start on Lego: Indiana Jones which looks set to be a deceptively challenging game but with such great visuals and the Lego atmostphere I think I shall enjoy it. I'm not a big film watcher so I don't actually know the story having never seen the films. Having silent cutscenes might make me get a bit lost I think! I haven't actually started any of the levels yet so I've only had chance to wander around the game's hub but the characters seem quite responsive and although the range of buttons is quite limited, maybe it doesn't need to use them all to work well.

On tv.com, it's been a week that I'm much more used to. Things breaking, nobody knowing why it was broken and generally submitting was brought to a halt. Back in the day that would've really got on my nerves but as I hardly do anything now it just meant a day or two where I didn't have to moderate subs! I've still got some to clear out so submitters will just have to hang tight until the weekend. The new tv.com UK podcast is out today which talks about Curb Your Enthusiasm and Denying Gravity, along with other news brought up this past week.

As for TV, I've watched:

Camp Rock - I just happened to catch this as it was on TV the other night (one of the rare occasions where I watched something live on British television). Although it wasn't as good as High School Musical, it still had a great cast and excellent songs. It seemed to be more about the actual singing that HSM was which is both good and bad.
Dexter 'Dirty Harry' and I definitely didn't see that coming. I'm surprised they decided not to continue with his character as he was probably my favourite, even more so than Dexter himself. So far I'm quite enjoying this season's serial killer, especially as it hasn't dragged on all season with nobody knowing who it is.
Castle 'Vampire Weekend'. I was glad to see that Castle didn't try to jump on the vampire bandwagon...oh wait, yes it did. Considering the popularity of vampire shows at the minute, this was actually one of my least favourite episodes in the entire show. The Halloween party where he dressed up as his Firefly character was pretty good but that's only one small scene is a pretty poor episode.
Criminal Minds 'Cradle To Grave' and it seems that it's finally getting the shake up the series desperately needs. It's been in the same format and same cast for a couple of seasons now and I think it's the perfect time to mix things up. It's done what House has done as that is similar in the fact that it has a set format each week and was getting a bit stale.
Brothers & Sisters 'Last Tango in Pasadena'. This season is pretty week on the whole so far, the stories are very uninteresting and it seems devoid of any real personality. That said I still enjoy a grown up 'teen' drama as it differs nicely to all of the shows with younger casts.
Curb Your Enthusiasm 'Season One'. I really, really don't know what I'm leaning towards with this show. The episodes I don't find to be laugh out loud funny and what he actually says isn't great, it's more the situations he's in that I like. I'm not really sure it's to my tastes but I shall persevere like I do with everything else!

Good - Criminal Minds 'Cradle To Grave', Dexter 'Dirty Harry', Camp Rock.

Indifferent - Greek 'The Wish-Pretzel', Gossip Girl 'How To Succeed in Bassness'.

Bad - Castle 'Vampire Weekend', Brothers & Sisters 'Last Tango in Pasadena'.

My album for the day is Circle by Bon Jovi.

My shuffle song for the day is 'The Way Things Used To Be' by Brooke White.

My thing to ponder for today is: Why is it called tourist season if you can't shoot them?