Grenade Strewn Epiphany

I recently had a mild epiphany. My friend Steve and I had been playing around on our recently purchased copies of Battlefield: Bad Company and were becoming increasingly frustrated with the bad pings we were getting and the resultant lag. So, we thought, we’d switch back to our old chum, Call of Duty 4; it’s not let us down in the past, so why should it now?

Oddly, it was one of those days where – and if I can liken gaming to beverages for a moment – you’ve been rather thirsty and your favourite glass of ice cool water hasn’t managed to quench it. We needed something else. We needed some of that suspiciously blue liquid those athletes have to rehydrate themselves – you know the stuff, doesn’t taste that nice but it does work. We needed HALO 3!

I had rented Halo 3 when it was first released and I hated it. I didn’t enjoy the physics of the game, the gameplay or the idiots online who spend their whole time throwing random grenades and hiding in bubble shields – and no, those are NOT tactics!

I completed the main campaign before the game had to go back and I never considered playing it again. Good riddance to a horrid game – or so I thought.

I hadn’t played Halo 3 since the day it was returned to the shop so I’d had no cravings to play it from playing on friends’ games. For some obscure reason, Steve and I just wanted to play Halo 3 and I had a great urge and a strange, sudden lust for the game.

I was slightly short on funds as I’ve just purchased an HDTV (which arrived today) to replace the enormous CRT I had clogging up my desk, but managed to pick up a new copy of the game very cheap. Oh and HDTV for gaming with an Xbox360, linked with an HDMI cable…nothing short of epic!

Halo 3 arrived today as well. As you can see from the pictures dotted about this blog entry…here’s another one…we’ve been having quite a lot of fun on it. Theatre mode is fantastic fun and has proved to be very entertaining – and inspiring! I know it’s strange to go from despising a game to thoroughly enjoying it, especially as nothing has changed. But for me, I feel – and to use a vehicular analogy – Halo 3 is not a Jaguar E-Type like Call of Duty 4 (the E-Type looked great when it came out and it still looks gorgeous now) but is more like the pre-face lift Jaguar XKR, which looked a bit…not quite there, when it first came out, but now, yummy!

Also, the game must be good when one considers The Great Fry plays. I wonder if Kate Beckinsale plays too. She must be into that kind of thing. Surely, after all this time and the mentions in this blog, she’d be aching to hop onto the back of my Mongoose and throw her arms tightly around the waist of my Mark VI MJOLNIR armour as we career off towards the enemies, weapons cocked and ready to fire…*dreamy smile*

And besides, I behave a lot better around women than Master Chief. She’d be a fool not to party up with my chums and I.

I think that’s it for tonight. Bed is calling me. I just have to resist staying up and watching things on the new TV.

Oh and thanks go out to Steve for helping and appearing in the pictures on this blog – he’s the chap in the white armour. I’d link to his blog but he never updates it!

digg story

All Change

I know I said I’d keep this updated and I will; promise!

I may have an editing job coming up so I’m trying to cram in lots of WoW before I have to do work and before the nicer weather comes. Speaking of the weather; as some of you may have noticed, over the last few days the UK has had flurries of snow dotted about. We had a couple of inches down in Surrey but by the time I got out, most had melted. I did think the patches of snow on the bushes in my garden were pretty though.

I’ve also been helping one of my best friends set up hosting for his wedding photography website. His name’s Andrew Hall and he has a blog here. Though, this raised issues with our server’s mail delivery system so I’ve been trying to get that sorted out since.

I had lots I wanted to blog about, from talking about Challenger’s first space flight, Daylight Savings, an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius back in 1906 today which devastated the city of Naples and a few other things. I must start writing these ideas down as I always forget about them. I have had other things on my mind lately. Chief among which is my bedroom. I’ve been wanting more space or rather a better use of the space I have for quite some time. We’ve just set about buying the paint and clearing everything out of my room. Step one is shown below.

We’ve emptied all of my shelves and removed picture frames from the walls. While doing this I suddenly realised I had no framed pictures of Kate Beckinsale. What’s going on here? I managed to watch a couple of films with said beauty in and after playing on the Xbox I really need an HD flatscreen TV. Do any companies fancy giving me one? I promise to do a full write-up and review of it for you! 26″ 1080i would be fab. Email me at graham@letmerephrasethat.com.

The next step is to get rid of the shelving and the posters, clean the walls and start painting. Then there will be a change around of furniture and hey presto, fresh start to the room. I’ll hopefully add some pictures during the change so you can see the progression. I’ll try and take them from the same position for continuity as well. Just need to think about some clever storage systems now.

With all these random bits and bobs and friends asking me to play on the Xbox with them, I haven’t had a chance to keep up to date with my favourite bloggers, such as Stephen Fry and Richard Madeley. I have, however, been reading my Fry book each night as I wind down for bed and am thoroughly enjoying it.

Going back to the Xbox, I recently bought Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and the new map pack for Call of Duty 4. It’s a tough choice when choosing between them. I think I prefer CoD4 but I do enjoy the co-op story mode and the terrorist hunts on R6V2. I’d recommend buying the new maps on CoD4 though!

To finish this blog entry I thought I’d end with some good news. I’ve recently become more inspired and had some ideas to continue my novel so I’m glad to be able to get back into that. I think I’ll be better off once my room is finished and I’m hoping it’ll aid productivity. Time will tell.