Week in a post!!

It's been an interesting (and hectic) week for me. With less than a week to go before the school summer holidays begin, its all been go at school. After my promotion a few weeks ago, my replacement started on Tuesday so much of my time has been spent training him up. We had the staff ball at Dumbleton Hall on Thursday which went really well (hey, I was the DJ so of course it would have been a good night). Considering that we had an issue with lights (ie, we had none), we had to improvise with some christmas tree lights. It didn't turn out too bad actually, and everyone had a fabulous time. I had them dancing on the dance floor all night!




... AND Kieran went to playschool for the first time on Thursday.......

... Actually he doesn't start playschool officially until the 11th September but we were asked if he could pop down for an induction session. He absolutely loved it!!! Infact, the only time he cried was when Michelle had to drag him out to go home!!!! He didn't seem to care when Michelle left him to play with the other children on his own. He is so unlike me!!!! I cried the house down when my Mum took me to playschool for the first time and when she left me!!

So this weekend I have been taking it really easy, watching old episodes of Doctor Who on UKTV Drama, downloading more movie soundtracks (more on this later), working on a song that I've been writing for a few months now, doing some more photography and playing with Kieran and his 40 new toy cars that I went out and bought him on Friday.

4 more days to go and then I've got 6 weeks of lounging around!!!!! WOOHOOO.

Anyway, I will now leave you with another picture that I have been working on - "The Ship"

Stuart's Photography

I've been doing a bit of photography lately and I'm slowly adding the final finishing touches on several pictures that I have taken recently. I thought that I might share this one with you as I'm quite pleased with the end result.

Click the image for a larger view.

It is an often photographed view of St Pauls Catherdral looking over The Millennium Bridge in London.

Getting a bit crowded around here

Opps nearly forgot. Those of you who have read my blog since the very beginning may remember that this time last year I wrote a post congratulating my friends Pete and Gemma on the birth of their daughter. It was estimated that at the time the worlds population was 6,629,751,996

Well... exactly one year later the worlds population now stands at an estimated :-

6,726,149,983

Wow.... thats 96,397,987 more in just a year!!!! - (It feels like it, what with the number of migrants moving to Evesham lately!)

At this rate, the world's population should reach 10 billion around the 16th December 2034.

Right I'm off to bed now as I'm still recovering from last nights 'late night' at the Ball. I'm KNACKERED! Goodnight all!

Why I dont like playing computer games as much as I once did...

BEWARE..... ***** LONG RANTING ***** post alert.

I’ve come to the horrible conclusion that I just do not enjoy playing computer games as much as I once did.

I don’t think it’s because I’m getting old though. I think it has more to do with a lack of originality in the games of today.

While sitting at work this afternoon, I was thinking back to when I was at school, and how I would look forward to rushing home after the last lesson of the day to load up The Last Ninja on my Commodore 64 to see if I could get any further, or spending hours trying to discover a new room to explore in Castle Master. I just don’t seem to get that feeling of ‘wonder’ and ‘excitement’ anymore. I know that being married and having a young child means I don’t get to spend as much time playing games as I did before I met Michelle, but even when I do find the time to start up Tomb Raider Anniversary (my favourite game at the moment), or any other game from my rather large collection, I just can’t get ‘into’ the game like I did with the old classics.

Back in the 80’s and early 90’s there was a much larger variety of game genres available while today all we are left with are the countless number of first-person-shooters, racing sims, football and sports games.

Don’t get me wrong, I love shooters (especially Half Life 2 etc.), but at the end of the day, I’ve seen it all before. Ok, so the graphics may look prettier, but the game is still essentially a first-person shooter just like Doom which was released way back in the early 90’s. I've seen it before, show me something I've never played before!

What has led the game industry to this constant barrage of clones?

I think it was the demise of the bedroom programmer. Back in the days of Mastertronic when you could buy a game for £1.99, those games were programmed by talented young individuals who programmed simple yet entertaining games that would keep you coming back for more. These programmers were not afraid to try new things.

Can computer games evolve any more? We’ve got very close to having games render almost photorealistic environments in realtime but at the end of the day, are graphics the most important thing in a game? What about originality and gameplay?

Generally the way we play games now is no different than how we played games 20 years ago – sat in front of a television or monitor with a controller or joystick. The Nintendo Wii has attempted to try something different with its remote controller and nunchuk but at the end of the day are these that much dissimilar to the light gun?

Do you remember 20 years ago they told us that sometime in the near future we'd have computers that would project realistic virtual-reality worlds that we could interact with by using special VR helmets and gloves?

What happened???

How long before technology like that of the Holodecks used in Star Trek become closer to reality?

Another looooooong day!

Its Ball Gown and Tuxedo time again as Evesham High School has it's annual 6th Form Ball, and guess who has been given the responsibility of doing the photography and filming of the event...

Yep. me.....

Which means by the time I get home tonight (just gone midnight I estimate), I'm going to be totally cream crackered after working all day from 8.00 in the morning.

Fortunatly I have plenty of Pro Plus tablets left over from the Tiesto/Edinburgh trip to keep me going through the day.

You can not be serious.....

Only a minor update this time..

HOW CAN THEY DO IT??? Not only was the last episode of the current series of Doctor Who probably the weakest episode of the new series, but I've just found out that it's official.... Kylie (I can't sing or act) Minogue is going to star in the Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned".

For heavens sake!!! What next? Madonna as a new companion? Sod it, why not just get rid of David Tennant and get someone like Justin Timberlake as the new Doctor.

Instead of wasting good money on stupid guest stars, how about spending it on some writing talent - Stories that aren't rehashes of earlier episodes, stories that don't revolve round running down corridors all the time, stories that don't rely on having mobile phones as key plot devices, or stories that involve saving the world by waving a sonic screwdriver in the air. Oh pleeeeeeeese.

Message to the writers of Doctor Who - if you plan to bring back those pathetic Psycho Santa's in the Christmas Special AGAIN, have Kylie play one of them and kill them off for good.

Rant over...

Don't get me wrong, I love the show - but if it carries on like this, I see Doctor Who going the way it went back in 1989.