JoannaDark

slightly funny that this is the second picture of the happy couple and it's called the second coming...

not sure why it's madden. he's playing red steel right now which makes a change. for 2 months he has been playing around 12 hours a day. more to the point he doesn't seem to see anything wrong with it. i wish i could say i was concerned more but to be honest i have two saves that haven't moved in months cos of him. in conclusion:grrrrrrrrrrrr!ok rant done now!

i think she meant you spelt it wrong.or at least spelt it american.

does that include that 5 year old mother? ewww

shit, is there some kind of way to make yourself stop having them? most of my dreams happen that way. like that i'll suddenly become aware that my dress in the dream is purple and that since its a dream i can just make it white, and then it'll go white. or more commonly i'll realise its a dream and try not to think of something scary and then something scary will appear. meaning that all my dreams are about my phobias. it's not great.

it's a fantastic game. any game that includes the line "come back to bed kratos" gets my vote. also he is strangely and enigmatically attractive.

do the rabid bunny roar! RAAAAAAAAAWWWRR! best jumper ever btw!

haha sousaphone hero, it does look totally viable doesn't it?

piddles is such an underused word....finally, on friday, pokemon comes to dublin!!!! with the complimentary limited edition pokemon stylus!!!!I am gonna shake off the oppressive shackles of postgraduate research for a whole day and sit in the park and play pokemon! and then swan about the computer science lab waving my stylus in the air and leaving a trail of piddle behind me...

here it is, the ugly bastard... to further illustrate the size of this ugly bastard...

nope i started my phd three months ago, designing my first study now which is vaguely terrifying. and very not-vaguely terrifying too. phd's suck. i dunno how anyone survives em. my supervisor is very research-active so i'll prob publish this when its done, if its any good. as for the uncanny valley thing, rodi i get you now. like its really annoying when heavy rain is seen as exemplifying uncanny valley when there are computer scientists out there pulling their hair out crying, "we haven't even got to the uncanny valley yet!" we're designing stimuli right now to be used as our virtual condition, and they are quite convincing. they're not even done yet. as stills they're supereffective, but when they start moving it's completely obvious they aren't real. which spoils the effect a little. the psychological justification for the uncanny valley is that the not-quite-realness of the characters evokes the same feelings that we get when we see a corpse, that it's real but not. so as a psychologist i totally believe its real, but as a gamer i don't really see the application. except that maybe when everyone's gotten over their photorealism obsession, they can go back to concentrating on style again.

it would be pretty pointless doing research into something without any foundation in reality, wouldn't it? no one is saying that the valley is indisputable. it's just a handy marker of where we are in terms of progress towards photorealism. having said that there is a lot of evolutionary psychology evidence to support the idea of an uncanny valley. my research is about how humans can perceive the difference between a real human and a virtual human, with a view to closing the gap. but its like everything else in psychology, it's not absolute. and for doubting my credentials, you're not getting the pokemon stylus! (actually they just wouldn't give me a third one, sorry!)

stop it now, you're giving me that nauseous feeling that i'm wasting three years of my life researching this valley when no one cares.

poor miffy, that sucks. i had a cat named *miffy's cat's name*, she died, she died.mom said she went *insert canadian euphemism here*, she lied, she lied. it is really sad but that's the best way to go, yeah? all curled up!

and the lego batman looks soooooooooooo cute...

as soon as i am up and at'em a pic will be displayed unfortunately rodi my other stylus has been promised to another but sure when i'm better i'll pop down to mr tim nice but dim in game and see if i can wheedle another one outta him! its weird cos its like the least stylus-heavy game i've seen in a long time, you only use it to give ur pokemons nicknames (my geodude is called the dude and of course there's chimmy the chimchar) everything else is buttonway. its a bit good though. despite looking exactly like harvest moon.

poor rodi, if you read it carefully, they really don't think its their fault, do tehy? so not to make you feel worse or anything, but....i have it! woke up with tonsillitis so bad i couldn't talk, limped down to game, dripping cold sweat rather than piddle, and pointed at the game and at my reward card to indicate i'd pre-ordered it. i ended up having to write it down. game have hired a pretty but dim guy who doesn't understand tonsillitis sign language. i got it! and cos it was so obvious i was dying he gave me 2 styli! but don't feel too jipped, they're monstrous and ugly. but screw it! i've never felt more excited to hear the little ds turn on noise before! yay!

piddling fuckers.

I dunno, I kinda like tutorial-less games, where you're just dumped in in the thick of it, like the start of god of war. Excluding special moves, as long as you're used to the console, you don't really need all that press a to jump, look around your house and try every conceivable button combination time.

earthworm jim! on GBA it's total shit so noone will mind passing it on! although it does mean you'd have to actually play it

Finally gave in and bought a PS2. only cos they're cheap now, mind. I bought okami and its very cool, but I'm a bit lost now about what to buy. People keep trying to force games on me on the basis that i'll get "60 hours of play outta them". I'm not that cheap and don't mind a short game if its good. Any suggestions?

YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!! have you guys lost your sense of joy in the world?

my friend works in a video shop and someone keeps leaving those big bags of maltesers in the toilet. yesterday they were all IN the toilet and around the rim, crushed up. it's not poo, but it's still pretty weird.

I still can't find sotc OR ico. this is gonna be an amazon job. i have to agree with the gamecube controller, or to be picky the wavebird is pretty cool. at least you don't have to press r2, square, circle, square, stick in, stick around, stick around other way to make special moves.

I want ICO and SOTC, prob is they're hard to get hold of here. Thanks for all the suggestions! i bought god of war yesterday so yeah its looking up! the ps2 doesn't look so evil with its red eye of sauron beside the virtuous white wii anymore....