monkeyarmada

So it seems this morning I've found a small lump floating around my right testicle No, not the left one, but a new and unwelcome addition. It's an odd feeling that there is something there that shouldn't be. I'm not too worried but it's better to get these things checked by a professional. So tomorrow I'm off for some humiliation at the docs, It could be worse, but I've already suffered that finger up my arse, so this should be a walk in the park. Remember guys, look after your meat and two veg, no one else will... S.

+1 This old codger can't take the aftermath any more... The last time I drank till I fell down was over ten years ago, I got home somehow, it's a three mile walk, covered in cuts and bruises and the knees ripped out of my jeans. Presumably that would have been a night to remember if I only could.

Better put some training in, Bjork goes at it football fan style...

I'm 32, I can't even remember 16...

Just face it guys, you've been groomed and are now susceptible to the unwanted attention of dirty old men. That's the wonderful Internet, direct and live to your home...

Me. I was in the woods, somewhere in Southern Ireland, summoning up earth spirits obviously, and as you can see, all us modern WIZZZZZAAAARRRRDDDS wear the 'lowrise' style of wizard hat these days. So what's that? 50 points?

It's a concern because, in the usual fashion, the UK government is legislating for a medium they don't understand. I can see web bans being handed out left right and centre to the innocent bystanders as the lumbering legal beast becomes self aware and attempts to get a grip on what it is actually for... They also don't understand the pure militant bloody mindedness of the Internet. Physically it's designed from the ground up to circumvent restrictions and blocks. That does empower it's users hugely against the type of restrictions they may try to impose. Madleson is a smug, unelected little prick that now has the power to change copyright law on a whim, that on it's own if fucking scary as I'm sure he has eaten a few 'free' lunches in his time. Right now I'm so fucking annoyed by this I have probably not made much sense, much like our political system.

For me any nature of discrimination, sex, ethnicity, gaming ability etc. is a problem. I'd prefer the online 'experience' to allow us all to do what we want without the risk of being a victim of any type of bullying. If we reach a point where users (read customers) are avoiding games or associated communities because of the discriminatory behaviour of the community as a whole, then the game industry is heading for trouble. The only way I see that this type of behavior will change is if the community as a whole stops readily accepting it as part of gaming and actively discourages it. It seems that banning users from servers is really the only pro-active way achieve this; behave in an acceptable manner or your gaming experience will be curbed. This type of wall garden approach concerns me too, but witch is the lesser evil? I have no answer to this, I can only vote with my feet and this is one of the reasons I haven't bought and played L4D2. Personally I don't find much of the online 'bullshit' offensive, some of the things I hear are distasteful but I accept that we are all different, it's the ten years of using the Internet that has given me a thick skin and a health dose of scepticism. The fact that the casual racism and bullying behaviour doesn't shock or surprise me any more is sad and I have no faith that the following generations of users will see this as unacceptable. I worry that online gaming and it's 'freedom of speech' is going to be it's own undoing, alienating users and limiting appeal.

+1 That would rock, and also very quickly highlight the tacticians among us. My motto has always been, 'don't follow me, you won't make it'. pew pew.

Have you played any multi player Left for Dead on public servers? The kids playing that are some of the most bigoted racists I've ever heard. I don't take offence myself (being a white boy, I wouldn't) but some of the comments are pushing it really far and gets pretty uncomfortable, I'm not sure I'm happy that kids (I'm 32 so under 20) readily use the word 'nigger' day to day. Maybe the word has a different weight and overtone due to my age but it's still not a great state for online gaming to be in. Bullying, which is what this boils down to, has no place on 'my' internets. It should be a leveller, if you can afford a DSL line you should be able to play, un-harassed and without feeling the need to be anything other than yourself.

From memory I've only had positive experiences (not many) on-line with female gamers. I jumped in on a Left for Dead game and ended up on a team of girls, they politely asked me to swap sides (they were waiting for a friend), I did and they actually said 'thank you'! Then they proceeded to kick my ass for the next few rounds... I try and see gamers as gamers and not bring any pre-conceived ideas to the game, I think that's the attraction of playing with Idle Thumbs, there is some form of 'relationship' there and some 'respect', sometimes. Those who live up to a stereotype really do deserve all they get. A mention of 'e-peen' and 'pwning n00bs' is a bullet magnet in my book. Behaving like an asshole in multi player games takes the fun out it for all of us.

Theme? Theme? It's a way of life! By about page two of the thread and I'd bought the DeathAdder myself, a fantastic bit of kit and won't go back to standard mice. I would have thought that using the 'PC' mouse would soon take over from the Apple one, nothing more frustrating with going back to a Apple mouse after using a five button mouse for a while, oh!... that god awful scroll button on the mitee mouse too... Thinking about it, Apple have a history of really crappy mice. iMac Puck anyone?

So this isn't a headline, but a horrible irony in what is a some pretty serious news. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7065824.ece Check out the name of the correspondent...

The control scheme isn't that different to any other game like this I've played, and it's customisable too. The vehicles are dog slow I have to agree, so like you, I whack up the dpi on the mouse to compensate. Think they are weighted to behave well on consoles which is nice, on consoles...

I have, embarrasingly, been using a Creative Fatal1ty headset. It was on offer, quite cheap and the sound quality is actually quite good. I'm under the impression that the whole Fatal1ty thing is a bit of a marketing piss take.

Oh, you are in for a, err, treat?

Attack is the only defence in this type of office battle, it reminds me of Jason in our office. He's gay, so our small infantile brains figured he wouldn't appreciate what we as hetro men do, or somthing... We put a picture of some hot 'lady garden' action on his screen and he nearly puked on his keyboard. Previous attempts of gay pride style pics didn't seem to worry him that much! My best effort by far was supergluing my bosses mouse to his mouse mat (a glass one), his face was a picture.

Through a strange twist of fate I found a copy of Shadow of Chernobyl we had as a freebee kicking around the office. So I've installed it to play whilst waiting for the Battlefield BC2 server lists to refresh... My initial experience has been a bit odd, I haven't made it past what I think is the introduction/how-to stages yet. I was told to go and find some dude in another camp and on the way stumbled across an injured NPC and his dead buddy in a field. The NPC was asking me to get the medkit of the dead guy and hand it over so he could heal himself. I couldn't work out how to use the inventory system so resorted to dragging the corpse over to the injured NPC so he could sort himself out. Anyway, the NPC keeps on asking for the medkit so in frustration I shoot him in the face. I then immediately quit the game because it made me feel terrible and cruel. I think I'll install that update and have another go from the beginning, but I'll probably still shoot the injured dude because sometimes you have to go with your instinct, even if it re-enforces how shitty life can be sometimes.

Don't forget that map hack that Punkbuster seems unable to deal with on most occasions. So many people are using it, it isn't funny. As has been suggested before, smoking out any snipers you see is a great laugh, or C4ing whatever structure they choose to hide in, your own side included. I don't mind recon players doing what they do (after all, that class is all about the sneaking and shooting), it's when you get both sides sitting at opposite ends of the map taking pot shots at each other the game goes stale. I prefer to run around as recon with my automatic shotty, getting up close and personal. When I get my airstrike perk I'm gonna be a real pain in the ass.

Apologies, I got sucked into some battlefield pew pew action. Next week should be good for driving though... I ran a man over in a motorboat and then crashed a chopper into him, finally finished him off with a knife. Quite satisfying!

Mine runs quite well... It's an Intel i7 overclocked and running at anything up to 4Ghz (it throttles itself see) 6Gb of DDR3 Ram (overclocked), an overclocked Nvidea GTX 260. At work I run it on a Core 2 Duo with 2 Gb of DDR2 ram and a 8600GT, so your rig should have balls enough to run it... It's my shit web connection that spoils it for me...

A couple of pics... Rally Action Toblix has a secret... I think this is Borg technology, trying to assimilate my Yaris.

This is one of the sanest things I have read on the Internet. The government in the UK seem hell-bent on skipping merrily down the legislation route, holding the hands of the copyright holders without any though or understanding of the technology they so fear. Access to the 'illegal' content isn't the issue, make the content affordable and accessible and there wont be the demand for DVD rips, it seems to me that the distribution and financial models are so far out of touch with the way the web works the publishers are grasping at straws in a blind panic, throwing their corporate weight around. While I'm on a rant, why can't the fucking 'piracy' ads be more accurate with their legal definitions. Long John Silver didn't routinely infringe copyright, web users don't tend to get involved with piracy, I suppose it's a little more emotive, but as we are bluring legal definitions why are they not calling the filesharers terrorists, rapists or murderers?

I use DestroyTwitter on my desktop, it's an Air app and quite unobtusive. On my phone (a palm Pre) I use TweeFree, it's free. Have not managed to work out how I would use lists, I only really follow friends so probably don't have the need.

Did we all quit after the Ring? I think my connection crapped out but yes, good racing... I'll post some pics in a couple of days, when get a sec.