Chicanery’s Requiem

This is a very nice piece of WoW Machinima (source : Broken Toys).

I’m not sure if this the embedded video above will work on the syndicated facebook feed, if it doesn’t click here.

Well it looks like my host for my gallery site, Tchrinsphoto’s has finally pulled the plug on the server. I knew it was happening at some point soon, and I can’t complain that he’s done it, as I wasn’t paying for it. However he’s ignored my IRC msgs and emails asking for his assistance in backup up what’s there. Which means I’ve lost a bunch of stuff. So as you might imagine I’m not the most impressed.

Anyway, if anyone has some free hosting I can use which several GB’s of storage available for a low bandwidth site…please let me know.

In other site news, Tchrin.net is now running Wordpress 2.7. Which won’t make much difference to you the reader, however the backend has been completed redone. And it all looks very snazzy from back here behind the scenes. Although I have a few issues I need to resolve thanks to a plugin managing to change the ownership of a load of files, but otherwise I’m impressed.

I’m also now on Twitter, and I’ve added a feed of that on the right of this site *points*, as I’m currently updating that more often then I udpat

Well since my last post I’ve gone down to the hospital, picked up Alex & Ben and moved them to The Grange in Petersfield. Which is great, as its so much closer and more convenient. The original Grange, which was up the road in Liss, is where I was born, so it’s nice that Alex & Ben get to stay in it’s name sake. We were very lucky, as The Grange in Peterfield only just (on the 1st April) started providing 24/7 care, and has been opened and closed repeatedly over the past few years. Anyway enough babble, I’ve got my camera back so here are lots more pictures, from Ben’s first day -

Well I spent last night throwing up and generally not sleeping. I finally started feeling better at about 09:00 this morning, and decided it must have been something I ate instead of a bug, when Sam promptly threw up. So it looks like we’re having a day at home, taking it very easy, instead of going to see Ben. Which is all very crappy.

Alex & Ben are doing well, and made it through the night without too much incident, although he’s already managed to soil two vests and babygros. That’s my boy! We’re trying to get it sorted for Alex to transfer to The Grange in Petersfield (which is about 3 miles away instead of 25…which would be nice).

And btw I intentionally left my camera at the hospital, as I knew Alex was getting visitors whilst I wasn’t there, so wanted the camera left there to take pictures as needed.

After the mayhem of Sam’s birth and Alex’s recovery afterwards, I have to say that today couldn’t have been more different. We went into the operating theatre at 11:17, she was then prepped and then anaesthetised at 11:34. And then as easy as that, Benjamin was born at 11:58. I was strongly discouraged from watching the operation/birth but I was able to watch from the moment he crowned (is it still called that during a section!?) onwards. It was really amazing.

Vital stats:
He weighed in at 7lb 6oz (for reference, Sam was 8lb4oz).
Both he and Mum are doing really well.
Benjamin is my middle name
- It is a Hebrew name meaning “son of the south”.
Thomas Moss were my grandfather’s middle names.
- Thomas is the Greek form of the Aramaic word for twin.
- Moss is the medieval version of the Hebrew name Moses, and means son or deliver.

I left my camera at the hospital, but here is one pic taken with my phone, I’ll post more once I have my camera back -

(BTW if you blinked and missed it, the site went down for a couple of days, but is back up now!)

It is with regret that it looks like this site (& TchrinsPhotos.net) will have to go down for a week (or so) whilst I wait for my next pay cheque to come through, as I find myself a little short on petty cash this month. Which considering the imminent arrival of #2 Son (in a weeks time!!!) it particularly frustrating, as I want to be able to be able to tell as many people as possible about it all. Anyway, I hope to be back with my semi regular mumblings soon, and with pictures of our new son.

In the mean time, here is a surprisingly well written interview on violence in computer games. The long and the short of which basically says, games can’t be directly linked to violence or other general naughtiness, but every child is different so parents need to use their noggins and a bit of common sense (ie we’re all doomed). I fully recommend a read. (Source of link: Raph Koster’s blog).

Well we just got back from seeing the consultant. and we now have a date for Alex to have a caesarean section. So, three weeks tomorrow, on the 3rd April 2008, our second son will be born! It’s suddenly just got a lot more exciting and real, and although I know its going to be hard work, I can’t wait

And now to do a full days work in just a few hours.

Maybe I’m just an old Speccy fanboy, but when it was announced yesterday that you’ll be able to get Commodore 64 games on the Wii’s Virtual console, my first thought was a decidedly sarcastic whoopdy doo. Now, don’t get me wrong the C64 certainly had its fair share of good games, not as many as the Spectrum of course, but it had a few. It also had the ability, and I can barely believe it’s true, but yes, it had multi coloured sprites, with fairly decent collision detection. Woo indeed. Oh and it had Sensi Soccer, which every Spectrum owner secretly coveted. We still had Dizzy though, so take that C64 fans mwhahahha!

Now there are two reasons I take umbrage at the fact you can get C64 games on Virtual Console. Firstly, there’s the fact that they cost 500 Wii Points. Which if you buy your points over the counter from Game means they cost £3.75 each. Now considering that most C64 games cost £1.99 or less when they were brand new nearly 20 years ago, charging something that’s approaching double that figure is somewhat scandalous.

The second reason I’m put off spending any of my hard earned/bought points is Commodore Gaming. Now, if you didn’t know, Commodore Gaming bought the rights to the C64 brand a few years ago and then launched a company specialising in bleeding edge PCs featuring C64 branding. And since Alienware sold their soul to the devil (aka Dell), they’ve become the new ‘cool’ brand in PC gaming (and yes I’d love to have one too). I suspect that the reason they now sell their games on the Wii’s virtual console, is to increase brand awareness. The problem they have is that the C64 brand is fine with us old school gamers that remember playing on gaming machines with rubber keys or when Grandstand was a name to contend with in the console war. However with those young scallywags who were born after Thatcher left power, the C64 doesn’t mean a thing. So by selling some of the olde C64 classics on Wii’s virtual console, its building brand awareness.

It’s all annoyingly clever, if a little transparent. I mean, they’re making money advertising. There’s very few people that manage to successfully pull that one off…which reminds me of Playboy (sorry!). In my opinion the Playboy brand is one of the most cleverly advertised brands in the world. Playboy, at its heart is a stroke mag, but somehow Mr Hefner has managed to make it a cool brand with girls, and make them adorn themselves, their homes and their cars with the Playboy brand. Genius.

Anyway with that strange digression I’ll go back at drooling at Commodore Gaming PCs and then work out how many times I’ll need to strut my stuff to the sailors down at the dockyards before I could afford one.

Just wanted to give a big hearty congratulations to both Ben & Sonia on the birth of their second child; Jacob Andrew Stallion-Gomez. Ben’s phone ran out of batteries when I was talking to him, but he did say that all was well with mother & baby, although Ben sounded a little dazed and confused still! Anyway, congrats to both of them again, and Ben if you’re reading this we demand cute baby photos with proud family damnit!

This is a little pre-emptive but c’est la vie. Over the weekend I got in contact with my mobile provider, Three, as I wanted to see if I could lower my monthly payments as I knew I wasn’t using even half of the minutes/text messages I was paying for. And it transpires that my contract is due to end in mid February so I was advised that I could both lower my payments and upgrade my phone. Which means…I get a new toy! woo!

So…after not a lot of research I’ve opted for the 3 Skypephone (in black) which basically means that once I get it (tomorrow) I’ll be able to make & receive Skype calls (and Instant Message) from my mobile for free. Admittedly the phone isn’t as bleeding edge and feature laden as phones I’ve had in the past, but to be honest I rarely use my phone for anything other then calling, texting (if I have to) and occasionally as a camera. So feature wise it will do me fine.

Anyway, as my Skype contact list is sadly lacking I thought I’d post and see if I can get a few more people added. As you can see on the right I’ve added some shiny new message/txt buttons. And if you want to add me to your contact list click the following button -