Category: life

This covers the general events of my life and my thoughts upon it. Its probably going to be the most generally downbeat category (feel that angst).

Man Vs Belly – Healthy “Rice Krispie” Bars and Zero point “Monkey Butter”

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Well I am nearing the end of my third week trying out the Weight Watchers program. I’ll cover it in another post but in short its going quite well. But I am now obsessed with using as few points as possible and I find that the biggest point sink (apart from affordable mince oddly enough) is snacks. Particularly “proper” snacks i.e. non healthy ones. The other day I was consumed by the bizarre urge for a rice krispie bun which lead me on a hunt for healthy rice krispie buns which ultimately led to the creation/modification of the recipes below. Oh yeah, I suppose I should mention, there are no actual rice krispie’s involved here. Sorry for breaking your heart. Continue reading…

30 Days of (space black) Night – Week 01 – Return to New Eden

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Around this time a year ago my initial foray into the world of EVE Online ended, and at the risk of using an already over-used phrase, not with a bang but with a whimper (you can check out my glorious progress here – Part 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, Interlude 1, 06). Well actually to be accurate it ended with dis-interest. But a spare code for a months worth of game time and the lure of my characters name on a statue lured me back in. I initially wasnt planning to play at all, I didnt even have the game installed but I figured I might as well give it a go, even casually. So now I’ve 30 days to re-visit the world of, quite possibly, the most notorious MMO out there. How will I get on? Continue reading…

Brief thoughts on John Woo’s Stranglehold

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Bought this on launch, got half way through it and then got distracted. Decided to finally get it out of the way today. It is ultimately mediocre but holy hell did it give me the horn for some classic 90’s John Woo. It also earns its mediocre status in an odd way, its not as if its simply dull its that some bits are great and some bits are terrible and it all even outs to being ok. Continue reading…

Brief thoughts on Devil Survivor Overclocked

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After playing a bit on the DS I started this a week or two ago and finished the game yesterday, took about forty hours for my first playthrough (Noya’s route including the 8th day), I thought it had solid gameplay and that by and large the story was ok (though it suffered from that odd SMT issue where characters react to the apocalyptic circumstances with offputting calm – I love the athmosphere of most SMT games but the characterisation is often lacking). I ran through it again on the Amane route, which I think worked sort of better than Noya’s. After that the rot set in, carrying over demons makes subsequent NG+ run throughs a meaningless cakewalk (Garuda with Multi-strike largely breaks the game it seems) and very little changes between the routes (the first NG+ is good because theres optional missions and you can do a few option flags you might have missed). I ground out the rest of the routes but to be honest I wish I hadnt as it was an exercise in tedium, even skipping text it still takes 5-7 hours per run for maybe 30 minutes worth of new content. They really could have streamlined this I feel. Still, an enjoyable enough game.

Time to complete: 90 hours 38 minutes
Completed: 17/02/14

(Upcoming) Games of 2014 – A storm’s a’comin

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While I didnt get as many completed as I’d hope overall I think it’s fair to say that 2013 was a pretty great year for gaming. 2014 is shaping up to be even better. We’ll be seeing the new next generation consoles getting into their stride and a number of long anticipated titles, a lot of them long time Kickstarter darlings, are supposed to be coming out on PC. Hell, there’s even some mobile games coming out that look really good (dont look at me like that). So how do you navigate through this confusing maelstrom of choice? Simple, just lock onto the glorious light of my opinion and let it guide you through the darkness. Continue reading…

Android Customisation Guide – One Mick and his phone – Part 1

Michael 6 Comments

The first thing I do these days when I get a new phone is to jailbreak/root it. Back when I’d an iPhone (and with my iPad) I feel that it’s more or less essential as Apple tie down their OS far too firmly. Out of the box Android is a lot more “open” but by the time I bought my first Android phone it had become reflex so I’d the thing rooted (the Android equivalent to jailbreaking) five minutes after getting it out of the box. I’d a custom ROM on it shortly afterwards. Over the last week or so I basically rebuilt my phone from the ground up, tried a variety of kernels, then a variety of custom ROM’s, then finally a variety of applications for the various things I do with my phone. Then I went out and bought a different phone. Which I rooted last night so I could begin all over again. After chatting to a few people with android phones it seems they haven’t bothered rooting or installing a custom ROM. I’m not particularly evangelical about the whole thing, but I thought I’d lay out what I’ve done with my android phones and why I’ve done it. Continue reading…