Happy 1 Year 1 Month and 8 Days to me!

Ok, so I somehow managed to miss the fact that my blog is over one year old, so I’ll just wish it happy returns for the year now. It has been a long year – ups, downs, lefts, rights, although the year has had more ups than anything else, so I thought I’d focus on them.

If anything, having a blog this long has made me realise a number of things. The first, is that it serves as a great tool for remembering the little things that tend to get pushed out of your memory, so I think it’s a great way to reminisce. The next are the not-so-obvious-at-first-but-soon-become-obvious-very-quickly, such as the amount of effort it takes to constantly have things to write about and having the time to write them. Finally is how blogs can be used as a great way to promote content/software/or anything for that matter. My most popular post, sadly, but understandably (the search engines love it), is the iTunes 7.7 and 8.0 post. In just over a month of it being posted, it has received over 1,100 hits. For a relatively small blog like mine, that is a good amount of hits (just about an eighth overall).

End of the Week Update

This week has seen more ups and downs than an 8 year old with an addiction to Sherbert. I have had an interesting week. The beginning was the usual work and play routine. I’ve managed to reduce my lunch spending by about £2 a day, which all adds up from month-to-month. I’m not going to McDonalds much any more, which although I made sure I kept an eye on my calorie intake and such, I feel will probably be better for me. I mostly ate the Deli meals they make, but even they have a few hundred or so more calories than a sandwich. Calories are odd things. It’s amazing how some things that are small, could have more calories than something like a burger. 4 kitkats and that’s more calories than a Big Mac… yeah, weird.

Upcoming Games to Pre-order (September to November)

Gaming at the end of 2008 is going to be awesome, with many great titles heading on to the shelves. I currently have 16 games on my shortlist for the end of this year, but have pre-ordered six… for now, to cover me gaming wise for September and some of November This post ties up nicely with my last one!!

The list I have compiled is mostly a collection of PC and Xbox 360 games, but there might be some that are also going to be released on multiple platforms, such as PC, 360, PS3, Wii, etc. – Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for example, which will be on 360, PS3, PS2, Wii and DS. I’ll be ordering my list by Date Released, starting with the closest to release, to furthest away and then Alphabetically should any dates have more than one release.

I am not going to give a huge description of why you should buy each game on the list, because there are plenty of websites and magazines that would do a much better job of hyping them up than me, but here are some titles you should definitely be keeping an eye out for/on.

Saving some money on pre-orders @ Game UK

Expired, as of 01/10/08

Hi everybody. Here is something I discovered at GAME online.
I was about to pre-order a selection of games, that I would have bought upon release, with a £3 off voucher code I came across.

Here’s the thing. It was suggested to me by a mate on irc that I should not buy them all at once, but buy each game individually. This was a bit of an eye-opener for me, as well as a “duuuuuhhh” moment.

This £3 off code: ID734TJAW takes £3 off your order (my cheapest item was £29.99), but I do not know how long it lasts or if there is a minimum spend.

EDIT: It looks like it could be £30, looking at somewhere online, but my cheapest item was £29.99 and I still got the £3 discount, so not sure about that one.

I pre-ordered 4 PC games (Spore, Brothers in Arms: HH, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2) and an Xbox 360 game (Fable 2). The total cost of these came to about £180, however, they are not all released at the same time (They’re released at multiple dates across the next two months) and GAME only charge your card upon dispatch.

This means that I have until around 2 days before the release date to cancel should I change my mind. I have saved £18, by ordering each game separately and applying the ID734TJAW code each time. I also selected the Free Delivery option.

In addition to this, GAME offers double points for pre-orders, so I earned about 3000 – 4200 points (about 12-14 quid).

That’s a total saving of around 27-29 quid on a bunch of games I would have bought anyway, and the 12-14 pounds of reward points I can use for the next game (In fact, I’ll probably save them for now )

If GAME decide to be stingy and take away the discount on 4 of the items, I still have made a £3 discount and the reward points. I’ll update on any changes.

Happy buying!

Preparations for the Coming (Academic) Year

Warning – Really long update post ahead. This last week has been a pivotal and successful week for me. I have been busy sorting out all the arrangements toward having a flat and a job for next year, as well as tying up loose ends from this year. In the last week I have spent about £400 on sorting out accommodation (my rent needed paying for this month and then up came the deposit for the new house) and then about £50 getting food sorted; the cupboards were bare, so I needed to stock up a little.

Not only has this been an expensive week, it has also been an athletic one. In the space of 3 days I’ve probably covered about 4-5 square miles and walked about 8. On the map below, I had to walk the black route 3 times, each yellow route once and the blue route are bus routes.

Exams are Over!

Well my exams are finally over, and now I get to rest for a while before being slung into a work placement for a year. Speaking of which, I still need to find one. I have an interview lined up for next week, they’re a company that operate from Bournemouth Town Centre, which is ideal for my plans for next year.

I’d like to stay in Bournemouth if I can. I really like the area and have “grown into it” in the past two years. Once I finally do get a placement secured, I’ll then have to focus on getting somewhere to live. Ideally, it would be an apartment or something. Somewhere where I have the space to move around, and where I have a large desk – so I can do work and have proper space to do it

I did a Google search for me today. Searching for “Ash Clarke”, I come ninth second.

GTA IV Supplemental/Mini Review

GTA IV has once again set the standard in gaming for the open-world sandbox genre. The story, having just completed it, can set you back between 30-45 hours, depending on how you spend your time in the vast metropolis that is Liberty City.

GTA IV is, simply put, an amazing and in some times jaw-dropping game. The attention to detail is superb, and it is these small details that add tremendously to the overall opinion of the game.

I played GTA IV differently to the mainstream. I decided early on that I wouldn’t be an all-out, gun-ho, speed daemon that roars through the city wiping out every civilian in view. GTA IV is all about choices and this is the first of many that I was brought to decide on.

GTA IV

Well it’s finally here. My special edition version arrived through the post this morning, and after I made breakfast I took it to my room to open it up.

Remind me never to open something while I am eating breakfast – Breakfast got soggy as I was so eager to play.

Already I am happy with my purchase – The bundled stuff in the special edition is awesome, and the game itself even more so. There is no main menu when you start the game, it runs the introduction cinematics.