Robbed! Such a dive!

I'm too depressed to blog any more!

Australia 2 - Croatia 2! We're in the round of 16!

We headed out to Othellos on Oxford St, Bulimba for breakfast and the last of our group matches. Tension, dubious decisions and two equalisers but it's all we needed to get to our first ever run at the round of 16!
Go the Socceroos!!!!

Dark and Cold but in good spirits

It's 4:45 in the morning, but we're all out in support of our mighty Socceroos!

Nervously await an equaliser

Croatia have scored off a free kick in the 2nd minute and everyone's hopes are looking shakey

Moore converts the penalty Ausralia 1-1

The crowd is out of their seat!

The crowd applauds some good play by the Socceroos

We've had the bulk of the possesion and look to be in control!

Crowd spills on to the street

It's the end of the 1st half and the Socceroos are in a good position!

Everyone's trying to get a good view of the match and not even Oxford St is out of bounds

Not even the fear of buses can stop the crowd blocking Oxford St.

The Sun's out for the 2nd Half

The sun has added it's support of the Socceroo's in the 2nd half

Kewell Scores 2-2

Kewell slots one in the back of the net and the crowd goes wild! It's 2-2 and we're looking good for the round of 16!

Yay! Upgrades!

Well it's not much but got another Gig of RAM for my laptop today. It was starting to look a little tired, (possible due to the 79 and a half gigs of stuff on it, but I digress) so the extra RAM will be a welcomed aid for the development environments.

Bless you End of Financial year... Bless you I say!

I'm also eyeing off a Mini Mac we have on sale for $549.... not really sure what I need one for but it's just such a good saving!

DS Gaming Impressions (part 1)

I discovered that I've converted a few people on gaming on the DS and thought that I should post up some of the experiences I've had with the games on the platform. After starting the list of games I realised that it was way too much for one post so I'll do it in stages.
It's nothing terrible insightful, just a rough enjoyment level I had with the game. Hopefully it will give some idea as to whether you should think about picking up the game or not.

New Super Mario Bros

This is classic Mario platforming like it used to be. Reminds me of the good old Super Mario World days on the SNES. A great expansion on a classic theme, I've only played it for a few hours but it's going to be in my collection for a long time. The minigames are a great addition and with multiplayer allow you to have portable version that is something along the lines of Mario Party. Rating : Essential

Metroid Prime Hunters

This is my favourite game of the moment. It follows along the lines of the previous Metroid franchises and is basically a First Person Shooter (FPS) combined with an Adventure title. Lots of puzzles to solve along the way and the Morph Ball mode is a bit of a change for the standard FPS. The thing that has me hooked though is the multiplayer. I'm not normally a big fan of the genre but I can't stop playing it. The best description I can offer is a portable version of Counter Strike. Nintendo Wifi allows you to play online including voice chat with the built in microphone with your friends Rating: Highly recommended (Great FPS action)

Mario Kart DS

Again an improvement on a common Nintendo theme. The game essentially combines all the best elements of the previous Mario Kart Titles with some new Karts, new characters and Nintendo Wifi Compatibility. If you A highly addictive racer and with Nintendo Wifi there is endless racing opportunities. Rating : Highly recommended (Online Kart Racing Mahem)

Tetris DS

The classic gets the full Nintendo DS treatment. What more is there to say, it's old school Tetris that you can play online and compete with players around the world via Nintendo Wifi Rating: Highly recommended (Tetris with Friends Online)

Nintendogs

This is one title I could never get into. I had problems with the training and in the end become more of a frustration than fun. Many people rave about it but I never manage to keep it going for more than 10 mins. Rating: Gimmicky (Cute and Cuddly, but frustrating)

Advance Wars Dual Strike

Think of it like a turn based version of Command and Conquer. At the base level it is a Turn based strategy game but with the added complexity of combining CO characters and building up their experience and prowess. This combination makes for a very deep and lengthy playing experience. I've already played for over 50 hours and there is plenty still to be done. Rating: Highly Recommended (Deep Enjoyable Strategy)

Hasbro Games Pack

Combines Monopoly, Boggle, Battleship and Yatzee.4 classic board games that we all loved. On the DS however it is poorly implemented. Annoying controls, clunky multiplayer and poor graphics make this a very disappointing title. Rating: Dissatisfying (Poorly Implemented)

Kirby Canvas Curse

A new twist on the classic platformer genre. Rather than controlling Kirby with the direction pad and a series of buttons Kirby is guided through each level with the aid of the Stylus. Painting trails on the screen guide Kirby though a series of obstacles. A surprisingly enjoyable platformer (that's hard to play on the bus) Rating: Recommended(Fun, Addictive and invotative use of Touch Screen)

Posting because I can

Today is quite a depressing day... Although I know we need the rain but it has made it a particularly cold, wet and miserable day.

As Ness was off to work at 7am this morning I trundled along with her so I've been at the office for quite a while and caught up on a considerable amount of stuff. It's making for a long day though and I'm still recovering from being up to watch the Australia v Brazil match yesterday morning. I think I'm going to have to make an afternoon tea break in there somewhere to make it through...

I also had a bad night of gaming last night were my hands seemed to be disconnected from my brain and I just couldn't get far though anything without getting frustrated... Finished another chapter of RE4 but not without it's share of reloads!

Well enough with the procrastination... back to documentation! Yay!

Brazil 2 - Australia 0

Well it wasn't everything that we'd hoped for. It was still a good performance against the world champions and we were unlucky not to land one of the chances in the second half in the back of the net.

All in all it was a pretty entertaining game to watch. Ended up watching it at Gilhooley's in the city because the line was down the street to get into the Union Jack. Atmosphere wasn't bad but no where near the crowd I would have expected.

Unfortunately work still calls tomorrow, so it's time to go to bed (because I watched the Japan v Croatia match before hand, of course) I'm really starting to hit the wall.

Surely not

Surely I can't be the only person in the world who finds this just a bit, creepy, strange, weird, frightening and slotting somewhere into "don't you have better things to do?"

This was taken from The University of Texas:

A University of Texas scientist has grown a living "brain" that can control the video game Quake 3: Arena made by id Software, allowing scientists to study how brain cells compute and deal with sensory input.

The "brain," a group of 50,000 nerve cells taken from a dog and raised in a Petri dish,  lets scientists observe brain functions at the cellular level in real time. Scientists hope to better understand how the brain deals with sensory input which may lead to treatments for certain types of blindness and brain trauma.

....

Location awareness, collision detection, and eventually enemy location data is fed to the "brain" through the feedback system. The neurons analyze the data and send signals to the game controls. After several trials the neurons progress to the point where they can actually navigate a level and engage an enemy, usually a simple computer controlled character, called a bot, included in the game.

I am taking this with a grain of scepticism,  I think half hoping it's a hoax.

It just doesn't sit well with me. I can't help but think of Peter Chung's episode in The Animatrix, Matriculated. Also I feel a little uneasy about the fact that after 9 hours of learning the "brain" could fight a bot in Quake 3, what happens when the brain becomes more self aware and discovers it's just trapped in an artificial world?

I also can't help but think this whole thing started something like this :-

Student A: "Hey man wouldn't it be awesome if the AI in Quake 3 was better?"
Student B: "Yeah like you were playing against real players?"
Student A: "Wouldn't it be cool if we could, like, have a brain controlling players?"
Student B: "We could hook the brain straight to the computer!"
Student A: "That would be so cool!"

And here we are... Dog brain playing Quake....

Australia v Brazil

Heading out to watch the Australia v Brazil match tonight.

Fortunately I don't have an early start for work tomorrow so the 2am game isn't going to harsh tomorrow. (I do feel sorry for Ness who is going on Project Management training though)

I'm not going for the unreal hopes of a win. I'm just hoping for a goal and the dream of a draw!

GO! THE SOCCEROOS!

I am going to look optimistically at the game based on this news from the World Cup Blog though...

While you are make your last minute predictions for today’s World Cup matches, you might want to take into consideration the alignment of Mars and Saturn. According to astrologers in India, this rare planetary alignment that occurs every 18 years will lead to a “surprising outcome” for the Brazil and Australia match and for the World Cup in general.

At least there is hope for us in the stars!!!

Who needs Joga Bonito? We've got Guus Hiddink and Tim Cahill!

GO! THE SOCCEROOS!!!!