The title explains it all. Sorry the post was a little late, but I couldn’t be bothered the last few days, there hasn’t been anything particularly interesting going on. Well, there has been some stuff going on but not much new in tech or gaming here. Everyone is coming and going – my sister is back from London for a few days, and my brother has escaped to America to see his fiancé. Alan got a pretty nice computer as well, a Dell with the i7 2600 and 6Gb RAM, killer spec. That’s dad’s one in the pic over there – ignore the screen, that was just for testing purposes; it currently has a Dell Ultrasharp 23″ 1080p screeen. I was tempted to build my own desktop, but building dad’s one has satiated my computer appetite for the time being. Plus, on a day to day basis all I really use the computer for is web browsing and light gaming – I can just edit photos and videos at home if I need to, or do any heavy work in general. This laptop is pretty decent for the most part, and has an excellent screen which is always good. The only things that annoy me about it are that the Dell logo snagged on something and was partly damaged, and the charger refused to work after 10 months usage, which is not cool. What do you do with a laptop and no charger? It is essentially reduced to an expensive door stop.

Why am I tired then? Well, after foolishly trying to adjust the fittings (seat, thigh pads etc.) in my kayak without the manual, my boat remained in many pieces for about a month. After watching a video from the Liquid Logic staff, all I really had to do was loosen a couple of screws, rather than take the whole damn thing apart! This was the Liquid Logic Jefe I bought back at the start of August, and have only been out in a couple of times. Now the boat is pretty much properly adjusted, and tonight was it’s first proper run. The Lagan is just across the road from us, so very handy for access. Dad and I were out for a good while, and after many rocks and low water levels, we still managed to get further up than ever before. By the time we were paddling back down, it was pitch black, and I was completely soaked from sliding off a bank into the river. It was pretty fun all in all, but I’m useless at carrying the boat so I was completely wrecked by the end of it.

On the keyboard front, I’m not sure whether to go with a Model M from the states or Germany. There is so much choice, but all I want is a dirt cheap one, in crap condition that I can work at. Please don’t charge me more for cleaning the keyboard, something I could happily do myself for free, or for some other obscure mod that I don’t need. The Endurapro would be the dream model, but seriously, it costs way too much for a keyboard. I’ve never actually paid any amount for one before – all mine have either been included with a computer, or obtained from a family member or someones workplace. Enough with keyboards, what else has been going on you ask. Or maybe you do not…

On the gaming front, I was playing Halo: Reach for a few matches last night, before Xbox Live decided it no longer needed to work, leaving me to piss about on Firefight for hours trying to get the achievements for 200,000 and 1,000,000 points. It turns out being god like and indestructible gets pretty boring after a few thousand kills, so I gave up after 200k and abandoned the 360. For those of you who haven’t played Reach, Firefight mode is just wave after wave of enemies who get increasingly harder as the game goes on, and there is a scoring system with similar medals to the multiplayer. It is fun, but way better with two people. Bear in mind here that the only reason I could even be bothered playing it was because of the lack of Live. (I figure Microsoft doesn’t care about me since my subscription ends in a week; they just seem like that kind of company)

That should probably wrap it up. I do have number of projects I’m going to try and work on, including rehousing an Xbox 360 to try and bring it back to life, though where to house it is still being decided. And I still need to make a pizza peel and door for the oven outside, which also needs plastered. There’s way too much to do before going back to university. For now, I’m going to watch some more of Parks and Recreation series 3. Farewell!