Ginger DJ Rob

Very bored today hence two blog entries. I must also be missing our old cat to have come across these videos. Watch them in order from top to bottom.

HD heaven Last week was a shock to the bank balance. I took the plunge to buy our new HD television, getting the Sony Bavia 40" KDL-40Z4500 from the Electro-Centre . I realised that prices at some places were going up after the January promotions, other places were running out of stock, plus I figured prices would only go down in the summer when they're about to replace the model. Having ordered it Tuesday night we received it Friday afternoon. Friday evening was setting up the 40" monster connecting the Sky box, PS3, Wii and DVD/HD recorder. Watching Blade Runner Blu-Ray was amazing picking up details I'd never seen before and colours so rich, it was like a different film. The demo of Resident Evil 5 looked amazing as well with a deeper level of detail. I tried a normal DVD connecting via the HDMI lead and the picture quality again impressed. A couple of disappointments though with one of them almost rectified. The Wii image was a little blocky but this was through ...

Inspired by the Extreme Dreams TV programme with flesh-eating bug contracted adventurer, Ben Fogle our Peru plan went into action as we decided to look for a worthy challenge before April. I've got to say though, however interesting the challenges are on that Fogle show (usually 6:30pm BBC2), they don't half string out the content with their every 5 minute summary of what's just happened followed by a preview of what's coming up for 5 minutes. The end result is about 10 minutes per episode and 20 minutes repeated highlights and countless reminders of why, where and who. Ok, rant over and we're going to Snowdon for our anniversary in March. It's about 4 times smaller than the heights we'll be encountering but if we can survive a couple of peak visits we'll feel a little more confident about it all. Found this place to stay to rest our weary hoofs called Penmachno Hall . Getting a catsitter is proving a little tricky and feel we've asked our saintly ne...

Christmas Day was an in-law family affair with Kev and Karol, Donna and niece, Morgan plus Viv bringing along one month old Amy. Lunch was a stuffing of turkey and enough vegetables to sink a ship. My present to Morgan went down rather more better than first thought with a can of fake snow (as pictured) which she used to create many creative pictures. The Wii Board came out later between more eating and Wallace and Grommit etc. Below, I've tried to review the games we bought with it based on a number of sessions over the Christmas holidays. Wii Fit is worth getting though only the committed will really gain from it. Its the gaming equivalent of the sandwich toaster, which after the family and friends Christmas could easily be a dust collector if you dismiss the quick fitness evaluation and instant games. It's quite amusing comparing your social circles with it's perceptive Wii Fit Age calculator. I consider myself above average for fitness so it was quite complimentary ran...

Celebrated with a special Brighton restaurant visit to Gars and treated Kerry to a champagne breakfast and present marathon. To relive her sky diving experience, I've bought her a trip to an indoor place offering a similar thing without the 10,000ft flight. A Peru trip guide, a gardening book, a ring, a CD, Tom Ford perfume and this little guy below. She also received a cheeky gift of Mario Kart with wheel (though some might think this was really for me). Sunday was a lazy day apart from re-ordering the house with the builders demolishing the living/dining room wall the next day and us, ripping out the stairs cupboard paneling. The evening should have been a relaxing time enjoying our new kitchen until Kerry asked me to drain the spaghetti. Our kitchen sink was one of the outstanding things to be installed so any waste water needed to go outside. After unlocking the back door I picked up the pan and colander then tipped accidentally towards my hand. As you can imagine the boiling w...

Last week was just a blur of coming back from work, having tea, DIY, sleep then repeat so it was a welcome break to see Kev and Karol. We collected them after we dutifully attended our neighbour’s fireworks party. One of the neighbours attending was Mr.Super-fit (not his actual name) who was training for the Iron-man challenge , a triathlon which includes 180km bike ride, 3.8km swim and running a marathon after all that. Good luck mate! Christmas came early as we realised that we’d accumulated over £110 of Nectar points so we bought our joint present early from Argos, a PS3 60GB model with Heavenly Sword and Resistance: Fall of Man . No point wrapping it and waiting for 8 weeks but we managed to get through the rest of the weekend without opening box by Sunday evening when K & K left. Saturday night was an organised firework display at Hove then got wasted with conversation on Blofeld, chairs and whether you could get arrested after searching for terrorist related words – how l...

I've discovered a fine website which showcases the coolest designs on anything. It seems that anyone can contribute to the NOTCOT website with your hot spot. As you scroll down your wallet and credit cards wil l run for cover or, in a positive, giving way, you might find that perfect Christmas present! Gentleman Pac-man (as pictured) Mario does superman-like comic Manga style Good vs. Evil Table Football Very creepy child abuse adverts

After returning from our NZ trip and facing a £120 mobilephone bill it was nice to finally get some payback from Orange. My contract was up for renewal and I could finally replace my ancient Nokia 6680. Eighteen months is a long time in the mobile world and I’m lapping up the new functions that my new Sony Ericsson P990i can do. I think the best bit so far is the Wireless connection so I can use the neighbours (naughty me), my work’s wireless and any café or pub offering it for free. Plus they’ve promised £100 credit for my old phone. Still Orange is still pissing me off having not reconnected us to the broadband. The other shopping task on Saturday was exchanging my new specs. I love my Danish designer glasses but since summer, the blue plastic bits started to melt near the side of my head/right ear. The only reason for this is my skin/hair/sweat/whatever is toxic causing things to melt. It can’t be anything to do with how I hold a phone as I use my left side so no radioactive t...

Last week was the games industry’s yearly showcase which normally I get quite excited about. However with all the moving, new job and lack of broadband at home (I’m this short of writing a letter to Watchdog at the moment), keeping an eye on all this has proved too difficult. What I have seen has proven that Nintendo are still on top of their innovation game. Pictured is their new hardware gizmo, project-named balance-board for their next big, open to all generations software – Wii Fit . Yoga is being demonstrated here otherwise you could use it as a step machine. However one 3 rd party developer has seen the potential to develop it with extreme sports i.e. snowboarding, skateboarding etc. The other game to create a crappy holiday-countdown-like-thing to bug your work colleagues is Resident Evil 5 . Ok so it will mean bunging out for PS3 but it looks sooo cool. Either the makers have been watching 28 Days/Weeks Later or have decided zombies should run now. GameTrailers.com has a t...

Second week of work benefited from our own bed. Yes, we’re both finally in Brighton thanks to Kev and Karol lending a hand with the moving. No more Ocean Village and low flying aircraft. It’s slightly materialistic and sad to admit it but having a few more familiar thing and furniture around you cheers me right up, including our bed. The move was slightly hampered by the storage area having all the essential stuff at the back but by around 9pm Saturday we were eating a well-deserved local take-away curry to an almost settled flat. Still adjusting to the new job and new campus – it’s not quite as good Southampton I’ll have to admit. On Tuesday I decided to sort out my fitness regime and called the Brighton branch of GKR, my old karate club. Turned out that the class I wanted to go was about 12 miles away and was a ‘once only invitation’ from the regional sensei. Didn’t quite appreciate the attitude so switched to Capoeira (see the Wikipedia entry ). It was a bit unfair to schedule th...

Brighton has been a mute point lately and with all the excitement of sorting out the New Zealand holiday the new life plan was mentally shelved. Flights have been booked and paid and we’ve almost sussed where we’ll be during our 3 weeks campervan trip. Looking forward to the following highlights:- Helicopter trip and glacier hike Wearable Art show Whale watching Queenstown extreme stuff The whole Brighton drive got rebooted after Kerry spotting some ‘affordable’ houses and the suggestion I continue to work in Southampton until I find a job. Today, it took on another potential opportunity that an estate agent said that demand is so high in our area we could sell in a week and get a lot more than we estimated. I’ll believe it when I see it but a sniff of hope just doubles the appetite. We’ve booked some Brighton house viewings for tomorrow. Watch this space for more news! Obviously looking forward to Hot Fuzz next week as well as The Science of Sleep will be wor...

Ok, Geek Rob here getting very excited with the next generation of video-games. This week is the industry's prime-time show, E3 in Los Angeles . Although I spent half my lunchtime sunning myself on the Uni campus looking at the local ducks waddle around, I've also been looking at videos, hot-off-the-press, where Nintendo and Sony have been showcasing their new wares. Sony has been going through some troubles getting its blu-ray technology in check and had to delay the Playstation 3 release. Will it be worth the wait? First on my shopping list though is the Nintendo Wii with its unique controller and the new Zelda game. Could this be Nintendo's golden ticket? YouTube looks like THE place to see the latest news in video format. Here's what I've been watching and want to share with you in excitment order: Excited - the new Metal Gear Solid 4 game on the PS3 - MGS4 E3 video Very excited - the Tennis game on the Wii demonstrated by Games-god Miyamoto...

Bought an I pod car adaptor for Kerry's birthday and found the operation instructions a bit confusing especially point 4:- 1. Insert some cigarette ends of ipod Auto Kit in some cigarette devices of automobile of yours, and adjust the suitable angle, so that your convenient operation I Pod. 2. Draw back both arms, put your Ipod into and equal to the urgent both arms , let your protection firmly of I Pod among them. 3. Will charge the plug and connect it on the base interface of ipod, in this way you can charge while listening to the music. 4. Choose the transmission frequency of this equipment according to the local frequency situation of radio station, the switch is presetted frequency to stir the frequency band , try one's best to avoid the frequency of the local strong radio station , then open wave band , FM of auto radio , of you, is it search set let auto radio of you receive frequency that you preset automatically to choose, in this way you can listen to iPod st...