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Apr. 26th, 2008 @ 11:15 am Vadrum Meets Super Mario Bros (Drum Video)
Iamawesome
Current Mood: amazed


Holy shit. This video added something to my life I never knew I needed.

A WHOLE FUCKLOAD OF AWESOME.

.:Dominitus:.
Apr. 21st, 2008 @ 03:31 pm Anyone have a spare, decent-ish mobile phone...
Dominitus
Current Mood: okay
...that is unlocked (or an Optus pre-paid), which I could either borrow or purchase off you for a very low price?

My Nokia 7260 is kinda dying. SMS and alarm tones and now the ringer have all started to work intermittently. Since I use the phone for texting and alarms primarily, this is a bit of a problem (not to mention that if the ringer went on it, it'd be totally useless).

Obviously beggars can't be choosers, but I'm after a phone that is as-good or better than the 7260, especially in terms of memory so it can at least hold all my current contacts. I have an old 3215 I could use, but... yeah. Only if this one dies completely. :P

I only need the phone as a temporary stop-gap until the Sony Ericsson Xperia comes out. :) I think that's sometime around June/July.

Anyone?

.:Dominitus:.
Feb. 20th, 2008 @ 05:32 pm An unfortunate and amusing truth.
Dominitus
Current Mood: amused
This is my new desktop wallpaper:

"Duty Calls"


If anyone wants a 1280x1024 copy, I've made a hack-job-one and put it up here:

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

.:Dominitus:.
Feb. 5th, 2008 @ 10:40 am OCD
Dominitus
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Vicarious - Tool
I'm writing up an invoice, and have to charge a client to their file number of 57375. When I come across numbers like these in life, I wonder if anyone else stops like I do, smiles like I do, appreciates like I do, or even knows what the word "palindrome" means like I do. :)

Also, I wonder if silly things like this make other people as happy as they make me.

.:Dominitus:.
Sep. 28th, 2007 @ 04:07 pm Stuntman: Ignition
Dominitus
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Rock This Town - Stray Cats
Tags: , ,
Supposed to be out on either the 27th, today, or October 1st for PS3. I bounced around the CBD at lunchtime, but no one had it on the shelf.

The 360 version of Stuntman: Ignition is the first game, alledgedly, to use the Live headset as a game mechanic (others, including me, would say gimmick) instead of just for Live online chatter.

I don't think the PS3 version of the game supports this feature, and it maxes out at 1080i as opposed to 360's 1080p.

I think I'm going to skip this title for the PS3 and buy it on the 360... when I own one. The reasons for owning one keep piling up though, so... maybe post-Christmas or something.

.:Dominitus:.
Sep. 28th, 2007 @ 12:11 pm more lolcats
Dominitus
Current Mood: amused
Long story short, I wanted to add the Playstation.Blog website's RSS feed to my LJ flist, which meant I ended up browsing some of the other syndicated feeds and noticed icanhasacheezburger.com was syndicated. Queue me browsing through the website and giggling a lot, but these two jumped out at me and really made me laugh - had to repost them here:

128297246539688750andthetrogdor.jpg

and

128296977529376250ohhaideezgo.jpg

.:Dominitus:.
Sep. 17th, 2007 @ 10:28 am F**K HDV
Dominitus
Current Mood: annoyed
Tags: , , , ,
The harsh lessons just keep on coming.

On Friday, before I left work, I set an export running. The idea was to convert my current HDV timeline in Final Cut Pro out to an .m2v MPEG2 file ready to be burned off on to SD DVD. I knew this would take a long time, which is why I set it to run over the weekend.

I'm not 100% sure what happened, but it looks like either Final Cut Pro has crashed and stopped sending data to compressor, or it was going much, much, MUCH slower than I'd anticipated. When I got in this morning, it was saying there was 361 hours remaining, and rising. Final Cut showed up as 'Application Not Responding'.

I quickly read up on some other methods of outputting it, and the 'easiest' way seems to be to let FCP do all the transcoding from HDV to DV. I kicked off the output, but when it said it would take 11 hours, I pulled the plug on that one too.

Now I'm going to try exporting HDV straight to tape, and then re-importing the footage as DV. Usually this is time-intensive, but since our current timeline is short, it's not all that bad. It's certainly shorter than 11 hours.

God damn I hate HDV. I've learnt my lesson. No more editing in native HDV. From now on, AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec), DV, or bust. Even Uncompressed 10bit footage handles better than this crap.

.:Dominitus:.
Sep. 13th, 2007 @ 12:30 pm A Way Out
Dominitus
Current Mood: good
Current Music: Can't You Hear Me Knockin' - The Rolling Stones
After two weeks of seemingly dark and depressing spelunking, there's some light at the end of the tunnel. I'm quite bouncy and happy at the moment, because I can finally see the end of this project - it's getting closer, and those two weeks are as hard as this bitch is gonna get. It's all downhill from here.

I suppose the other reason I'm a bit happier is because I finally get to play with some toys I've been given for this project - massive high-res satellite photos and Melways scans - to do some creative aesthetic work, rather than cover-interviews-with-overlay work that has been keeping me so unhappy.

I hope everyone is doing well today. I find myself constantly refreshing my LJ friends page and various forums lately to break up the monotony of this project, but there's only so much updating people can do. Comment this post if you're bored, and not going to post! ;)

Take care all,

.:Dominitus:.
Sep. 12th, 2007 @ 06:45 pm I am not famous on teh internets
Sin - Trigun
Current Mood: cheerful
But I got a submission posted up on Kotaku for the very first time today, regarding the upcoming firmware release for PS3 and PSPs. It's not much, but it leaves a warm feeling in my stomach! ^_^



... of course, that could also be the wine. Hmm. Either way! :D

.:Dominitus:.
Aug. 19th, 2007 @ 11:04 pm PS3: Overview so far.
Dominitus
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Motorstorm
Tags: , ,
Right, so I suppose it's about time for the update regarding the PS3. Forgive the randomness, I'm just gonna talk about stuff as it comes to me.

Thankfully, I'm struggling to find bad points about the machine. At the moment, there is a lack of above-average games. There are five that interest me in some way, and I already own two of them: Resistance: Fall of Man, and Motorstorm. The other three are Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ridge Racer 7 and The Darkness. Racing games come low on my list of wants, so although Ridge Racer 7 would be a worthy purchase, I won't be owning for quite some time (if ever). Ninja Gaiden Sigma, while really fun, is a re-hashed version of an Xbox game and doesn't sport next-gen graphics, so it's not really worth the current price tag. The Darkness would be the only game I'd buy right now, but it still has its drawbacks - I don't like the time/ammo wasting of having to bust all the lights, and I find the controls a little awkward. But it looks and plays great aside from that, so if there were no promising titles once I'd finished with Resistance, it'd be the one I'd go for. But I have friends who have it on their Xbox 360... so I might not have to buy it to play it.

Integration of online gaming and the Playstation Store for free is a massive bonus. There's already a fairly extensive number of videos, music clips, game demos and addons to download, and enough free content to keep me satisfied. I played Resistance online already, and it was just smooth and flawless... plenty of servers and players, excellent pings... so I'm extremely happy about that.

Limited web browsing is also welcome and handy although it isn't foolproof - I can't access yahoo mail, but it's the only site I've had a problem with so far. Also you can only open 6 browser windows for some reason.

Can also plug my USB mouse and keyboard in if needs be - good for online chatting (although I haven't tried that aspect of it). It also recognises all the USB devices I've used so far, but to be fair that's not many. It gives every indication of reading most any USB key/storage device, though.

Charging the wireless controller is easy - just plug it in via USB and it begins to charge. You can use it whilst it charges. It doesn't seem to take a long time to charge either, but it lasts for 2 or 3 days' worth of playtime. Unplug when it's done and the wireless kicks in. No fuss.

It's whisper quiet, and looks nice, sleek and sexy. Black with silver trimmings, just like all my other electrical appliances. ;)

Haven't had a chance to play any Blu-Ray movies on it yet, but I plan on picking up a couple this week.

I've been playing a lot of Resistance. Initially I thought it wasn't a Gears of War killer, and chalked it up as below that. But it's been deceptively entertaining - the more you get in to it, the better the game becomes. So I've decided that in a lot of ways it doesn't match Gears, but it's still an excellent game in its own right. I'll be interested to try out the co-op option at some point. The multiplayer is top-notch, and I'm looking forward to playing a lot of it.

Motorstorm really looks fantastic! It has a great soundtrack, and good racing, so I'm glad to own it. Up until tonight, I had been unable to connect to the Motorstorm online server to play online. Tonight I managed to get through, but I need to download a game update, thus I'm here typing this while that runs in the background. I'll give online play a bash before I head to bed.

There's some good titles coming out in two to three months, as well as the release of the Home online network, and a massive Battlefield 2-like game called Warhawk, which I believe is free with the Home update. So I'm really looking forward to that, as well as some new games.

All in all, I'm happy with my purchase. I'm happy with the deal I got, and I'm happy with where the console seems to be heading. I won't deny that I wish I could be playing Gears with my mates - all who seem to own 360s - but you can't have everything! And as [info]nsanity_au pointed out, we can console-swap now, to maximise our game time on all the decent titles. w00 w00!

Back to gaming before bed. :)

.:Dominitus:.
Aug. 14th, 2007 @ 06:38 pm You decide!
Dominitus
Current Mood: ecstatic
Vying for the title of both "most stupid" and "most awesome" things I have ever done, ever, hot on the heels of my purchase of $500 5.1 speakers and a $1,000 hi-def monitor/TV...

I bought a PS3 today.

And now I'm off to set it up... giddy with excitement and anticipation...

.:Dominitus:.
Aug. 1st, 2007 @ 05:16 pm If you like Guitar Hero...
Dominitus
Current Mood: pleased
...and you haven't read this thread over at scorehero.com, go read it.

In other news, I think I now want a modded PS2 solely to try out custom songs, and the making of. *drools at the idea of playing Tool, NiN and APC songs...*

That is all.

.:Dominitus:.
Jul. 26th, 2007 @ 12:25 pm MGS4:GOTP and MGSO video/article
Dominitus
Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Woman - Wolfmother
Tags: ,
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots gameplay video, and by far the most impressive one I have ever seen:

http://www.jeuxvideo.tv/metal-gear-solid-4-guns-of-the-patriots-video-40810.html

My new reason for wanting a PS3. Apparently Metal Gear Solid Online runs on a similar, if not the same engine. Yet another reason.

If you're a fan of MGS, or of game engine/tech videos, watch that first link.

.:Dominitus:.
Jul. 13th, 2007 @ 09:11 am Is that a 24" in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Dominitus
Current Mood: awake
Current Music: 10,000 Days (Wings Part 2) - Tool
Tags: , ,
Took the monitor home on public transport, carried it two blocks home. My arms are really, seriously killing me today... but here I am sitting in front of 24" loveliness, and I decree it worthy of some pain.

Getting rid of the two CRTs gave me a lot of room - putting the PC under the desk as I've been planning to has given me even more space. I vacuumed up all the dust and cleaned up a bit, then set up the new monitor. It's pretty sweet. Colours aren't spot on, but I'm running the PC via analogue and I can make adjustments. I'll run the Mac via DVI for editing purposes, so colours will be accurate by default. And I'm still getting used to the native brightness of the panel itself. But it's great.

Played the obligatory game of Quake 3, which of course kinda looks like ass in a huge resolution that's not native to the monitor (I think the highest Q3 will do is 1600x1200), so I threw on Half-Life Episode 1 at 1920x1200, 4xAA and 16xAS, and that was pretty cool. The colour shift was bugging me for a bit, but as I said I'll adjust it later. Also checked out some xvids, both from DVD and HDTV sources - I really love the way the HDTV stuff looks. Full-screen and not terribly compressed, it's really nice.

The monitor acts as a USB hub as well, so I'm wondering whether instead of a KVM I could get a USB hub and plug the keyboard and mouse in to the monitor, and the monitor in to a hub, and the hub in to the PC and the Mac? Don't know about the compatibility of all that, nor whether I can feed a hub in to two machines, but if I can't find another solution it looks like I'll be shelling out ~$250 for a KVM.

Still undecided on sound... 5.1 would be lovely, but I don't *really* need it, plus I'd like the ability to play sound from two sources at once, and I can get that from a pair of monitors for about $80. So yeah, undecided.

Anyhow, as usual I'm late for work, so I'd best get moving.

.:Dominitus:.
Jul. 12th, 2007 @ 02:48 pm And yes we do deliver!
Dominitus
Current Mood: geeky
MY BENQ MONITOR ARRIVED.

I haven't taken it out of the box yet, but I'm already in love. I wanna gaze upon its beauty, but I couldn't be arsed re-boxing it and taping it up, so I'll wait until I get home.

YAY! YAY! 1080P. DVI. HDMI. SO HOT.

.:Dominitus:.
Jul. 11th, 2007 @ 01:08 pm God of War 3
Dominitus
Current Mood: okay
Current Music: God of War 2 music in my head
If Sony wanted to shift a billion more PS3s, all they'd need to do is throw some money towards God of War 3.

Seriously. If it came out right after E3, I would practically be forced to purcahse a PS3 just for that one game.
Apr. 18th, 2007 @ 02:08 pm My new toy...
Dominitus
Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: God Given - Nine Inch Nails
Tags: , , ,
I just bought a white Nintendo DS Lite from Electronics Boutique. $189, came with a choice of four free games. I took Sims 2 because it was the best of the lot according to metacritics and other reviews. (That's right Rose... now I can play Sims 2 where-ever I go. It's like your dream come true, only it's happening to me. :))

Also put an order in for an R4 modchip and will soon start shopping around for a 2gb microsd card with which to complement it. I shall soon be an unstoppable DS-playing machine.

.:Dominitus:.
Apr. 4th, 2007 @ 02:29 pm Crysis and Cry Engine 2
Dominitus
Current Mood: impressed
If you're at all in to gaming, particularly FPS's (First Person Shooters), you've probably heard about "Crysis". If you haven't, it's Crytek's new game coming out hopefully in the not-too-distant future. Crytek made "Far Cry" which was an unexpected hit for various reasons. This time around, many people already predict that Crysis will be a massive hit, if not for its game-play then, as was the case with Far Cry, the technological breakthroughs of their engine, the brand new Cry Engine 2.

If you'd like to view some of those technological breakthroughs, I suggest you hit up the Crysis Media Page on Gamespot, and check out the newest video, "Crysis Official Trailer 5", added March 30th, 2007.

If you're not a big gaming geek then it might not have as much impact on you, but I was literally stunned at some of what they've been able to achieve with this engine. The potential is absolutely massive, the immersion levels are unprecedented.

The older trailers, which show more gameplay footage, were good, but didn't convince me that Crysis would be worth spending money upgrading my computer just to play. This technological video, however, is really making me think twice. And with Bioshock just around the corner... my hand may be forced.

In any case... go watch that video. It's crazy.

.:Dominitus:.
Apr. 4th, 2007 @ 10:49 am Eragon Ebay Auction story
Dominitus
Current Mood: tired
I'm digitising a video this morning so I've got a bit of time for a general update.

Even though I got more sleep than normal I still feel kind of drowsy and slow this morning. I missed my stop on the tram in to work, and caught another tram one stop back - one stop is a longer walk than you'd think, AND it's uphill. Still I was late, not that anyone minds. I mind. Which is almost worse, since no one can torture you like yourself.

Anyway, how about some GOOD stuff, mm? Here's a story I've been meaning to write up. I also have another one I've been meaning to write up, but by the time I finish this one, my tape will have finished digitising.

The Eragon Ebay Auction )

I hope the books are good. The auction was certainly pretty cool!

Okay, back to work.

.:Dominitus:.
Mar. 19th, 2007 @ 04:54 pm eBay Rage
Dalek - fux0rz
Current Mood: angry
Argh, fuckityfuckityfuckfuck!

I was going to snipe a Neil Gaiman book off ebay today, and when it got to 15 seconds I typed in my bid and hit the "Place Bid" button, but for some reason my browser decided that it wouldn't make it clickable!!!!

By the time I'd refreshed, re-entered, and click "Place Bid" again, it was gone, and very cheaply too. Fucking ropeable! >_<;;;;

I think Firefox doesn't like eBay's little "Refresh" button. From now on, I'll be refreshing manually. Grrrrrrr.

.:Dominitus:.

edit: fixed typo. Thanks, you Atho! ;P :D