At the best of times, when you have a list of errands to do, you want to get them done as quick as you can. Even if you have little to “return home” for, you find any delay an irritation.
Today was one of those days when a delay just waited around every corner. Queuing with my fiancee to get her phone back from O2 – the third time it’s been back, yet nothing seems to be done save for a software update that solves the issue for two weeks. So the phone goes back last week, after waiting at least 20 minutes in a queue for an available spot (3 people being served)… today, we checked to see if it was back, seeing how O2 didn’t contact us last time to say our handset was back.
So we get there just after 11.15 and queue… we’re at the front, with 3 people being served. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. And as it came to 12, we walked out the door, as we had other issues to deal with elsewhere (that was painless, just had to go back for someone’s neverending lunch break to find out something that had never been communicated and was really quite urgent!)
Another trip to the O2 store saw… THE SAME PERSON STILL BEING SERVED an hour later, with the queue now out of the door. We left for a coffee and returned 20 minutes later, this time at the front of the queue, but with “all available advisors” still serving people. 20 more minutes, we FINALLY got served. And this isn’t an isolated incident with this O2 store; every time we’ve been, we’ve always had to queue, regardless of the time or day.
That same store is closed for an hour’s training soon. They’ll need a lot more than that!
I’ve always been a kind of tech-savvy person… so it’s surprised even me that I’ve held off this long. Perhaps the bad word that the original, 2G iPhone had put me off somewhat – after all, I never saw the point of releasing a 2G handset in a country where 3G (and even HSDPA) was becoming commonplace.
So, when my Sony Ericsson K850i’s screen died a few weeks ago, I thought I’d take the plunge and grab the new iPhone. Not usually a fan-boy, I found myself the first in line outside my local O2 store on Friday morning, and, despite being in a queue of five come opening time, was the first to take the new handset home. So, while everyone else in store was arguing over buying out their contracts to upgrade, this was my first ever Apple handset… and what do I think of it?
In my “research phase”, my biggest worry was over battery life – and purposely on the first charging cycle, I used only the basic functions – camera, text, internet (WiFi, 2G and 3G) and some calls… and managed to get the battery to last from 2pm Friday when it was first fully charged and unplugged, through to 11pm on Saturday night (not bad for a first cycle of a smartphone). Today, a long period of time was spent playing games on the handset, with Bluetooth and WiFi also on, meaning the battery lasted about nine hours; again, for a non-typical usage, I was impressed by that.
One of the biggest assets I’ve found so far is that, unlike my last “smart phone” (do you count a Viewty as smart?), it really does throw everything into one. As part of my move down London, I’m migrating my e-mails over to GMail – and the handset is doing a bang up job of merging my contacts, emails and calendars over from GMail. Nevermind the whole Google Maps, and the GPS (which, irritatingly, throws me as somewhere in Seaham; I guess that’s the mobile phone tower triangulation, rather than true GPS). Combined with the apps, I’m finding this a real benefit, with traffic jam warning apps (Traffic UK), London Underground planners (Tube Deluxe) and even humble weather apps using the GPS to put my location down to a tee, before customising the information based on that.
Gaming has been pretty inspired too; be it a Flash game like Paper Toss, to Peggle (which hands down beats the DS version)… or FS5 Hockey, a touchscreen version of air hockey, which works surpisingly well with 2 players on one handset. Perhaps weirdly, the first thing I did with the handset aside from as a phone, was cook dinner. All Recipes UK is seemingly the same as All Recipes’ US app, but with UK-recognised measurements (grammes rather than cups, for instance); making a cracking spaghetti bolognaise with a twist!
So from the first weekend with the 3GS I’m impressed – let’s see how it handles a long drive down to London next weekend, where it’ll be put through it’s paces – hopefully with me using stuff like Qype to find and discover new places to go/see/eat! Follow me on Twitter, @MackemMan, for more day by day stuff with the 3GS!
Thursday night saw me make my first trip to the O2 Arena, to see Nickelback (with Black Stone Cherry as support). Jen had been there when it was the Millennium Dome, but this was the first time I’d even been to North Greenwich…
Anyway, as for the place, as a self contained complex, it was ideal, if not a little pricey. I was a little anxious over the fact that only one tube line serves the arena, so if the Jubilee goes down, you’re knackered… but the fact that it was half an hour’s tube ride from our hotel (the only one I know of where you have to LEAVE the hotel, cross an alleyway, then re-enter with your keycard to get into your room!) was pretty cool.
Once we stepped into the O2, we were greeted with an O2 stop (duh!) and a merchandise stall where there were the obligatory £20 Nickelback tees, £18 thongs (huh??), £60 hoodies (wha?) and £70 ice hockey jerseys (WHAT?), before we stumbled across the mini-village that is the O2. It’s quite handy for those who want to go to a movie or a gig and make a night of it, with the O2 being host to plenty of bars and eateries, including Frankie & Bennies, a Brazilian steak house… and a curiously named S&M Cafe.
Sadly, all we got there was sausage and mash, and no marks… but it was a pleasant experience, being fed, watered and paid up inside half an hour, less time than we’d have spent queueing for some other places!
Our seats in the O2 were quite high up; I’d heard stories of people getting nosebleeds in the 400 blocks… all I can compare it to is the cheap seats I had at the Miami Heat game in April 2008. If you can stand the height, they’re great seats, but they aren’t for the weak of heart!
I’ve heard Black Stone Cherry before, albeit with my only favoured song of theirs being Rain Wizard; but this performance was the epitome of bad acoustics. I could barely hear the songs thanks to an overly-amped series of guitars; Jen couldn’t stand it, yet when the same songs were playedto her back at home, she liked it. Funny that!
Nickelback… well, this was my third gig of theirs, so I knew what I was in for. A good mixture of their current and old songs, although part of me wished they played something off of their pre-Silver Side Up days, while the presence of two covers had me a little annoyed. Highway to Hell was enjoyable enough, with Chris from Black Stone Cherry at least audible this time, while the cover of Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody came across as flat.
Post-show, the joys of the Underground’s crowd control system saw us wait at least 20 minutes before the station was re-opened… where we promptly waited a further 10 to get a train away back to our hotel. Perhaps crowd control is a euphemism for “we’re closing the doors, and will only reopen one of them when we’re ready for you.”
I can’t wait to go back to the O2 for another gig… my move down to London with Jen should make that more of an option than before; although the job hunt will take priority!
What an odd game – huge roars for no apparent reason (until you remembered that Villa were playing Newcastle, and that game kept us up single handedly)!
So Sunderland stay up, and it seems we’re after a new manager. Ricky Sbragia’s quit; and while I will be the first to say I wasn’t a big fan of his tactics, style of management (or lack thereof), I will say this: he is a bloody good coach, and he kept us up when a lot of others would have failed, so fair play to him.
Hopefully Ricky will stay on at the club as we look to move forward with the reported £200m investment from Ellis Short, and with a big name manager. Then again, wasn’t it this kind of big manager, big money talk that led that other club up the road to ruin?
The future starts here – hopefully, we’ll have learned the lessons from those around us in this region!
For those of you into reading, I’m slowly putting some of my old books up on Amazon UK… to view them and to (hopefully) buy, click: http://bit.ly/2jD75
Ever since episode one of Ringside Live was produced in September 2007, you’ll have noticed something of a theme. The show is kept simple, straight forward, and to the point, originally doing show reviews and news, before focusing on the week’s wrestling news and discussion. That was a format we stuck to for over a year (and will continue to stick to!), despite approaches for guests giving us mixed results.
When we finally landed our first guest in December 2008, we still stuck to the same format, with the guest interview leading the show, with the usual mix of news and discussion wrapped around it. Whether the guest was Paul Edwards (from THQ) or Bret Hart, we still stuck to the format, while (obviously) headlining the show with the guest, even if they did start the show off!
It’s come as a surprise then, when we start getting people surprised at how our show goes. Without boring everyone, the live format of Ringside Live works as such – I call into the show’s New York number to host the show, Adam calls in as well, and any callers/guests to the show either have to be pre-taped or call in live, as a guest. Pre-tapes aren’t really an option given the time zone differences, so we made the decision to run most of our interviews live – hence why our show is like an early WWF house show, with the main event early in the card!
Case in point: last Friday’s interview with Gabe Sapolsky. As usual, we kicked the show off with the interview, which went 20-25 minutes. We touched everything to do with Dragon Gate USA’s debut… yet the complaints I’ve had centred about our not covering Gabe’s ROH days. The problem is, since his departure, Gabe has done quite a few interviews (and at least one DVD), all of which had a large focus on his ROH career. Just days before our interview, he did an appearance for Keith Lipinski’s free show, doing an hour which was mostly focused on ROH. So in that respect, a long interview on ROH (a promotion which, as our current survey is showing, isn’t viewed by a lot of our listeners) wasn’t going to be relevant.
But that’s beside the point – for over eighteen months we’ve followed a formula, and judging by the listener numbers, it’s working. We’re getting a steadily growing audience for a show that has largely been guest free, and (for the most part) around 90 minutes in length every week. Through experience, I know that insanely long shows simply don’t get listened to unless you’re there “live”… and trust me, there’s already a puerile, kiddy wrestling “review show” out that goes over two hours a week. We don’t want to add to a niche that didn’t need to be filled in the first place!
For those who have complained about the “news and views” format, all I say is: “who else offers it?” Going only on some of the free shows I’ve stumbled across, you’ve got:
the aforementioned hideously long review podcast generally aimed at “intelligent” fans whose mindset stopped developing at the age of 13. We spend over an hour discussing the week’s news, often offering insight (see our discussion on “Playboy” Buddy Rose’s death on our May 1 show, versus the offering of “aww, that’s sad”)… also, when does a review show stop becoming a review show? The answer – when it just runs down the results of TV shows you don’t watch, and instead spend the time talking about kids TV shows and daytime soap operas.
an interview-only podcast. While the interviews are good, the frequency of the shows are erratic, so they’re not a good source of news
F4W’s free podcast. There’s nothing to complain about here – as a free teaser for the subscription site, it does a sterling job… only thing is, you only get Raw reviews (and some weeks, SmackDown reviews as well), and a limited selection of news.
And my main bugbear – podcasts inspired by “the board”. I’m going to start sounding like William Regal here, so perhaps it’s best if you read it in the same manner as this promo from back in the day… Yes, we started at around the same time as Blogtalk Radio came to significance, by several “boardcasts”… and yes, we do advertise some of our shows on F4W’s “board”. However, we actively try not to be a “boardcast”, purely because the audience for that kind of show is extremely limited. Outside of the subscribers to that website, there’s very little appeal in “the guy that calls that radio show all the time” (no offence, Ed) or two random subscribers pairing off to form their own wacky show, playing “songs” made out of crudely mixed soundbytes featuring hosts of other radio shows.
I digress – the thousands of you who tune into Ringside Live every week know what you’re getting, whether we have a guest on or not. This Thursday, we’re joined live by former WWE and ECW star Dawn Marie (at a special 3pm EST/8pm BST start time). Be there live, or download the podcast through iTunes… or grab the MP3 via the Blogtalk Radio page. We’ll see you there!
It has been a while since the UFC’s license appeared on a console game – over five years, in fact, since UFC Sudden Impact escaped onto the PS2. Since then, the UFC has had its license acquired by a company who knows how to make a fighting game, with THQ appointing Yukes to modify its long running WWE franchise into a UFC game.
Don’t be alarmed though, this isn’t SmackDown inside an eight-sided steel cage. This is far more complex than any SmackDown game has been. This is THQ’s first attempt at a UFC game in what is a four year license (the game will come out over two years since they signed their deal in January 2007), yet THQ have done more in their two years than Midway did in their development of TNA’s Impact game.
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As you’ll know by now, the UFC demo is out – it’s around a 600Mb download on the PS3 and Xbox 360 online stores, and it is worth the time taken to download it. You get two fighters in it, with Chuck Liddell and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua available from the roster of 80+ that appear in the final game; and as you’ve guessed, you’ve got the chance to rewrite history and see if the Iceman can avoid his defeat to Shogun at UFC 97.
From the title screen, you can only pick between the game options, an extremely in-depth tutorial (which you kinda need to read and play through if you want to avoid button mashing), and of course, the exhibition fights. There are no elaborate entrances, after all, THQ would have had to license a tonne of music for the 80 fighters, or at worst, produce generic music to assign to fighters as they meander through the crowd, so instead the game starts with the tale of the tape, which is where everything hits you.
Yes, it’s a “next generation” console, but the graphics on the game are so true to life. The “tale of the tape” is out-dated, thanks to UFC’s recent graphic redesign, but it is pixel perfect, as announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan take you to Bruce Buffer, who has been made to look a little on the porky side by THQ. Still, the in-cage entrances are spot on, and then… it’s the fight.
For the purposes of this, I did the game in three steps: 1) versus a non-existant Player 2, 2) versus the CPU, and 3) versus a real player.
Firstly, the game DOES need you to go through the tutorials. Yes, you can play the game button mashing it, or even by pausing every other second to look at the move list a la any other fighting game. In a nutshell, the four face buttons do weak strikes, combining them by moving the left stick or pressing L1/LS will make them a strong strike. In the demo, you can pull off some wacky moves, like a spinning backfist or a Superman punch for Liddell… or for Shogun, a jumping knee strike. All in all, a very varied moveset considering the limitations that THQ have had us work with on SmackDown.
Grappling and takedowns are all down to the right thumbstick – there are variants, but the basic double leg is L1/LS and moving the right stick towards your opponent (a traditional clinch is just a flick of the right stick, while you can modify takedowns either way by using the shoulder buttons). From the ground position, it gets a little weird – the face buttons deliver strikes (obviously, no kicks in some positions), while clicking the right stick will pull off a submission in some positions. To move from position to position, you need to move the right thumbstick in a variety of 90-degree-plus motions, very few of which are orthodox. So if you’re used to pulling off, say, the dragon fireball in Street Fighter, you’ll need to start those rotations in a different position.
If you’re not up on your half guards, rubber guards, and fire guards (err…), then this may be a little perplexing, but a few exhibition fights will warm you up into knowing what goes where, and also how you too can start on the ground and slam a guy on his back. I’ve also had the (misfortune) of being piledriven by my opponent, which isn’t a nice experience!
So, after a few games vs a nonexistent second player, I took on the CPU, which is where I found the first tweaks that THQ need to do. In the demo, on easy, the CPU is extraordinarily easy to take on. So much so that my fights hardly got past the first round… thankfully, the CPU isn’t a total dunce on the harder settings, but I can see easy being, well, too easy for most.
Finally, I took on a “real second player”, in the form of my fiancé. To put it bluntly (and Jen will admit this!), it was a fight between a button masher and someone who tries to do all the moves, and I got my rear end kicked. Until you get the block timings down, you are open to pretty much everything, including (bizarrely) taking a kick that stuns you as you attempt a double leg takedown.
Then again, this probably highlights how delightfully random the game is. Just as in real life, you can throw a series of punches and kicks, and earn an instant KO. Other times, it won’t even stun you. Sometimes you can lock your opponent in a submission right out of the gate and win, others he’ll smash the face buttons or wheel away on the right stick to fight it off… and bizarrely, you can make your opponent lose while he’s on top of you (strong strikes do indeed rule). While there is an option to turn on a stamina meter, this game is best played with it turned off – in real life, you don’t see them, so why should you in the game?
For me, the meat and potatoes of this game will come in its career mode. The random one on one fights will outlive their usefulness, and this game needs a solid career mode for it to be worthwhile. As the SmackDown series has shown, people will pick their favourite fighter and go through career mode once, and then that’s it. The weight classes will probably force players to do this several times to win the respective belts, but beyond that, and a good create-a-fighter mode, this has the unusual distinction of being a highly anticipated game that could be a home run, or could be a huge flop. If the career mode is a letdown, will online save it? Either way, the demo is promising enough to make me pre-order this – and from THQ’s point, hopefully many many more are of the same view.
**UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3, Xbox 360) is released in North America on May 19, and in Europe on May 22, 2009**
For a while now, I’ve been into my tech. Pretty much since my first encounter with a computer, as a five year old (remember the old BBC Micros?). So with that in mind, I’m kinda scared to put pen to paper and work out just how much of my (not so, these days) disposable income has been spent on gadgets.
It’s stating the obvious, but the most important gadget in 2009 has to be the mobile phone. Yeah, fire back at me for that… however, I’d bet that when it comes to getting a handset, you spend more time than is considered sane looking at what your phone will do. As a self-admitted network whore, I’ve had more than my fair share of handsets. Ever since my first bulky Philips Diga handset, through to my Motorola V2288, to the Sony Ericsson T200 (through to the K800 then a K850i that I have now), through to the Nokia N80 and the LG Viewty… I’ve been kinda slow to get on those bandwagons.
At first, I didn’t want my phone to do anything but make and receive calls. As that grew to texts, browsing, photography, the choice grew, and so did the headaches. Cases in point:
- The Nokia N80 had a tonne of good features – a decent web browser, the best camera available at the time, and Wi-Fi (before that was ever popular). Problem was, if you used any of them, the battery quickly died, so it wasn’t exactly a good “portable” phone, especially if you were bound to be away from a power socket for any length of time. The end of my Nokia relationship came when the phone, now out of warranty, decided to lock up for a whole minute every time I sent a text message. NOT GOOD!
- A brief spell with a K800 saw me jump to 3, and get an LG Viewty – a cracking touch-screen phone, at least, that’s what I’m told. In my experience, 3 is a horrible network – despite promising 3G coverage for my postcode, I seemingly live in a blackspot where I can only get 2G coverage… unless I move 100 yards in any direction, then I get 3G. Only thing is, my postcode only covers this house, so I know 3’s postcode checker isn’t exactly reliable. As for the handset itself, well, for a touchscreen it’s good, but I miss having a keypad to use, and I cannot for the life of me understand how I’ve got a big scratch on the screen, despite having applied the protective layer. I still don’t get how a phone that uses a memory card for expanding storage refuses to let me store more than 200 messages, which would be fine, if the LG PC Studio software (or whatever it’s called) wasn’t so hit and miss. In ten attempts to connect to sync up and manage my messages, I’d be lucky if the phone connected once via the USB cable. FAIL!
- I then jumped back to O2 on their Simplicity plan, using a Sony Ericsson K850i… again, not a bad handset, with the best camera on it. Only thing is, AGAIN, with the expansive memory, I’m limited to the number of messages I can store, and for some reason it won’t load text heavy web pages with a few images on unless I opt for “text only” browsing. The only issue I have with the phone is the same problem my fiancé has: rebooting.
My K850i (and her W910i) suffers from random rebooting problems, despite having the phone upgraded to the newest firmware version available. Thankfully, mine only reboots once a month, whereas my other half’s… virtually daily, and often in the middle of calls. She’s had it sent back for a repair, and all is well, but with my 3 contract up soon, and my Simplicity deal able to be cancelled, I’m starting to look for a new handset, and I’m back to the same old issues.
Obviously I want to make and take calls and SMS’. Media messages would be nice (sorry Apple!), while things like a usable browser and a decent camera are also high on the list, alongside battery life and ability to expand my storage using the mini SD cards I have.
A weekend’s research has led me to a few options for O2, given the fact that I can’t upgrade until July…
1. Samsung Tocco Ultra
2. Apple iPhone 3G 2.0 (whatever the new phone is they’ll likely unveil this summer)
3. Nokia N96
4. Blackberry
In that order.
Only thing is, as much as the iPhone is hyped up, I can’t help but feel that I’m going to be left lugging two iPods around, especially given that I struggle to keep any space free on my existing 60Gb iPod. So unless iPhone 3G 2.0 has a tonne of good new features, on top of the already announced MMS (which isn’t new!), that’s out of the window.
I’ve heard mixed things about the Tocco Ultra – it’s a mix of the touch screen and keypad that I love, but for a phone that’s been released for a few weeks, there’s worryingly few reviews available online. Just as well there’s a few months prior to making the big decision over what replaces my not so trusty Viewty and K850i. (Thank God the Tocco Ultra’s got the mini USB power lead that’s slowly becoming the enforced norm for mobiles! Yay for not having a billion old phone chargers lying around!)
