[Cooking] Quick and Easy Pancakes

Pancakes are everybody's favourite.  I've never heard anybody say, "I don't like pancakes". Ever. You simply won't hear that sentence in your lifetime.

History of the Dish: Originally, pancakes (derived from the latin, "pan" and "cake") was simple a way for poor Scottish farmers to use up a stale cake. Cake is a staple food in Scotland, but after a few days, they would be stale. By simply frying the stale cake in a pan with butter, they became edible again!

Over the years, this recipe evolved to replace the actual "cake" with a simple batter of eggs and flour -- but the name "pan cake" still remains!

What you will need:

- Eggs x2 I think (I've forgotten)
- Flour ... I don't know how much. Just tip some in the bowl with the eggs.
- Milk. Again, I guess about 1 cup. Just tip some in and be done with it.
- Lemon juice from a bottle*
- White sugar

* You could also try fancy fillings like jam, or smoked salmon, but for now we'll keep it simple.

 Step 1 - Prepare Batter

Pretty easy. Just mix the eggs, milk and flour with a fork. You might want to use an electric mixer. Or you might not.

Hello little eggy-weggy! Hello there!! Who's a cute little fella then??

Step 2 - Cook the batter

Chuck some butter in a frying pan, heat it up to MEDIUM, not too hot. Then tip in the batter. The real secret to good pancakes is width -- many morons will simply tip in the batter to fill to the edges of the pan. That's where they go wrong! The trick is to tip in only enough to cover half the pan, then tip the pan from side to side to spread it out. Nice and thin.

Let it cook for about a minute, maybe two, then turn it over with a spatula. No need to "flip" it, that's just wanky, and something that "proper Chef's" do to make themselves look good.

Step 3 - Eat the batter

Slap each pancake on a plate in the oven, set to lowest heat. This is to keep them warm while you cook the rest. When you're all done, take them out of the oven, squeeze lemon juice all over them, and sprinkle copious amounts of sugar on them.

Then simply roll them up, and enjoy!

A lovely Mediterranean breakfast!

-Gray

[Minecraft] Survival Island - Day 2

Back to it then. Dug a staircase down into the caves and explored. Found plenty of iron and loads of coal. Heck I even found some redstone which is pretty much useless at this point but I took it anyway:

So now I've got iron and coal up the yin-yang. I made a bucket and improved my little garden. This wheat better grow soon, I'm so hungry I can't even sprint any more:

Grow, my little prettys .... Grow ..... GROW!!!!

Also I found an Enderman roaming in my caves. What a beautiful specimen! Notice the elongated arms, glowing eyes, and cat-like grace of this mystical creature! But since he was randomly moving around blocks in my cave, I immediately slaughtered him. This is MY CAVE, BITCH!

"Sir put down the stone block, and step away with your overly-long arms in the air!"

In the early morning I opened my cave and fought off some spiders, zombies and skeletons that had spawned on the surface. Lots of string ... If I get some more tomorrow morning I'll have enough to craft wool, and then a bed, so that I can skip the nights if I want. Or just make a picture to hang on my cave wall.

I was also happy to get the bones. I made Bone Meal and used it on my 2 limp, soggy saplings that were just refusing to grow into trees, despite a couple of days of bright sun and heavy rain. Voila!

Wood for me! Yum yum. I love wood.

I cut them down and they gave me 6 new saplings. Now I'd have all the wood I'd ever need! BWAHAHAHAHA!! This is getting almost too easy.

-Gray

[Bike] Modification Chapter 4

Nothing too exciting this time. But when I removed the "WEST COAST HONDA" sticker from the rear fender, it left a nasty glue residue. I'm not really a fan of West Coast Honda -- in fact I advise against buying from them -- but that's a story for another day.

It's time to use our friends over at Tyga to fix this unsightly mess:

A few seconds later:

Beautiful! Now everybody can see that my bike has been modified using genuine Tyga Performance parts.

Special thanks to my good friends at Tyga for sending different sized stickers with my order of $130-odd dollars. It's nice touches like that, which make me want to buy from them again.

-Gray

[Bike] Modification Chapter 3

This time I want to show you how to make a significant change to your bike's handling, by tweaking the suspension. Some people believe that actually getting down and dirty with the front suspension can significantly alter a bike's ability to corner -- I disagree.

The main problem with the front forks is that the caps aren't up to scratch. Observe:

Yes they're nice and shiny, but are they really doing their job? The answer is no. So I immediately unscrewed them.

I didn't expect a strange hollow bar to pop out though:

After struggling to fit the new cap, I eventually gave up and decided the bike was a write-off and would never run again.

After a short break and a cup of tea, I returned, and somehow managed to screw in the replacement "high performance" caps from, you guessed it -- Tyga Performance:

Increased responsiveness, stiffer cornering, and a cockpit view that would make Rossi jealous.

Front fork end cap replacements -- just do it.

[Bike] Modification Chapter 2

Hello fellow road-racers!
This episode, I'll be showing you how to complete a fairly simple mod, but an important one nevertheless ...

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, that's right -- the little black oil cap. Boring design, poor aerodynamics, and probably letting my precious oil evaporate! Time to fix that little problem with the help of our friends at Tyga ...

After just a few seconds using my bare hands and spanner or "socket wrench" as the American's call it .... BEHOLD!

A quick test-ride confirmed my expectations -- improved air flow around the bike and increased handling. Cornering feels sharper and acceleration slightly brisker. And all for less than the cost of a trip to Sizzler.

A shiny red cap with "CBR" stamped on it -- what's not to like?

[Bike] Modification Chapter 1

Well it's time to increase the speed, handling, and sex-appeal of my CBR250. I will present each modification in a bite-sized chunk which you can enjoy reading while you munch on some cereal or such-like.

I'm not a master mechanic by any means, but as you will see as you follow along, some mechanical aptitude is required. These are not going to be the kind of modifications that your little sister can do!

Chapter 1 - Brake Fluid Reservoir Cover

Now there is nothing wrong with the factory item, but it just doesn't scream "I'm a highly-tuned race bike" the way I would like it to:

Ho-hum. Keeping the fluid in, but not much else ...

So it's time to get a little help from my friends over at Tyga Performance in Thailand. Since their name contains the word "performance", that literally guarantees that all their products will increase the real-world performance of your machine.

Here is a little something I had shipped earlier:

Sweet little bag of performance.

I unscrewed the factory cover using a "phillips-head screwdriver" (that's the cross type, not the flat type -- ask at your local hardware store if you're confused) and tried to replace it with the new one. The new one didn't need a screwdriver, it needed an "alan key".

Fortunately, I had a few knocking about in the shed. Unfortunately, none of them fit. Fortunately, I used a combination of Blu Tac and tissue paper to make a smaller key fit! ... Unfortunately, it didn't work. So I zipped off to say hello to my friends at Super Cheap Auto, and purchased a lovely set of alan keys. I tightened the bolts or whatever they are, and VOILA!

GOODBYE BLAND, HELLO RACE-STYLE!

I'm sure you'll agree, this little item looks very sweet and sexy! And this simple mod took me no longer than 30 minutes! (travel time excluded).

So, avoid nasty brake fluid accidents, and replace your own factory cover with one of these fantastic after-market performance parts!

-Gray

[Minecraft] Survival Island - Day 1

I thought I would do a little Let's Play but in Blog form, kind of like I started with Order & Chaos before I got bored of it. I've been playing Minecraft on and off for about a year. This entry won't be of general interest unless you're a Minecraft player, or are just wondering what Minecraft is all about. A YouTube video would probably show you that much more clearly, in about 10 seconds, but why watch a convenient video when you can read my long-winded and boring adventures in excruciating detail, right here?

The seed I used was  -8320668148713193150 which you can copy-and-paste into your own game to try this island for yourself. It's small, with 1 tree, 1 sugar cane, some grass and sand, and a (deep) cave. Perfect!

I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Flat ocean as far as the eye could see.

So first thing's first, I chopped down the tree. It only gave back 1 sapling but that's OK. So I replanted that, harvested all the grass and got 5 seeds, grabbed some sand, and headed into the cave entrance to set up my little base.

Ah my new home! A virginal cave, waiting to be entered and defiled. Or something.

I built a workbench. As opposed to a "normal" game of singleplayer, where you can't walk 5 meters without bumping into a tree, this island made me value every last plank of wood. I made a wooden pick-axe, dug out some cobblestone for a living space, and then used that cobblestone to build a furnace. I burned some wood to make a single piece of charcoal, which I delicately turned into 4 torches. So at least I could stop mobs spawning inside my cave tonight. These torches were worth their weight in gold. They were protection from the darkness, the certain death of sitting in a dark cave waiting for a monster to spawn and slaughter you like a pathetic little lamb. I would treasure each and every one of these 4 torches!!

I carefully climbed down deeper into the cave, and quickly came across a few blocks of coal -- I can tell you, I've never been so relieved to find coal. I made some spare torches, chucked a couple around the place to brighten up the mood, and headed back up to the surface to check where the sun was.

It was just past midday and to my surprise, the sapling had grown into a tree already! Bonus. So I chopped the bastard down and replanted the 2 saplings it gave me. Now we're cooking with gas. I made a stone pick-axe, stone sword, and stone hoe. I carved out a little garden space inside my cave and planted the grass seeds. With the 1.8 update, it's more important than ever to have a steady supply of food to keep your health regenerating. I'm not sure if any cows or sheep are going to spawn on this little island and if they don't, I'll need to bake some bread.

Here is my little cave at the end of the first day:

Home sweet home. Workbench, furnace, indoor wheat farm and a hole leading into the depths of the Earth.

Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow.

[iPhone] Review - Pinball HD

[This is an opinion piece on "Pinball HD" by Gameprom. The official website is here.]

Let me just say I've never actually played real pinball. Never interested me before, but I will now jump on the next machine I see -- Pinball HD is awesome!

It's pretty much a real pinball table created inside the iPhone, rather than a pinball game created for the iPhone. The difference is, everything exists in 3D and the camera smoothly zooms, swoops and pans to keep the action on the screen. The ball behaves with completely realistic physics. If the table has a spinny-whirly thing, it doesn't just use the graphics of a spinny-whirly thing -- it actually spins a 3D plate within the table, which sends the ball flying. As far as I can tell anyway. Even the sounds are realistic. Even the little dot-matrix scoreboard animations at the top of the screen are realistic.

For $0.99, you get 3 complete tables. Wild West is the most simple. You can tag targets to get the Bank open, then send the ball up that ramp to bounce around the bumpers, robbing the bank and collecting loads of points. You can hit the tricky entrance to the "gold mine", you'll blast along the rail-cart track and end up with loads of points. You can tag other targets, then hit a hole and you get to "Shoot Dirty Harry" -- if you aim the ball just right, you can hit him and get loads of points. He is actually a little figurine that moves out and along a track. Just like a real pinball table -- the illusion never gets broken.

Ah, wooden surface and cheesy cowboy music! I love this table.

The Deep is my favourite table. You have the gentle ambient soundtrack, the dark-blue colouring, and sweeping ramps, voices that talk to you when you get missions, or hit certain goals. A circle in the middle of the table lights up to track your progress as you complete the "missions", which involve just getting the ball to a certain target or ramp on the table. It's awesome.

Again, this is juts the top-third of the table or so.

 Then there is Jungle which I haven't learnt yet. It almost looks too chaotic, but still seems to be awesome. Wish I took a full-table screenshot for you.

This is only a small part of the table. It's zoomed in, man!

You can force a static complete-table view just by swiping outwards, and re-enable the dynamic camera at any time. You can tilt to landscape and it will seamlessly shift your perspective to a low-down, full-table view, if you prefer. It's all very smooth and polished.

I think the enjoyment of pinball comes from the heavily-themed table with sounds and music, the "pachinko" or luck factor of the ball bouncing around the bumpers, and the skill of completing tasks. Yes it's obviously a skill-based game, since my high scores have been increasing massively as I play more. And it's completely non-violent! Brilliant change of pace.

Finally, I have to mention the scoreboards -- you get local scores, and Game Center worldwide scores. Keeps you motivated to shoot for the top 10! Also, this game has loads of achievements which discreetly slide in from the side when you get them. They are interesting too, like "Pillage $X from the Indian village" and "Hunt and kill 10 sharks" and stuff.

Pinball HD - 5 out of 5
Brilliant!

Increase your power levels, then blast down the ramp and smash open the treasure chest!

-Gray

[Bike] 5 - 6 hours in a day

Can anybody tell me if this is legal and/or safe?

Obviously I'll cut the rope and tie it off. Seems a bit iffy but I'd prefer to not have a backpack on my back for the entire trip.

Also here is my newly-installed aftermarket thermometer:

Ambient air temperature readout -- because you can never have too much information.

All it needed was a spot of blu-tac.

And finally, here is my newly installed "ride timer", aka "stopwatch", aka "wrist watch strapped to the handlebars":

Never forget to take a rest break! Brilliant.

Tomorrow is the ride.

-Gray

[Games] "Dead Island" thoughts

I haven't played this game, I've just watched leptir1's Let's Play on YouTube. Well, the first couple episodes anyway. If I had a good PC or Xbox360, I would buy this game instantly. The combat looks brutal and awesome. I'm not saying the game sucks. But honestly, it just proves how "dumbed down" modern games are becoming, "spoon feeding" every single little thing to the player. Dead Island, if made with some open-world style gameplay, could have been absolutely epic. Instead you find yourself picking up 2 energy drinks every minute, for "health boosts". You drink a shot of alcohol, immediately you're drunk and have blurred vision. Don't worry, in 30 seconds it will be worn off. Oh that's nice and realistic. Imagine if you could wander around the island as you wanted, trying to survive and find a way off, talking to the odd NPC but not being restricted by them ... Not doing stupid little jobs for them. "Bring back the keycard from location X" Oh SHUT UP! We've been doing stupid fucking missions like this for 20 years in games! Give it a rest.

Anyway, here is the bullshit things I saw in the first 20 minutes of gameplay:

- Bags everywhere in the hotel. Each one has a few dollars in it. So stupid and repetitive.
- Screen flashes up "Find a Weapon". Right next to you, a boat oar starts glowing. I mean come on! Let the player find a weapon themselves! Put them in a scary, survival situation, and then let them think and improvise their way out of it. Don't say "Find a Weapon" and then immediately shove it down their throats, "HERE IS YOUR WEAPON, IT'S GLOWING! PICK IT UP!" We're not idiots.
- Audio recordings to "collect". <sigh> This is being done to death in some many FPS now.
- You go outside to save some guy. Doesn't matter how long you take to actually go outside, he will still be alive and fighting off a zombie. Then he gets stuck in a "struggle" animation with it, while you kill all the nearby zombies. Then when you're ready, you help him out. Don't rush -- he won't die ....... Why don't they make it realistic and if you don't rush, he dies? Then have consequences in the storyline? Everything is so fucking A to B to C, no deviations, YOU WILL DO EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE SCRIPTED FOR YOU! .... Pathetic.
- The accents. Are they supposed to be Australian? I don't know. They're absolutely PAINFUL - go and watch leptir1's video if you haven't heard them. (leptir1 Dead Island on YouTube).

Cheers all, I'm out.

- Gray

Why do Pears still exist?

Somebody tell me what is the point of the pear? We have the apple. The pear is a weak imitation. It's like a mushy, bad-tasting apple.

Why doesn't somebody say, "Right, let's get rid of all these pear trees, and replace them with apple trees." Suddenly the world is flooded with apples, they start selling for about 10c per apple, and now everybody can enjoy cheap, healthy apples! Even unemployed people.

There is literally no need to keep growing pears, and it offends me.

-Gray

[Games] "Halo 2" is still awesome

Just replayed a level in Halo 2, for shits and giggles. I must have forgotten how good this game is. I'm attacking some ruins, shooting little aliens left and right with my machine guns, and the nearby Marines are backing me up, making funny comments in their Australian accents. It's brilliant!

Then some drum music kicks in, and I'm driving over some mountains in the old Warthog 4x4 thing. Then I'm fighting a massive tank thing, somehow kill the guy driving, now I'm driving it! Some purple things called "Ghosts" or "Banshees" or something, start swooping down from the sky, so I'm blowing them up with massive balls of plasma from my tank, being careful not to run over my 2 little Marine friends who are shooting wildly between wisecracks. It's all very entertaining stuff.

Now my tank is half crippled and shooting sparks as it drags along the ground. Eventually I jump out, leap up onto a wall and hijack a Ghost, immediately I get rammed full speed by another Ghost and he's pushing me along, while my gun blasts the absolute shit out of the big alien riding it, suddenly BOOM it blows up, and kills me with it! Epic. You don't get flexible gameplay like this in today's games! (At least, I assume you don't ... Well maybe you do, what do I care?).

If you own it, go back and give it another play. It was 10 out of 10 back in the day, and it's just as good today.

Dual wielding energy pistols. Cortana talking shit in your ear. Elites circle-strafing you. BAM!

-Gray

[Games] Original Xbox - Top 5 Games

I bought a 360 but it died within a year, so I plugged in my original Xbox. Still running strong after all these years. So I've had it going again for the last 18 months or something. I don't play it often, but it's there when I need it.

I have 58 games, but here are my top 5:

Doom 3
  More atmosphere than a London dance club, and monsters more gruesome than Wizard Discount Pharmacy customers. You just can't beat this game for sheer adrenalin. Keep your Silent Hills and your Resident Evils -- exploring a darkened base on Mars with a torch is unbeatable.
  People either love it or hate it, though.
 
GTA: San Andreas 
  I don't need to explain this choice. Vice City is also still enjoyable to this day.


Sonic Mega Collection
  Classic gaming at it's best. Sure, I spent a few years with the Atari 2600, but I really remember the Sega Master System as my first proper console. My mate had a Mega Drive. Sonic the Hedgehog was just as great on both platforms.

Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast
  Brilliant arcade racing. Don't worry about silly things like "realism", when you can power-drift for 30 seconds around a ridiculous track with graphics that are good even by today's standards. It's a winner.

Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly
  I don't play this often due to it being slow-paced and a bit too scary, but I have to include it just for being so damn creepy. Explore, follow clues, and occasionally snap photos of horrific ghosts to dispell them. And they have cool names like "broken neck woman". Yes, her neck has been broken.

I also want to mention Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which I just repurchased and is being shipped from an eBay seller. Looking forward to replaying that old chestnut.

-Gray

[Cooking] Scrambled Eggs

Another quick and easy meal, but beware -- scrambled eggs takes a bit more skill. You can't stop stirring the eggs, even for a second. This can make it difficult to make toast, butter it, and zap some baked beans, all using your free hand. For this example, I've skipped the beans, just to keep it simple for you all.

History of the Dish: Scrambled eggs was "accidentally" invented back in 1987, when Dorris Studebaker was making an omelette. Her New York apartment was right under 2 train lines, and her kitchen shook every few seconds with the passing behemoths. This meant that the eggs cooking in the pan couldn't settle, becoming "scrambled", and "scrambled eggs" were born.

Loved the world over, everybody from a champion weightlifter, right down to a neglected Jewish Albanian boy, can enjoy this delicious way to prepare eggs!

Scrambled Eggs in 3 easy steps

What you will need:

- Eggs (2 to 4 for 1 person)
- Butter
- Dash of milk
- Salt and pepper
- Tobasco sauce

Step 1 - Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them up good and proper. Add a dash of milk and other seasonings. While you're doing this, heat up a pan with a massive chunk of butter.

Magnifico! You are just 2 steps away from a delicious meal!

Step 2 - Cook the eggs in the pan. Stir them with a wooden spoon. Don't stop stirring. If you stop, you fail. While they are cooking, somehow make 2 pieces of toast and butter them.

Cook it up boyeee! This is the stuff dreams are made of!

Step 3 - Chuck the cooked eggs on top of the toast, add some HP Sauce (required in every meal I cook), and enjoy!

Get that HP all up in it! Put the salt and pepper all up in the grill!

I will also take suggestions of meals you would like me to cook. Leave a comment below.

-Gray

[Cooking] Omelette

A fairly complex dish for this lesson, but don't be afraid to give it a go yourself! You can only learn by trying new things.

History of the Dish: The omelette was created by French rebels during WW2. The occupying Germans had put severe restrictions on the availability of fresh food, and were replacing it with bratwurst sausages, pumpernickel bread and cheese made from sheep's milk. The French quickly learned how to use simple ingredients from their own backyards, and the omelette was born.

The word "omelette" comes, of course, from the French "au om de le latte", which translates to "chicken's eggs and cow's milk". Delicious!

Omelette and Beans in 3 easy steps

What you will need:
  - Baked Beans. Do yourself a favour -- buy Heinz. Don't settle for some second-rate brand of bean.
  - Two to four large eggs, preferably uncooked.
  - A dash of milk
  - Ham
  - Cheese
  - Tobasco sauce
  - Parsley

Step 1 - Crack the eggs into a bowl, add a dash of milk, and whisk with a fork.

Unfertilised avian ovums! Yum yum!

Now is the time to add your "extras", such as a tiny dash of milk, ham, grated cheese, salmon, tobasco sauce and parsley. Unfortunately, I had none of these ingredients on hand, so I added nothing.

At this point, throw a massive chunk of butter into the frying pan and melt it on a medium heat:

I can't believe it's not butter! .... Oh wait, it is butter.

Step 2 - Tip the mixture into the hot pan and leave to cook for a few minutes. Chuck your baked beans into the microwave to heat up. The reason I use beans is that it means all the major food groups are covered -- vegetables, egg yolk, and butter. Essential balance for good health and vitality.

When the bottom half is cooked, and the top half is still liquid, flip half the omelette over the other half and allow another minute or so to cook. Leaving some runny shit inside is technically OK. You can't get sick from undercooked egg. Rocky used to eat RAW eggs, so don't worry about it. Did Rocky look sick to you?

It may look like a train-wreck, but it's dinner.

Step 3 - Serve on a plate with the baked beans. Brilliant!

Always add HP sauce to every meal. Otherwise it'll taste rubbish.

Now, you just can't get a more quick and easy meal than that, can you? No, you can't.

-Gray

[Bike] Bye bye CBF250 :(

Tonight I watched her being ridden away by her new owner. It was like seeing an old friend move interstate. Or a favourite, long-running TV series coming to an end.

We had some fun times. No bad times to speak of. Apart from that first trip down to Donnybrook when I was freezing and cramped up. Damn I hated you for those last couple of hours!! CURSE YOU!! CURSE YOU TO HELL, FOUL CONTRAPTION OF WIND AND COLD!!!.... Oh, I can't stay mad at you, that wasn't your fault ... <sniff>

I wish I had some photos of our times together ... Learning to ride, passing my test ... cruising the Scarborough coast, checking out the ladies ... Going on group rides ... Nearly getting killed by that old man in his Falcon .... Good times. The memories will live on in my heart.

Let's have a moment of silence for the mighty CBF250, which started me on my long road of motorcycling joy. What a trustworthy steed.

I hope your new home is a good one. I'll miss you, little lady ...

- Gray
PS. PLEASE don't snap your chain in the next few months. I don't need the grief. Thanks.

[Cooking] Sardines on Toast

Let me start my new series, "Cooking with Gray", with a nice simple dish -- Sardines on Toast.

History of the Dish: Originally found in the waters of the Swiss Alps, the sardine has spread around the world due to several unfortunate quarantine accidents. They quickly adapted to salt water, and the oceans around the world are now teeming with these annoying parasites.

Fortunately, they taste great and pack a nice protein hit, so let's cook some up tonight!

The name "sardine" comes from the French "swordine", which comes from the Greek "swordicus", which comes from the Latin "sardine". 


Sardines on Toast in 3 Easy Steps

What you will need: 
  - A tin of sardines, of the brand of your choice. "Woolworths Home Brand" is good at this time of year. I've gone for "King Oscar" -- if it's good enough for a King, it's good enough for me.
  - Two slices of bread. Try wholemeal. Remember that white bread is essentially bleached and processed until it contains less nutrients than cardboard. Never, ever eat white bread.

Let's get started!

Step 1 - Open the tin. Tip the sardines into a warm frying pan. Enjoy that salty, fishy aroma! While they are simmering along nicely, let's move on to step 2 ...

Step 2 - Make some toast. Here you can see I'm using an electric toaster, but feel free to use a grill, open fire, microwave, or any other method you enjoy.

Step 3 - Put hot sardines on top of hot toast.

So easy, and so delicious! Enjoy!

-Gray

[Movie] "Insidious" review

MINOR SPOILERS but nothing that would spoil the movie for you, when you watch it.

You don't see too many completely original horror movies being released. Because it's all been done before. Typically, "Insidious" is a melting pot of themes and techniques from other horror flicks. You've got your creepy kids, strange events that get more full-on as the movie progresses, and a nice (if predictable) twist at the end. You're looking at people running past in the background, kids laughing, baby monitors picking up some ill shit, bloody handprints, and so on.

Brilliantly, Insidious doesn't waste 30 minutes setting everything up. It gets started pretty quickly and snowballs from there. So it's definitely entertaining. There are some real jump-out-of-your-seat moments, and the general build-up of tension is very well done. In particular, the part with somebody walking back and forth outside her window, on the roof awning, made me shake like a little girl.

I lost all my fear towards the end -- I thought they went a bit over the top with some of those final scenes. But the ending was decent so it's still a winner in my book.

One problem I had was with the use of torches, or "flashlights" as they're inexplicably called in America. They never look right in movies, do they? They light up a tiny section of the room. Sure it's scary, but even a $5 Chinese LED torch will light up more than that.

Insidious - 4 out of 5
Not as scary as some IMDb reviews were suggesting, but definitely a good movie. I can't say I wasn't scared for most of it (or I should say, "I was scared for most of it").

-Gray

--- SPOILERS BELOW ---

Questions for anybody who has already seen this movie:

1) What happened to Mr. Stereotypical Goat-Footed Demon Man? After his Spider-Man act, we never saw him again.

2) Why do the ghosts in these movies always seem to be from the olden days? I'm sick of old women with veils, and men in old-fashioned clothing. Why is there never any modern-looking ghosts? Or to go the other way, why is there never any caveman ghosts?

3) Unfortunately, it's yet another movie where some basic combat training would have solved things very quickly. If you're going to go toe-to-toe with a supernatural being, at least learn some basic shit (Krav Maga). Every time we see that Undertaker-looking guy with the demented face, the characters are paralysed with fear. I just wanted them to punch him right in the nose. Lights out, game over, the good guys win. But it never goes down that way in the movies ... 

[Bike] Pulled over in Freo

Got pulled over today, lights and sirens, the whole works. Now I'm not going to lie, I thought about just twisting my wrist and getting away. I wasn't doing anything wrong, but why take the risk when I've got 19kW (25 horsepower) at my command?

Unfortunately, I would have been putting innocent peoples lives at risk when the police assigned 6 cars to (unsucessfully) chase me, so I pulled over.

Turns out, the guy just wanted to make sure the bike wasn't stolen, license check, and wanted to check out the bike. He had a good old chat, walking around, checking it out, talking about how he rides a 175cc -- I said Pfft, you may as well ride a pushbike. Actually no, I didn't say that.

Nice guy. Never really had a problem with cops. Probably because I never really break the law.

Nearly sold him my CBF250, too. That would have been cool.

-Gray

[iPhone] Review - Galaxy on Fire 2 (part 1)

I've only played this for just over 1 hour, so I'll post Part 2 of this review in a week or two. It's too big a game to judge after 1 hour. That certainly won't stop me judging it, however.

I spent a few months playing X3: Reunion by Egosoft, back in the day. I liked Elite and the Wing Commander games. And I messed about with Eve Online, although I didn't have a good enough computer to enjoy it. So I thought I'd check out Galaxy on Fire 2 .... After all, it only costs $10.50 (?!).

Cruising the galaxy like a true pimp.

The basic idea is, you fly around space, docking at various Stations to trade goods, pick up freelance missions, upgrade your ship, buy a new ship, and continue along the Story Missions. You get to fight other ships (a lot), and probably do some other crap which I haven't reached yet.

Graphics - Brilliant, can't fault the look of this game. Here is another screenshot:

"I wonder if this station has a McDonalds?"

Sound - Nice space-type music. Combat sounds are OK, but a bit repetitive. Interestingly, the voice acting is of a very good quality, which really makes the game feel polished. You've heard me whinge about bad voice acting in a previous post. No problem in this game though.

I did a fly-by on this massive Cruiser, while it headed for the jumpgate. I'm just cool like that.

Gameplay - Well you get everything that it promises on the tin. You can fly around just trading if you want, building up your money for a bigger or better ship (or even your own station to store them in, I read somewhere).

Or you can stick to the story missions. The story is pretty standard fare, nothing too exciting.

Or you can do freelance missions for fun and cash.

Or you can be a pirate. Maybe. I've never tried this, but there are other computer-controlled ships flying around the place, so I don't see why you couldn't blast them and steal their cargo.

Sorry I didn't get a screenshot of combat. I forgot.

The loading screens lasts literally 1 second on the iPhone 4, so that's very impressive. Nothing more annoying than a game that makes you wait for loading screens. And I haven't had a single crash, stall, jerk or jitter since I started playing. It also supports that "iOS multitask" thing, so when you jump back into it, you'll be at exactly the same screen you left at. Awesome.

"Hello why you shoot me?? NO BANG BANG!!"

Value - Hard to say a game is good value when it costs this much. Then again, there is plenty of content in here. There is already 1 expansion pack released. I think it costs another $6. Bit steep frankly.

But if this is the kind of game you like -- you honestly won't find a better "space combat/trading" game for your iPhone than Galaxy on Fire 2. I assume. I've only tried 2 other games like this. But they were both absolute shit. So it's a safe bet that GoF2 is the best of the bunch by a long shot.

Galaxy on Fire 2 - 5 out of 5
Not to everybody's tastes, but you can't fault this game if you're a fan of the genre. It includes everything you would expect, plus more, and it's very polished.

Spaceship parking $5,000 per hour. Offenders will be towed.

- Gray

Yet another 5 things that annoy me

This blog now has over 1,000 total pageviews! Yay! To celebrate, I thought I'd whinge a bit more:

1) People walking around shops in bare feet. At least put some thongs on.

2) Self-serve checkouts. They're slower. I'm fairly geeky and even I had trouble understanding the damn thing when I tried it. They're taking jobs away from teenagers. And, if it's cheaper to install the machines, shouldn't the prices of goods come down? ...

3) Chevy badges on Holdens. Can somebody PLEASE explain this to me in the comments below? What's the idea here? The engine is designed in America, but built in Australia, yes? Or what? ... Anyway it's usually stupid bogans that also display the Southern Cross on their window (another issue entirely ...) so which country are they pledging allegiance to? Australia or America? I'm confused.

4) People that see you're wet, and immediately say "Oh is it raining outside?"  .... "No, I took a shower in my clothes." ... "No, it's raining inside actually." ... ARGH!

5) Company "sick leave" policy. They advise you in the induction, "Don't come to work when you're sick! Be responsible, don't spread it -- stay at home!" ... Then when you actually get sick, that attitude completely reverses. "Oh we're short staffed, are you sure you can't come in? Are you getting a doctor's note then?" ... Sick of it. I'm getting a cold right now and already I'm thinking that I can't have any time off since the other storeman will have to do all the work without me. So I'll be spreading the cold to about 40 people ... in a hospital. Brilliant.

[Movie] "Drive Angry" review

Drive Angry is sort of an "intentionally corny" movie. Slightly similar to "Death Proof" in a couple of ways. Throw in some "Constantine" too. As long as you don't take it seriously, it's decent.

It's the kind of movie where a guy gets blown back by a single bullet. Where the "hero" can somehow avoid getting shot even when two cops unload from 10 feet away. Where cars can do improbable stunts, and the chick always has perfect hair and makeup no matter what she's just been through.

I'll be honest -- you take away Amber Heard and the movie would suffer. But whatever. Nicholas Cage plays his standard character -- softly spoken, with plenty of squinting and a slightly strange walk. The special effects are pretty poor, but there is hardly any in the entire movie so it's fine.

I can't really call it a good movie, but it didn't make me want to stop watching.

Drive Angry - 4 out of 5 (3 out of 5 if you don't like watching Amber Heard)

-Gray

[iPhone] Let's Play Order & Chaos - episode 5

Episode 5 - Stale Bread, a Retarded Squirrel and Sweet Revenge

Well I haven't played iPhone games for a few weeks really. I had a spare 11 minutes tonight, so I thought I'd jump back into Order & Chaos and kill a squirrel.

Driving back from Donnybrook last week, a squirrel wandered straight across the road. My reflexes were dulled by 4 hours behind the wheel and the soothing voice of Karl Pilkington. So I reacted by swerving into the oncoming traffic lane. Could have been fatal. Time for some revenge ...

The best place to look for a squirrel is in the forest, so off I went. After a while, I stopped to munch on some stale bread:

Who laid these paths? Seriously. Think about it. Who?

I was dispatching Bandits as quickly as a fat kid devours a Twix bar, but my true target remained hidden. People don't realise how cunning the squirrel can be. It's a natural survivor. Squirrels have remained, virtually unchanged, since the time of the dinosaurs. It is commonly believed that they evolved from birds, when in fact they are a completely unique species, correctly named the verticalis nuttomi draconis, literally "climbing nut-eating dragon".

Although prized for it's meat in the South American continent, it generally proves very difficult to catch. That's why I was so surprised when this obviously retarded squirrel bounded over the nearest hill:

Retarded or not, it's a dangerous animal. The yellow stripes warn away potential predators.

Despite it's mental retardation, I jumped straight into battle with the nasty beast, and my level 10 Mage spells proved very helpful:

You got pwned little bitch!! Killed it so fast, it was dead before I managed to screenshot the battle.

The creature was slain in a massive ball of fire and death, and soon I stood proudly over my conquest:

The only good squirrel is a dead squirrel. The woods are a safer place now.

Another fruitful expedition in the world of Order & Chaos.

-Gray