Tom Charman

Updating games on the PS3 is almost comically awful compared to the Xbox 360. 5 minutes, 200mb and counting. http://yfrog.com/1r8m5j

It’s all about this crap, you see. It is a storm in a teacup, but it’s a very badly handled storm. Frankly, no matter where you’re having a storm, you probably don’t want Daryl Somers in charge. He’ll probably just slip his arm around the storm and explain to it that it’s slightly out of shot and he’d like to move it a few feet to the left.

1. To Daryl. I strongly suspect that an apology would mean more if you apologised to the people you thought might have been offended by the sketch, and not to Mr Connick Jr.¹

2. To people whinging about ‘political correctness’. Call it what you like, but it seems to me that it’s only manners to avoid pointlessly offending people.

3. To people saying that if it was acceptable years ago it’s acceptable now. Lots of things used to be OK that aren’t any more. I don’t expect to see you attempt to prove your point by marrying your 13 year old cousin and taking a slave tomorrow. Console yourself in the knowledge that lots of things that used to be frowned upon are more accepted now. Enjoy them! Leave the house without your hat, vote to choose your leader, and let someone have sex with your bottom.

4. To people arguing that Harry Connick Jr may be a hypocrite. That’s not really the point here, is it?

5. To me. Admit it. You’re kind happy because now you have a morally justifiable reason to think Hey Hey sucks.

1. Do you say Jr when you only use someone’s last name? Enquiring minds want to know. ↩

The 2010 Doctor Who logo has been announced.

The answers to my questions turn out to be “Above”, “No”, “Serif”, “Neither” and “the coloured lights are inside it”. It hearkens back strongly to the older, simpler logos, which is nice. I see everyone at the BBC still gets excited by lens flares. I’m reasonably keen, though I’m curious to find out when they use the initials and when they use the full word. It’s certainly a nicer logo for putting on DVD spines which is obviously my main concern.

Hrmmm.

There’s not actually very much to say about a new logo. I should have covered the Apple event instead. They’re much more contentious. I went onto a Who forum to try to find crazy fans whinging that the new logo doesn’t do target disk mode, but no such luck.

2009 has been a quiet year for Doctor Who news, so the BBC are stretching things out as much as possible. The latest in a slow and meticulously planned trickle of announcements is the new logo, to be announced this Tuesday. This throws up all sorts of intriguing questions. Will the “Doctor” be above the “Who”, or to the side? Will any parts of the word be set in a rakishly cheesy angle? Will it be serif, or sans serif? Arial or Helvetica? Or will it just be the old logo bent a little bit with coloured lights behind it?

The excitement never stops around here. I hope you’ll join me for the unveiling tomorrow.¹

1. No, seriously. I will actually post something tomorrow, or my name isn’t Jackson Kearney. Hang on, sorry. I mean, because my name isn’t Jackson Kearney. ↩

Planned to whinge about not getting my Rock Band Beatles bundle delivered today, but it looks like I’m lucky to have one http://bit.ly/3u7HH

Pointless trivia update! The child in Kirk’s arms in ‘Miri’ was played by Shatner’s own daughter, Melanie, who later appeared in Trek V.

There are some things in life that I’ll just never quite understand. Grown men enjoying Pink. Owning more than two pairs of usable shoes. Rugby.

Today I have added Playstation Home to the list.

Apparently it’s a bit like Second Life, which I’ve never looked at. In fact, I always had the sneaking suspicion that Second Life was invented by cultural studies students so that they’d have something in cyberspace more interesting to talk about than chat rooms. So it’s a little disturbing to take a step into this peculiar world — a world which for all I could see was completely pointless. A step into the unknown. How exciting it would be.

Well, first I pressed the button that said “Playstation Home”. That was pretty exciting right there. I’d previously downloaded the program when it was released, attempted to run it, and found that connection issues prevented me from even entering. Not a good start. Now, months later, I try again and find that there’s a system update. No worries I think, lulled by the efficiency of updates on the Xbox 360. Hah. 5 minutes I wait for the progress bars to dance their merry yet predictable dance across the screen. Then we’re in. Right?

Well, no. Then I get to go to a new and entirely different progress bar when I eventually launch the game. It’s caching vital elements, or somesuch. I can’t argue with that. Vital elements are vital. Any fool knows that. More minutes pass. It’s just as exciting as I knew it would be. Finally the caching is finished. Thank goodness. It’s time to enter Playstation Home.

Oh no, wait on. Another progress bar. I appear to be downloading my home, which is a studio. Sounds swanky. More minutes.

It turns out my room is swanky. It is also very small. I have entered a thrilling virtual world to find out that my house is pokier than my actual house, and lacks a bedroom, or kitchen, or any sort of room. It does have a sweet view, I can’t deny that. It also has some very bland furniture. I try to put a TV in — my first instinct in any house — but it appears I don’t have a TV. Dear god. I’d slit my virtual wrists if I could find the right button. After wandering up and down my porch and moving the couch to and fro, I decide it’s time to go outside. The helpful door informs me that the world outside is about 40mb and needs to be downloaded before I go out. It kindly suggests that I could download it in the background.

I kindly suggest that it could have started downloading it in the background while I was wandering about my tiny tiny room. Where else was I going to go? But it’s not listening, because it’s a door.

I eventually go outside. There’s a poster which I can look at, but it’s blank; completely black. Let me get this straight. You spent three minutes downloading 40mb of outsideyness, and that didn’t even include the posters? I keep walking. I see a bowling alley in front of me. Ooooh, I’ll wander over there. Ah. More downloading. Background please. Thanks. I wander further. I’ve got time to kill. My movements are jerky and strained for a while, as the download of the bowling alley appears to be taking priority over simple movement. This makes me grumpy and I’m thinking of turning off the console when a virtual person walks past.

“Hi fatso.”

I’ve been in Playstation Home for about 10 minutes, and my avatar is already getting bullied by random people. I’m not even fat; I only slightly raised the weight of the avatar above the median default value. I’m just big-polygonned. It’s enough to make you want to start taking cultural studies. Which is how you know something is wrong. Just as the bowling alley helpfully advises me that it’s ready for me now, I turn it off.

I’m sure once you’ve downloaded a whole bunch of Playstation Home, it becomes a lot more seamless. I’m just not clear what on earth would make someone want to keep exploring after a first-run experience including six progress bars and no discernible entertainment. So: it’s just one of those things then.