Raithe

Getting a touch annoyed with Red Faction Guerilla. Doing the "hunt the sniper" mission in Eos.. and no matter how I play it, changing weapon combinations, trying to sneak, trying to just take out the building, using the jetpack, sniping them with the nanorifle..... within 30 seconds of taking out the first sniper I'm surrounded by EDF in one storm of hailfire with no possibility of cover. or running from one group that have me nearly surrounded to another group that has me almost surrounded..with no break to recover health.. oh.. and of course the colonists running into your way every time you take a shot at any EDF soldier... So I'm going to give it a rest for the night and try again when I'm not swearing at it.

Omen Deng- 70 (-2) SIE- 42 Scarlet Lake- 81 (+2)

Omen Deng- 74 (-2) SIE- 40 Scarlet Lake- 77 (+2)

Should have Just Cause 2 arriving in a day or two... so the weekend could be bringing some general chaos and explosions...

Maybe I'm getting old.. but I still find Spycraft 1.0 a touch more flexible then Spycraft 2.0... (or maybe I'm just biased because I enjoyed Shadowforce Archer so much....)

Does CoC still have the trouble of surviving character creation these days? Roll up a character.. die. Roll up a new character.. go mad, then die. Roll up one more character... survive till first gaming session, then go mad...

Pootling around on Red Faction Guerilla. Having a bit of a pain picking up enough salvage... Anything non mission related seems to suddenly end up swarmed under a dozen EDF soldiers within seconds.. But it's making me ponder picking up Red Faction I & II....

Actually that was my original plan, Uni, then Signals. A couple of years back dad was going to retire early to let me apply..and while I blazed through the barb testing and such quite nicely the medical board came down and had to file a reject on me. Because.. and I kid you not.. My left eye. So because my left eye needs a stronger prescription then my right..and it just hovers past the acceptable limits.. All of the armed forces are a no go. That kind of killed my original plans. I'm currently putting my name forward to a bunch of volunteer groups around the city.. one way to help put something on my cv, potentially get some references (even if its just character) and potentially gets me out of the house so dad will start taking over more. Ah well. Okay, thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind. Go back 8 years and most of the IT related jobs seemed to expect fairly generic skills and would concentrate on site for what was needed. Now it seems everyone expects you to be fairly specialised when you arrive..

Okay, trolling for peoples thoughts on the matter.. But here's the basic situation.. some years ago I was doing computers, IT and business at University but had to drop out in the final year to look after a disabled family member.. It's now 8 or so years on and my dad's finally taken retirement so its possible for him to do it.. I need to figure out how to get into the workplace but all my IT skills are out of date and I don't have the full shiny degree letter (just some of the certifications of the units I'd done in the couple of years there). What's the best way to try to modernise my IT skills? Figure out a way to go back to school? Try to get into some really base level job ? Going through the government "back to the workplace" stuff tends to be a total roundabout. You go into meetings and they're all "we can't give you advice on jobhunting until we get your skills back up" then send you off to other meetings where they say "we can't talk about getting your skills up until we figure out what jobs your looking at" then back and forth.. It's very, very head slamming. Plus the whole.. 8 years hole on a CV with your only reference basically being "my mother" doesn't really suit well for sending out to jobs

Assorted music from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtracks..(the series ones, not the film) . For some reason, they always put me in the mood to read Shadowrun stuff...

Did rewatch War, Inc the other evening.. that's kind of fun in that slightly bizarre way. Although it's always a treat to watch the Cusack siblings share scene time.. they do seem to have a great time doing those characters... Plus it feels like they got half the cast from Grosse Point Blank together for it...

I almost feel like I'm on the sidelines watching a tennis match between Oner and WorstUserNameEver... Konstantin Brayko- 12 Omen Deng- 41 (-1) SIE- 40 Scarlet Lake- 41 (+1) - She's a survivor... Sis- 35 Steven Heck - 22

Knight & Day - Tom Cruise goes through it with a ****y grin, and Cameron Diaz with a baffled expression. Still, it has some funny lines and moments in there..

It's more the werewolf goes into a "just because the person is just born.. I'm in love in a uber-bodyguard / uncle type / godfather / family way..but at some random point in the future when the ick factor isn't so big and she's at some undetermined age, it's suddenly going to turn into major sexual love as well.. and anyone who hurts her will get eaten." There's something about that that is just an eeeny-bit creepy.

Albatross - 14 Henry Leland - 13 Konstantin Brayko- 14 (-1) Omen Deng- 30 SIE- 34 Scarlet Lake- 35 (+1) Sis- 30 Steven Heck - 21

Wait until the fourth movie.. there's a really seriously creepy werewolf "love at first sight" factor that creeps in in the book. I'm half-wondering just how hollywood will handle that adaption..

I suppose that's somewhat better then the football fans that were chanting "You can't go swimming any more! You can't go swimming any more!" at the American soccer team during the world cup...

I'm stunned. And yeah, apparently the scene of his death is getting bouquets with statements of "Good on Ya Mate" and assorted anti-police commentary... I thought the whole "northern men who go down the pub, have a beer, then go home to slap the wife around" was a cliche of the past.

To quote Samuel Clemens... "America is built on a tilt. Everything loose ends up in California."

I'll be somewhat impressed when you can type that without needing a keyboard..

And now we're reaching the stage where people aren't bothering to go with reasons... It's all been heard before.. Albatross - 18 Henry Leland - 16 Konstantin Brayko- 15 Omen Deng- 27 SIE- 31 Scarlet Lake- 33 (+1) - She's a redhead. With a sniper rifle.... Sis- 30 Steven Heck - 21 (-1) - Just a bit too crazy

You should be able to use an offline account for that.... You just have to sign in to an offline account.. But because I hadn't signed in period.. all "save game" features were non-responsive... And once you do sign in, you have to start a new game. Ah well.

Just installed Red Faction Guerilla... Had the popup of "If you want to enjoy online play, sign in to Game for Windows Live" which I clicked "no" because I just wanted to play around on single-player. Played it for about 40 minutes.. went to save it.. and found out that until I do sign in to Windows Live I'm not allowed to save even in single-player. Now I have to restart over from the beginning... The frikkin joys.

Michael Caine as Harry Palmer - almost the anti-bond Spy films of the mid to late 60's. The Ipcress File. Funeral in Berlin. Billion Dollar Brain. Or if you wanted a touch more sillyness to things, James Coburn as Derek Flint. (Again, the late 60's). Our Man Flint . In Like Flint.

Hm, Mark Harmon might make a good Marburg... sort of the Evil-Gibbs approach.. Although if you're also using people from tv.. the guy in Burn Notice to play another Michael might be crossing the wires a bit too much.. Hm, Clooney might make an interesting Leland... although that might be bias from Syriana. Or.. .. John Cusack .. I'm getting flashes of a non-spoofy War, Inc...