Yesterday I was talking to my Gran on the phone... "It's really cold," she told me "and it has been raining all day - really it is rather like November". There was a pause "Probably because it is November" she added. I couldn't help but agree! Last week I ventured into the garden to add the two footballs to the pond to help with the ice situation, Rich and I spent an afternoon a couple of weeks back clearing leaves from just about everywhere around the house. Winter really is here.
Another 'quiet' weekend in our house. I've been glued to my new computer games... first there was the complete Lego Starwars (all six episodes) for the DS - it isn't quite like playing on the PS2 - easier for one thing - but the levels have been redesigned to be playable within the constraints of the DS graphics. It really is much easier, but this is made up for by added 'side games' and as mentioned slightly re-programmed levels. My other acquisition was SimCities Societies. I am a huge Sims/SimCity fan, and was only bemoaning the lack of recent additions to the SimCity genre the other week. Lo, in the Lite the other evening there was a review of this new game. I decided to take the plunge and buy it. Plunge that is because the last time I bought a PC game it was a total trauma! We had gotten out of the habit of purchasing PC games as our old PC ('Harry') had become extremely idiosyncratic and quite often refused to do just about anything, especially graphics heavy/processor heavy operations (such as games). The new PC and my new laptop however have no such issues. BUT the last game I bought for some reason just wouldn't work on my laptop. All the specs matched, I don't have the graphics cards that 'might cause problems' it just didn't run. Bah! I was extremely worried that this might be the case again. The game installed just fine... and started up OK... and I played for about an hour, then it started crashing. Microsoft found a 'solution' which turned out to be a broken link. I think I could find out a download myself if Intel's website wasn't so confusing and I knew a bit more about what was inside my laptop. I guess I'll set Rich on it sometime! Eventually I managed to get the patch from EA's website to run (usual download difficulties and this is not a Win32 file nonsense using IE - why do I bother). Managed nearly two hours gameplay this afternoon without a problem. Hurrah!
Watched an excellent game of NFL yesterday... the mighty (!) Giants beating the Detroit Lions... in fact rather surprisingly all my favourite teams won yesterday even the much maligned Jets (and it isn't just me that maligns them). The best bits of the weekend's games were: in the Cleveland @ Baltimore game... right at the death... Cleveland are down by 3 points. They kick a field goal, which is ruled not good... players start leaving the field and Sky's pundits give the score saying that it hasn't actually come up as final yet. Then something strange happens. NFL.com change the score to 30-30. Nobody is sure what has happened. What happened, it turns out, was this... the ball is kicked for a field goals, hits the upright, crosses the goal, hits the stanchion and bounces back out again... the decision is reversed and the field goal is ruled good. Cleveland then go on to win with another field goal in overtime. Too bad for Baltimore!
The as yet winless Dolphins briefly led the Eagles by 7-0. The Eagles went on to win by 10 points. I thought it was rather mean when the commentary team said the Eagles had 'come from behind' - whilst technically true it implies that Miami had more than a brief flurry of scoring with a touchdown at the start of the game! So... Miami are now 0-10 and looking extremely likely to go without a win all season. Ah, too bad. Shame we never got to see the replay of Miami missing a 1 yard field goal!!
There was, of course, regular football this weekend too. Not being a huge fan of international football it didn't register on my radar... in fact I just had to go to the BBC to find out how England did and whether or not they are qualifying (answer, not yet decided). I did, of course, know how Scotland did. I don't think that anyone within a half block radius of our house could have failed to know... sadly they lost to a last minute goal by Italy. Rich, obviously, was gutted... I'm quite sad as a lot of my colleagues are Scottish (working for a Scottish company and all) and also, I do love a bit of Schadenfraude and to see a fancied team not make the finals. Ah well, maybe another year.
Another 'quiet' weekend in our house. I've been glued to my new computer games... first there was the complete Lego Starwars (all six episodes) for the DS - it isn't quite like playing on the PS2 - easier for one thing - but the levels have been redesigned to be playable within the constraints of the DS graphics. It really is much easier, but this is made up for by added 'side games' and as mentioned slightly re-programmed levels. My other acquisition was SimCities Societies. I am a huge Sims/SimCity fan, and was only bemoaning the lack of recent additions to the SimCity genre the other week. Lo, in the Lite the other evening there was a review of this new game. I decided to take the plunge and buy it. Plunge that is because the last time I bought a PC game it was a total trauma! We had gotten out of the habit of purchasing PC games as our old PC ('Harry') had become extremely idiosyncratic and quite often refused to do just about anything, especially graphics heavy/processor heavy operations (such as games). The new PC and my new laptop however have no such issues. BUT the last game I bought for some reason just wouldn't work on my laptop. All the specs matched, I don't have the graphics cards that 'might cause problems' it just didn't run. Bah! I was extremely worried that this might be the case again. The game installed just fine... and started up OK... and I played for about an hour, then it started crashing. Microsoft found a 'solution' which turned out to be a broken link. I think I could find out a download myself if Intel's website wasn't so confusing and I knew a bit more about what was inside my laptop. I guess I'll set Rich on it sometime! Eventually I managed to get the patch from EA's website to run (usual download difficulties and this is not a Win32 file nonsense using IE - why do I bother). Managed nearly two hours gameplay this afternoon without a problem. Hurrah!
Watched an excellent game of NFL yesterday... the mighty (!) Giants beating the Detroit Lions... in fact rather surprisingly all my favourite teams won yesterday even the much maligned Jets (and it isn't just me that maligns them). The best bits of the weekend's games were: in the Cleveland @ Baltimore game... right at the death... Cleveland are down by 3 points. They kick a field goal, which is ruled not good... players start leaving the field and Sky's pundits give the score saying that it hasn't actually come up as final yet. Then something strange happens. NFL.com change the score to 30-30. Nobody is sure what has happened. What happened, it turns out, was this... the ball is kicked for a field goals, hits the upright, crosses the goal, hits the stanchion and bounces back out again... the decision is reversed and the field goal is ruled good. Cleveland then go on to win with another field goal in overtime. Too bad for Baltimore!
The as yet winless Dolphins briefly led the Eagles by 7-0. The Eagles went on to win by 10 points. I thought it was rather mean when the commentary team said the Eagles had 'come from behind' - whilst technically true it implies that Miami had more than a brief flurry of scoring with a touchdown at the start of the game! So... Miami are now 0-10 and looking extremely likely to go without a win all season. Ah, too bad. Shame we never got to see the replay of Miami missing a 1 yard field goal!!
There was, of course, regular football this weekend too. Not being a huge fan of international football it didn't register on my radar... in fact I just had to go to the BBC to find out how England did and whether or not they are qualifying (answer, not yet decided). I did, of course, know how Scotland did. I don't think that anyone within a half block radius of our house could have failed to know... sadly they lost to a last minute goal by Italy. Rich, obviously, was gutted... I'm quite sad as a lot of my colleagues are Scottish (working for a Scottish company and all) and also, I do love a bit of Schadenfraude and to see a fancied team not make the finals. Ah well, maybe another year.