Never Buy Somebody Game Vouchers

Game, as if anybody needed any more of an excuse to hate the Game chain then I've just found one. Whatever you do never suggest that somebody gets you Game gift vouchers as a present, they're a total pain in the hole to try and spend.

First things first there is the problem of knowing how much you have to spend, it's a swipe card type thing and nobody ever thinks to write the amount they've put on it for you. There isn't anywhere you can check online either so the only option is to go in store, either buy a game and take a chance or stand in the queue to find out. Then when you find out you've got enough to buy a game there's the problems of finding a game from the limited local selection and then justifying to yourself spending way over the odds. I've found the prices in Game shops to be 10%-20% more than what you can find online at places like Amazon.co.uk and Play.com At times when the online retailers are having specials you can save up to 60%. It fucking guiles me to my core to not be paying the best price.

Secondly and more importantly there is the stupid rule that you can't use your Game gift vouchers online. What the hell is that about? Because Game online do happen to have some decent discounts from time to time and being able to use your vouchers to buy these might just about make them worth having. You've obviously got the option online of being able to search for a game you want as well. It's a lot easier than shifting through piles of stacked on top of each other boxes. It's not even like they bother to put them in any sort of order in the shops to help you either. By not making Game vouchers usable online they've made them more trouble than they're worth.

I'm not going to buy any "shop local" shit here either. For a start it's a national chain, we don't even get the VAT from it, then there's the over pricing, then there's the not being able to get through the door without getting hassled by staff and finally there are the dickheads that do shop in there who can easily spend half an hour returning games to fund their next purchase. Game, it's shit.

4 Out Of 5 Schools On The Rock Are Really Good...

...obvious then that we end up in the other one. I ask you what are the odds? (Yeah okay, 5-1)

The Day You Lose All Your Family Photos

It was bound to happen sooner or later, old hard drive in old PC containing 10 years worth of photographs. Of course I'd done the sensible thing and had them backed up, loads of times in fact, spread across god knows how many DVDs over the years. It's just a case of putting them into some sort of order and recovering them I suppose...

Or maybe not, a little while back I was looking into online backup as part of work (work from home) and came across a company (Mozy, same name as my best man) offering 2 gigs of free storage for "personal" use. That was more than enough for all our pictures so over the shiteness that is the MT upload limit (256k) I spent the best part of a day uploading the lot. It was worth it, cue instant (well shitty MT 2Mb) recovery onto the new NAS box.

There are times in life that I think I was born unlucky (how many people have a hard disk just stop altogether on them?) but if you look at it the other way how lucky was I to have backed the lot up only a couple of weeks ago? As an added bonus I can now go through and bin the shit loads of DVD's I've got lying around with god knows what on them.

Backing up, it's a pain in the ass right up until the day something goes wrong.

Halo Wars Demo On X-Box 360

All work has ground to a halt, at least for the next few hours. The much anticipated Halo Wars demo has finally made it onto x-box live. I'm currently at 33% downloaded and willing my broadband to work quicker. Damn you Manx Telecom with your shitty service!

I'm more interested in playing this than just about anything else that's hit the x-box in the last 6 months. First of all it's being heralded as the first ever RTS on the x-box that will actually play like an RTS. The others all seem to have fudged controls and it makes using any strategy almost impossible (Highlight all, click on baddy). Secondly, I've already pre-ordered and paid for a copy so if it's a pile of shit then I'm £40 out of pocket.

Please be good.

Note - It is very good! In fact it's probably the best demo ever to his x-box live, just a shame any silver subscribers don't get access until the 13th.