So here it is...

At last, I'm beginning to feel those first little tingles of Christmas cheer. Let's face it, it just hasn't felt like Christmas much yet - No amount of decorations or present buying can make up for that fact that it's just felt too mild to be the middle of December. Even the shops seem to have been late to get into the swing of things.

Anyway, despite all that, my calendar is telling me that yes, it really is almost December 25th, so the past couple of weekends have involved queuing for what seems like hours to buy wrapping paper (of which I now have enough to cover the Titanic), cards and other assorted gifts, while also biting fingernails and hoping beyond hope that anything I've ordered online arrives in time. Still, I'm now 95% of the way to being ready for the big day, so all is well.

On the down side of things, I'll actually be working all over Christmas in my increasingly frustrating and confusing 'real' job, public holidays aside, although hopefully just reduced hours with any luck. Things have actually been pretty busy on the work front, which has left me with less time to plough through the backlog of review work which still remains for Elite Bastards.

Improvements are afoot on this front however, as I've finally taken the plunge with regard to looking for additional reviewers to help both share the workload and expand the site further in 2007. I've had some pretty exciting offers in the few days since making a front page request for applicants, so I'm very hopeful that we can bring some more quality staff on board to drown you guys in a cornucopia of content next year.

It may only be a few days, but I'm really looking forward to taking a proper break over Christmas, this year's exertions are most definitely starting to catch up with me, and I'm feeling pretty burned out right now.

One foot in the world of consoles

Hmm, this entry was going to be called 'One foot in the world of next-gen consoles', but seeing as all three major devices are now available (well, somewhat) I guess we can't really use that moniker any more.

Anyway, yesterday I traded five crisp, shiny £20 notes with a guy at work, and in return I lugged home a brand-spanking new Xbox 360. Twenty minutes or so after getting home, the beast was unpacked, plugged in and ready to go. Hurrah!

Thus far my only real gaming time has been with Gears of War (the only title I actually own right now - I'm very much open for suggestions as to what to buy/beg/borrow/steal next), and I'm beginning to understand what the fuss is about - For starters, the game looks beautiful, although I have to take out my PC gaming eyes somewhat and try and ignore the abject lack of anti-aliasing and decent texture filtering. The aliasing isn't too pronounced thanks to smart world design and High Dynamic Range rendering, but the lack of full-on anisotropic filtering is really poor considering the horsepower on offer in Xenos - The obvious mip-map boundaries and shimmering is awful. Ah well... More importantly, the game has been great to play once I overcame my phobia/ineptitude with game pads, and the layout of the controller is not far short of spot on, so kudos to Epic for that. My only worry is that the whole 'duck and cover' game play that is fascinating me right now is going to wear thin after a few hours of gaming.

Apart from Gears of War, I've messed around with a couple of demos a little - Sonic The Hedgehog, just to see if they ruined the franchise again (they have), and Dead or Alive 4, which doesn't look as pretty as I might have hoped. I've also downloaded the demo for Rainbow Six: Vegas (mainly because I'm a pixel whore and I remember hearing that it looks pretty somewhere), but I haven't checked that out yet.

Aside from my console gaming fun, my return to work in my 'real' job has been insanely busy, and I've also had further confirmation that my ex is a completely unhinged psychopath after calling me out of the blue to have some weird, rambling imaginary conversation so that her boyfriend thinks that something she can't be arsed to do is actually all my fault. Err, okay....

Oh, and if anyone wants to know my Xbox Live gamer tag, it's Hanners. Imaginative, huh? I don't see myself going for a Gold subscription any time soon, but you never know, and I still have a one-month trial to burn once I've got a few more games to actually use it with so feel free to add me.

It's fun to stay at the CCNA...

Last week saw Elite Bastards take a rare back seat in my life for once, as I was shipped off for a week of Cisco training - Of course, I'm not actually a CCNA yet (that would require taking an exam - Ugh!), but I do now have a head full of networking stacks, OSI models, routers, switches and IOS commands. All in all, it was really a good week, and I learned a tonne of stuff, so it was worth the early starts and driving to and from Southampton every day for a week.

Last week was also Christmas come early for me - My parents had decided to furnish me with a new laptop for Christmas, which was ordered last weekend, but had already turned up by Wednesday! So, I'm now the proud owner of a Dell Inspiron 6400, complete with Merom-based Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM, Mobility Radeon X1300 and 1680x1050 wide screen LCD. All in all, it's a huge improvement over my previous laptop - It's thinner, it's quieter and it's faster. Considering the amount of DVDs and anime I watch on it these days, the wide screen LCD is a real boon, and I now have a system beefy enough to run High Definition video as well, which is becoming ever-more important. So, err.... Happy Christmas!

With a month to go before we celebrate the imaginary birth of the son of an imaginary deity, I can't help but wonder where this year has gone, it truly is frightening. I'll wax lyrical about how 2006 has gone and my expectations for 2007 some other time though, it still feels too early right now.

The coming weeks are going to be a hectic one of catch-up on the review front for me I feel, I've gotten so far behind between the Cisco training and taking time out for my G80 review that I have one Hell of a lot of work to do. Definitely time for me to refind my focus and start pushing forward with work aplenty between now and the festive season.

The G80 summit

Boy, has the past week been a blur... Almost non-stop benchmarking, IQ testing, reading technical documentation and writing. I've completely lost track of how much time I've sunk into my GeForce 8800 GTX review, but I just hope it's worth it! There's now light at the end of the tunnel though, and hopefully I should have the article completed and ready to go for Thursday if I can keep on trucking over the next day or so.

And that, really, is all there is to report. There's a certain love/hate relationship with such a new architecture from the reviewer's point of view - Love of playing with and understanding (and hopefully getting others to understand) the new technology, but hating the sheer quantity of work that needs to be undertaken in such a short period of time. It really does burn you out pretty quickly, but I have no time to rest once I'm finished with the piece - I now have a vast backlog of hardware to get through, ignoring other samples that are liable to come my way, and with a week long course for me next week my testing and writing time is going to be pretty limited.

Anyway, I've finally plucked up the courage to switch this 'Blog to the new beta version of Blogger (which ties in nicely to my G-Mail account), so let's see if this thing actually works!

What day is it again?

You know that things are getting busy when you can't remember what day of the week it is half of the time (Although I know that today is Friday, hurrah!), and that's exactly the state I'm in at the moment. As things stand, my workload for Elite Bastards is through the roof, where I've been snowed under with graphics boards, motherboards and the like. Of course, this is a good thing, so I'm not complaining, but at the moment my life seems to revolve around 'article publishing days' rather than the metric used by most normal humans, known as 'days of the week'.

The most excellent news hardware-wise for the site has been the recent interest shown by ASUS in the sampling department, which is probably the biggest single step we've taken during my tenure in the hot seat so far. Add that in to the likes of Foxconn, PowerColor and Cyberlink, and we're really starting to build us some useful contacts.

The only thing that dampens my spirits at this particular juncture is the continued lack of communication with NVIDIA - With G80 just around the corner, I don't even have enough concrete information for a technology preview (although it sounds like all but a handful of journalists who got invited to Santa Clara are probably in that very same boat) which is, quite frankly, both hugely frustrating and disappointing. Anyway, I shall just have to suck it up, keep on trying, and look forward to (hopefully) a more fruitful time out of the R600 launch whenever that may be.

There are more exciting times around the corner for the site, but I shall keep these under my hat until they're all finished and ready to go. Suffice it to say, one of these mysterious 'exciting things' in particular will be a relief and source of happiness for our regular readers provided it goes to plan. :o)

Away from my helter-skelter life of reviews, last Tuesday was also my birthday. I'm not much of a birthday person, but one individual in particular really pulled me out of my apathy to put a big smile on my face this week. Thank you - You know who you are. ;o)

Towards the end of November I've now been booked in on a week-long CCNA course as part of my 'real' job, which means that I might have some fancy-dan Cisco-related letters to put after my name soon with any luck.

Finally, today I was offered an Xbox 360 for £100 by a work colleague. Can I resist the temptation, considering Gears of War went Gold this week? Probably not, in all honesty. Brace yourself for me raving about the wonders of next-generation console gaming sooner rather than later. Or, more likely, complaining about how rubbish I am at using gamepads.

Learn the lesson, take the blows

So, after the best part of a week of feeling lousy with the 'flu, I'm finally back up, running and fighting fit.. Well, more or less anyway. It's pretty good timing as well, seeing as I've had to work quickly towards testing for and writing a UK exclusive (and, I have a funny feeling unless I get pipped to it, a world exclusive) review for Elite Bastards. As I seem to say far too often on this 'Blog, exciting times ahead... ;)

My personal life has also received a boost in the past few days, as I've finally swallowed my pride and embarrassment and gotten back in touch with someone who used to be a good friend of mine a couple of years ago. To cut a long story short, she was a mutual friend of mine and Tara's for quite a while, but thanks to Tara's incredible capacity for jealousy and paranoia I broke off talking to her for the sake of any further hassle (coupled with the fact that Tara had treated her like dirt in the past anyway, which made things all the more awkward). That turned out to be a big mistake of course, and I've really missed talking to Sara in the intervening period, until finally deciding to apologise for the way I just abandoned our friendship. Thankfully, my apology was accepted, so we're now talking and back to normal once again. So, that's another little bit of my life repaired for the better. Yay!

There's nothing worse...

...than being a guy, and being ill. It sucks. Nobody has ever been as ill as I feel now - Or so my brain tells me in a horrendous act of self-pity.

Yet, here I am, sat trying to write an article through a haze of drugs and tissues and bleary eyes. Ugh. Still, my drug-induced writing has somehow allowed me to work some Smiths lyrics into a comparison, so I guess it isn't all bad. :p

Apart from that, things aren't too shabby - We have some very excellent stuff around the corner content-wise at Elite Bastards, I have another review up at UK Anime, and so on and so forth.

Now, I would go to bed to continue my suffering, but the cat's curled up and fallen asleep on my lap while I was writing this. Crap. It's alright for some... :p

If it takes another life, I'll wait for you on the other side...

I have to admit, I have something of a vested interest in the Scissor Sister's second album, Ta-Dah, if only because me and Laura have tickets to see them in November. I have to say though, their second album is largely disappointing. Gone is the biting wit of their eponymous debut album, replaced largely with bland 'pop by numbers' efforts that almost leave the group acting as a parody of themselves. There's nothing wrong with leaning heavily on 80s musical influences as long as you get it right, but from where I'm sitting Ta-Dah misses the mark on almost every count, with the current single I Don't Feel Like Dancin' acting as a warning sign for the watered-down cheese fest that follows.

In fairness, things do pick up a little on the second half of the album, culminating in Ta-Dah's saving musical grace - The Other Side, which turns out to be possibly one of the greatest tracks of 2006, and mixing the shoulder-shrugging melancholy you might associate with The Smiths against the kind of catchy pop sensibilities of Duran Duran and the like at their peak. Simply awesome stuff, but not enough to save this rather disappointing album. I can only hope they focus on their debut album in concert...

Success breeds success

I love it when a plan comes together - Particularly when I didn't even have a plan in the first place. ;o) Things seem to be moving on to yet another level at Elite Bastards very quickly - In the past week, I've had a game developer seeking an interview with us (which is done and dusted, and will see the light of day next week together with exclusive screenshots), two major graphics AIBs (one of whom I've been trying to curry favour with for a long time) sending hardware my way, and another one sounding very promising on that front. I can see it being a very busy autumn and winter for the site...

Things are still fun-packed on the anime reviewing gig too, with one new review published today and another completed and ready to go. It really is a great job to do, even reviewing the poorer quality shows.

Anyway, I really wanted to use this entry to share my excitement, so with that done, back to work!

Forging ahead

Boy, have I been on a roll this past week - Not only did I finish our rather popular Radeon X1650 PRO review for Elite Bastards, I've also now found myself an entire week ahead with regard to content, with two reviews sat ready to go any time I feel like it. If only I could stay in this situation all the time, it's a really great feeling to be sat atop a stack of good content. On top of that, I also had time to polish off my first review for UK Anime as well - Appaling to watch though it was, writing an anime review was a joy, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hopefully, I can keep this state of affairs going, as I actually have a much required two week break from my 'real' job starting from now, meaning plenty of rest, relaxation and... Well, 'other things' (Use your imagination!)... for a while. It should also give me at least some time to keep up on the review front, with a fair amount of stuff in the pipeline, not least moving my test system to Core 2 Duo hopefully.

Recent weeks have also made me decide that it's finally time to bite the bullet and take serious action with regard to speed and time-out issues with Elite Bastards' server - This past week, we've had things tuned up a fair amount, with a little more tweaking on the way, but things still seem a little sluggish to me, so I'm looking very seriously at moving us to a new server and host entirely. I've seen the deal I want, so if all this tweaking doesn't get us where I want us to be performance-wise, it'll be time to move again to a very impressive sounding rig. Fun! Needless to say, I'll keep you all posted on where things go on that front as time goes on.

Bank Holiday

Nothing else to say really, except it's pretty much the last bank holiday of the year. Better make the most of it then I suppose....

"Bank holiday comes six times a year
Days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers
Bank holiday comes with a six pack of beer
Then its back to work a.g.a.i.n."

Norwegian Wood

After such a flurry of 'Blog updates recently, I seem to have gone a little quiet all of a sudden, but at last I now have a few interesting things to talk about.

Firstly, this week I finished reading Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood - An absolutely fantastic book that I found myself relating to in a number of ways as well as finding it pretty deeply moving at times. It's one of those books you finish feeling that you've learned a little more about yourself and people you've had dealings with, but without being able to quite put a finger on what you've learned. Anyway, great stuff nonetheless. Next on my 'to read' pile is Ulysses by James Joyce, weighing in at a thousand pages of not exactly easy to read prose. I like a challenge though, so wish me luck!

Speaking of challenges, the ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe board I was provided to test Radeon X1900 CrossFire has finally proved to be a challenge too far for me - To put it simply, it's been a nightmare to work with, with some horrible Serial ATA-related instabilities and quirks that I finally can't continue trying to work around, so as I write this I'm rebuilding my nForce4 system so that I can get back to working and benchmarking at a better pace. Unfortunately, this means that the X1900 CrossFire article I've been promising for so long is now on the backburner again, but I should be updating the Elite Bastards test rig to a Core 2 Duo-based system in the coming weeks, which should put me back on track on that front.

The final item of note on my agenda is that I've sealed myself another article writing gig today, this time writing for the number one UK-based anime website UK Anime. I don't actually have anything to review just yet, but everything is basically agreed with the site owner so you should be seeing reviews by me popping up there every now and then too. The great thing about this is that I spend a fair bit of my free time watching anime anyway, so it'll be a nice change of pace to get to write about it too, while at the same time not cutting into my priorities at Elite Bastards in any discernible sense. In all honesty, I can't wait to get started to try my hand at something a little different!

Boom! Shake The (Server) Room

Whoops, I did it again - We got Slashdotted. Needless to say, the server is taking a pounding at the moment, the site is all but inaccessible, and our traffic is through the roof. It's nice to be popular, but sorry for all you guys and girls who are having to live without your fix of Elite Bastards for a while. Normal service will be resumed shortly... Until the next time it happens. ;)

Losing My Religion

All my life, I've been looking for a religion that truly fits in with my worldview, and now I have found it - That's right, I am now the newest convert to 'Haruhiism'! ;)



If you're wondering what the Hell I'm on about, you'll either have to ask or watch The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Personally, I'd recommend the latter. :p

Still Alright

Well, it seems that someone up there doesn't want me to finish this Radeon X1900 CrossFire review - First I ended up with a faulty CrossFire Edition board, which ATI did an awesome job of sorting out a replacement for me. Then, once I was finally ready to sit down and start work, the bout of lethargy that hit me a couple of Blog entires ago put a stop to things. Now I'm over that - The 74GB Raptor in my test rig has died, which leaves me needing to shell out for a new one before I can proceed any further. Argh!! Any donations for the 'Buy Andy a new Raptor' fund will be gratefully received. ;)

Anyway, when I haven't been tearing my hair out troubleshooting my test system, I've been thoroughly enjoying (and this surprised me too) listening to Lily Allen's debut album, Still Alright. It's simply a fantastic record from beginning to end - The biting wit and 'poisonous' lyrics of Dubstar at their most vengeful, the street-smart delivery of The Streets or Dizzy Rascal, and at times the beats and musical constructs of Madness and two tone at their best. This could very well be one of the best pop records I've heard in years.

As quickly as it began...

...it ended. The day after writing about my feelings of lethargy and reviewers block, so it was gone, and I found myself having a mammoth article writing session lasting several hours. Similarly, tonight I've been hard at work benchmarking away on a high-end graphics board review and made a lot of progress on that front. No guarantees the review will be done next week as I'd like because it'll be a pretty long piece, but at least I'm getting somewhere. Oh, and I have another yet to be looked at by Elite Bastards SKU on the way next week too. :D

Mental block? What mental block?! ;)

Inner Universe

Well, been a while since my last Blog update, so it's time to throw some stuff down here I suppose - Not that there's much to talk about of note.

In all honesty, I've felt really drained these past few weeks, in no small part due to the hot weather, but also just down to a general sense of lethargy at the moment. I'm not too sure what it is, but I really haven't been able to get my teeth into anything much major Elite Bastards-wise lately, even though I still have plenty to be getting on with. I guess I'm just stuck in a bit of a writer's block-esque rut, but at the moment I can't seem to drag myself out of it. It doesn't help that I'm coming home most nights from work pretty knackered as things have been busy and stressful on that front (to the point where my blood pressure is now officially 'too high' - Eep!) - I guess I just need a holiday or something... So, if anyone has some magical ideas to pep me up and get the articles flowing again, then I'm all ears.

The one thing I have been indulging in plenty of lately is anime - Catching up on vast amounts of School Rumble (which is now officially the funniest anime ever in my book), as well as taking in all of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which was quite simply excellent. The only question now is... What to watch next?

Anyway, that really is all I can think of to type as I sit here feeling tired and altogether sorry for myself because I can't find the motivation to do much else. So, fingers crossed my next update is rather more eventful and upbeat than this one.

Running through sprinklers

You know it's a hot day when you get home from work, spot the sprinkler running in the back garden (No water shortages here, hurrah!), and decide to run through/stand under said sprinkler for a minute or two. :D

Yes, if you haven't guessed, Summer has well and truly hit the UK this week - England are out of the World Cup, Henman is out of Wimbledon... Yep, definitely Summer. ;)

On the down side, any kind of Summer heatwave also means that the tiny, cramped space that is the makeshift Elite Bastards office (or spare room, to give it a less grandiose title) is more or less out of bounds - Too hot to work, and definitely too hot to do much in the way of benchmarking. Luckily, Summer also means less on the sampling front anyway, but I have slipped behind with the things I want to get done as a result of not enjoying getting roasted, and thus I've been spending a fair amount of time (shock, horror!) outdoors. Nonetheless, don't worry too much, as I'm still plugging away on content for the site, and I know a couple of the other guys either have some things up their sleeves or will do shortly, so there should be plenty to keep you entertained. :p

Three Lions on a shirt

This is one of those 'not to much to mention, but I'll write one anyway' kind of Blog posts - It's Summer, which means not a lot in the way of exciting product launches or news and reviews to discuss at Elite Bastards... And who would want to? There are far more important things to involve oneself in, such as drinking, enjoying the sunshine, and that small matter of the World Cup.

Yes, the World Cup - Those few weeks that come only once every four years where I eschew my usual disinterest in the television and instead become glued to it, taking in game after game after game, removing my computer hardware reviewer hat and firmly placing a wannabe Andy Gray hat on my head instead. So yes, you could say I've been enjoying the feast of football so far... Indeed, as I write this I'm simply killing time until England kick off their final group game against Sweden. We've already qualified for the last sixteen, which takes the pressure off somewhat, but it's important for us to get a good performance under our belts after a couple of stumbling, pedestrian displays in our opening two games.

I've also been making the most of the sunshine to spend time chilling out with a good book, currently in the form of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore - A pretty excellent read so far. There's something I love about Murakami's ability to put plausible characters into surreal, bizarre situations which they then accept and thrive in without question - Somehow, I just find it reflective upon the attitudes of most in the real-world, a celebration of the human spirit if you will.

Music-wise, I'm currently sat about listening to Thom Yorke's first solo album, The Eraser, which isn't bad at all - I don't quite understand his feeling that it's all material that wouldn't suit Radiohead, as the vast majority of the album seems exactly like tracks that would suit Radiohead... Oh well, he's the boss, and there's some good stuff on the album so I won't complain. I also finally got arround to picking up Gnarls Barkley's album, St. Elsewhere - I wasn't expecting much beyond the hugely over-played by now Crazy, but again was pretty impressed. It's a hit and miss album, but the tracks that work do so damn well, so it gets my vote.

So, that sums up the past few weeks in a nutshell for me - TV, books, music, with review work slotting in nicely alongside it all. I just hope the rest of you guys and girls are enjoying the Summer so far as much as I am.

Dylan Moran

Just this minute got back from seeing Dylan Moran's stand-up show live.... Absolutely fantastic, side-splitting stuff. I might write more about it some other time, but right now I have to go and tend to my pentagram. Of cheese.

Victory for the Comic Muse

Well, it's 'Blog time again (otherwise known as that time when I try to avoid review work like the Plague ;) ) - Things are still pleasantly busy here, with plenty of articles to write, and another trip to London for an ATI briefing recently. As always, some interesting stuff was on offer, and it was good to catch up face-to-face with Rys again, however briefly.

We've also finally (although somewhat temporarily) transistioned across to our new-look front page at Elite Bastards, which is a sight for sore eyes and should help us both with promoting our own content and being ready for future improvements and the like. Aside from that, not much else to report on that front.

Book-wise, I finished reading The Da Vinci Code this week (Yes, I know I must be the last living person to read it!). In all honesty, I found the final stages of the book and its twist and turns too implausible to enjoy, so all in all it was a little disappointed. Still, it's back to my Haruki Murakami reading spree after this, which I would hazard a guess at being far more down my street if it's even a patch on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.

Musically, far too much of my time has been spent listened to the new Boards of Canada EP, Trans Canada Highway, ad infinitum. Predictably, it's Boards of Canada so I love it. Today I got hold of a copy of the new Divine Comedy album (see this Blog entry title for its name!), which seems excellent from my first listen, almost like everything Morrissey's last album could have been but wasn't in some ways.

Arsenal lost the Champions League Final, but did their fans proud which in itself was more than I was hoping for. More importantly, the weekend before they claimed forth place in the Premiership and a Champions League spot for next season, deliciously at the expense of Tottenham. Henry is staying now too, so things are looking up again for the Gunners. :D

Finally, over the past week or so I've been somewhat taking stock of my life after everything that has gone on in the past year or so, and I came to a somewhat startling discovery - I'm actually happier now than I was a year ago. Love being blind and all that, a year ago I was largely fooling myself into thinking I'd found happiness, when in reality I was anything but. I used to go home from work every day wondering what mood swings or accusations would be thrown at me, I was constantly having to try and pick my way through the swathe of pathological lies fired in my direction, and I was unable to voice my own true opinions without being shouted down or risking the aforementioned mood swings or accusations - To put it simply, every day was a draining and stressful experience. Oh, and then there was copious periods of time listening to Bryan Ferry and pre-Avalon Roxy Music... How did I ever survive?!

Now, in contrast, I have the time to pursue my own ambitions rather than being expected to bolster someone elses, can listen to the music and watch the shows I like, and more importantly I'm surrounded by people who genuinely share my tastes in general, and have respect and time for my opinions. It's really quite liberating. Vive la difference!!! :D

Panic on the streets of Birmingham...

It's been a busy time for me Elite Bastards-wise this past week (just for a change!) - Aside from continuing to plough through the ever-growing mountain of review hardware (with some pretty cool reviews coming up I have to say), the highlight of last week was a trip to Birmingham to cover the Computer Trade Show (aka CTS) for the site, complete with press pass of course...



Needless to say, the site name got some interesting reactions throughout the day. ;) Although the show was apparantly not as packed full of items of interest as last year's offering, there was still plenty to cover, and more importantly it gave me the chance to go toe-to-toe with a bunch of marketing people with regard to getting review samples (more work for me - Yay!). I had some productive discussions on that front, so we'll have to see how they pan out in the long run, and I had a few interesting meetings during the course of the day too.

It also looks like we've found ourselves a willing provider of samples for NVIDIA graphics boards, thanks to some insanely generous and decent fellow who keeps going around recommended us and fighting our corner whenever they talk to AIB partners... You know who you are, and you know how grateful I am for it. ;)

So, all in all, the site is continuing to move onwards and upwards, to the point where I'm seriously starting to need someone to help out with some of the review workload and to let us cover more products methinks. It's something I'm still mulling over though (I'm such a control freak sometimes!), so more on that soon no doubt...

Goodbye old friend...

A few hours from now, Arsenal's close to 100 year stay at Highbury will finally come to an end, as they move on to a new stadium at Ashburton Grove next season after their final league game this afternoon. Every Gooner knows it's a necessity to progress as a football club, but I'm sure it won't stop most of us from missing the old place.

It was somewhat premature, but at least I got to say my goodbyes to the place last Summer, before it gets turned into flats and apartments in the next few months.









So many cherished memories...

You burn at both ends, yet still you're fine...

I should start by explaining today's 'Blog title - It's a line from a song on Zero 7's rather excellent new album, The Garden. The song in question is a great one, and this particular line seems to capture how life is going for me right now. Why am I burning the candle at both ends you ask? Well, it's something to do with this little lot:



Yes, thats right, I have just one or two reviews and article to write at the moment. ;o) On top of that, I'm currently trying to finalise going to CTS in Birmingham in a couple of weeks (I have my press pass already), and also arrange some other cool things for Elite Bastards. As per usual of course, this isn't me complaining so much as loving life - Call me a masochist, but I'm loving the hectic lifestyle at the moment.

Aside from that nice little pile of work, all is well in the world - The new car is great, life is smooth and relaxed despite being so busy... Oh, and there's the ever so small matter of Arsenal reaching the Champions League final on Tuesday night. Apologies to anyone in a five mile radius of me that evening for the foul-mouthed tirades and uncontrolled shouts of joy coming from my vicinity, particularly during those heart-in-mouth final few minutes. Of course, I have to go through that whole trauma all over again in three weeks time, but I wouldn't swap it for anything - As someone who never thought I'd live to watch Arsenal play in a Champions League final, it really is a dream come true, win or lose on the night.

So, I think that covers everything going on in my world for now, so back to rifling through that pile of hardware...

My new baby!

I just picked it up from the garage, and brought it home... My new pride and joy!

Apologies

I just wanted to write a quick message here to all of you who expressed concern about my last Blog entry, and/or my lack of contribution in certain places as of late. The fact that people have even taken the time out to ask has been a real comfort to me, so thanks to all of you who had me in their thoughts. :)

Anyway, I think it's only fair to tell everyone the full story of what has been going on in recent months to help you all understand what's being going on in my private life as of late, so here's the scoop:

The whole thing started just after Christmas really - Me and Tara got talking again, she said she felt like she'd made a big mistake leaving the way she did, that things weren't going well and that she really regretted and was sorry for what she'd done.

So, over the past few months, we carried on talking, even met a couple of times. It came to a head a few weeks ago, when she said that she'd really like to get things back how they were. We started talking about how to go about things, when to do it, and so on.

Until a couple of weeks ago - I got an e-mail from her out of the blue, saying that she'd been thinking about things and had decided that she wanted a divorce after all. Later that week, she called and told me she wanted me to pay at least half of the divorce fees, and basically gave me a whole lot of attitude. Of course, I gave her some back, and said no way was I paying that much after everything she'd done, and the whole thing ended rather unpleasantly.

Eventually, she agreed to pay all of the fees if I paid for and organised the initial filing (which I have to do, she can't because it was her who commited adultery), and has left it all up to me for now. Anyway, that's kind of beside the point.. The whole event has left me feeling all of the pain, anger and heartbreak of a few months ago all over again, only worse this time.

Mentally, I'm on the mend again, but it really was a big blow. So, thanks again for your support guys and girls (and you know who you are), it really has made a big difference to me bouncing back.

On a far more positive, and entirely unrelated, note; There's a new Boards of Canada EP being released in June. Can you say excited?!?!

As he faced the sun he cast no shadow...

"As they took his soul, they stole his pride..."

Cold-blooded old times

As per usual, I have to start a Blog entry with an apology as to the lack of updates. And, as per usual, I will also proceed to blame said lack of updates on being busy and so on - I've been spending quite a lot of time benchmarking for various articles recently, to the point where I've built up something of a minor backlog of actual reviews to write! I have a couple on the go right now, so if I can motivate myself sufficiently, then you might see them both this week. All this is on top of my latest review for Beyond 3D, covering ASUS' EN7800GT TOP Silent, which as I'm sure I've mentioned before is hard work but a joy to write for as a site, and I really can't feel much more proud of my efforts than when something I've written shows up on the front page of Beyond 3D.

Last week saw me pick up a nasty bout of 'flu, which laid me low for a fair while - There's nothing I hate more than my brain being willing but my body refusing point-blank to be of any use, so I'm not the most fun person to be around when I'm sick. Luckily I'm over that now, and fighting fit again.

Things have been a little strained in my personal life of late too, with things going on that I'm really not sure I can mention publically. Anyhow, it's reached the point now where I feel I'm being taken for a ride and used and abused to suit other people's designs right now, so I'm basically going to sit back, stop thinking about it, take my hands off the wheel, and see what happens. At the end of the day, there's only so much pain and upset I can take before I have to simply walk away from a situation, no matter how loathe I am to do so. :(

Anyway, aside from that there isn't a whole lot else to say... Back to Elite Bastards, things are finally coming along with the CMS, we've had one or two other cool things crop up (Not least Scott Davey's console-related articles, which are superb, and as mentioned in my last quick Blog entry, succeeded in getting us Slashdotted), so all in all we're making progress, although still not quite where I'd like things to be. Something to keep working towards is always good though.

Elite Bastards suffers the Slashdot effect...

Need I say more...

Reasons I don't spend much time in the Elite Bastards IRC channel #401

Topic is ' don't leave me alone here Quinn... arghh!!!!! * Hanners has left #sextorture *'

;)

Deadlines met, time to chill out a little...

As ever, I have to start this Blog entry by apologising for the lack of updates, but recent weeks have given me little to no time to sit down and do anything unrelated to work in some shape or form.

Thankfully, the results of all that hard work are now in the public domain, in the form of my 3DMark06 and Radeon X1900 XTX reviews. Despite how much I may moan about the amount of hours I had to put in on those two projects in this post, I can't really cover up the fact that I loved every minute of it... Playing with, testing and getting to grip with a new version of 3DMark is always an educational and informative experience, and it goes without saying to anyone who shares my level of geekiness that getting to find out about and then try out a new high-end video card is pretty much on top of the thrill-o-meter.

I won't wax too much lyrical about my day in London for the R580 briefing, but it was cool to catch up with Rys again (properly this time!), get to meet Dave Baumann at last (after I somehow missed him last time around, even though he was apparantly only sitting a couple of seats away at the AVIVO briefing in December!) and also meet Gary Jones, Club 3D's legendary lifesaver (to me anyway!) in the flesh, as well as a bundle of other people.

Anyway, after my exertions on those two articles I've been taking something of a breather for a few days to regain my composure - I have a few things I wouldn't mind investigating on the back of my recent work, so I'll probably plunge into something during next week. We also have a couple of other articles coming up which could prove pretty interesting too, but both of those are out of my hands. :)

Outside of Elite Bastards, there isn't much to report - Work has been somewhat busy lately, and I have a pay/performance review coming up, which will doubtless end in disappointment. I could really do with a week off soon, but I'm not sure if and well I'll get that sorted. I'm also looking at forking out a bundle of money on my car in the next few weeks, with an MOT coming up and it being in dire need of replacement brake pads. Truth be told, I really want to find myself something newer and better, but at the moment I just don't have the money in the bank.

Belated Happy New Year

So, here we are - 2006. Still no hover cars, teleporters, Transformers arriving from 1986... All pretty boring isn't it?! I'm not much of a New Year person in all honesty, I don't buy into a lot of the ideas of making resolutions, clean slates and the like - For me, it's just a continuation of what went before, and if there are things you want to change about yourself or your life, then you should be doing it when you realise that something's wrong, not because there's a new number in the year. But, there you go, I'm just a killjoy like that.. ;o)

Having said that, the start of a New Year always seems to be a good opportunity to set new targets and review any you've made before. As far as Elite Bastards goes, I really feel we've made progress, even just in the last couple of months - I won't bore you with statistics, but we're slowly beginning to draw in more readers on a regular basis, and certainly our 'big' articles are getting more exposure, which can only be a good thing. To continue that growth, what we need is content, content, content, and good quality content at that. We certainly should have a couple of big hitting articles showing up in the coming weeks, and I'm really hoping (with some work on my part too) that said articles will help to snowball the reputation of the site as one worth reading and/or dealing with. On that matter, I saw something over the Christmas period which brought a huge grin to my face, but you guys will see it soon enough (If you haven't already for the chosen few ;o)).

The only fly in the ointment which I was hoping would be done and dusted by the time we entered 2006 is the lack of our new Content Management System, as we're at the point where doing things as we are currently is holding us back. Hopefully we'll get something together sooner rather than later though.

On a final point of Elite Bastards business, I'll be off to London one day next week. And that's all I can say on the subject right now.

Away from web site goings-on, my Christmas and New Year was pretty cool, but quiet. Killer present of the year for me was a DAB digital radio, which has seen me glued to BBC 6 Music whenever I get the opportunity - It's almost like they can read my mind and pick up my musical tastes whenever I tune in, it's uncanny.

As for what 2006 holds for me personally? Well, there are some intriguing happenings at the moment, so even I don't know where I'm going to end up by the time the year is out.