Category: Journal

Managed to have my first proper slam on the min-ramp at skateboarding the other night. Tried to roll back into the ramp going the opposite direction from usual, lost my balance, spent a few microseconds of bullet-time in mid air before thumping onto the wooden floor of the ramp. Ouch.

I’ve a nasty bruise / friction burn type thing on the bit of your right arm that you lean on when sleeping / playing games / using a computer keyboard / mouse / and it’s proving to be a pain in the ass. My right hip is pretty sore too, but I hope to be back in action this weekend for some practice if the weather is good.

Despite a bit of pain, it was good to get my first medium sized slam out of the way. Maybe it’s a rites-of-passage kind of thing and next week I’ll be that much better. :o)

As mentioned before, I’m re-designing WipeoutZone at the moment, although it’s taking me a little longer than I’d hoped. I have the layout where I’m pretty happy with it, although I’m so out of practice with graphics that I cant get the look I’m after for a tab at the end of the banner. I might just drop the idea for the sake of time, but I’m hoping for some inspiration to hit me before it comes to that.

Best accomplishment so far was cutting over 500 lines of code from the records page. It’s really swish now and I even have a printable version going. Other than that, though, there’s still quite a bit to do – the time entry page will need a massive overhaul – I reckon that’ll take me five hours or more by itself.

I’ve set myself a deadline of 30th September, but any time that week will do just fine as long as I get everything working smoothly.

After the new WipeoutZone I’ll be working on the aforementioned Macsturbator.com – a project which I’m sure will be popular with the Apple adoring masses. I just cant wait until I have people signing up for the Jizzletter! ;o)

Today I made the annual pilgrimage to my local game store to pick up my newly released copy of Madden NFL 2004. I was trading in something like six games at the time, as my intention was to buy a network adapter for my PlayStation 2 as well. Sadly for me, Game were out of network adapters, so I decided on Madden and a new controller instead.

The guy goes through the process of opening each game, checking the disk and instructions, before he finally gets to Madden 2003. The disk isn’t in there – and I know straight away that it’s still sitting in my PS2, as I’d been playing it the night before and just had a brain failure when I picked up the case in the morning.

“Oh no… schoolboy error!” I admit “the disk is still in my PlayStation. Sorry about that, I’ll just take it back.”

“That’s why we check – you get people trying to pull a fast one… oh.. hold on – there’s a disk in here anyway, tucked into the instruction book.” Mr Exceptionally Cheerful Game store Assistant discovers – “Hey, it’s a Wallace and Gromit DVD – lucky you didn’t trade that in by accident, I can see you’re a big fan!!”

For a brief second I didn’t get what he was on about, until I glanced down to dicover that, yes, I had thrown on a Wallace and Gromit t-shirt that morning. Not because I’m a big, huge fan, but because it was the first t-shirt I came to that didn’t look like it needed ironed. Honest.

Rather than spare my embarrassment, Mr Game store assistant and his assembled colleagues were unable to conceal their mirth. It’s good fortune that the trade-in’s came to the exact value of my new game and controller. This meant I could sign the trade-in book quickly and get the hell outta there!