Elvis lives?

I am a huge Elvis fan having been brought up hearing his songs. No-one is ever able to sound exactly like Elvis. I sort of understand the near religious passion that surrounds him. The BBC, yes the BBC!, has started a talent show to find the worlds greatest elvis trubute act. They scoured the planet for the top 30 from all over the world and then they have been having a sing off tonight.
I was expecting this to be terrible and wrong, but it was actually very good. There were 2 fantastic performers that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Still not Elvis but very good.
Next week is the final, the 5 that have been sorted out will do a much bigger show. Yes I know its saturday night, but I am getting on a bit now.
Anyway, Elvis has such a varied range and career, albeit parodied with the whole end of life thing, but it did strike me that it would be an awesome finale if the BBC had actually found Elvis alive and he turns up next week :-)
As it was the programme was really a tribute and has a great deal of respect shown. Elvis did after all on his hawaii return gig play to 1/3 of the worlds population. Anyone with that reach, and that great talent has earned respect.
Whats you favourite Elvis song?
I am torn by "in the ghetto" and "my way" though my way is a cover. For power and excitement the 56 sessions still rock though, pure rock and roll.


Having referenced My Way, it does say a few things that resonate with the last 18 months of metaverse evangelism (though I hope the end is not near :-) )

Regrets, Ive had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exception

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
Oh, and more, much more than this
I did it my way

Yes, there were times, Im sure you know
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way

Quoting lyrics like a teenager..... :-)

custom spiderman car in forza

custom spiderman car, originally uploaded by epredator.

I finally got around to buying a car online in the Forza auctions. This excellant spider man car popped up. Props to the artist who ever they are as I did not check out the name and after purchase it did not seem to keep the designers name with it.
The tools to customize the cars do not include uplading images, its all pure in game design with clipart, colours and a stack of time and talent.

Having already created the eightbar/epredator design I also decided to aution one of these f430's. It may sell, its only on for 2 hours and at a resonable price. Though its only a stock 430 under the hood, you have to try these things.



If anybody ever has any doubt about the need to be able to trade in user created content which driving game am I talking about here out of the hundreds available. Yes, the one with the cool user created content.

Yet more slippage of dates this time Ps3 Home

This is probably not a surprise given the amount of slippage that occurs in almost every game related release as I blogged recently. Sony Ps3 home is no longer going to be in october this year. Thats a pity as I was looking forward to seeing it. Though as I am speaking at lots of conferences I would have missed the early days, so thankyou for moving it :-)
I am not bothered which company or platform, and I am sure there will be lots of PR spin from all camps. All we end up with though is annoyed users.

Painting with light

I have dabbled with painting with light with digital cameras on long exposure.
Its interesting but hard work to do anything other than the abstract





However this video from youtube is really impressive. Just check this out!

Yes this is me driving an f430

Here is s snippet of the last lap of me in the f430 at thruxton. Awesome experience

Halo 3 beautiful tv advert

I just caught this on TV, it is one of teh most unusual and stunning game adverts I think I have seen. Its done with what appear to be plastic soldiers in a diorama. It is refreshing and clever and whilst I am already a Halo convert, its got to intrigue some people who are not

Also I have just received a refund check from Microsoft for the repair to the 360. It was unexpected and very cool.
So things are looking up

The best pirate sketch ever

Its talk like a pirate day. This is the best pirate sketch ever

Bioshock is Web 2.0 too :-)

Bioshock, originally uploaded by epredator.

I have finally got around to playing bioshock on the 360. I had teh demo and bought the game but the whole 40th celebrations and a trip to belgium with work slowed me down.
Anyway, it is an awesom creation, the lighting the water the art deco themes.
I snapped a quick photo with the repaired n95 of this statue in the entrance hall. It has this whole captain nemo thing (thanks wal for spotting that :-) )
It struck me that this banner is very Web 2.0 :-) Removal of the command control structure, and people being able to be people :-)
Not wanting to get into deep political or religious discussion its just a bit tongue in cheek really :-)

Broken N95 - Now fixed

Broken N95, originally uploaded by epredator.

My recent trip to the netherlands and belgium broke my mobile phone. My n95 screen started to go a little mad. It left me out of contact at various conference centres which was a bit annoying.
Luckily the phone still worked a little bit in that I could USB cable to it and SMS in and out.
Now I have spinvox on my voicemail it meant I could ignore calls and wait for a text message from the speech to text. As I could not press a button to answer a call either.
I took the phone to carphone warehouse on Sunday and then replaced the screen by monday. That was a bit of a surprise, it just seems to be fixed. Though next trip I will take my treo 650 as backup :-)

If you ever need to do a hard reset or soft reset on an n95 I found this on the web
It was on this tech[dot]blog It did not help me as such but gave me some things to try.

I have copied the text here in case the link does not work in the future :-)


Here are a couple of codes to soft/hard reset/format a Nokia N95 mobile device:

Soft reset code *#7370#
Hard reset code *#7780#

If the hard format code mentioned aboive does not work, try the following manual method to hard reset/format Nokia N95:

*Turn off the mobile device. Then press and hold “3?, the “Green button” and “*” - Turn on and keep holding the keys untill the mobile phone restarts and prompts you to enter details.

Slipping release dates for games (all of them)

I got yet another email from Amazon today saying that one of preordered games was now going to be later than the original date.
Preordering is great, but it does mean you notice more when an item slips, namely because Amazon are great and tell you :-)
Grand theft auto iv slipped to next year, Assassins Creed by a few months, Spore into 2008 the only one left on the list is the mighty Halo 3. It may be that bungie and the launch parties that scoble was bloggin about, may actually hit this date (though of course it was supposed be a long while ago as I remember).
Some of this may be to whip up demand amongst us gamers that like the new and the shiny, or to maximize those christmas profits, or post christmas blues when people buy games.
Either way its a pain, but not as big a pain as wandering into a shop like Game, seeing the box on the shelf, walking over to pick it up and then noticing the damn sticker saying "coming soon - preorder now". If I wanted to preorder I do it on the web!
I am a techie, and I know deadlines slip, development is an art form and fills the time available. However, why not just have a realistic date, I end up "seasonally adjusting" every date I see, but that should not be my job :-)

If you cant get your N95 in mass storage mode and use Shozu read this

I was getting a bit annoyed trying to add some maps to my n95, it refused to let me go into "mass storage mode" as it was already being used by another application.
Holding down the applications button only showed standy as being active.
However..... I found this.

"However there is a workaround. If you launch ShoZu, then hold down the application button (the little dot-square-swoosh button to the left of the central button), you'll see a list of running applications. Find ShoZu in this list and press the 'C' button and agree to exit ShoZu. You should now be able to use the USB mass storage"

So you have to start Shozu, and close it in this way not just exit or it lock the memory. A bit of a pain, but now I know its not so bad a work around

A bizzare coincidence with me and Linden?

I was zooming around google maps on my n95 and doing the usual thing of places I have lived. I zoomed in on where I was born ( a home birth ) 40 years ago.
I was born on Briar Avenue. Not more than 70 metres away and opposite Linden Tree Gardens. Now I had forgotten this, I used to play on sycamore and oak, but Linden was a cul de sac.
Was it this that made me think Second Life felt comfortable given its by Linden Labs?
I live my live with things all connecting in a nice flow of various strands, its all connected, but this was a bit of an OMG moment :-)

eightbar f430 and lancia stratos

eightbarf430, originally uploaded by epredator.

A customer epredator/8bar f 430 like the one I got to drive last weekend on my 40th :-)

Also here is a video of the stratos in action

Well I am web 2.0 compatible

07092007516, originally uploaded by epredator.

Andy Piper got me this bagde that he got in a long tail way from http://www.mister-wong.com/

Attitudes and knowledge of what is going on

I grew up watching non the nine o'clock news, and this sketch (a little bit saucy) is less of a comment on the legal system and more of people not knowing things that you would expect them to know due to popular culture.
Fill in anything here, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, games, ipods, gps the list goes on. Just goes to show nothing changes :-)

40th birthday epredator cake

40th birthday epredator cake, originally uploaded by epredator.

I got a fantastic second life avatar cake too :-) it was not a potato cake BTW :-)

This is what happens when others drive your cars

qcumbercrash3, originally uploaded by epredator.

At the post 40th party we have spent the day on the excellant Forza 2 360 game I got a one of my many pressies (thanks lisa and malcom :-)
So the 360 has been on all day, with time trials, multiplayer and generally kaning the arcade part of the game.
Needless to say the precision driving one comes to expect from us old gamers sometimes goes a bit awry.
Colin (a.k.a qcumber) managed to launch the porsche cayman (same model as I drove the other day)
Forza lets you stop and take photos, upload them, and then of course I flickred them too so I could blog the event.
Marvelous stuff really :-)
Anyway Forza 2 Rawks as they/we say. Very solid driving game and the career elements are going fun too.
The custom paint jobs people are doing are amazing too, so i put in a bid on a auction to use game credits to buy a spongebob VW beetle. :-)

Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago

Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago, originally uploaded by epredator.

I had a suprise birthday gift for my 40th of a driving day at thruxton race circuit.
I got to drive a porsche vatman as a warm up, then a Ferrari 430 then this monster of a lambo.
640 bhp awesome car.
My twitters were not clarksonesque enough so I finally twittered "raging power bubbling from the gates of hell and i dont mean bill, lambo invite you to choose how you crash ... spectacularly "

It does not get any better than this

On the way to legoland for mrs epred's birthday the Ipod kids selection started playing this. Its new to the predlets, but I could not stop singing it all day.

Posh graffiti

Posh graffiti, originally uploaded by epredator.

We have really posh graffiti down our way. I saw this down by the shore and had to take a photo of it.