The official start date of semester three of the MBA ticked over in the middle of the week. Regrettably, funding issues have meant that I'm not studying any modules this semester. This funding issue looks like it's going to be resolved, but not resolved in time. This is a bit of a pain, as it breaks momentum and adds another six months on to the graduation date. The biggest problem is psychological momentum, not so much in terms of the study regime, but in terms of opening a big gaping window to start second guessing and questioning if the whole expensive exercise is worth it. It doesn't help that this enforced gap combines with the PGCert break point, a recession and a 1,001 articles on MBA pointlessness. I have Twitter to thank for bringing those to my attention. I'm quite confident I will continue, as I do enjoy the process immensely, but the psychological wolves are certainly at the door.

The first choice was whether to take an official study break and effectively cease to be a student for six months. I considered this, but since it is a complete, 100% break I decided not to. It would mean getting completely cut off from the University. While this has the advantage of me not using up one semester of the 10 I have to complete, I felt it was too much of a disadvantage in terms of losing access to the University (some of the reasons why follow). If my lack of study extends I can consider a break then, but one semester isn't the end of the world in terms of the study deadline. I also believe the baying of the psychological wolves would be much louder if I did make a complete break at this point. It's the possible effect on my three year self-imposed deadline that's irritating me.

The question is what to do in the six months so they aren't wasted?

I'm going to pursue some easy win qualifications. The targets at the moment are the ITIL Foundation certification and Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector. These two qualifications are relatively cheap, effectively just the exam cost in the case of the ITIL Foundation and add qualifications that further rubber stamp my broad range of experience in my career as well as acting as door openers. I've managed ICT operations extensively and learned a lot of the ITIL best practice through practical experience (there is also a lot of sensible strategy, business analysis and MBA subjects in their like marketing and finance) and I've done plenty of training courses as part of strategy implementations. If at the end of this semester I can have these two qualifications on my CV it won't feel as big a waste.

I intend to unofficially study the MBA despite not actually having any modules. The text books for any modules or electives I intend to take are all available at the University (reason one for not losing access) and as such I should be able to gain a very strong head start on anything I subsequently sign-up to. This should be pretty comprehensive in fact and save a lot of time later. The critical question is: will it allow me to scrape back this semester? It may, but there is every chance it won't. This is due to the way the semesters are organised, no matter how much study time I put in now, it doesn't make much difference to the fact the ECA only comes out for the second half of the semester. As a result, taking on more modules because of 'advanced study' doesn't help when I suddenly have more ECA work to do in the second half. The only way I could do this is if I knew the ECA question in advance and do preparation work. It may be possible to get a good sense of the ECA work on electives and if it varies much.

I can continue going to MBA related events. This includes speakers and on-line events. These have been very interesting and had value. I may also go to the on-site seminar even though I'm not studying anything, it gives me a chance to catch up with people and I can check out electives I'd like to do. The checking out of electives is a very good use of on-site seminar time, but it does depend on what electives are 'on display' at the next seminar. It can vary quite a bit. I'm local, it's a trip down the road at little cost to me, especially for the weekend activities, so it'd be stupid not to.

I also feel the need to use the extra free time to do something not study related, as it has been pretty intense for the last year. I'm just not sure what.

The standard price of 40 GBP for console and 30 GBP for PC games has been under pressure for a while now. Not under pressure in terms of it being reduced, it seems to have even weathered the recession nicely, but in terms of that revenue stream being enough for publishers. The pressure to monetise brands through extra income streams is growing through the fact the return on the retail price isn't enough, apparently. There is also extra benefits like shrinking piracy, which in return increases the income stream from traditional sales. It's also true that the phenomenal success of World of Warcraft has everyone lusting after that sort of regular income in some, small way. Everyone likes regular recurring income, rather than risky, spiky income with high sunk costs.

One of the companies that has always been well respected by consumers is Blizzard. They had a history of releasing games with a lot of content, not over charging, having great customer service and just being all round great. Whether truth or nostalgia they got labelled with being a developer who did it the 'old way'. It's interesting how market forces, whether out of necessity or greed, are influencing the new, post-World of Warcraft, post-Activision merger company.

Starcraft has been split into three titles rather the one, under the excuse that they couldn't do the epic story for each race justice under one title. I'm sure this is true, to some degree, and I suspect there is still good reasons to believe each game will offer sufficient content under today's standards to justify three titles. At the same time, the release of three titles developed so close together, with a common multi-player game, offers the chance for Blizzard to gain significant economies of scale on software assets, tools and developers and thus reduce costs across the three titles. The result will be, so they hope, a significantly higher profit across three full priced titles rather than one. They are, in effect, extending the brand to scrape out more value than that offered by one title every 4-10 years. It also gets the Starcraft franchise to work as close to a MMO expansion cycle as is possible, for three years, at least.

Starcraft has also dropped LAN support, which means the only way to play multi-player is through the Battle.Net service. This has a number of advantages to Blizzard, which will be discussed later, but one main advantage of dropping LAN support is it potentially reduces the desirability of the product to software pirates, by raising the barrier to entry of multi-player. If the pirated versions can have it added then that involves effort, if they can't, then Battle.Net will effectively deny pirated copies access to multi-player. The multi-player access as piracy denial strategy has been popular for sometime. Even in my anecdotal experience suggests the number of people who extensively pirated who are willing to pay for World of Warcraft on an on-going basis could be significant.

Now, we come to Battle.net, historically a service Blizzard offered completely for free. That was before Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network started to either charge for their service or utilise it to create a market for selling a variety of extra content. It was also before iPhone applications stores, Steam and whatever else. These services are also creating communities, which in turn echoes the whole move of the Internet to a social rather than anonymous fabric. Battle.net is sitting there with membership numbers despite the games being old, it's not surprising the potential in the service is looking to be mined now new games are coming on-line. Will they charge for Battle.net? Hard to say, and they'd say no until the last minute anyway, but it will certainly become a market for monetised content, which has implications for Diablo III. They also have the opportunity to enhance the social fabric within Battle.net and potentially link it in some way to World of Warcraft since a core of the fan base is shared across the Blizzard brand. Indeed, somehow developing Battle.net as the Xbox Live of Blizzard titles, including World of Warcraft, would allow for cross-selling to a significant World of Warcraft audience due to a combined accounts, with achievements, etc. They have already centralised account authentication, enabled an on-line store and plan cross-game communication in the future.

As someone who isn't significantly effected by this, it's very interesting, as is the nerd rage caused by these decisions. Whether the legions of gamers like it or not, just like many an industry before, the gaming industry will become more service-based. How that will look and how it will be charged and what the market will accept is another matter. Times change. Remember, at one point it was common to not need multiple copies of a title to play it multi-player?

Well, I've watched all six Rocky films and chronicled the experience. You can find the results in The Rocky Diary. If you want a quick summary? I really liked the films, I think Rocky is a classic, Rocky II is one of the best sequels ever filmed, while Rocky III and Rocky IV are entertaining to a degree. Amazingly, for the fifth and sixth films in a franchise, the last two are good.

We saw Bruno yesterday on one of these free deals to create buzz. I wasn't expecting it to be funny. I've not been a big follower of Sacha Baron Cohen, though I did find Borat very funny, in a guilty sort of way. That's the thing about Barot, you almost feel guilt for finding it funny, caught between feeling it's exploitive and offensive and being a great spotlight on certain elements of US culture. The reason I wasn't expecting Bruno to be funny is I didn't think I'd find a film about the fashion industry funny, but the film soon distances itself from that and actually becomes a story about a gay man willing to do outrageous things to be famous in the US.

It follows the same format as Borat, in that Cohen plays Bruno constantly and puts himself in all sorts of real, live situations in which the participants aren't fully in on the 'joke', though I have no idea how he gets some people into the situations. You are left feeling that the film is offensive to non-heterosexuals, as Bruno is a stereotype, often a heterosexual stereotype of gay men, but in turn he uses this to show some really outrageous views on gay men in US society. As a result, you laugh pretty much continuously to the point it's painful while feeling half-guilty at the same time. I'd say the film is far more outrageous than Borat, though this may primarily be because of the subject matter, people regrettably find the comedy foreigner less contentious ground. A handful of people did leave the cinema and not see the film through. It certainly has a lot more sexual content.

I could go on to describe why it's funny, but that would give a lot away. It's suffice to say the film is only about 90-minutes long, and is packed with material, while still following a narrative. He meets ex-presidential candidates, goes on an outrageous talk show with an exclusive African American audience, takes on the Middles East crises, 'adopts' a black baby, goes on a hunting trip with white, right wing hunters, joins the army, creates his own TV show and has it test screened by a studio, it's pretty impressive and packed. The final scene encompasses the whole film, making you cringe, gasp at the reactions of the audience and laugh all at the same time. The film is at its best when its focusing on the relationship between the gay man and certain elements of US society.

I can see it offending people, and I'd understand why that was the case, but what can I say? I found it hilarious, slightly offensive, and shocking in terms of the views, lifestyles and reactions of some of his 'victims'. Like Borat, I'm not sure it has any repeat value, but it's worth the one viewing. I was in pain when it finished.

I've had the DS for six days now, and I have to admit Final Fantasy IV has monopolised my time for the most part. It's a really good game, and my principal protagonist is now making his way up a mythical mountain in order to transform himself from a slightly dubious 'Dark Paladin' to a 'Paladin' proper so he can save the woman he loves and stop the corruption of his country.

I have been on a game buying spree combined with trading in stuff I've not used for years. We are talking PC games that have been on my shelf for 3-4 years collecting dust. I also got rid of a few Xbox 360 games. I even traded in Mass Effect as I realised I wasn't going to play it again (though I've kept my saves for Mass Effect 2). This means I got the above batch of games for significantly less than the price of one new one. It's a varied spread and it's going to take a while to give them all a good play, since they are significant role-playing and strategy games. I did a quick pass of Civilization Revolution and it's pretty...complex. I'll have to come back to that one.

I had a Gameboy and it failed to obtain any traction. The whole portable nature of it just didn't have as a big appeal as I thought. The DS feels different. I'm sure part of that is the device while some of it is me. What you get is a powerful, convenient platform that is quick and easy with some good titles along with the mass of crap, puzzle and training games. The best titles focus on the convenience. This doesn't mean the games have to be simple, it's about little tools and facilities. As an example, Final Fantasy IV allows you to get into the game easily and, more importantly, has a Quicksave option that saves the game so you can instantly shut it off and do something else. This means the game can be played for short periods of time. This is a good thing. It will be games with limited save options that don't play to the platform's strength. You can also play while something is on the TV, which isn't the case on the Xbox 360 as you're monopolising the TV.

There is also a bit of a rebellion going on with respect to the current generation of consoles. I've discussed it before, while the new games have better graphics, some extra physics or whatever else, in many cases they are just slightly shinier versions of what has gone before. The DS offers a catalogue of games that you don't overly see on the current generation of consoles, for a cheaper price and in a much more convenient format. The one thumbs up the DS gets is it doesn't do a vast amount of First Person titles. I really do lament the influence first person titles have had on the gaming market and the fact it has potentially created a generation of myopic gamers who see first person as the only design choice.

We learned a few days ago that some games can be played multi-player without everyone having the game. It does this by downloading a version of the game to the other DS. This is pretty good. It's usually restricted in some ways, often the number of players, but it's a great idea. We do have a copy of Worms lying around that can be used that way, but we've not fully got into it yet. Age of Empires: Mythologies also supports it. The difficulty will be whether Louise is interested in the tactical depth.

While I have the above five titles to work through, there is always Guitar Hero hanging around in the background, and Louise is playing through Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and then she's tackling Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, which should have its moments. I sense I'll be hearing 'I object!' being shouted in my near future.

The last two sessions, The Pool of Radiance and The Dark Rises, are two of the best of the campaign so far. True, one might say I'm inclined to say that since they are my character's spotlight episodes, but it's actually nothing much to do with that because the conflicts the character faces didn't get pushed that much, it was a combination of the encounters and a feeling, especially in The Dark Rises, that the orchestrated awesome had given a way to a more flowing, unplanned series of unexpected awesome driven by the intersection of player action and mechanics.

Following the really good encounters in The Pool of Radiance, especially the Beholder, we got three exciting and diverse encounters in The Dark Rises.

The 'Skiff Battle'

The first encounter consisted of getting to Shraal's alabaster fortress, a massive floating piece of rock in a great cavern, and this was done via floating rock platforms to and from the cavern's outer walls. Queue a battle with other floating platforms in an attempt to get across. We didn't go for the subtle approach, but then this shouldn't be surprising, if there is ever an opportunity to take the Michael Bay approach to problem solving we will. We chose to ram other platforms, undertake boarding actions, leap between platforms, teleport enemies into the air and shattering platforms into pieces using the magic items of the Gods (and stunt points). It was a really fun encounter. In truth, it could have been more difficult by giving the enemy forced movement powers, but it didn't need it as it was largely a great visual piece before the two main events.

Taletia, Queen of the Drow

Taletia was once the handmaiden of Ashura (Primordial of the Sun), but betrayed him, thus creating The Drow, but she is now enslaved by Shraal and was our next obstacle. The encounter was pretty nifty as she covered 100% of the battlefield in magical darkness, turning the fight into one of search and destroy with the target being able to teleport and strike for lots of damage. While these things can be frustrating, I thought the encounter looked clever and fun, though it's easy for me to say as I was off rescuing Kallista (my character's half sister while this encounter took place). Ultimately though, all it took was for Morn to tag Taletia once, thus beginning his stun and daze cycle as well as locking her down and she was done. We did make a dubious bargain with her, thus she may feature again in our fight against the Primordials.

Shraal, Lord of the Void

The final fight, with Shraal, Lord of the Void, bent on destroying the Heart of Ashura and sucking every living soul into darkness. A nice and suitable 'destroying reality itself bad guy'. The big bad. Regrettably, the poor soul, soliloquy-ing from his shield of shadow with great aplomb was 'taken out' quickly due to a series of fortuitous rolls, the use of action points and 'triggered powers' causing 417 points of damage in 2 rounds. In a way this was a bit disappointing, as the scale of the guys nefarious plan and the build up to his 'scary awesome' by Taletia had really got us primed for a good, hard slog. Instead we got total 'pwnage'. Still, it could easily have went the other way due to the vagaries of the dice, his AOE power being particularly vicious, combined with the reduce healing of the 'gloom' effect. Still, it's good to totally kick the enemy big style every so often.

Descent of the Fortress!

The key point came at the end of the Shraal encounter, just as we were about to lay on the killing blow an NPC, a rival on the great hunt my character is on, stole the kill just like I did from a rival in The Belly of the Beast. After a bit of negotiation we got the scene framing correct and what followed was the first skill challenge that had something. It went beyond a simple binary decider, or a way to montage scenes, both of which have their uses, and instead mechanically sent the story spinning of in unexpected directions. That's what you want the mechanics to do. We scrambled for ownership of the Heart of Ashura as Shraal's massive stone monolith began to descend back down into the cavern with us in it. Awesome. As it happened everyone lost it and it crashed to the bottom in the rubble. This kicked off Morn using a ring obtained in Iceholme to visit an ancient undead giant to bargain for the heart and my character jumping off a platform and descending into the rubble cloud after Kallista to chase her for the heart. It was a great, dramatic, big scale ending in a form no one knew would happen, and thus more exciting for it.

The Three Lenses

What has become apparent is the game is viewed through three difference lenses. The three different lenses are:-

• Tactical Lens: The is is the game utilising the figures and the battle mat. It is quite specific and exact and, to one degree or another, adversarial.
• Skill Challenge Lens: This is less tactical and serves numerous purposes as I've discussed before. It's often a way to montage through a sequence with some stakes in play.
• Role-Playing Lens: The system takes to the background to the point of not being present and we role-play the characters.

Now, what's interesting about this is it's a very old school approach, which isn't a value statement, but you do have to be aware of it. It's true that other games merge the distinct lenses of play better, often by not having as many (and they have other issues). What has become apparent is conflicts are occurring over how things work in the different lenses and when we transition from lens to lens.

First example In the role-playing lens I happily jumped from a floating platform after Kallista, essentially a leap of faith as I had no way to stop myself, I assumed she did, and that she'd rescue me or I'd have to fight her for 'the parachute'. No rolls, no system, purely dramatic, narrative issues resolved through action stuff. Yet in the tactical lens, characters with magical items that allow super leaping can find themselves making rolls they can fail despite using stunt points to achieve much less. I'm generalising a bit, and a few holes exist in the argument, but the point holds in terms of the inconsistency between the lenses. The tactical lens acts as a restriction which in turn allows a certain type of tactically tense encounter to occur.

Second example. The surprise NPC killed Shraal in this session and entered the field, but we'd moved out of combat..or had we? He killed Shraal dramatically without a roll? Were we still in the tactical lens, the skill challenge lens or the role-playing lens? It actually took a bit of time to establish it was the skill challenge lens and how it was going to work. It worked very well as noted, but I'm not sure the transition went without frustrating some people. If you throw in the fact powers can be used in skill challenges in a muggy way, skills occasionally get brought into the role-playing, stunt points can in theory be used in all lenses, it's quite easy to see it gets a bit messy.

There are a number of other examples, such as transitioning from tactical to role-playing at the end of the final encounter with Zirithian in Iceholme and the fluid change between tactical and role-playing in the battle with The Grub and Ak'Aran Tra'Kar in session 10.

I'm not sure how to resolve the above, as consistency is going to be difficult as the nature and goals of each lens are different. The best bet might be to adopt a clear set of scene framing tools, and for everyone to be patient so we know the frame of the scene along with the lens. At times the 4E Campaign needs to slow down and spend time on these areas, as well as from a wider perspective to allow things to absorbed and reacted to. Why is consistency needed? Well, some might say it's a rules lawyer thing, but it's not. Consistency is important to form a solid bedrock for decisions, it's true during change in an organisation and it's true in role-playing games. If people know where they stand, they are more likely to take the initiative and push, in a role-playing game that generally means doing something awesome rather than second guessing due to wanting to avoid too much negotiation through lack of clarity.

While all that's an interesting observation, let's not forget above all else, the two sessions were, for the most part, amazing.

GM Blog Links:

• The Dark Rises

We made the intrepid journey to Dalton Park today to see what their Tribute to Star Wars was about beyond, you know, getting people to come to the place and shop. The journey did turn out to be epic due to a series of accidents on the A19. Apparently, the crash involved two tankers and a car on one carriageway and then 18 cars on the opposite carriageway during the fog late last night. The result was significant diversions through old colliery villages this morning.

The event at Dalton Park was a simple affair. They played the Star Wars soundtrack over the speakers and had three character meet and greet areas along with people in costume parading around. The queues did get quite long for these photo opportunities. I was also surprised by the number of kids in outfits, which was cool. The characters were provided by Skywalkers who organise events, make costumes and other sundries. Have to say, the costumes were pretty damned good, the various storm troopers and clone troopers being particularly impressive. I wasn't so impressed with the Luke Skywalker we seen, he looked more like a Chav version of Porkins to me, but you can't have everything. We never saw Princess Leia, if she was as bad as Luke she was probably behind the bike sheds somewhere.

They had 800 lightsabers on hand. They sold a lot of lightsabers. Virtually every kid had one. The most fascinating thing about the trip was noting the differences between the two generations of Star Wars fans. When I was young we used to have lightsaber fights in the street, but they differed considerably from the current generation. The new generation have embraced the Wuxia and Force big style. Watching the various running battles breaking out across Dalton Park we had kids jumping off things for dramatic effect, wielding their lightsaber in reverse and throwing in the odd kick. The unique move was showing your opponent 'the palm', those in the know recognise this as the sign of the 'force push' which is recognised by your opponent and he jumps backwards in response. If both of you give 'the palm' this results in both sides standing still with facial expressions denoting 'epic concentration'. It may be followed by both jumping back. It was very funny to watch. We had none of this stuff, our Wuxia and Force wanting battles just consisted of swinging plastic rods at each other.

We didn't come back empty handed, as we went into the Cadbury's shop and raided it for 3 GBP worth of chocolate consisting of four Easter Eggs and 100 mini-cream eggs. They did have their infamous box of 9 Kilos of mini-eggs for 10 GBP but we resisted buying a box for the sake of our health. We would not have been able to hold back and we'd have made ourselves sick. I know this to be true.

Way back in 1997, and it was shocking when I checked the date, I played Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation. I loved the game. Despite it's length, complexity and some element of grinding I really enjoyed it. It's one of the few games to create a memorable moment, namely when Aeris died. It's been the only Final Fantasy game I've enjoyed. The others just haven't appealed to the same degree, one big problem with them being the amount of rendered scenes. As the PlayStation got more powerful, you found yourself asking why the developers just didn't produce a film instead? There comes a point when calling something a game is pretty thin.

Now, I feel like I've stepped a decade back in time as I'm playing Final Fantasy IV on the DS. I'm still in the early phases of the game, but it's a damned good game so far. It's the usual thing: melodramatic storyline consisting of love, betrayal, redemption, dastardly villains and whatever else as an excuse to gallivant around the place uncovering the story, killing things and taking their stuff.

The humorous thing at the moment is the various status effects. We sometimes joke in the 4E Campaign about the status effects having parallels with Japanese role-playing games, with things like daze, blind, stunned, etc. Sitting and playing a classic Japanese RPG again it's quite funny to see the status effects take hold. In fact, one of the strategies in the fights is the infamous 'status effects and then death' strategy we've used in the 4E Campaign. The spells in Final Fantasy IV can apply various status effects and its often useful to hold, sleep, confuse or whatever else enemies on the opposing side until you're ready to deal with them. It's also true that the enemy imposes effects on you which reduce your action economy and transition through various stages before the 'killing effect'. As an example, just like 4E, the slow effect reduces your action economy and the petrify effect goes through a couple of stages before the end game of turning you to stone. Poison is essentially on-going damage for a period. While the 'roles' of classes have certainly been focused with further influence from MMO games, the action economy, status effects and the new rules for things like petrify are certainly from Japanese role-playing games like Final Fantasy.

One area in which the game doesn't operate like an MMO or 4E is the ability of a 'Defender' to control flow of the enemy. In fact, in traditional Japanese RPG style movement doesn't exist in combat, you just take turns to hit each other with a combination of abilities based on the action economy. It has a certain hypnotic and addictive charm. The result of this is some combats features the enemy pounding on the 'cloth' characters, which means they need a lot of resources to remain standing while the guy with astronomical HP and armour gets left alone. It makes a lot of sense and, ironically, was a tactic in earlier editions of D&D (take the casters out, quickly), but it is annoying. A bard has just joined the party and he seems to have all sorts of musical based powers to apply area effect statuses. This is very powerful. I believe the 4E Bard has similar powers, he literally serenades enemies into confusion and inaction. In short, lots of controller activities but no defender activities.

The other area in which the game is a bit harsh is in how experience is allocated. The game doesn't ensure characters maintain level parity. This means characters joining your party are often of a lower level. Annoying. This is compounded by the game not assigning experience to downed characters at the end of a fight. It doesn't happen often, but it can happen when fighting bosses, which also give out lots of experience. They are also the enemies you'd rather not fight again, thus creating a dilemma.

It's a great game, very addictive and I can see the DS monopolising a lot of my time.

We went to see My Sister's Keeper yesterday. It's not the sort of film we'd normally pay 10 GBP to see but we got to see it for free to spread the word. It was a lot better than I thought and I was enthralled by it, but it was very traumatic. As traumatic as P.S. I Love You? Probably not, but it was close to it. It is 109 minutes of watching a family deal with a daughter you know is going to die of cancer eventually, and spends most of the film looking very sick. If you throw in the fact they have a younger daughter who has been genetically tweaked to be the perfect donor, then it's horrendous.

I just didn't feel right for the rest of the evening. It did get me thinking though.

I know a few people who have a very opinionated view of 'screen violence'. It's not worth discussing anything remotely violent with them as they either won't have seen it or they'll just have a view on it tainted by the violence. It doesn't have to be that violent either, it can just be the odd thing that 'crosses their imaginary line' that triggers their views. It can be a perfectly pedestrian affair, spoiled by an innocent young woman being shot on her door step and the bullet hole on her forehead being shown (in a standard, not that gory way). The source of this is a general feeling that violent TV and film spawns a violent society and is the source of all modern societies ills. They don't seem to grasp that the relationship, to the extent it exists, could be much more circular and chicken and egg.

So, back to My Sister's Keeper. It occurred to me that My Sister's Keeper had a traumatic effect on me much worse than any violent film (the most extreme, gratuitous and pointless torture porn aside). I can take cartoon violence, general action violence and artistic violence integrated into the needs of the dramatic framework, enjoy the film and sleep at night. The continual images of that teenager dying just did me in though. I'm not suggesting that My Sister's Keeper shouldn't be made, but that the willingness of my sample group to embrace such films, but not mildly violent films makes little sense. My Sister's Keeper was a 12A, and while it can be argued it's life and your child should know about it (oddly an argument that could be used for some violent films), I'm of no doubt it could have been a very traumatic experience. You see, a kid with a strong family background can cope with exposure to the odd bit of TV or film violence and contextualises it quite easily as a film, as it's often fantastical to a degree it's not real. This wouldn't be the case with My Sister's Keeper, it's something they'd understand could happen to them.

Despite this, My Sister's Keeper would been seen as a worthy film by my 'sample group', a family drama, sad, but still getting the required moral vote. It takes all sorts.

In closing, there is one very interesting trilogy of films which is oddly telling with respect to my small sample group: Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings films are largely accepted. This seems to be because they are clearly fantasy, and probably because they are pretty clear on the good and the bad guys. They're not fantasy fans. Still, despite this, they are very violent. Lots of people die. At the same time, at least one of them didn't understand the film was largely an allegory on the First World War and the industrialised military machine (despite it being laid on quite thick visually and aurally in the film to me). This tells me they have very foggy thinking, and what sets off the moral trigger doesn't seem to be very consistent.

Personal Branding. It's been something I've been conscious of, but not actively tried to define. I know, terrible. The need to consider it has increased for two reasons. The first is the fact I've been looking for work through the traditional means, rather than just rolling from one to the next through people I know without an interview, this tends to focus the mind on oneself, who you are and what you're communicating. This process has resulted in people looking me up on the web before interviewing (though Linkedin provides the only proof). The second reason is the more you put of yourself out there in The Cloud the more you have to be conscious of what you're putting on display.

Personal branding is essentially a form of marketing. The marketing of yourself. It's more important these days due to the fact we are creating more touch points for our brand as time marches on. In essence, the web is becoming less impersonal and will continue to do so. As I sit thinking I have Linkedin, Facebook, Fandomlife.net and Twitter all of which show up in the Top 6 results of a Google search on my name, with Fandomlife.net being clear and present at the top. This does not include random forum posts that might be regurgitated much further down the list.

All this means I'm starting to review and be conscious of what I place in The Cloud and how it might effect my brand. Not obsessively, but an eye for it is good.

I don't think I get off to a bad start, as I don't have any seriously (or even mildly) embarrassing stuff to expose and I naturally live in a sort of semi-professional, self-reflective space. In truth, my life is also pretty boring, if you consider doing wild, outrageous and embarrassing things one might regret exciting. I don't drink either, so that reduces the loss of control factor. It's also true I've not thrown everything into The Cloud as if it's the new frontier, though many people may disagree with that. This means what is out there is pretty representative and doesn't need a heavy dose of bleach to clean out the dirt. The worst thing I can think of is some hastily written forum posts, done between more important endeavours, that might be so badly put together they might not represent me as a good written communicator. Not that big an issue.

The other element with respect to this is I've always been a bit ahead of the curve. I've never adopted an Internet persona in terms of how I interact on the internet or how I name myself. This is becoming less of an issue now, but you don't have to go back far to see people who just always used their real name being perceived as odd. In fact, Internet forums waged long and painful battles over insisting people used their real names. It was just seen as de-rigour to use a pseudonym. It was like they had an Internet life and a real-life, some people even believed the universe would collapse if the two ever collided. This means I've never said anything on the web I don't believe in or I wouldn't say in normal life. Since I'm a sane, understanding and respectful person all is well. The Internet before social networks, one weird place.

This doesn't mean things can't be improved. It's not that I need to scrub embarrassing content or need to transform my brand into something that's not representative, it's more an issue of marketing communication, and making sure the whole web of stuff is a bit more consistent, and slightly more mindful of it (without not being me) and increase its selling perspective a bit better. Obviously, some touch points are more important than others, but since I'm not wanting to create isolated silos I need to consider them all.

The question of how and what? Well, that's another post, this one has been long enough.

So, Louise has a Nintendo DS. She's wanted one for ages and she's playing it...a lot. In fact, it's got so ridiculous she now drags me into GAME and Gamestation to check out the games. A good percentage of the time I'm not that interested in either store. It's interesting how it's working out, utilising the market in pre-owned and cheap games you can get to quite an effective opportunity cost for playing a game. In truth, the cost tends to come out about the same as a book or a magazine (or a DVD at most) but with a better return.

I've been doing a bit of research into what's on the platform, as while Louise can happily play puzzle or 'training' games they ain't for me. I'd be looking for role-playing and strategy games for the most part. Looking at it, there is a core range of games that I'd be interested in:-

• Knights in the Nightmare
• Final Fantasy IV
• Advanced Wars: Dual Strike
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
• Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution
• Age of Empires: Mythologies
• Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
• Golden Sun DS (To Be Released)

The DS market is interesting, most notably because there is a heck of a lot of crap available for it. This is due to the platform being relatively cheap to develop for, and it costs even less if you don't compound your low development costs with extensive marketing. Another reason is a lot of DS owners aren't that discerning, being young kids who get a pre-owned game, play it for a bit, trade it in and re-cycle titles around like video rentals. After all, the chances are the average DS owner doesn't finish any of these games they cycle around anyway.

I am very intrigued by the impending release of the Golden Sun DS game, even though it's not going to hit the shelves until 2010. It was a great game on the Gameboy, so hopefully the DS incarnation of the franchise will be pretty good as well. Final Fantasy XII also looks good as it's a RTS controlled via the stylus, which I'd have thought would be a bit hokey, but it gets very good ratings.

After the great mystery of the Cubicle 7 site vanishing and then returning without a single mention of the official Doctor Who role-playing game we finally have some information: October 2009 is the month of release. Anyway, I got thinking about the game. The thoughts that came to mind related to what could be done with it, though in truth you probably don't need the official Doctor Who game to do it, but it did spawn the ideas.

The first idea is covered in the first Adventures Across Time and Space post. You essentially take what is core to the new Doctor Who, a genius, pulp Time Traveller with companions having adventures through time and space, and re-envision it with a whole new milieu and set-up. The idea in the original post posited a genius scientist (The Doctor analogue) who lived at the ends of times when the sun were dying, failed to solve the problem and instead left the Universe as it died to travel through time. You could even add regeneration to this idea if you required by filtering it in through whatever wobbly science allows time travel. If the goal of the re-envisioning was also to introduce 'enemy analogues' you could quite easily bring versions of the Daleks, Cybermen and The Master (another time traveller is a must). This would essentially be a re-envisioning, introducing a lot of the elements in a new way without the baggage of established continuity.

The second idea is much grander, possibly sounds better than it would actually be and the scale of it might be prohibitive. The good thing about the idea is it also accounts for regeneration and captures some of its uniqueness. The idea is this: each player takes turns to GM a 6-12 episode season, with the person playing the Time Traveller rotating along with the GM (seasonal regenerations). That would mean everyone would eventually play the Time Traveller and GM a season. As I say, sounds absolutely fantastic in concept, but a thorny one in practice.

First, it would represent quite a long campaign. Second, not everyone may want to GM or may have the issue of actually being inclined to in concept but rarely delivering for a seasons length in practice. Third, people may well have preferences for who they want to play the Time Traveller or who they want to be running the season when they play the Time Traveller. Fourth, it might be almost impossible for all participants to agree on various milieu, constructs and narrative elements ahead of time and people coming later accumulate the baggage of earlier runs. I suspect it would also be problematic to make the Time Traveller distinctly different each time, as he's essentially the same person with the same background, though a lot of this will come from the fact each player will favour different types of story and protagonist choices.

Ignoring the problems, the thought of a Doctor Who-style show, literally or re-envisioned, being run in this way is quite bold and exciting. Like the show that spawned it each series would represent a level of regeneration and renewal. Companions could change, of course, but this would happen on a different cycle and may well be constant throughout the series. Think about it, things could change quite dramatically? One series might be one of glorious pulp adventure facing off against all sorts of outrageous enemies trying to destroy 'reality itself', while the next may completely change and be sewn through with 'the darkness between the stars' and take on a more horror vibe.

It would never happen. Too grand, too many variables. Cool idea though. The other alternative is to run 3-4 seasons and rotate the time traveller but keep the GM, similar, keeps some of the dynamism, but it increases the GM commitment. Hell, the rotating of the time traveller may deliver less than expected? The opportunity for radical different tones on a more episodic basis might be better? Interesting.

I'm probably going to get the game, as I've gone from being a bit disappointed in its direction to probably appreciate its simple aesthetic. There is also the fact it's a boxed set, which is worth it for the nostalgia value alone.

It would seem my Medion MD8800 PC is now fixed. I've been using it heavily for nearly two days, including watching videos on the web and the odd DVD. Watching video certainly triggered a reboot sooner rather than later. The other indicator is the massive heat sink remains moderately hot and can easily be touched and held. One of the issues that got me thinking it might be a heat problem was the heat sink was becoming untouchable, which didn't seem good to me.

The fact it's fixed is a good thing. As I really didn't want to pay 200 GBP, possibly more, for a PC that isn't any better than the one I already have. If you ignore the desktop netbooks, the specification of the machines I was considering were Celeron or dual core Pentiums at most, and my current PC is a dual core Pentium. It was going to be a complete waste of money.

It's like I've got a new PC. It's not only that it now works, it's that everything is working better. It is working much faster, but then this is to be expected as it's been built from scratch which always speeds up your machine. Windows just gets bogged down over time as you install and remove software. The other miracle is the quality of the sound. I'm not sure why this has improved but it has, it's like I've suddenly got a new sound card or set of speakers. The main issue though, is the PC can be used 100% again, and it has become clear I was missing that. I've watched a lot of videos on Gamespot over the last day and a half, catching up on the E3 coverage that I couldn't easily digest due to PC problems and MBA pressures.

Good news always comes with some 'bad'. Since I don't need to buy a new PC I suddenly have 300 GBP spare. I am seriously thinking of trading in my Xbox 360 for a PS3. In fact, I'd have probably done it this weekend. The problem is my TV isn't capable of connecting to the PS3, which means it's not a 300 GBP or less spend (due to the trade in), but something much higher. That's a bit of a pain.

I'll quite happily admit I liked the first Transformers movie. It has its faults. It's plot is total bollocks and it's middle section seems to descend into humour despite a great extended opening and finale, but overall I loved it's 'balls to the wall' approach. It has a certain nobility, scale and melodramatic punch that just works. You experience the first film, it just propels you along.

Sadly, this cannot be said about Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, which has taken the 'creative' route of weaving the crass and pathetic humour present in bits of the middle section of the first film, ramping it up to all new levels and weaving it throughout the whole film while disposing of any of the emotional connections the characters' shared (between each of the human leads and the Transformers). Remember when Bumblebee took a leak on the comedy government agent? Groan inducing humour? Well, Transformers 2 is a continual stream of Bumblee taking a leak jokes and the comedy government agent gets a major part.

The film starts with an extended comedy scene about Sam going to college, utilising Sam's parents as one of the many 'comedy sidekick' characters in the movie (at least seven by my count). The film just never picks up from that point and stays at that level. We even have two comedy Autobots, who look and sound like southern state retards, and they get more script time then any of the other autobots. In fact, you get a lot of generic Transformers in this film: mega-Transformers, cat-like robots, human looking robots and generic Decepticons. It's a far cry from the characterised group in the first film. While it begins with an extended comedy scene, even the action at the end features a mega-Transformer with a set of clanging brass balls and a gonad choke. Nice.

The sexualisation of the film has been taken to ridiculous levels. It actually got to eye rolling proportions. In the first film we all remember the shot of Megan Fox bending over the car bonnet looking at the engine. It made her career. In Transformers 2, the first shot of Megan Fox is of her straddling a motorbike in hot, denim shorts and boots while spray painting. I think she was spray painting, your eyes don't really get that far. It then continues on from that point. While she's not posed like a manikin in as ridiculous a way again, she's obviously been told to permanently pout like some demented porn star all the way through the film. I don't remember that being as bad in the first film either. If it's not Megan Fox it's cybernetic college students in a Battlestar Galactica style. This is despite the fact cyborgs haven't featured before. I'm pretty sure it was thought up quickly over bagels one morning in a writers' meeting. If it's not humans it's jokes about dogs getting randy. If dogs won't do then we can always have one of the many comedy small Transformers shag Megan Fox's leg.

The film just has no core, it just shoots out in every direction and you don't really care. Nothing connects on any meaningful or emotional level. It nearly happens a few times. Whenever Optimus Prime is on screen it works. When Sam and Bumblebee interact it also works. On the odd occasion that Sam and Mikaela have a conversation rather than being chased or surrounded by explosions it's better than nothing. That is if you can get past Megan Fox's permanent pout. These elements, the bits that gave the first film a way to connect with the audience, and give the robot battles a sense of purpose, are downplayed. Bumblebee is hardly in it. Optimus Prime is not around for large parts of the film. Sam and Mikaela have to compete with at least seven 'comedy sidekick' characters for air time. It's just a complete mess. It's quite clearly 'throw things at the wall' writing and include even the things that don't stick.

It's just a really bad film. The weirdest thing? In our sitting everyone was in hysterics. They loved the humour. The world has gone mad. Myself and Louise just kept looking at each other incredulously, like we'd entered a strange alternate world in which what was on screen was actually funny and we hadn't been given the memo.

Thee and a half years ago I bought my Medion MD8800 PC from Aldi and it's served me well. It's biggest contribution upon purchase was saving me from getting rested XP every time I went into a city in World of Warcraft due to the game going so slow (getting in and out took a while). Regrettably, it's been shutting itself down for a while now at random intervals and then failing to get started again immediately afterwards (it doesn't even get to the stage of loading any software). Due to the pressure of the MBA I had to make do and didn't want to dedicate much time to it, so I ended up using my Samsung NC10 as my main machine connected to a monitor. It was fine with my wireless keyboard and even allowed me to work in a dual screen fashion. This was wise, since the last thing I wanted was a corrupted ECA at the wrong time.

At one point I was contemplating a replacement, since there is obviously a chance it won't be an easily fixed problem. Historically, I've always gone for the most powerful PC I could find for close to 1K GBP. You'd get a very good PC for that these days. In the dim distant past I may have also built it from components, but I can't be arsed with that any longer. The 1K marker was the rule when I used to use the PC for games. Now I just can't be bothered with PC gaming. Once you make this disconnect you can actually contemplate what PC you actually need, and for most purposes that answer will be not much of one. Power way outstripped 99% of need many years ago. Despite seeing it as a second machine, the NC10 was perfectly powerful enough for all my needs.

The other thing I noticed as I did some very light research into where I might purchase a PC from, is how they've targeted the processors. The Celeron is obviously for light use, and the Atom isn't even mentioned, despite me happily doing the epitome of light use and then some on my NC10. A few sites even label the dual core Pentium processors towards the light use end, using language that tries to suggest you need something better than that to do anything serious. This is, gaming aside, absolute bollocks, the dual core was the 'great and powerful' option at one point, and the secret is the power needs of the average user were over served then and the software ain't got any more demanding either for the most part. According to many a website, you need a quad core now to do anything other than what your Mam, girl friend or little sister does.

This meant I actually had to contemplate the fact I didn't actually need a powerful PC, I would be happy with one of those ridiculous entry level units that I always had labelled 'for other people' or 'your Mam'. I'd entered a different target market. I felt a bit sad. I felt old. It unnerved me that I'd become the perfect candidate for an entry level e-mail, web browsing and light use PC. In fact, did I only need a 199 GBP PC? Effectively a Netbook for the desk? It was an affront to my geek credentials. It's true though, as my usage profile for my PC now consists of: e-mail, internet, Open Office, relatively light GIMP use and watching media, all of which is perfectly doable on my puny, atom-powered Samsung NC10. True, for web development I need MySQL running in the background, but it's my bet the NC10 would be fine with that also for my scale of use.

I felt emasculated, it felt like buying a car with lots of funky colours and extras and a cheeky name.

As it happens I'm crossing my fingers my trusty Medion is going to see me through a couple of more years. It's powerful enough, I'm kind of attached to it, and I'm hoping I've found the problem. Problem one was a slightly slow fan fixed to the massive heat sink. Problem number two was a wall of dust, and a thick one at that, on the side of the heat sink the fan was fixed to. This would suggest to me the fan was being seriously inhibited. The fan is now operating at full speed and I've cleared the dust away as best as possible. I'm hoping I've removed a serious overheating problem. The odds are pretty good, as the problem did have the symptoms of overheating.

I'm not sure I got have faced purchasing an entry-level PC. It may be worth putting up with the trials of PC gaming just so I can satisfy the testosterone fuelled need to get a serious man's PC. Well, I'd probably not go that far.