Steamed turd [lurks]

Valve Software. You might recall them from the distant past when they made a good little PC game called Half-Life. Ever since, well, we're not sure exactly what they're doing since they stopped making noises about the ridiculously delayed Team Fortress 2 a long time ago. More recently they've taken it upon themselves to ruin Counter-Strike. They took the mod, created by a coupla lads in their bedroom, on board and fucked it up completely by making all the guns recoil all over the place and screwed with the netcode. So we collectively left the CS scene.

Given there's been a considerable drought of good PC multiplayer games, CS has remained insanely popular and we've returned to check it out for a bit on every point release. You know, we download a CS and possibly a Half-Life update. Maybe put up a server. Have a bit of a run around and get a feel for what's changed. We thought it would be a good idea to do that with CS 1.6 since it seems there's some good changes, giving frags for bombing and defusing. Some cheaper weapons changing the balance of the early games and a funky riot shield too!

OK so what do we need to do, just download it? Well, err, no. Valve have constructed this abortion of an application called Steam. This is some sort of combined content delivery system, server browser and friends list. Despite the fact that no one wanted or needed any of this stuff, this is what you must use if you want to play Counter-Strike.

In short, the application is a biggy steamy (ho ho) pile of excrement. When running it, it frequently just blows out indicating that Valve don't have the server resources (or expertise in running high load content servers) to run the system anyway. After 50 attempts at running it, stalled updates of random dlls, you might get in. Then you register an e-mail address and 'subscribe' to the games you want.

Of course in the process the application is likely to crash a half dozen times. There's absolutely no information on what the application is doing other than kiddy descriptions like 'Preparing to play game'. Apparently I needed to launch a game on one of the servers in the browser (even though I don't want to use their browser) to get it to update the CS. I get some sort of preparing message and a lengthy full HD thrashing file scan of my Half-Life install. Then it says updating but it takes 20 minutes before it even tells me how long it's going to take.

It took around 3 hours on my 1 megabit broadband connection which is not exactly good. The only way I knew it was downloading at all was to monitor the traffic on my router. Then when all this was done, I try to get into CS and it just says it's unavailable. Grrr.

So next day I try again, again loads of failed to connect to servers, connections reset by peer and other clear indications that Valve can't run servers. Eventually I get in. So I try to launch a game, whereupon it runs CS/HL full screen in 640x480 with some progress bar half way through telling me preparing game resources or somesuch. Alt-tabbing refuses to release my screenmode, bring up the task manager and CS/HL is listed as not responding so I nuke it.

Slim tells me that apparently it's still downloading because the system tray icon is animated. Uh huh great, I wouldn't know otherwise, it doesn't say anything. So two days later I still can't get in and I've got some system tray application downloading at 8k/s.

Oh my god, what a joke this is! Beta? Fucking alpha! It's a fundamentally flawed system right the way from their content servers through to the buggy application itself. Valve seem incapable of realising that I do not WANT some permanent buggy application in my system tray downloading stuff at ridiculously slow rates. I don't know whether the goal is to combat cheating or charge for game subscriptions or whatever, I just don't care.

How can Valve go from creating something like Half-Life through to devoting their every waking minute to fucking up one of the few successful online multiplayer games? What a farce! They clearly have no talent for this type of development so why on earth don't they just leave things be and actually go finish Team Fortress 2 for fuck sake?!

Spiro can't drive blogging [spiro]

I'm so totally addicted to Battlefield 1942 now that I find myself really excited about the new expansion pack 'Road to Rome'



This will include 6 new maps:
Operation Husky
Operation Baytown
Operation Anzio
Battle of Salerno
Monte Cassino
Monte Santa Croche



8 New Vehicles:

German Sturmgeschutz
German BF110
German AT gun PAK 40
US M3 GMC
US M3 Grant
British Mosquito
British AT gun 25 pounder
Italian M11-39 Carro Armato



3 Weapons:
Italian Breda Model 30 Assault Rifle
British Sten Machinegun
Bayonet - Engineer rifle only



Screenshot of these can be found here

Two new armies are also being introduced, French and Italians.

New anti tank guns being issued should make defending a position against assault a lot more interesting. A new form of lameness is springing up in the form of enemy tanks hiding in your aircraft hanger taking advantage of the weenies standing waiting for a plane (don't have a problem with that). My problem comes with the fact that whilst in there they are being repaired constantly (enemy hangers shouldn't repair) and wasting equipment. Its not impossible to kill them, just takes a few team mates to gang up and take them out. But I can't see the point, I only play CTF and camping like this with valuable equipment isn't helping your team to capture the flag. With the new AT guns teams should be able to discourage this.

Don't take my word for it check out this short movie and tell me you're not a little excited. 'Road to Rome' is expected out in the middle of February, perfect valentines present.

I know a few of you have tried the new mod Desert Combat I've yet to install this mod so can't comment, whats it like, is it worth a go ?

Recipe: Ninja Turbo pizza [lurks]

Right bitches, here's something new since you asswipes never do blogs. Here's how to make the ultimate pizza. You'll need a bread machine to make the dough, no shit from Tescos! You'll need a pizza tin of course, I use a funky one with crisping holes in it. You can monkey around with the topping all you like, this is my Ninja Turbo pizza which uses the same principals to make superb restaurant beating pizza for zero money.


Dough ingredients:

100gr Wholemeal flour
250gr Strong white flour
2 tblsp olive oil
1/2 tblsp sugar
1 tsp salt
200ml milk
1/2 tsp rapid yeast




Topping ingredients:

Crushed garlic
Tomato base
Mozarella
Chillis
Mushrooms
Pepperoni
Onion
Cheddar
Italian/Parmesian
Pepper
Oregano



First off, the biggest difference between pizza is the dough. You can pretty much do what you like on the topping but of course, I highly recommend the Turbo Ninja pizza recipe above. So to make the dough, you use the dough program on a bread maker. You could also do it by hand if you were a masochist.

In the the breadmaker pan goes all the dough ingredients above. You can skip on the wholemeal flour if you like, that's an invention of mine which I prefer for a zingy base. You could also substitute butter for the olive oil and use a table spoon of powdered milk with 200ml of water instead of the milk, if you like. If you're a bender. My breadmaker will whisk this up in 45 minutes. Check the water content of the dough, if it's too dry and wont quite cling to your fingers, then pitch a bit more water in.

Now we get to the fun bit. Lightly flour a surface and tip the dough out. It isn't necessary to do the hand spinning that pizzerias do although I do, since I once worked in one ten years ago :) Instead just roll out the dough into a rough flat circle with a rolling pin. Then pop that in a pizza tray. Now you can roll it to the edges of the tray and use your fingers to push it up a bit at the edges for that nice bulgy crust.

I personally can't be arsed faffing about making a tomato base so I use those el-cheapo tomato pasta sauces you get from the shops. Strictly speaking, the Turbo Ninja pizza demands a third of a jar of Lloyd Grossman Tomato and Chilli sauce but you can use what you like. A third of a jar is just about right or you risk getting soggy. Pitch on the crushed garlic too and use a spoon to spread it around leaving an inch around the edges free of sauce. Unless you want messy fingers!

Now it's just a matter of pitching the rest of the ingredients on. If you want a pizza hut type pizza, you want plenty of grated mozarella which you can also easily get from the shops. We're talking a full half bag of the shit. Don't guy buying expensive buffalo moz ffs. Now it's just a matter of pitching on some finely sliced mushrooms, I like the big sort so they're easy to slice. Chillis if you're a man although you can slice capsicum if you're a pussy. The authentic Turbo Ninja specification demands chillis of course.

Now if you want some onion on, the trick is to have that sliced very thinly, don't put a lot on. And put it near the top of the toppings, don't bury it. Or it'll end up too crunchy. Pepperoni goes on top. Then you slam dunk the rest of the topping with cheddar and some grated italian/parmesan. Then slap on some pepper and oregano.

You should have a pretty wicked looking pizza now. Grating cheese directly onto it is the go, then wipe the inch around the edge clean of topping. Now, here's what I do given my kitchen is cold at the moment, pop the pizza into the oven and chuck it on uber low for a bit. Just to heat the oven up. We're doing this to rise the pizza dough. Not too hot or you'll start cooking it. We're talking 1 min on low. Then walk off and leave it in the (off) oven for half an hour to rise.

It should have risen nicely. Take it out, preheat the oven to pretty damn hot. We're talking about 210C or so in a fan forced. The preheating is important here. Then when it's up to temp, slap in the pizza on the bottom shelf. Yep, the bottom. Now you need to keep a close eye on the pizza. Somewhere between 15-20 mins is all it will take to cook. Make sure you don't overcook or it will be like a brick!

Bingo, that's the Turbo Ninja pizza. A *shit* load better than anything you could order from a pizza joint and it wont cost you a tenner either!

One last thing, if you want to make more than one it's a bit tricky since your breadmaker probably wont double on on the dough. So pop the first dough into an oiled plastic bag and slap it in the fridge. When you've made the pizzas and put them in the oven, swap their shelf positions half way through cooking. It's a faff but you can make it work :)

Rebot [slim]

feh

Operation ATLAS swings into action [brit]

You'd be amazed how differently America is handling the war with Iraq, compared with the UK.
I flew back from New York this morning (arriving 8.40am our time, in work by 9.10am - go figure) having spent 3 days attending various head shed meetings at DDB Worldwide (the global agency that own my ass) and thought I'd tell you about Operation ATLAS.
Literally 5 minutes after the tomahawk missiles were launched from USS Bunker Hill (an Aegis air defence cruiser in the Red Sea), the most awe inspiring civilian protection programme went into overdrive.
National Guard in their hundreds appeared on the streets of New York; 1,000 extra police with armoured trucks and mobile command posts closed down the bridges, tunnels and other approaches to Manhatten.. anything bigger than a family saloon was stopped and searched.
And nobody minded.
It took 25 minutes to drive to the hotel from JFK airport on the way IN, but nearly 2.5 hours to get OUT because of all the checkpoints. People didn't get irate, they didn't toot their horns madly, they openly agreed with the policy and had immense faith in their government and more locally, the governor of New York who, along with Conneticut and Maryland (I think) is spearheading an immense tri-state security operation at a cost of US$5m a day.
Can you imagine if this happened in the UK?
There would be public outcry of enormous dimensions; not to mention that fact that we simply couldn't do it with our immensely overstretched civilian and military authority resources.
What struck me above all else is the fact that despite the roads being full of police cruisers with their lights going, and 18 year old National Guardsmen in full kit walking around, life continued as normal.
You can still buy pretzels from street vendors, you can still stand in Time Square and enjoy the atmosphere, you can still spend a lovely evening in a fabulous restaurant, or go ice skating in Central Park - and you're not alone; the City That Never Sleeps is now adding The City That Continues Regardless to it's many accolades.
Incidentally, there is absolutely no hiding the absolute and perhaps deserved hatred of the French. TV pundits from CNN downwards are openly criticising the Chirac administration; and no expense is being spared to dig out the financial reasons behind France's decision to debunk the war.
Did you know France has a US$50bn contract with Iraq to export it's oil? Did you know France owns 90% of all of Iraq's oil infrastructure maintenance rights?
Contracts which are worth nothing now, since once Hussein is removed, all previous bets are off.
I have an immense feeling of kinship with our American cousins; and I for one having spoken at length with New Yorkers about everything from '9-Eleven' onwards and believe wholeheartedly that the war with Iraq is 100% justified.

Nokia in sucking shocker [lurks]

Strikes me that all of Nokia's victories in the mobile phone arena involve making pretty simple phones that just work. You know, making calls, SMS and crap like that. They work, they're solid, the SMS stuff pretty much wrote the book on how to do it properly. Can't really go wrong.

Unfortunately every time they try to add gadgets and hocus pocus, the Fins go horribly horribly wrong. The first being the 7110, which while the whole 'chock' thing ruled, the err WAP shit and general doing stuff really really sucked. You think they'd learn their lesson?

Well yes because they went back to making a load of really good phones like the 6210 and stuff like that. Again nothing fancy just phones that worked. Then the 7210 happened. This is that nifty picture phone thing with the nifty slidey openeny thing. Yeah only err, it doesn't fucking work does it.

What's up with these goons? Basically if you were gonna buy a Nokia, you'd buy a no-nonsense phone and not one of their cutting-edge lifestyle abortions.

The thing is, I reckon the picture phone is a real revolution. Eventually every phone will have them, it'll just be too cool not to have. Mine you, I wont touch one so long as they want a tenner a month and 50p a message just to send the damn things!

The Crown vs Mugabe (again) - it's just not cricket. [brit]

None yet!