I actually completed a Tom Clancy game! My first one ever despite having bought loads of them in the past. I really loved this, glad I played it on normal difficulty as I know I would have got frustrated at the harder level and given up. Ending is OK if a bit lame.

Cracking multiplayer game too.

Quite a few things to catch up on, let’s start with the Nintendo Wii.

Got my preordered Wii on release day (8th December) and haven’t stopped playing since! What an excellent little bit of kit. Wii Sports (especially bowling) is excellent fun, Baseball is good too especially when my Stevie Wonder Mii drops catches! Zelda: Twilight Princess is absolutely stonking, one of the best games I have ever played. Played a lot of Super Mario 64, an old N64 title which you can buy from the online store. Everything looks crisp and sharp in 480p and it breathes new life into old Gamecube games.

Best purchase ever? Maybe. Let’s see what the longevity is like.

One year ago today was the worst day of my life. The day my Dad died. Suddenly and without warning in the early hours of 11th December 2005 he passed away, he was 71 years old. No one expected it, his mother was in her 80s when she died and his father only died a few years ago aged 94. But in one awful year his brother, his cousin (who lived with them as a brother when he was younger) and he all passed away. A whole generation wiped out with no one left to tell the tales.

Not a single day has passed since then that I have not thought of him, and I have shed tears on several occasions. I was very close to my Dad, we went to Oxford Speedway together during the summer, to every home match and to some away matches. We played table tennis together. We played golf together. We went on holidays together. We went to watch football together. Barely a day passed that I didn’t speak to him either in person or on the phone, he would ring me with the latest snippet of speedway news hopeful that I hadn’t ‘heard’ it …

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You may have noticed the new link on the menu bar above. I have added a flash movie player to the site and have started adding video clips I took whilst I was in Mozambique. Hopefully everything works OK, if you notice any problems please comment.

Not been able to post for the last few days due to a PHP problem. Hopefully the host has solved the Trojan issue as well, I haven’t seen it for a couple of days. Like the new header? Thanks to Chowny for that one!

It’s an EA Sports game so it’s spawn of the devil but it is really good. I wouldn’t have bought this but so many people on my Friend’s List had it that I picked it up from Tesco (£39.96 in store which is pretty good) and I’m very glad I did.

It takes a few rounds to get the hang of it as there is no power meter as in traditional golf games (e.g. Links). You judge your swing based upon the lie, club, wind etc. and pull back the stick accordingly. It gives you fine control over your shots but does initially make putting seem really difficult.

As you play and beat players in the Tiger challenges your player’s skill potential increases and you have to train him/her in training games to fulfill that potential. You can create players in the face morphing option which can create some really freaky looking players.

I gave Colin Montgomerie a good kicking last night, despite him playing pretty well, we were matching each over ball for ball, on the way back in I chipped in and then hit two 40ft putts to pull into an unassailable …

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Yep, the header graphic is still work in progress. Yep, purple is my favourite colour. I think the menubar looks nicer now though. Need to narrow that leftbar down a bit. I totally lack graphic skillz, you can probably tell that from looking at any of my sites! I’m a coder, I shouldn’t have to do graphics as well

I’ve made a few layout changes around the site. The most noticeable is the date heading on the blog entries. I’ve also added page navigation, removed the latest entries list on the leftbar, changed the font for the blog entries, altered the category names, tweaked the gallery entries and some other small CSS tweaks. I’m thinking about altering the background image and adding some new leftbar stuff which might need to go on a rightbar in a three column layout.

Had a few days off work this week to do some catching up with things. Got to love the spell check capability of Firefox 2, no more spelling errors here! Been doing quite a bit of gaming this week mostly on Xbox 360. Lego Star Wars II is great, Test Drive Unlimited (TDU) is fantastic, best game on the 360 to date easily. Once they sort out the multiplayer bugs it will be awesome. Pro Evo Soccer 6 (PES6) is excellent if frustrating as I have yet to score a goal in about 20 matches!

Time for a redesign on here I think, should I go full width I wonder? Three columns? Hmmm…........

Boo, back in the BGS office now! Quite a packed weekend, the family waited for me on Friday morning and the children were very excited to see me. Everyone loved their gifts. I got a wire helicopter for my son which has motors which make the rotors rotate. A doll for my daughter with a photo of them being made. Didn’t do much Friday, apart from sleep and catch up on a few things, went to the end of term assembly at the school and then spent the evening with the family. Saturday had a decent lay in and then just pottered about, played some Lego Star Wars II with my son on the 360. Sunday had my Mum over for dinner and my sister and niece came over to say hello. First roast dinner for 6 weeks! Slight panic when I managed to lock up the work’s laptop I had with me in Mozambique but local support sorted it out, so all files are safely on the server here now. Just sorting through some photos to add to the blog.