Rispon Avenue

Yes, it’s official, you’ll need a constant net connection to be able to play Assassin’s Creed 2 on the PC.

Many fans of Assassin’s Creed will be excitedly waiting for the sequel to come out in a little over a fortnight, but some recent news from Ubisoft has fans somewhat up in arms. Ubisoft has announced a brand new Digital Rights Manager – DRM – for all their games that have online capabilities. This system is supposed to ensure that their games are no longer being pirated, but of course, there’s a price.

If you want to play Assassin’s Creed II on the PC, you’ve got to have a constant net connection. If your connection drops out, you’re kicked out of the game, and are faced with a screen telling you that you can either wait for the connection to re-establish itself, or quit. You’ll lose your progress since your last save point if that happens, too. Oh and if Ubisoft’s servers go down? Well, Ubisoft stated that “The idea is to avoid that point as much as possible, but we have been clear from the beginning that the game does need an internet connection for you to play. So if it goes down for real for a little while, then yeah, you can’t play.

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Notice the way they said that? “…Avoid that point as much as possible…” You know, that sort of sounds like they’re trying to avoid saying it outright and owning this nasty flaw in their plan.

So, what to gamers get out of this irritating new anti-piracy tactic? Well, you’ll get to be able to install the game on as many PCs as you like, you’ll have cloud-based save data – fancy words for ‘on the internet’ – and you’ll not need a disc to play. So if you happen to play PC games at two different locations, you’ll be able to access the save file from both, which is the only real benefit that I see here. Most games allow for at least a couple of installs, and as for the disc not being necessary, that’s only an issue if you’re not careful with the disc and allow it to become scratched.

It feels a lot like Ubisoft is ransoming their games to us, and I really don’t think it’s a good idea. I think that hackers are going to find a way around the system, and the only one who’ll suffer for it are gamers who do the right thing and pay for the games. Bad show, Ubisoft, bad show.

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No one is sure what this thing is, but I think it’s amazingly weird and more than a little creepy.

Okay so the run down is as follows. A group of teenagers where playing near a lake in Panama. There’s a waterfall and cave near this lake, and apparently this creature came out of the cave, and came up some rocks towards the teens. They felt threatened, describing the creature as standing 150cm tall, so threw rocks and used sticks to beat the creature to death. They then tossed the carcass back into the lake, and told their parents who went to have a look for themselves.

The parents found the carcass had washed up on the shore, and within a few days the body was showing signs of decomposition and having been eaten by buzzards…

Okay so now what I think of this whole thing. I think it’s a hoax. Reasons… the decomposed body sure enough looks like a sloth, but it doesn’t account for the body shown in the previous shots. First off, that decomposition looks fairly dry, yet we are talking about Panama, next to a lake… Tropical location, heading into Autumn, is not exactly going to dry the thing out. Not to mention, that’s an extreme level of decomposition for a few days, and if it had in fact been eaten by buzzards, then why was so much of the skin still in tact? No, this looks to be a sloth that has been decomposing for quite a while, in a dry place.

Now onto the freshly dead photos. This creature is supposedly three times the height of a regular sloth, which grow usually between 50 to 60cm tall. If you look at this creature, yes the hands look sloth like, but the face is too long for a sloth face, which have short faces with small pointed muzzles. Very different. The big kicker, the thing that screams fake to me about this thing…

If this creature was stoned and beaten to death, then why aren’t there any marks of such attacks upon it in the photos? Seriously, this is a major discrepancy, and all the other stuff could be explained, but that last fact is rather important. There’s no defence marks on the arms, no marks on the face, head, neck, chest, abdomen… Unless they managed to only hit the animal from behind, which seems rather unlikely considering they were throwing rocks at it because it was coming towards them.

Anyway, here’s a link to the Metro’s article, and here’s MSN’s article.

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Ahhh, got to love the simple pleasures of life, lest you turn into a right sod!

Today I went out food shopping, a very annoying task, I assure you. Wandering through the super market aimlessly is not my style, so it’s really annoying to be stuck halfway down an aisle behind just such a shopper. I calmly went about doing my thing, hoping this lady in front of me would hurry up, but no, it was like she was trying to win a race for being as slow as possible whilst still moving…

Anyway, by the time I got home, I was in such a foul mood, that I knew something must be done. But I didn’t know what… then I found that my SO had just run me a bath, with bubbles and the whirlpool jets going already, too. I was enormously thankful, and went into the lusciously steamy bathroom and sat in the nice hot bath. When I’m doing this my SO likes to sit and hang out and talk to me, it takes the experience from really good to oh I really love, love, love, this!

It’s amazing to me how something so very simple can really turn your mood around, to go from frustrated and surly to calm and pleasant in the span of half an hour is quite remarkable. When that bath is soon followed up by an extremely lovely slow-cooked stew with crusty bread, well, then I’m positively joyful.

I’m now full, warm, and pretty much ready to sleep. What a great feeling! I’m not the best sleeper, to be honest, so when I actually feel sleepy its a very pleasant experience… now to just slowly wander about locking up and turning off all the lights and I’m off to bed for a good ol’ sleep. Ahhh, the good things in life!

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I’m in one of those states where you don’t have a fully fledged idea for an entry, but rather a few ideas that you want to put down, but none really make a full post…

It’s been really busy in the past few weeks, my SO has still been suffering with that back pain – and being really strong and soldering on, in spite of what is agony almost every morning for her – so we’ve been getting very little or disjointed sleep. She’s been able to manage about five to six hours most nights, and we’ve taken to napping in the afternoons a lot of the time, too. We know what’s going on, and it’s just a matter of her strengthening her back, at this stage, but apart from that, there’s not much to be done. Hot showers and a back massage seem to help a little, relaxing those muscles. It’s just a pity that she’s better at massages than me.

Work has been hectic, but being able to work from home has been a Godsend with my SO so under the weather. I can make sure that she’s well taken care of, and still get all my work done, no matter what time I’m awake or asleep. I’m really liking this style of work, and no longer having to commute to work has been fantastic! I’ve gotten an hour or two extra in every day!

All my financial interests have largely been put on hold. I’m still keeping an eye on all those investments and offshore financial services, which seem to have pretty okay rates at the moment, but I think I’ve decided against investing in international real estate. I just don’t want the trouble that could come of it, I mean, invest in Panama real estate, for example… I would hardly ever see the place. Nah, not for me!

Anyway, that’s an odds and ends post there, now hopefully they can be a little better put together!

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Because I couldn’t play the game I actually bought, no, of course not! I’ve played through the demo of Batman: Arkham Asylum instead.

I have to say, I’m pretty darn impressed. The game looks very nice, with a good eye for detail and texture. I liked that you were given a strong impression of the dark Gotham City as Batman drove to the asylum, and I liked the very unique external look to the place, too. There is always the heavy Gothic influence, but then there is also a twist with some almost Industrial aspects and some others that are almost… Jules Verne in look.

I really liked the inside of Arkham, too. The place is so decrepit, just the sort of locale for a showdown with a bunch of psychos. The voice acting is fantastic, I’m so glad they used Bruce Wayne and The Joker from Batman The Animated Series, because they are the quintessential voices for those characters. Both are just perfect, The Joker’s especially. Harley Quinn and Oracle are also voiced well, along with Chief Gordon. I was racking my brain trying to place the voice of the asylum warden, and then it finally hit me. Harriman the giant rabbit from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. I’ve always been very good with voices, so it was such a relief to pinpoint that one, otherwise it would have bugged me all night.

Batman moves very well in game, too. The control system seems largely very intuitive, though having to hit the left Control button is kind of annoying… If I get this game it will be on my new PS3, so that doesn’t bother me really. I love the fight scenes, when Batman slows down to render his foe unconscious it is always enjoyable. I have to say, though, I often wish that Batman would just kill his opponents. Bah! Anyway, the game plays well, looks good, and sounds good. One that is worth picking up at some point.

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I said that I would keep tabs on this, and so I am!

Tamzin Merchant will be playing Daenerys Targaryen and I have to say, I don’t think she’s the right choice. She doesn’t seem at all like Daenerys, though it’s not just the looks, because that is sort of approximately close, but not really there, and I don’t think she has the strength of presence for this character.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau will be playing Jaime Lannister and this choice seems alright to me. This actor looks like he could carry the arrogance of Jaime pretty well, actually.

Sophie Turner will be playing Sansa Stark and she actually seems like a good Sansa… not at first, I have to admit, the blonde threw me off, but she actually seems alright for Sansa.

Maisie Williams will be playing Arya Stark and she seems a good choice, she’s got a certain energy that says Arya to me.

Iain Glen will be playing Sir Jorah Mormont and I’m really not sure about this one… he does have the right look, though, but I think I imagined the knight to be bigger, more bearish.

Richard Madden will be playing Robb Stark and it seems an alright choice, a bit iffy that he is older than the character, but I know they are doing that with all the children. But, I don’t know, I picture Robb quite different…

Alfie Allen will be playing Theon Greyjoy and this does seem like a good choice, the actor already seems smug in the shots on George R R Martin’s blog.

Okay so that is now a total of 14 of the cast members so far, we are still missing Bran, Rickon, Tommen, Myrcella, Cersei, the Hound, the Mountain and all the Maesters, too. So a whole bunch, it’s safe to say. I wonder who, though, will actually be needed for just the pilot?

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That’s a great prize, especially as for a lot of people their pride and joy is not where their money is being spend because of the tighening up of cash nationwide.

The design is faultless and I’m sure there won’t be a better garden than that in the UK!

Winners Gardens

At the end of July, The Sunday Telegraph ran a competition with a garden redesign as the prize. The winner would receive a one-day consultation with me and be presented with £500 worth of plants. We were delighted to have masses of entrants with readers sending in photographs of their gardens and explanations of why they needed help. It was a tough call, but it was Maggie Dowgiel-Huke from Essex who caught my eye with cleverly captioned photographs of her garden’s eyesores and problems.

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The ECHO Home and Garden Show is a great event, so good to see its back for another year!
The pricing seems fair for a show of its calibre and its good to see they have got a couple of appearances from celebrities.

ECHO Home and Garden Show

WHAT do celebrity chef Simon Rimmer, Big Brother builder Craig Phillips and gardening guru Charlie Dimmock have in common?
They will all appear at the 2009 ECHO Home and Garden Show.

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