The Clan of the Cave Bague

It’s not situated in t’US, courtesy of a very good little hosting company called challengehost.com.

Being moveable type, it was very easy to shift without any downtime as well.

Oh, thank god for that! Finally got off Geonosis. The last geonosis level (on the Trade Federation starship) is really annoying cos it involves doing some stuff to a time limit and I *hate* time limits.

Anyhoo, I’ve now found myself in a decidedly spooky Mynoc infested derelict, creeping about (without my squadmates) looking for survivors. Sounds promising……

….and on that note – I really should finish Doom 3 at some point.

Got a loan of this from a bloke at work. Racing games just aren’t my bag, but everyone (you know who you are, redsmartie) has been nagging me to death to give it a go. So I’ll give it a go. At some point.

I’ve had a bit of a gaming slump of late – must be the change of weather or something. I managed about forty-five minutes of Republic Commando last night, and about ten minutes of Battlefront (spurred on by RedSmartie popping up on iChat and demanding that I play the Kashyyk beachhead level).

I really like Republic Commando but not since watching Episode III because clones are BAD PEOPLE. However, I am not going to post spoilers in here. One thing I will say, though, is that I don’t believe for one second that Revenge of the Sith deserved a 12A. It just doesn’t. My two boys loved it.

Of course, Saturday night’s episode of Dr Who is another matter. Tristan was up with nightmares half the night.

Not much time left – the government are getting ready to steamroller the ID card bill through parliament. That means that each and every one of us will be made to go to a police station to be fingerprinted and possibly retina scanned so that our every movement, purchase and library borrow will eventually be recorded in a centralised database (which can then be sold to the highest bidder should the government ever find itself short of a few bob).

What’s more, you’ll have to shell out in the region of 80 quid for the privilege.

There’s a petition online. Unlike most online petitions, the last iteration of this one did actually make a (little) bit of a difference. It only takes a minute to defend your civil liberties.

For those of you who may be thinking “if I’ve done nothing wrong I’ve nothing to hide,” please bear in mind that people in 1930s Germany had done nothing wrong either. Tony Blair may well be able to guarantee that HIS government won’t abuse the database but I’m pretty sure he can’t vouch for all future governments.

ID Cards did nothing to prevent a terrorist attack in Spain. The immigration problem in Spain is so bad they’ve just had to declare an amnesty, just so they know who’s in the country. Despite having an ID card scheme. The scheme will do nothing to improve your way of life. All it will do is provide others with ingenious new ways to curtail your civil liberties.

The petition is at http://www.no2id-petition.net/ – *please* give it some thought.

This is a bit of a strange entry because I can’t actually publish it yet. Or at least, we can’t mention our names. Thing is, we’re planning to move to Australia, but as yet it’s a closely guarded secret for a number of reasons. A lot of people are likely to be upset by the decision – family, friends, and employers and we don’t want to make any announcements until we know for certain that we’ve been granted a permanent citizen visa.
Well, if you don’t want to tell anyone yet, why are you posting this blog message? Well, to be quite honest, because it’s one of the biggest events in our lives and we want to keep a record of everything we went through to get there (or not, as the case may be). If we ever get there, then I’ll publish these articles to help out other would-be migrants.

So, here’s the scoop. First of all, we’ve been talking about this move for literally years but have never really had the motivation to find out about it. We officially have the motivation. Between lifestyle changes, various traumatic events, peoples attitudes and a host of other things, we just want to go. It’s that simple.

I only wish the process was as simple. Australia base their immigration system around a points method whereby prospective migrants are graded on how desirable a citizen they are. My main sticking point is that I don’t have a degree and that’s one of the primary requirements. What I do have, though, are bits of various qualifications (including the first year of a computer science degree at grade A) and eleven years of experience in various IT managerial positions.

What I need to do is submit a CV with some project reports and a whole pile of supporting documentation to the Australian Computer Society and they look at the whole lot and decide whether or not I’ve demonstrated learning to degree level. If they say “yay” then I have enough points and we can move. If they say “nay”, then we’re scuppered.

Currently, I’m working on pulling together all that information. It’s a mammoth job, but sooner started sooner finished, as they say.

Cloudy place: DEFEATED. Palace of Wind: ENTERED.

I’ve noticed that the whole Big-then-Wee Minish Thingy has all but vanished from the game. I think the last time I shrank was about two dungeons ago.

Anyhoo, that’s the whole world map (as far as I can tell) filled in, which means I must be on the last dungeon. Trouble is, I have the rest of the kinstone fusing (and all the little side jobs that involves) to do, I have god knows how many figurines that I MUST HAVE. Oh, and I’d better rescue Zelda as well.

One thing that’s RUBBISH is that the save game doesn’t have a count of your accumulated playtime. On the whole, though, it’s an ACE game, and even better for being handheld. It is pretty easy, though.

On iTunes:

Edge Of Time from the album “NeverWorld” by Power Quest

COULDN’T STOP.

But……

WATER ELEMENT GET! Another ACE boss battle, and I’m off to the Royal Valley.

Temple of Droplets == TEH EVIL! Slippy floors, hideous drops and big spikey things == HARDEST.

However……

Temple of Droplets == ACEBEST – Big stupid zappy mid-level boss had me barely able to see the screen through tears of laughter.

Sadly, big spiky thing killed me just after spending AGES negotiating a particularly tricky slippy floor puzzle. More tomorrow.

FLIPPERS GET!!

So, it’s off to the Droplet Temple I’m a goin’.

Damn you nintendo! Why did you have to put a statuette shop in Hyrule village again? I’m now going to have to get EVERY SINGLE ONE now :-/