The Temple of the Mighty Bague

And here’s birthday post part two. This has been out for aaaaaages but I’ve put it off and put it off, as I tend to do. Anyway, popped it in the drive and (as is usual for a squeenix title) my jaw dropped at the cinematics. Again, only an hour or so in, but loving it so far. It has a very different mechanic from the FF games I’m used to. It’s still effectively turn based (or, at least, active time based) but it all runs much more fluidly. Also, there are no random battles, but everything is visible on the world map - in fact all the action takes place on the world map. This is largely a positive thing - you can go hunting when you need to gain a few levels, and you can avoid enemies when you just want to get from A to B.

Downside - no fanfare at the end of combat. WRONGNESS.

Well, it’s a very Final Fantasy birthday, I have to say. My lovely lady wife presented me with a copy of Tactics A2 and FF12, so I’ve been in a JRPG/Tactics frenzy. First up - tactics.

It’s tactics - nothing else needs to be said, really, but I will anyway. It’s a lot prettier, naturally, being on the DS but there’ve been a lot of tweaks and fixes as well. For starters, shopping is a lot easier, with a very simple and coherent way of seeing what equipping certain items will do to your stats. Also, the judge system has been made a lot less cumbersome than it was in the GBA version. I’m only an hour in so far, but it looks like it’s going to be another 400 hours of glee.

Oh yes! I am off on my hols until a week on Monday! Splendid! Not going anywhere specific, but I want to at least get to Blair Drummond Safari Park in Stirling (cos Stirling is ACE and the safari park has munkys), as well as some day trips out and about. Linlithgow, natch. Also Beecraigs cos it’s foresty and full of grues.

Also, it’s my birthday tomorrow, when I shall be $unfeasiblyOld, so much celebration involving trifle will be had. FAB.

So I got a new phone, courtesy of my employer. They want to be able to contact me at all hours of the day and night and I need to be able to spring into action like a bagful of kangaroos and fix whatever it is they’ve broken in my absence. 

So, requirements are: pda functionality, 3G networking, unlimited net access, keyboard, etc. I eventually settled on a Vodafone 1615 with a bit of trepidation - it’s a windows smartphone and, well, me and windows don’t really get on. I’m not too bothered about it syncing with everything in the universe, although contacts would be nice. As it turns out, it won’t even sync contacts.

Unless, of course, I employ the services of Missing Sync. This is a lovely little bit of software which - well - basically syncs everything in the universe to a windows mobile device. It was suggested to me by a certain Mr J “I know everything about phones” Daniels, and it turns out he’s right. It’s ace. It’s a little buggy with some operations, but then all I really need is the ability to sync with AddressBook, so I don’t care about anything else.

As for the phone - well, it makes phonecalls, runs an SSH client, and has a web browser - that’s pretty much all I need, really.

Update deKay speaks the truth - SyncMate is infinitely better than Missing Sync. It doesn’t crash all the time, for a start.

This is certainly one way to find out what I’m up to.

Another might be to actually ask.