Freezing to Death

Yesterday was nice in Hull (particularly pleasing as it was horrible in the south of England). But today we seem to have got a real blast of cold air from somewhere. It really is quite brisk. And after spending a while yesterday watering all the plants in the garden (not that I put them there) I was a bit cross to wake up after a downpour and find the whole place freezing.

Oh well, at least I'm at work in the bad weather.

Bank Holiday Lego

Spent a big chunk of my Bank Holiday working, but I did find some time for Lego Star Wars. I've enjoyed it so much in the past that when I got a chance to buy the entire saga (all six episodes) on one disk I jumped at it.

If you've not played with the game then where have you been? It is a classic, not least for the quality of the cut scenes which are wonderful. It is also very had to get killed and two player action is a hoot. I have very fond memories of working through "Revenge of the Sith" with number one daughter. Much more fun than the film.

The new game is very much more of the same, but there are some nice tweaks here and there.

...and the Lego Indiana Jones game will be out soon.

Is Amazon Getting Less Useful?

I've bought a new toy. It is a Panasonic HD camcorder that records direct to HDSD memory cards. And it is lovely. Quality is amazing, and because I got the less than newest model (i.e. one that is six months old) the price wasn't too painful either.

I went on to Amazon to price up some memory cards and also a reader (high density cards use an interface that my old card reader doesn't like.

I found this. It looks like a real bargain. Until you find that the price does not include shipping (which is rather high at 4 quid, and even more if it goes for the overnight option - which is what the item seems to default to). Closer inspection reveals that it is, of course, not sold by Amazon themselves, but by a "partner".

I've noticed this more and more on Amazon. I bought a CD from a partner which turned out to be a different disk. Weasel words in the description told me that rather than being the album I thought I was buying it was instead a "special edition" (i.e. knockoff copy) of one of the singles from it. I never got my money back there, and I'm not prepared to risk it on this memory card reader either.

I expect a certain amount of rough and tumble when I buy from ebay, that is part of its charm. But when I go to Amazon I'm looking for quality because I equate it with a shop. I think they are going to be careful if they are not going to be tarnished by the sharp practice of the people they let onto their site. I must admit if there was a "don't show me partner offers" setting for my Amazon account I'd use it right away.

XNA Material from Dev Days 2008

You can download all the material from DevDays 2008 from here. Have fun!

Sign of the Times

These "lucky" people were at my XNA talk today.

..and here is the rest of the room

Another smashing audience, thank you for laughing in all the right places..

I'll put all the content up here tomorrow.

Then it was off to do  book signing. The man who runs the bookshop had, perhaps somewhat optimistically, got 100 copies of my book in to sell.

I ended up selling 10, which was nice. Then I went around and took a look at what the students here are doing with XNA.

The answer is lots, and very well. I saw some Imagine Cup entries and some very impressive work. Well done folks. And now I'm zooming of to catch a plane home for fish and chips.....