In no particular order…

• IKEA Advert - Those sentimentalists…
• Super Monkey Ball Deluxe Advert - Either very good or very crap…not sure which…
• Giant Microbes - Fancy a cuddley influenza virus? Or maybe an adorable Hepatitis C virii?
• William Shatner - Has Been - Old but I missed it when it came out…either a work of comedy genius or just very very funny…

Enjoy!

Well people, Hunter S. Thompson is dead. Apparently he shot himself yesterday, which I guess is a somewhat suitable end to an exraordinary life. This makes me sad, as I have long been a fan of his writings and humor. With the Duke gone what happens to the legacy of the True Dope Fiend? And who remains to fight for the people, the experience and the pornographers?

OK people, there are some gigs coming up that you should be aware of…

My Luminaries - 26th Febuary, 21 South Street, Reading, 7.45pm
My Luminaries - 1st March, The Dublin Castle, Camden Town, 8.30pm
Mono Effecto - 2nd March, The Dublin Castle, Camden Town, 8.30pm

Both bands are friends of mine, but don’t let that put you off! They are both thoroughly good live and I guarantee a good night will be had by all. You can hear samples from both bands on their respective sites if you haven’t heard them before.

I’ve got a devil of a cold at the moment that I just cannot shake, so work has slowed down somewhat. Still everything is more or less going well! Not sure when I’ll next release a screen shot…

And now a bit of an announcement…

Karin is coming over for a week soon and I can’t wait! Feels like we have been apart for ages. In light of the fact that being away from Karin is no good and the fact that my work is going well I have decided to move over to Sweden quite soon. I shall hopefully be moving over there shortly after Karin returns (on the 13th March) and hopefully I will be able to find some work while I am over there. It’s a bit nerve-wracking in a way, but it feels like the Right Thing To Do. I’m going to miss everyone in Reading alot, and it will be wierd not being able to go for a drink with everyone as usual but, as they say, life goes on. I shall come back to visit fairly regularly no doubt.

I guess I’ll be able to test out all the Swedish I have been learning sooner than planned!

(Also, the domain www.mikesspace.net has now been successfully transfered to my new ISP, so the blog is now located at www.mikesspace.net/blog/.)

Check out inselkampf.co.uk for a bewilderingly addictive online web game. Kind of like Civilisation. But not.

I am finding it very addictive. After talking about it with Dan we came to the conclusion that it is addictive and popular mainly because it asks *nothing* of the player. Well, other than the occasional five minutes every day or so. Most online games require players to put in a hard slog to make any progress, but inselkampf doesn’t work in the same way. It almost feels like a play-by-mail game except that you get to decide when the mail is delivered. People who log-in for 5 minutes 4 or 5 times a day will be making similar progress to those who spent the whole day logged in. This is my kind of online game!

The sudden stopage of blog entries is due to the fact that I have been working like mad on a number of things. I have started Swedish language lessons now (which are going very well!) and lately I have stopped work on my major project SmallWorld to work on a couple of smaller more job-specific demos for various job applications.

So far everything is going brilliantly. I have written a demo framework based around DirectX 9 and LUA (called Project Clover so far) and that has proved amazingly useful. I can now put together quite complex graphical demos very quickly. There are still a few things left to do (specifically a controller system) but it is working & usable. Now just to finish it and get a job…!

Behold! An early WIP shot from one of my new demos: