Catherine Hill Bay

On Sunday we went up Catherine Hill Bay for lunch and a surf. The surf was a decent size at Catherine Hill so I went for a walk south under the wharf and went for a swim in the bay around there. After that we went onto to Swansea RSL for a very tasty lunch, followed up by a surf across the bridge (not sure what it's called there) The waves were pretty full, so i took the mal out and got a couple of okish waves, but nothing heaps good.

Paintball Mayhem

We went and played paintball at Paintball Petes today for Liam's birthday.

There was a group of 10 of us that went, and we were put with another group to form a team. the "no-bands" team. Because the other team had masking tape bands around there arms and we didn't - it didn't really make much difference in the game cause you could tell which team somone was on by the direction they were running (generally).

The first course we played had some low scrub and a hilly section, the goal was to get the other teams flag from their base while they defended it. Everyone ran out gung ho for the first attack, and it didn't exactly go the best. Once everyone had been killed off or time ran out (I think the time ran out first in this game, but i was dead, so what do i care), both teams swapped sides and it was our turn to defend the flag. I ran straight up the hilly section with Leal & Leon and got in a good position where I could shoot the other team from above, After a few shots at the other team I was of course spotted and shot. Oh Well.

After the first two games we had a quick break and then were back out there, this time on a different course. This next course had a lot more scrub and no hill, the goal was to get the other teams flag and return with it to your base. In this one i made a break for it down the right hand side of the course with a few other guys, it was going pretty good and we made it a fair way, This time I managed to get shot while running for cover behind a tree, the paintball splattered on the grill of my helmet and mostly ended up in mouth and on my face, those things really don't taste very good. I got to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines with the other "dead" players. Katie and John were slowly making their way down the right hand side, moving from barrier to barrier until they got stuck by an opposing player shooting at where they were hiding, so John of course tells Katie to run out and attack, she got shot very very quickly..... The second game on this course was much the same thing, only we switched ends. Leal, Leon & I headed for the left hand side of the course intending to make our way down there, until Leon managed to trip over in the bush while charging to gain ground and ended up a writhing mess in the scrub.... It kind of ruined the whole effect of this supposedly being a serious game. We got to the barriers on the left hand side and all the others managed to get themselves shot. I was hiding under a bush when 3 of the other teams members spotted me and of course i got shot repeatedly. Our team continued to loose more players and the other team eventually captured our flag and made it back to their base, winning the game.

After a quick break we were back out there again, on another course of course. This course consisted of only barriers, no scrub or other bush to hide in this time. The goal was to capture the flag in the centre of the course and get it to the opposing teams base without getting shot. YEAH RIGHT! When the ref blew the wistle i ran straight down the middle of the field and grabbed the flag, I then got stuck behind the barrier in the middle cause there was no-one else on my team to back me up. Eventually I was shot. Later (after many more "deaths") one of the guys in the opposing team managed to grab the flag and make a sprint for our base, he was shot very very quickly. But it was pretty funny to watch. After this game Liam had to sit out, cause he had hurt his knee (poor Liam - WHIMP!)

The 2nd game on this course was the same thing again but from opposite ends. When the whistle blew, a group of us rand down the left hand side of the field, moving from barrier to barrier, by this stage a lot of people had started to run out of paintballs, so there was a lot of shooting, without any paintballs involved - which makes it hard to tell when it's safe to run... I got shot hiding behind a water tank in this one. I'd managed to make it a fair way down the field - but I of course got shot. A person on the opposite team managed to make it to the centre barrier and grab the flag, while at the same time Daniel made it to the opposite side of the same barrier, neither Daniel nor the other player knew the other one was there and the "dead" players were teying to shout out... but were told that "dead" people can't talk as Daniel and the other guy are both sticking their heads up and not seeing each other.... It was very very amusing, I'm pretty sure Daniel then got shot.

The third game on this course was just a free for all, for players to use up there remaining paintballs - our team decided to do a charge straight down the middle of the field and see how it'd go.... i decided not to go with them and watched from the left hand side of the field as they charged about 20mtrs, then all ducked for cover as the opposing team got closer. Everyone was pretty much just shooting crazy now - I managed to get one guy 3 times straight on the face plate from about 7mtrs away - it was a great shot, his goggles were completely covered in pink paint. After that I was shot in the head and ran out of paintballs. Daniel finished up at about the same time as me and we both walked back to the main area to hand in our gear.

Once the game was over, lunch was served and all the great war stories of heroic efforts and missed opportunities were told, plus of course the comparisons of the bruises and other injuries:
Daniel: Bloody hand, and lots of little bruises
Liam: Sore knees, where he was shot
Katie: Bruised arm
Me: Skinned knee and lots of little bruises
John: He only got shot 5 times the entire time, so he didn't really have any injuries. He didn't miss getting shot cause he was such a good player, more cause he just hung back a lot.

More war stories were told later that night over poker - where I managed to loose all my chips 3 times over and John ended up winning everyones chips.

Google Earth

Been playing around with Google Earth a bit lately.... very very cool program - only thing is, the quality of the pics around home aren't particularly good.

Sydney looks great in it, same with most places in America or other big cities around the world.

The pic below is of home, or about as close as google earth can get, before the pic just becomes too pixelated.

Lunch Time BBQ

We had a BBQ at work today for lunch. It was very very tasty. The steak in particular was expecially nice and the garlic prawns weren't too bad either.

Macromedia Studio 8 - Launch

I went down to the Studio 8 launch with work yesterday morning, we were a bit late, but i don't think we missed much. The new Flash looks awesome, i mean really really good - I'm definitely going to have to learn flash. They also showed the new dreamweaver which looked alrightish - mostly they were showing it from a designer point-of-view, where i really wanted to see what new features they'd put in there for developers. One thing they did show though was how you could minimise certain parts of the code, so it was easier to focus on what you're actually working on, that looked cool.

There were a whole heap more people at the launch then this pic shows - they were all sitting over to the right. This pic is courtesy of Matt and his new mobley.

Sid Meier's Pirates - Xbox

I tried this game out on Saturday and it's great!!! I managed to play through the whole main mission from start to finish. That did take a few hours though.

One thing i missed not having in the game was a zoom out option when you're controlling the ship. Mostly i used the map overaly - but it still would have been useful.

The ship to ship battles were all fairly easy - mostly i just went straight for one of the other ships and it turned into a sword battle with the captain, heaps easier then sailing around and trying to blow each other up.

The land battles were great fun, the controls on the Xbox were heaps easy and it made it rather fun.

Xbox Pirates Site
Official Site

eBay Auctions

Are you interested in purchasing some bargain CD's - If you are, head on over and check out my latest auctions:

http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZgroovychook

Port Royale 2

I think i'm addicted to this new game i started playing called Port Royale 2. This happened with the original Port Royale too.

The game is basically a trading game (there's some gaming term that should be used here) But in the game you cruise around the carribean with your fleet of ships trading with the towns, setting up businesses and fighting of pirate ships. It's all pretty cool and very very addictive.

I'm waiting for the XBox version of Sid Meirs Pirates to come in at the video shop so i can try it out and see if it's the same sort of thing. Which it hopefully will be.

http://www.ascaron.com/gb/portroyale2/index.html

Land Of The Dead

I went and saw Land of The Dead on Sunday with Daniel... It was okish. Most of the scary parts were pretty predictable. I think Dawn Of The Dead (with the fast moving zombies) was much better.

Saturday Morning Surf

Went for a surf this morning at sunrise (of course) at "The Bend" between Terrigal and Wamberal. I took the Mini-Mal out and the waves were great. There was a bit of a wait between sets, but when they came in they were awesome... Great for the mal. There was only one other kid on a bodyboard out there, but he didn't get any waves... So they were all mine. It would have been a great morning if it wasn't absolutely freezing, I lost most of the feeling in both of my feet and my fingers... Oh well, soon it will be summer :)

Zo gets her own Blog

Well Zoe, has finally got her own blog, currently it doesn't have much in it. But she intends to start adding heaps to it soon.

You can check it out here http://www.ziggue.blog.com/

duneboarder

Well my new sandboarding site "duneboarder" is now online. You can check it out here http://www.duneboarder.com

Maitland Markets

I went up maitland markets with Daniel and his family today. The markets up there are huge (by far the biggest markets I've ever been to). I didn't buy much up there, mostly just looked around. Luckily Daniels parents knew that it got busy up there so we left at 7am and by the time we were leaving at about 10 it was packed.... there were cars queued way back on the road waiting to get into the showground to park.

After the markets we cruised through Maitland and checked it out, but there wasn't anything open of a Sunday so we continued on to Morpeth for lunch.

Morpeth was great, there are heaps of little tourist type shops in there but instead of the normal dodgy tourist stuff it was all handmade things and was heaps good :) We had lunch at one of the many cafes there and then continued on to check out more of the shops.