Busy Fixin'

I'm busy trying to get my computers and network all set up correctly again. It's been going mostly okay but there have been some set backs. Nothing ever goes entirely according to plan when you're working on a big upgrade like this. Major things are done but it will be a while before I'm completely back to normal. However that's half the fun of such upgrades so long as progress is being made.

New TV

It's September and the new season of television is underway. I thought I'd do a quick summary of what I'm looking forward to this year.

Castle (Season 4)
Will Detective Beckett be okay? I expect so as she's a main character but how will it happen? I'm looking forward to this one a lot, always room for more Stana Katic and Nathon Fillion.

Fringe (Season 4)
Weird science and alternate universes with John Noble, a favorite of mine. I hope this will not be the final season.

Ringer (New)
I don't actually know a lot about this new series. However it has a big buzz around it as it's Sarah Michelle Gellar's first return to televsion since Buffy. I'll at least be giving this a try.

Hawaii Five-O (Season 2)
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the first series of this remake. Let's hope season two can continue to hold me.

Nikita (Season 2)
Another one which I enjoyed more than I expected to. Although storywise this year is probably going to be a bit different.

Terra Nova (New)
Time travelling dinosaur thingy from Steven Spielberg. Have at least give this a look. Although it sounds like they've been having some production issues.

House (Season 8)
House has been pretty consistently great since the beginning but there are going to be quite a few major changes this year which is worrying.

That's all for September. Later on there's also The Walking Dead and Bones. Not of lot of new series I'm paying attention to this year. Most of the pilots I was interested in did not get picked up.

Completed: Dawn of War II

I loved the first Dawn of War game and played a lot. Unfortunately Dawn of War II never really clicked for me even though I really wanted it to. The game became part of the trend which is removing base building from RTS games and because of that it just didn't feel the same. I was probably busy playing perhaps Fallout 3 or Neverwinter Nights 2 when it was first release and so I never gave it much of a chance.

Recently I decided I should give it another look as I do like that universe and some of the Dawn of War III news seems interesting. I've been making my way through the single player story campaign. There's not really much point trying to get in to the multiplayer scene for a two year old game which isn't your favorite.

It played well and looked good. The story was reasonably interesting and the mission objectives varied quite nicely. I quite liked the RPG elements introduced with your units gaining persistent experience from mission to mission. However I still miss the base building aspect, it's a corner stone of the genre to me.

Overall it was a nice campaign which I'm glad I found time to finally play even if it wasn't the greatest. It's one of those "things you think you should have done" items off the list. I'll probably still have a quick look at the expansions too.

Your Highness

This was a very silly film. I've got nothing particular against crude humour but this fell completely flat for me. Still I actually managed to enjoy it somewhat as a cheesy fantasy film. That was because the great actors involved including James Franco and Natalie Portman, also excellent work on the sets and effect make a quality world for it. I'll admit Natalie Portman was the only reason I even tried this after seeing the trailer, in the end she had to save it, which she just about managed.

The Girl Who Waited

Many more great Rory moments this week on Doctor Who. At this point I should probably give some praise to Arthur Darvill as well for his work on the character as I've not really mentioned him before. Amy gets another long wait for the Doctor that's almost happening as often as Rory dies now. That's not a complaint, just an observation. I very much enjoyed the episode. We hear that Amy Pond is the only one with the will to change a fixed event in time. Does that sound like foreshadowing to anyone else? :D Did we get a shot of the Doctor's death date again? I don't remember seeing one this week, not that I've forgotten.


That's probably what I'd do!

Urg

Bad luck and bad decisions mean that I probably won't be getting any new computer parts until next Tuesday at the earliest now. At least I have backup systems, but it's not the same. Also it's disappointing when you expected to be putting the finishing touches on a new server at this point but now you have to wait another four days. Now exactly the end of the world but that's been the major highlight of my day. I'll go back to film catch up now and continue my sorting.

Sorting

My server issues are in hand, new parts have been ordered. Although they're not going to arrive as soon as I'd hoped. At point of sale the website said everything I wanted was in stock but by the point of dispatch they couldn't fulfil the order. This has happened to me before and unfortunately you never find this out until it's too late to change the order for next day delivery. Which on a Thursday night means you'll end up having to wait until Monday. I wanted to spend the weekend fixing this, so I'll have to modify the order and pay the extra £10 for a Saturday delivery now.

Still this has highlighted a different issue that I can deal with in the meantime. I've been looking though all the spare parts that I've collected over the years and realized that some items are getting on for ten years old. There is no reason I can think of for which I was need these parts. It is time for a sort out. I've got more leftover IDE cables than anyone could ever need considering they're no longer in use.