Calling It

Okay, I'm prepared to call the Mac mini 2008 Update for August. Prediction: new CPUs, new motherboards, new graphics (Newer GMA), larger hard drives possible new design. May be modular.

Next, we're calling Barack Obama the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, sitting as he does just 10 Delegates shy with 30 Pledged Delegates up for grabs total tonight in two Primaries he is believed to have bought and paid for.

With that out of the way, we can move on to the forthcoming Giant Bombcast in which Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis are expected to reveal something major about Giant Bomb (dot) com I have a suspicion about what it is.

First, I'm half hoping, half expecting, the duo to announce registration and potentially the forums for the site are open, or opening this week. This would be great, the Giant Bomb fans are hugely devoted but currently the main communication medium for us in comments.

Forums would allow the community to blossom. And for once, I would be around at the incepton of a multiformat games website's forums meaning I wouldn't get lost amidst the kind of crap at GameSpot and IGN (I could never be bothered digging through that rubbish only to have the snobs snub me).

Secondly, with a probability of 65% or better, I expect the pair to announce a launch date for the Giant Bomb site - the day they're "blowing up".

Furthermore, I'd say this date will be at most 14 days ahead of E3 - which starts July 15. That is, I epect it to be launched no later than the start of July. I'm hoping for late June, but I'm realistic.

On an unrelated side note, Demi Lovato kicks ass.

Now then, I have an update on Multiplayer Magazine. My partner in crime WizzKid and I have made a decision about what will power the site and I have made a choice about hosting.

As time marches on, we'll be discussing it more and more. One of our current to dos is having our graphics team design a logo and setting a colour scheme for the site. Meanwhile, I'm going to be using some of my upcoming free time to begin getting the Multiplayer Content Specifications written up. I've written content philosophies before, but this one is entirely new - the previous one was based primarily on the first, itself fairly standard though with some unique twists.

The MCS will be pretty comprehensive, since it will be necessary to provide guidelines for all content types.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired. Night.

Jens Out

Eeek

Well, what a difference a day makes. It turns out I'm not going to need to buy a PS3, my dad's getting us one. Which saves me basically £300 hard cash. Some of you might expect me to go back to buying the Xbox, but I decided not to.

Instead, I decided to get a hold of a computer. The geek in me was getting antsy. Of course you've guessed, the computer I'm getting is the Asus Eee PC. I'm getting the white one with 4GB of Flash and a webcam. It probably has a specific name, but I can't really be bothered to find out what it is.

Does this mean I'm not getting the Air? Not necessarily. What it does mean is whether I get the Air or a different Mac, I will still have a nice, light notebook for writing in bed and so on.

In other news, I got some really great news today, between moving operations from Petrograd (Peterborough), the heartland of English mediocrity to somewhere in Scotland, which by the way kicks ass, we're taking a slight detour for 2 or 3 weeks.

To the Everglades.

Yeah, Florida. It's awesome. I've been waiting to go to America for years. Finally I'm going to get to go to Disney World, see the awesome American food and purchase consumer goods at rock bottom prices (AKA exploiting the USA's shitty economy).

We intend to rent a villa over there and take in all the stuff we want at a leisurely pace. As a geek, I'll be taking at least one computer and my camera(s) and updating the blog on what we're up to as we go. As a part of that, I expect I'll be taking a fat USB HDD and several big SD cards.

Then we'll return, not to a house but to a boat. My dad really wants a boat. We were going to get a smaller boat and a camper van, then decided that was stupid and merged the two into a bigger boat.

Then we'll redo the house we buy to have it just the way we want it.

Well that's the future for me.

Live free or Die Hard,
Jens

Regarding iPlayer

Huzzah and so on, the BBC have moved to a streaming system for the iPlayer, in line with similar efforts by the American broadcasters. This change makes it much simpler for us to view content - we no longer have to download the ghastly Kontiki platform or use Internet Explorer.

Furthermore, now the system no longer requires registration to use it.

Good job BBC.

Jens Out.