Well, for those of you that don't know, i have a really bad virus on my computer. The desktop background went blue with the text box "Warning! spyware has been detected on your computer! install a sypware remover or antivirus program to clean it at once!" well great. i already have a anti virus program, and it didn't do anything. so ok, i try and do a virus scan. every time i try one of these my computer crashes with the blue screen of death. Ok, now what. Back up my hard drive and reformat? well i don't have enough blank cd's or a external hd to do this with, and buying one would cost more than taking it into the shop to get fixed. so i guess that is what i'll do, just take it into the shop. saving money for a new computer is sure being difficult this summer, at this rate i won't be getting it until november.

Yesterday i was begrudgingly pulled away from E3 to take part in a 20km (about 12 miles) speed run of a highly difficult trail near whistler. I'm in pretty good physical shape, so i didn't think it would be that bad. it was. The trail that was chosen was more like a mountain climb, actually it was a mountain climb. There was well over 3000 feet of elevation gain throughout the hike we origonally planned to do, which was to a lake, 10km each way. the trail was steep and in bad condition, with mud everywhere, logs strewn across the trail, and the boardwalks twisted and rotten. when we finally reache the lake in about 2.5 hours, we ran into some german guy who pointed to a ridge on the other side of the lake and about another 1000 feet up and said the view from there was one of the best he had ever seen. i was convinced the view would be nothing better than what you would get from the peak of whistler mountain, but my friends really wanted to give it a go. the lake was much bigger than it looked, and by the time we got to the bottom of the ridge it had been another 45 mins. we climbed the ridge, which looked like a mountain from where we were standing, and this took another hour. there was a sign saying "4 km to rainbow lake" which was the lake we had origona - oh sh*t i have spyware, have to close the blog now.

Man, i've been on level 20 for what seems like forever. progress is painfully slow, and whenever i'm getting close, i get modded with point loss or some stupid thing. it's rediculous, i'm on here loads, yet in the past week i've gone from 55.6 % to 61.6 %. at this rate i'm not going to get anywhere until the fall. Any tips or suggestions on how to get my level up faster? i blog a fair bit, i review games regularely, i post lots, i read loads of articles, watch previews and whatnot, anyting else i can do to boost my points?

and by genre i mean RTS, FPS, and RPG. i'm not going into the finnicky details of EFF PEE ESS ARR PEE GEE or the like, just the basics, although i'm also going to include, just for the hell of it, Action and Horror, because they are two pretty big catagories. also, if there is a game series which has more than one game i wan't to include, i'll just mention the series and the games in brackets

RTS: Runner up: World in Conflict - my favorite multiplayer game, WIC contains some of the most intense firefights and skirmishes you will ever have in a vidoe game, guarenteed. Stunning visuals, interesting althought almost lackluster singleplayer campaign, suprisingly enough i've spent more time on WIC's mp than any other mp game i have put together. (just a note, i don't play a whole lot of multi player games)

Winner: Company of Heroes - everyone knows about this one, the difficult, complex, endlessly entertaining game with singleplayer skirmishes so varied in how they play out that you can never tire of them. after a lengthy campaign and loads of sp skirmish maps to choose from, COH is the rts game to beat.

FPS: Runner Up: F.E.A.R: absolutley amazing combat/firefights and a interesting story make fear a fps no one will soon forget. with visuals way ahead of their time, FEAR is the Crysis of 2005. This game is also at times rather scary, although not to bad compared to some other games. FEAR is a must have for any fan of FPS or horror games.

Winner: S.T.A.L.K.E.R: shadow of chernobyl - a massivley open - ended game with so much to do, stalker has some of the best replay value you will ever come across in a fps. amazing ai, decent graphics, and the best atmosphere of any game ever, stalker just keeps me coming back for more. can't effing wait for clear sky to come out.

Just a note, before i head into the RPG section, you should know that i havent played many rpg's of any kind, so don't bash me for puting the new, main - stream type rpg's on my list.

RPG: Runner Up: Mass Effect - ok you should know by now why i love mass effect

Winner: elder scrolls series (oblivion and morrowind) - the two games that keep me coming back for more, morrowind was the first rpg i ever played, and i was overwhelmed, while oblivion was also amazing, it was less overwhelming. i'm getting tired of typing, shortening game descriptions.

Horror - Runner Up: Stalker - scary and whatnot in labs, bloodsucker village, etc.

Winner: Penumbra: black plauge - so scary i could only play for five minutes at a time, so tense the slightest noise would make me jump.

Action - Splinter cell series for everything woo-hoo.

Well that turned out to be longer than i excpected, my keyboard is acting up, thats why i couldn't do the last bit properly.

First off, i'll say that this is the best movie i've seen since There Will Be Blood. In Bruges is a gritty comedy about two hitmen, one of which has made a horrible mistake, who are sent to the small city of Bruge in Belgium at the wish of there boss. He simply tells them to sightsee, but be back at the hotel in the evening when he calls. These two hitmen don't know why they are there, and it's totally hilarious because of the contrast of the Characters of the hitmen. The one played by Colin Ferril (who acted quite well i must say) was a party - going, energetic young guy, while the other hitman, played by Brenden Gleeson is more of a calm character, who just wants to sight-see. These boys are Irish, so you can excpect a fair bit of fighting.

Now this movie is simply hilarious. It's a British comedy, and isn't all that kind on Americans, the style of this movie was almost remeniscent of that of The Boondock Saints, although not quite as pronounced. This also happens to be one of the most vulgar movies i've ever seen with (according to some bloke on IMBD) over 130 uses of the F word, 11 uses of the C word (it's a british comedy, i'm sure you can figure that one out), and massive use of lesser curse words. Most often the language is used for comic effect, and it works for the most part. The pace of this movie is a bit slow at times, but that shouldn't stop you from fully enjoying this twisted comedy.

I'd reccomend this movie to just about anyone, although i will once again warn you of the pervasive harsh language as well as some comments that could be considered offensive to Americans, midgets, and black people.

as you might have noticed, i've been away for the past week or so. i've been off on some gulf island or somthing for the week, and the rest of my family wanted to stay on longer, but i've got work tommorow and therefore had to get home. i got over there by means of a ferry, but i didn't have a car to go back, so i decided to take a sea plane. i've done it once before, when i was 8. this time was much more terrifying. i got to the dock where it was supposed to be, and in it came. the pilot is totally crazy, making absurd jokes with very poor english. my alarm bells first went off when one of the passangers got off and puked. ok, great. then we learn that this airplane had some "engine troubles" on the way over. in other words, the engine cut half way there, and they had to make an emergancy landing in the middle of the Jorgia Straight (thank god it was a sea plane). this crazy german pilot fills the tank, doesn't even check the engine, and ushers us on board.

we leave the dock, with the pilot doing his darndest to explain the safety procedures. there are only two other passengers on this thing besides me, so i get to sit in the front seat, where the co-pilot is supposed to sit. oh boy. the window to my right is wide open, and just before we take off, (the roar of the engine at this point makes talking useless) the pilot gestures for me to close the window, which i do. then he points to a sort of knob, and gestures for me to turn it. i do. we take off, the the pilot steers the plane with a single finger, not even looking, while he fiddles with knobs and dials. and one point, he starts bashing this one peice of equiptment with his fist. apperently satisfied, he goes back to steering the plane. i look to my right, and see that we are flying into a cloud, but more alarmingly, that the window to my right has sprouted a crack and is opening slowly. i try to cram it shut, and it won't budge. the pilot looks over, sees my problem. and leans over to fix it, taking both hands off the wheel. the plane veers to the left. my heart is pounding like crazy. looking back, i see that he has managed to close the window, and goes back to flying.

after that, things went smoothly enough, and the trip was soon over. i got off the plane with knees shaking, just glad to be alive.