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I recently took advantage of Nokias new DIY firmware upgrade, and after a scare during the process (the software told me that it failed then my phone wouldn’t turn on until i removed the battery), it turned out that it DID upgrade the firmware.

Unfortunately, it didn’t solve my ringtone issue, although it does seem to have made my phone a little quicker. Something else that I noticed was that my phone seems to have had a new program installed in to it – Music – which from what I can tell turns the phone in to an mp3 player. It might be new, or I just might not have noticed it before. Either way – it’s news to me!

One thing I did see when browsing the internet about the rintone issue is that it might not be loading my custom tone because the file size may be too big and the phone can’t load it in time to sound out, so nicely substitues Nokia Tune in it’s place. I’ll try to recompress the file over the weekend and let you know what goes one with it.

I appear to be having a spot of trouble updating my blog.

It may be that I’m still using MT3.2 or it might be my host, but without me touching anything – it has become very selective on what it will allow me to post, showing me a 403 Forbidden error when it objects to what I am trying to say.

Has anyone else come across this problem, or is it just me?

I have just been browsing my RSS of AICN and they have a report that WB Animation re going to tackle one of the greatest 80’s ‘toons ever, The Thundercats.

Good news if you didn’t get enough of them when you were younger (or when your kids were younger for all the adults reading this blog) but bad news when you read the alterations they are going to make to the series.

– WB animation is remaking the Thundercats as an animated TV series.
– The animation style is whimsical, Americanized-anime, along the lines of Teen Titans.
– The setting is modern-day Earth, in a major city (possibly LA)
– The Thundercats are all teenagers.
– Their leader is Snarf (!) who is now a mystic with a “third” eye.
– Each of the Thundercats has a weapon with an “Eye of Thunderra” and transformative powers (not just Lion-O)
– When they aren’t fighting evil, the Thundercats play together as a rock band.
– Mum-Ra now has wings.

Why, when people insist on remaking a classic show that people have such fond memories of, do they butcher it beyond all recognition?!

Stop the remakes!

An interesting question indeed and something that I think needs addressing. Let me breifly recap what has brought me to this question.

I was looking at my Analytics statistics and found this question had brought some traffic to my blog so I thougth the least that I could do was to try to answer the question.

I recently splurged out on a few DS games that I meant to get when they were launched, but lack of money and my Warcraft addiction prevented me from catching up with releases. There are several games out there for Nintendo’s latest handheld device, but some of my favorites are New Super Mario Bros., Tetris DS, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney and Animal Crossing: Wild World. These are all good titles, although the last 2 seem to require a fair amount of time (picking up a case halfway though in PW:AA is quite tough to continue when trying to remember what evidence you have gathered and who you have talked to, and AC:WW needs a lot of time to do very little).

If you want short games that you can just pick up then might I suggest Tetris, Mario or even Warioware: Touched (a launch title, but still highly amusing).

If you want RPG/Adventure fun then might I recommend Another Code. I’ve not played it myself, but reviews say that this title was a good game, utilising the touchscreen very well. Another good RPG (althought not out yet) I’m sure will be Final Fantasy III (whenever it is released).

Another title worth keeping an eye on is Starfox Command. Looks like a different sort of game, but not having done a play test I couldn’t tell you for sure.

As you may or may not be aware, Michael Bay (of Pearl Harbour, The Rock, Armageddon fame) has taken it upon himself to create a Transformers live action movie.

I have been following reports on the film for quite some time and was very excited when the teaser trailer came out, but let down when I actually saw it and was even more shocked at the robots that are to be used in the production.

When I was younger, I love Transformers – as did any toy-driven boy in the 80s (even if they deny it) so naturally I have very high hopes for this film, but by the look of some of this coming news it could be dashed like the charred remains of Cybertron.

The robots that have been announced to ’star’ in the film are:
Autobots: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide
Decepticons: Megatron, Starscream, Brawl, Bonecrusher, Barricade, Skorpinok, Frenzy, Blackout

Not a bad lineup (no Soundwave?!) but could possibly be better – like not casting Bumblebee as a major role. I never liked him. He was only put in there for the kids because, like in most cartoon of the era, you needed some comic relief and he was the one who got in to trouble all the time. Stupid Bumblebee.

Anyway, as I was saying, not a bad lineup. But then I saw some artwork that had been leaked to a forum showing toy prototype/concept art for the movie.

I also managed to find some images on a popular photo sharing site of the ‘bots.

Quite a long title, but let me explain. I have been playing with (yes, you’ve guessed it) Google Analyitics and found that I can see the top keywords or phrases that people have used to get to my site on – probably supplied by Google at a guess.

1. ’six’
2. ‘nokia n70 trouble problem’
3. ‘the ultimate game quiz’
4. ‘orange 3g problem’
5. ‘brendon routh wallpaper’

Looks like people are still finding trouble with the Nokia n70 ’smartphone’. Not surprising really as I have had problems since the start with it, as have a few other people I know who also have it. It also seems that Oranges network problems are also causing people concern. I have no idea where ’six’ or ‘brendon routh wallpaper’ come in to it though.

Ok, so not the most clever of titles, in fact I don’t really think it makes much sense, but basically I passed my driving test today!

On my third attempt, I got 2 minor faults. One of which was me not driving as smoothly as I could while clutch controlling which I got a footbrake fault and my other one was bumping the curb on a three-point turn, or as it’s called now a ‘turn in the road’.

I am now a fully fledged driver. All I need now is a car and the open road and I’ll be free…

Hurrah. My Xbox console arrived back on Friday, so naturally I have been catching up on demos that I downloaded but couldn’t play and demos that I hadn’t downloaded, namely Ninety-Nine Nights, Street Fighter 2, Saint’s Row and Dead Rising.

Quick capsule reviews, N3, not really too bothered about, although it is very pretty. Voice acting and storyline are quite bad and the contrls are all over the place. Given more time, I might have been able to get more in to the game, but after around 30mins of play I wasn’t too impressed by it.

Street Fighter 2, quite a poor port with controls that are quite hard. The AI is far too tough to beat as it keeps bombarding you with projectiles. Didn’t try 2-player mode because when I got it my console broke and I haven’t got around to it yet.

Saint’s Row, it’s certainly not GTA, but nor is it bad. The controls are just too binary – for instance when you are driving a car, the triggers are not accelerate/brack, A and X are respectivly. This (I found) causes very choppy driving and a pretty poor control system.

Dead Rising, tremendous fun, if not a little shallow. Yet out of all of the above games, it is the one I would be most likely to buy. My only real critisism of it is that on the telly I use the console with, the text on screen appears hard to read. Certainly made with high definition in mind. Thanks for remembering us tube users, Capcom.

As I type this, I am on hold with Orange where I am trying to report a fault with my Nokia N70.

basically the fault is that people are finding it very hard to contact me on my mobile phone, getting straight through to my voicemail. This can happen intermittently but of late has been becoming more frequent. Also, some text messages aren’t going through and I am having trouble making calls.

I have already spoken to a rep at the local Orange shop, and he just told me that I need to get the firmware updated (but that was for a different problem with the same phone). He assured me that I can actually do this myself and that I just need to get the upgrade from Nokia.

As I just mentioned, this is not the first problem I’ve had with this phone. Every so often it will change the ringtone (when it does actually ring) back to the annoying Nokia tune.

[Update] I’ve just got off the phone to Orange and apparently they are having problems with their 3G network so it has been changed to GSM mode rather than dual mode. We shall see if this fixes the problem…

Just a quick note to pass on the knowledge that the trailer for Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny can now be found online. Doesn’t look great, but it certainly looks entertaining.

Keep an eye out for Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) as the goat-legged demon in the trailer.

It can be found here.