JordanH.net

20 Great Places to Visit This Summer

I’m going to list twenty great days out in the UK this summer. I’m going to try and visit some, and if you have been to any then leave a comment with your views!

1. Alton Towers
Alton Towers is one of the UK’s most famous theme parks, and there is a great selection of rides for everyone there. Great family fun and it’s not extremely expensive.

2. National Media Museum
The National Media Museum at Bradford is a really interesting museum that also has an IMAX cinema. There’s an interactive television gallery where you can make your own television programme and more.

3. Cadbury World
Cadbury World is one of many great attractions in and around Birmingham, but if you’re a fan of chocolate then this is for you. Interesting and fun to go around and free chocolate samples too!

4. Legoland Windsor
Legoland Windsor is a gigantic LEGO-themed amusement park with fun rides for kids (and adults too!) and a massive Miniland of London too. Then you can visit the massive “LEGO store” which sells almost every type of LEGO set imaginable. (more…)

Windows Live Messenger…

I turn on my phone this morning to recieve four (yes, four) messages from a friend who I won’t name, all saying “come on msn jordan” or some variation of that. As of writing, I have 57 people on my WLM friends list, with a select list of about 5 or 6 people who I actually enjoy talking to using it, mainly because they don’t talk excessively, understand that I’m busy doing coding or halfway through a Bad Company game and don’t say “jordan y u not my m8″ when I leave my computer to have breakfast.

I can’t block anybody from talking to me because they just ask their friends “Is Jordan online?” and then they get quite annoyed at me. And I don’t want to stop using MSN because there are a few people who I don’t mind talking to and can have intelligent conversations with. How I managed to get 57 people on my friends list remains a mystery… probably through a long web of “can I have your addy?” and multiple conversations.

Short of getting another MSN account, I’m not sure what I can do! Suggestions are welcome…

>Jordan

Two Months Later

So, it’s exactly two months tomorrow since I bought my Xbox 360, and contrary to Hilly Billy’s statements, I’ve had a great time with the Xbox 360 and never looked back. So far I’ve got GTA IV (story completed, working on 100%), Halo 3 (working on that one) and Battlefield: Bad Company (someway through story, playing multiplayer loads though).

Talking to PS3 owners, they’re still having awful problems getting online in a lot of games. Notably, the other day PS3 released (and re-released) their 2.4 firmware update and 2 years of work didn’t really show. In my opinion, the in-game XMB wasn’t well thought through – people don’t want to view their photos whilst playing a game, they just want to send their messages! Still no game invites on the PS3 either.

Now – back to Xbox. Microsoft have announced some HUGE changes to the Xbox interface and I think they look pretty cool. Yeah, maybe they copied off Nintendo a bit in the avatar design, but it’s still gonna be great to play for real prizes in 1vs100 and have eight-player parties before going into games.

I did play my PS3 today though, only for Burnout Paradise since I haven’t got that for Xbox 360 yet. Criterion have just released their Cagney update and I tried out lots of new features. It did take a few hours to download though.

Now, I’m going to sit here and wait until Hilly Billy leaves a comment, which I guess won’t be long

>Jordan

GeekUp Preston at Forum Bar

Last night I went to my first GeekUp in the Forum Bar in Preston. We had a great time, talking about how we can get young people interested in geekery (grooming!) and talking about how we got into geekery ourselves.

Gemma was also talking about her big mess-up last Friday at the airshow. About 12 of us came, including me and Andy. I really enjoyed it and got to meet loads of new people.

Thanks everyone!

Deadline – By Simon Kernick

This is the latest in an epic collection of novels written by author Simon Kernick. I’ve been a huge fan of his books since I read Relentless last year. I’ve since read Severed, another great read, and now today at Tesco I saw Deadline and picked it up. So, this afternoon I sat down and started to read, and didn’t stop until I’d finished it. I thought I’d put a review up on here with my thoughts.

One of the great things about the Simon Kernick books is that they’re impossible to put down. There’s always an urge to keep on reading the next chapter. I’m glad to say that this book is no exception. It’s filled with twists and turns at every level, and leaves you guessing so much that your brain yearns to find out what happened!

There’s a fast-moving plot with no lapses of action, but Kernick sometimes goes into the history of the characters at times when you just want to keep on with the story. However, these pieces of information are vital to the end of the story.

As in many modern crime-fiction books, there are some chapters which have horrific events, and some which are downright disturbing. One of the great things about the books, and this book inparticular, is the immense accuracy that Kernick applies to his story about the Police and their relevant departments. Combined with the odd facts about the Police, the story doesn’t leave the fictional “tracing that call takes ages” feeling after you’ve read it.

I think this book is a must-read! If you enjoyed it, then I recommend also reading some of Simon Kernick’s other titles too – Relentless and Severed. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Hope you enjoyed reading the first book review on JordanH.net!

Super Lamb Bananas!

Today I went to Liverpool, for a few reasons. I went to see the new Liverpool One, which I thought was pretty good, quite reminiscent of Portuguese shopping centres (I love the open air!).

The other reason was because I wanted to see the Super Lamb Bananas. Because it’s the ‘Capital of Culture’ year in Liverpool, there have been 120 replicas of the massive Super Lamb Banana put around the city. They’ve all been designed by a different artist or community group. I’m going to try and take photos of as many as possible, hopefully all!

Today, I managed to get pictures of 34. I’m starting to (slowly!) upload them to my Flickr photostream. I’m also plotting them on a Google map. (The green pinpoints are the ones I’ve taken, the red ones are the ones I’ve not got yet!) Unfortunately, some clever person at the CoC decided to stick one of them down in Euston Station in London. My project to get photos of all the Super Lamb Bananas has just got a little more expensive!

Click here to see the map with pictures!

>Jordan

Battlefield: Bad Company

This game is absolutely amazing. I’ve not put another disc in my Xbox 360 since I bought it on Friday. It’s very fun to play, and it’s got a great story too.

You play as Preston Marlowe, a soldier in the US Army. He’s put in Bad Company, the unit of the army where all the idiots are put, “so they can put all their bad eggs in one basket”. They’re used when the privates and corporals are too expensive to waste. As you can probably expect, the result is very funny.

The story follows the unit as they discover Mercenaries and their greed for gold ensues. Bad Company ends up invading a neutral country and causing major chaos as they attempt to steal the Mercenaries’ gold. Great gameplay, not extremely hard but very fun to play.

And then there’s the online multiplayer. This takes the game to a completely new level. Almost (90%) fully-destructable environments can turn strategies on their head, nothing says chaos like being in a building one second, then being fully exposed to the enemies the next after someone blows the whole wall apart in front of you! The main game mode is Gold Rush, where you are either an Attacker or a Defender. The attackers need to blow up the metal cases where the gold is stored to steal it, and the defenders have to stop them. The attackers have limited respawns, and the defenders have unlimited. Think of it as CoD4”s Search And Destroy mode, but on a bigger scale and more destructive!

This game is fantastic, and one of the best I’ve ever played. The destruction factor adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay, and underneath it all is an amazing game engine. It’s called Frostbite and was developed by DICE. Bad Company is the first game that utilises it.

If you’re looking to get an awesome game this summer, this is the one to buy! You’ll have hours of fun playing the single player and then double the fun playing online. I thought it was impossible, but this game beats Call of Duty in all areas!

Let me know what you think!

>Jordan