Who knew.

Finished reading Robert Ludlum’s ‘The Ambler Warning’ today.

This was one of the last books the Ludlum had near completion before his death in 2001, following which his family had a ghost writer finish up the manuscript allowing it to be published.

The premise of the story is that Hal Ambler a former HVA (High Value Agent) is locked in an asylum for agents who have mentally snapped, but pose a threat to national security as there’s no knowing what state secrets they may expose. The twist to this is that Hal isn’t insane.  Throughout most of the book you follow Hal as he escapes the Asylum and tries to find out why  he’d been locked up in the first place.

As each of his sources seemingly draw a blank at first, he starts to doubt if he is sane or not. That is until after a failed attempt on his life, which makes the start of his involvement in schemes of a much larger scale.

Much like the Bourne Identity the reader gets to learn about Hal as he searches through various links of what he can remember, often with a flashback of a single operation he was a part of in Asia roughly two years before his escape. Each flashback is extended from the previous, giving more information about what had happened. While these happen at various points throughout the book they never came across as feeling repetitive.

The story does slow down towards the end in terms of pace, I can only assume this was where the ghostwriter was putting in the finishing touches as it feels like it looses some of it’s momemtum at just the wrong time. Whilst there is a nice twist to try and bring it back for a big crecendo it just seems to fall short of the mark.

All in all, I’d still recommend it as I generally found it hard to put down with the amount of mystery, action and the intricate intertwining characters that you would come to expect of a Ludlum book it’s still very much worth reading.

With my Xbox back on it’s way to me,  checked the delivery status to see when it would likely be.

UPS stated this would be on the 10th, unfortunately for me, when they tried to deliver it no one was at home. So they left the usual attempted delivery calling card, on which they stated they’d try again the following day.

Now luckily my sister had friday off work and was willing to stay in to sign for it for me.

So my day at work on Friday comes and goes, and my Xbox is back. Microsoft also included a free months worth of Xbox live gold which was a nice little bonus.

See you in game.

I had a quick look on the the Xbox.com website today to check if there was any updated on the repair status of my Xbox, only to find that it’s been repaired and now in the process of being shipped back to me

Following having seen this I quickly checked my email to see if I’d received any confirmation of this, only to find that there wasn’t one. So I’m not sure currently if that’s just because they haven’t sent it yet, or if it’s because they don’t for when they are returning it. Which does seem a bit strange to me.

Either way it’s on it’s way back, so I can get to sessioning Skate 3 by the weekend hopefully.

Got a confirmation email today that Microsoft has received my Xbox. Not a bad timescale considering that UPS picked it up from my house on Tuesday, and that the service center is apparently in Germany.

On the flip side. Considering it’s been just over a week since it went wrong, and amount of times I’ve found myself wanting to play a bit of a game I have on there is frustratingly high.
Hopefully it won’t take too much londer now that they have it.

As it goes just as i was about to settle into the some Skate 3 action on thursday, I noticed somestange lines across various parts of the dashboard.
So after checking that my 360 was hooked up to my monitor ok I decided to turn it off and on again to see if that improved matters at all. Only to be greated by the E74 screen.

Needless to say I’m sending it off to Microsoft for a repair. Hopefully I’ll get it back promptly as I only got started in Skate 3 on wednesday .

So it’s been roughly a month since I started using Windows 7,
Despite a minor Screw Up on my behalf. It’s been a pleasant experience.

Using the 64bit version of this, the progams files folders are now split into two. One for the x64 programs and one for the older x86 programs. Which at first can be a little bit confusing when your looking for an individual program amongst them, but you quickly get used to it. Down the line this may be useful when looking for 64bit upgrades to programs.

The new library feature is better than I was expecting it to be, as it allows you to add folders from various places all to be viewed in one central location. What I found to like about this the most though was that even in the Library “folder” you are still able to sort different locations individually to your own personal file sorting preference.

The new start bar, is in my opinion so much better than the old XP / Vista one. While the start menu is basicly taken from vista in how it works. The bar itself makes it alot easier if you run alot of programs at once compared to XP. Instead of showing the multiple instances of a program individually then grouping them once too many are open, it automatically groups them on a large button with the programs icon on. Since the whole OS has been designed to work with touch support. Meaning the buttons by default are a fair size to allow for easy poking. Working your way around with a cursor is nearly effortless.

As for working through file hierachy it’s basicly the same as Vista, which once your used to it, does work better than the XP one, as it allows for quick access to any of the folders higher in the chain.

I’ve yet to install the few DX10 games I’ve got, so that’ll have to wait for another day.

All in all so far 7 is shaping up to be a good choice, and with the pricing plans recently announced I’ll more than likely upgrade to a full retial copy.

That’s all for now.

So I’ve finally upgraded the final few parts of my PC I wanted to before installing the lastest offering by Microsoft.

Installation has to be the easiest one yet, huge thumbs up for that.

So far the experience is going well, it’s certainly faster than XP has been of late for me. Though I’ll find out if that’s still the case after I’ve got all the main programs I use installed.

Well I need to get more used to this OS. So that’s all for now.

The reason for the strange title?
I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again, and that is the latest character name I’ve picked, mainly because Supersly was unavailable on the server of choice. Saurfang.

This is a PvE server so I can level in peace this time, though I do still need to buy the latest expansion if I want to enjoy a lot of the new content. Just like my last character it’s another Undead Warrior, purely because I enjoyed the last one so much.

If you happen to play horde on Saurfang give me a whisper sometime.

So last friday night whilst walking home from a fun night out with some mates from work, I was jumped by a few people. Who then went on to beat me and take my phone and money.
Thankfully it was an old phone and not much in terms of cash (around £4), even more so i’ve come off not too badly, mostly just bruised and a bit sore.

That about covers that.

As the title says I’m still alive and making my once every so often blog post.

That is all