Keep the paintboard, a spray can for the taggin'

One of the more interesting things about Italy is the sheer weight of artistry that it has. It as though art has become an essential part of the Italian culture, or at least it seems that way when I wandered about the streets and the markets and stalls within them. You truly get the impression that so many people are brought up surrounded by magnificent works of art or steeped in a culture that has produced so many great artists that many more people aspire to that way of life, even if it is just a hobby. The ability of people to produce gorgeous oil paintings, watercolour pictures or pencil drawings is definitely a marvel, and going to various Piazzas or alleyways filled with stalls or streets artists is a worthwhile past-time within Rome's streets.

However, perhaps one of the more unique and impressive artistic endeavours I was more incredible for the manner of its production rather than the end result. That's not to say the finished pieces weren't impressive, but it was the means by which they were created that was the real masterpiece. I saw only two of these 'spray can' artists, who created picture of Roman landmarks with nothing more than cardboard, various spray cans, a few stencils and some newspaper. By layering multiple colours of spray can paint, then adding additional layers after placing stencils on the 'canvas', these artists were able to produce pieces that were magnificent in their use of colour gradients. Using different colours to represent different parts of the day, and roughening the effect by splattering paint with their fingers or newspaper to give the impression of stars, clouds or foliage, they could produce quite a interest range of pieces with very few tools.

Yet the most impressive aspect was the speed at which they were created. Taking somewhere around 5 minutes to create, it was almost akin to performance art to watch these artworks being made, each one seeming like a combination of precision and spontaneous inspiration. An impressive talent from a place where artistic creativity almost appears to be commonplace.

Voulez vous danger

Since I've returned to Australia, I'll be doing post-trip blogging (in addition to anything else I might post about), with little grabs from various things I discovered while living in the UK, or on my journey home.

Today's post is a few thoughts as a result of my tour through the Tower of London. Though firstly, I'm going to go outside of the grounds to comment on The Tower Bridge. Or rather, more to voice my disappointment that "London Bridge" as I'd get the image of it in my head from my childhood is actually Tower Bridge, not London Bridge. When I actually saw London Bridge, I must confess I wasn't so sure why it falling down was such a tragedy. I certainly wouldn't have been crying out to any fair ladies over it.

The Tower of London itself is an interesting place, and although it was "never officially a prison", it certainly had its fair share of death. Including polar bears. No, I'm not joking, as at one point, the moat of the castle was effectively a sewer, and a couple of polar bears (given as gifts) got sick as a result of swimming in it and died. If that's not a trivial pursuit question, it should be.

I could comment about the standard things like beheadings and the crown jewels and so on, but that would be boring. However, I'd heard you got to look at the crown jewels for only a few seconds, but I went in the middle of the week and could look at them for as long as I wanted. I can't deny that a massive diamond is impressive, but I confess that I was most jealous of the phenomenal gold punch bowl with some of the most ornate carving I've seen. An American girl obvious agreed, as she took a photo of the thing before the guards came over and quickly forced her to delete it under threat of massive fines. How she could have possibly missed the multitude of "no camera" signs, I'll never know.

But the note I'll leave on is a little exhibit on torture. There was a small display asking people "Is torture acceptable?" There were three options and counters to keep track of the number of times each had been pushed. The figures were interesting:

• No: ~ 280,000
• Yes, as punishment: ~270,000
• Yes, to find information to prevent other crimes: ~170,000

That's food for thought.

Ice cream is gonna save the day

And I'd believe anything is possible when you're dealing with authentic Italian gelato. I'm a fan of dairy products, and ice cream and frozen yoghurt and particular favourites, but gelato in Italy is nothing short of a venerable taste-bud treat. The texture and creaminess are superb, as it's very light and delicate, yet somehow substantial. Add in the very strong flavour (pretty much for every single flavour you can purchase) and you're being treated to a truly decadent dessert experience.

Add into this mix the opportunity to sample hundreds of different flavours, and you can spend a lot of time (and euros) on eating a truckload of gelato. Within 4 hours of arriving in Italy, I'd already had two 3-scoop servings of the wonderful stuff. Highlights included delicious flavours from San Crispino (reputed to be the best gelato in Rome) such as cinnamon and ginger, zabaglione, and honey, not to mention eating a massive 6 scoop monstrosity that could have passed as lunch for some people.

Unfortunately, despite numerous stores showing videos on the "making" of gelato (though it simply showed them mixing a flavour with a gelato base) or displaying signs advertising the ability to watch its creation, I'm still completely oblivious as to how it is made. Well, I suppose some things in life must remain a mystery...

You let me change lanes, while I was driving in my car

No, I haven't been driving. Which is probably just as well, because driving in many European cities seems as though it requires both a well written will and a fairly good death wish. Take the majesty of the Arc Du Triomphe in Paris. No, this isn't another complaint about Paris, and I don't dislike the city as much as my previous posts have made out, I just figured that people would like to hear about the harsh complaints more than the wonderful sights. Perhaps a balance is required.

So taking the behemoth of a roundabout that surrounds the grandiose Arc Du Triomphe, you are presented with a spectacle that likely defies all normal road rules and probably several key aspects of self preservation. This invention has about seven or so major roads leading into it, and an unknown number of lanes going around it, for there are absolutely no road markings at all.

To an outsider, it appears to be a vehicular representation of chaos theory, or perhaps an exercise in kindness that uses up the majority of Paris' goodwill in its peak period of traffic. Cars enter and exit the roundabout in a seemingly random fashion, and frequently cut across multiple lanes of traffic without any sort of warning or even with what would seem like a perfectly rational use of indicator lights. Cars proceed slowly around in a mostly circular fashion, occasionally breaking to let someone in or out, and miraculously, the whole thing functions without a hitch.

Though I revisited it several times, I didn't see a single accident, nor even anything that I'd consider a close call. Somehow, Parisians manage to conduct a massive flow of traffic around the arc without major dramas. In fact, during my time in the city, despite numerous acts of driving that seemed to border on suicidal, I saw only a single accident. That was one car rear-ending another, and the way the entire street turned and gawked at it gave the impression that it was somewhat of a rarity. Perhaps the French aren't as rude and arrogant as stereotypes suggest - well, at least not on the road.

In fact I want so much money... Give me your money

Yes, that's what Paris says to travellers. I think it is possibly even more expensive than London, which I had been told was one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Some of the highlights of the overpricing rampant in Paris. (Taking into consideration the current exchange rate is 2-1 for the Aus dollar to the euro)

• A toasted ham & cheese sandwich has a special name, croque monsieur, presumably in an attempt to justify the obscene $6-14 price tag.


• The average price of a beer in most places is around $10.


• I saw a restaurant advertising a hamburger for an exorbitant $24.

But I think the kicker for me was an experience I'm almost reluctant to admit, because it involves doing something that should not be done while travelling - going to McDonalds. However, it's not as bad as you might think, I only went in for a thickshake. But I was sorely disappointed for several reasons.
For starters, they only had vanilla and strawberry flavour. What, is chocolate not sophisticated enough for Paris? Then, they ask the appallingly high amount of $4.80. Then, to top it all off, it's not even a proper thickshake. It's a milkshake, with a consistency that's almost like pure milk. I should have gone with my instincts and braved death to cross 8 lanes of traffic to get an ice-cream from Haagen-Dazs.

We can be happy underground...

Except when that underground is the Paris Metro.

My introduction to this supposedly zonderful city has not been particularly wonderful. For those who have complained about London's underground, it is perfect in comparison to Paris. My luggage isn't the lightest or easiest thing to lug around, so it makes getting around between hostels slightly challenging. Now add the Paris metro into the equation.

For that, add cramped trains, (and this isn't during any sort of busy time period) the pain of which is multiplied by several squealing children that simply would not shut up despite the (rather limited) efforts of the parents to silence them. Obviously they considered it acceptable for the infant to be producing earsplitting shrieks that would likely have contravened any local laws on noise disturbance.

The next irritation is line switches. There's lots of stations in the city, so it's likely that you can get very close to where you want to go, but the convoluted stations means that I'd imagine that in more than a few cases that it would be less time consuming to simply walk there instead. I imagine it might take 5-10 minutes to make some of the line changes because of how far you have to walk in the station. This might be okay... if Paris had discovered escalators and/or elevators. But they haven't. And they've filled their underground stations with stairs. Sometimes there doesn't even seem to be a point, as you'll climb up some stairs, only to just go down another set only a short distance ahead.

Then after dutifully following the signs, I ended up getting to a platform on the correct line, but heading in the wrong direction. Even better, there was no means to get to the other side of the platform without leaving and re-entering the ticketed area. Of course, that required me to haul my luggage halfway across the station. Again. The real kicker was the long circular staircase.

I eventually got to my destination and managed to find the place that I'm staying. It hasn't heard of elevators either. It has, however, just like the station, heard of circular staircases. And I'm four floors up. Lesson for the future - always travel as light as is humanly possible.

Ain't no mountain... just lots of hills

This is an update from the road, coming direct from sunny Lisbon in Portugal. There's been a couple of gloriously sunny days here, with a warm sun providing 18+ temperatures even at night. It's also provided me with an mild dosage of sunburn, but I think I can put up with that.

The city seems to be built entirely on hills, and I'd swear there's not more than maybe 1 square metre of ground that is properly flat except for right at the water's edge. That said, the city is beautiful, and the hills give rise (ugh, that pun wasn't unintended) to some great hilltop vistas.

I'd post a photo, but I can't plug my computer into the computer I'm using - one which also has the incredibly irritating trait of beeping upon every keypress. So to avoid further aggravation, I'll keep it short.

Seaside towers, hilltop castles, a rush-hour that sees people honking horns near continuously, and some delicious culinary treats including great seafood and very tasty custard tarts. That's Lisbon in a nutshell.

Snow Drops, UK Stops

In my time in the UK, there have now been a few occasions where the weather has seen fit to unceremoniously dump a metric shedload of snow around various parts of the country. Despite hearing about ridiculously high temperatures in Australia during the summer, it does make it seem like the threat of global warming might be a little over-hyped, after all, it's supposed to be global right?

Anyway, perhaps the more interesting thing about these events is that the UK pretty much ground to a halt as a result of these snowfalls. While I understand that snow can put a dent in the ability to people to get to places, in some cases it seemed a little excessive. Perhaps the closure of London's underground rail system is one of these cases.

Underground.

Not exposed to the sky.

The sky where the snow is falling.

Go figure.

Though given there wasn't much snow in York, I understand that they might have had a little more to complain about in London.

Maybe.

Fallout 3 Redux

Well, after my last post bemoaning the technical woes of Fallout 3, I managed to get it to run slightly more reliably. It was still about as temperamental as an ADHD child with an IV drip of red cordial, but I've managed to play it at quite a bit of length. Length enough to make my character hit level 17, collect the majority of the games "bobbleheads" (with a little help from the web) and finish the main quest. While there's still a healthy stack of quests and other bits and pieces I could do, I got a healthy amount of gaming out of it. I also have the potential to go back and do more things, because I made a save before the final sequence of the game that results in you being unable to explore after its conclusion.

While yes, it could be called Oblivion with guns, it definitely ratcheted up the polish in terms of characters and the richness of the gameworld, albeit in a gloriously destroyed landscape. I can't help but feel that the game would have had more impact for people who know Washington DC, though the shot from the top of the Washington Monument was memorable even for someone who has never set foot in America.

On the negative side, (aside from the aforementioned technical issues) levelled monsters still reared their head in a somewhat ugly fashion, but were slightly less annoying. And I still got that vague sense of "pointlessness", which is perhaps exacerbated because there appears to be fewer quests across a larger gameworld compared to Oblivion. While they have a greater depth, it makes the desolate city seem... well... desolate. And trudging across a wasteland does eventually start to grate on your nerves. Especially when you realise you haven't saved in the last 10 minutes of trudging and your game has just crashed.

So... the verdict? Well, I liked it, but I still don't think it was worth of the ceaseless praise it got given by lots of reviewers.

And I must comment on the ending - though I'll do it without spoilers. Because I really felt short-changed playing as a "good-character", especially when there was a perfectly feasible option to end the game "nicely".

FAILout 3

I'd like to talk about the latest game in the Fallout series, seeing as I've not played the first two games in the series - though I have been told that I really should get my hands on them at some point. Despite the hideously lacklustre video trailer I saw before the game's release, I still wanted to try the game. While it might make a passable introduction to the game itself, I feel it was a terrible advert for the game. But that's another matter entirely. What I'd really like to talk about is Fallout 3 itself, and discuss its good and bad points. Except that I can't.

This is the first game I can recall for a long time, that I have genuinely begun to desire to talk back to the store I bought it from and demand my money back. It reminds me of the bugridden debacle that was STALKER, which made me think that all those cockroaches that will supposedly survive a nuclear holocaust had infested the game code rather than the virtual environment of the game itself. But even that did not cause me as much chagrin as Fallout 3 has done.

Which is so much worse because it started off so promisingly. I installed the game, patched it right away, and set off on my journey into the world of Fallout. Everything was going peachy, I grew up in the vault, made a few friends and enemies, escaped from Vault 101 with only a small amount of hassle, and began exploring the devastated wasteland. I made a journey to Megaton and had a look around, before finishing up after a few hours of gameplay. While I had some issues at first with the somewhat confusing ramshackle arrangement of Megaton, the game itself seemed vaguely interesting.

So I returned to the game the next day. Or rather, I tried to. An impassable wall of a black screen thwarted my every attempt to start the game, for clicking "Play" on the Fallout 3 launcher would first pop up a little window on my screen, before Windows disappeared to be replaced by complete black. The game even refused to crash, simply hanging the computer irrevocably, forcing me to hit the reset button on my computer. Even after a bit of wrangling, I managed to get the game to run, but I felt very much like a resident of Megaton, sitting on top of a nuclear bomb about to explode, except my nuclear bomb was the game itself.

So I trawled through forums, uninstalled and reinstalled the game, fiddled around with codecs and generally have jumped through a whole bunch of technical hoops that have ranged from the relatively simple to the outright ridiculous. It was when I was a suggestion to "make sure that Windows Media Player has all its defaults associations" that I lost my patience. If something within the game is checking the associations that Windows has with filetypes, then I suggest that someone be given the task of rewriting that section of code within the game. Any file associations should not matter a whit to how the game runs, because the game should be specify how to interpret its own data files, and not rely on files being associated with Windows Media Player in order to function correctly.

I know the QA department has their work cut out for them in releasing a game for PC, when there are so many variations in hardware and software setups. And I know programmers don't have an easy task in creating a game to release on PCs and consoles. Yet the issues that I (and many others just like me) are experiencing with Fallout 3 seem to indicate some sort of catastrophic failure during the development. And to think that I bought Fallout 3 instead of GTA IV because of the myriad of technical issues that I'd read had plagued its PC version. It is little wonder that PC gaming is diminishing in favour of current generation of consoles...

I'm hoping I find a way to get the game to run reliably, because I'd like to see how good this heavily praised game really is. And call me harsh, but I really don't see it possibly garnering the same degree of praise from me as it has from many other reviewers.

Diablo 3 Preview: Blizzard WoWs again

The release of the Diablo 3 cinematic teaser trailer has demonstrated again why Blizzard's titles are eagerly anticipated. The 2 minute and 12 second trailer is a CG masterpiece with all the class that Blizzard's artists have mustered up ever since their first glorious CG trailer for the original Diablo. The technical and cinematic class of the trailer really allows you to understand how they managed to sell a DVD that consisted entirely of their CG videos.

I felt there was some definite influence from Transformers and Lord of the Rings in the trailer, though the latter was also obvious in trailers for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. That said, the beauty of the shots cannot be denied, nor can the evocative nature of the trailer. The wailing music and punchy ending are really showing that modern game trailers are giving movie trailers a huge run for their money.

Though I must confess that I am amused by their character "Leah". Leah is the female character that is seemingly there to provide "extra incentive/interest" for male gamers. Her prominence in the trailer has attracted some attention, and she seems to appeal to the same audience that has an undying passion for the characters of Final Fantasy. Enough said.

The real question is: "Will the gameplay of Diablo 3 stand up to the current tastes of gamers?" While titles like Titan Quest did reasonably well, the somewhat repetitive nature of the genre may take its toll on the long-lasting interest of the game. As a member of the large army of gamers that destroyed a mouse due to hours of clicking at the hands of Diablo 2, I wonder how much more the same we can take? Still, it's Diablo, and none of the releases for the series have disappointed so far, so it seems unlikely that Diablo 3 will break that trend.

Cascaded Frustration Sheets

I've recently been working on a web page layout using CSS. I thought, I'd create a simple layout with a header above a three column page. Simple enough. Then I decided that I wanted the centre column to be fluid - i.e. adjust width based on how wide the user's browser easy. That immediately ramps the difficult of said task from simple to quite challenging. In fact, it's a task that is difficult enough to warrant a "CSS Challenge" to do exactly that. So instead of warming my feet in the vague pool of memories I have about CSS because I haven't touched it for quite some time, I ended up diving headfirst into shark-infested waters.

After wrangling with various attempts on my own, and drawing on the designs of others on the Internet, I eventually found a design that worked rather nicely. Well, it did... until I stopped viewing the layout in Firefox and started looking at it in IE. IE is plagued by "misinterpretations" or "oddities" in dealing with certain CSS properties, which meant further wrangling in order to bludgeon the heinous browser into submission.

The icing on the cake? IE can suffer from issues when looking a page locally, which causes it to say that an error exists on a page, which can subsequently cause it to parse CSS incorrectly. However, upload the page to a remote site and everything works peachy. Chalk up another reason not to use IE.

Ooo, squirrels, Boo! I know I saw them! Quick, throw nuts!

One thing I do like about the UK is that there's different animals around. While I'm fond of the sight of wallabies, possums, wombats, echnidas and other Australian animals that I can't see now, it's seeing other animals that is quite enjoyable.


I have to say that I'm fond of squirrels. Not only do they hop around rather playfully in the local park grounds, but they'll happily ignore people and other animals most of the time, allowing you to walk past as they go about their business.

They do occasionally take offense at the presence of another squirrel though, thinking it is cutting in on its food-finding territory. Not that they actually fight or anything like that, just one squirrel runs towards another one, which promptly runs away. It's like there's some squirrel hierarchy that only they know about.

But because these squirrels are so used to people, it's not too difficult to attract their attention. Any small morsel of food will do the trick nicely, whether a nut, grape, or other small foodstuff. They tentatively approach an outstretched hand, and very careful prop themselves up on hind legs and grasp the bit of food before darting a short distance away to either eat it or make the decision to bury it for later.

They're so polite about taking the food from people that it's almost as though they've been trained. Getting them to stay still long enough for you to take a non-blurry photo, however, is another matter entirely...

Brrr... It's cold out here...

Well, it's been a long time since my last update, so I'm going back a bit with this post to make a few points and complaints.

One
English winters are cold. Period. Everything ices over all the darn time. The road and the footpaths are frequently covered with ice, and a lot of the time it's a thin sheen that you can't even see until you loose your footing and almost fall over. No wonder people complain about "mad dogs" and Englishmen. I wouldn't be a happy canine if I were running over freezing cold ice all the damn time!

Two
Snow in October and November. What the? It wasn't even the end of Autumn when snow started arriving. The photo below is taken about 50 metres from the front door of my apartment block. No, I've not converted using the ridiculous UK imperial distance measurements, and I'm going to refuse should anyone request it. Metric was invented for a reason; get into the 21st century already.


Three
No white Christmas. Yes, that's correct. Despite a barrage of snow at the end of October, which was repeated several times during November, the snow making department went into hibernation as of mid-December, resulting in a boring GREY Christmas. Yes, I was dreaming of a white Christmas too, because I sure as heck wasn't getting one. If the weather is going to have the lack of decency to be cold all the darn time, it could at least provide the associated benefits. It didn't even get cold enough to coat everything in a nice white sheen of frost. Check please.

Four
Eight hours of daylight. I don't know how those people cope in the towns in the far North of Alaska and the like where they spend an entire month in pure blackness. But then again, I suppose being so remote might save them from cheesy vampire movies. Being pitch black at 8am and then again by 4pm is bad enough in my book. No wonder kids are getting rickets and such things from not having enough sunlight. The fickle weather goes from cloudy to pouring with rain in one minute, then back to plain cloudy the next, and then provides a respite in the form of a couple of minutes of precious semi-clear "sunny" sky for a few minutes before returning to characteristic grey for the rest of the day. And I thought the weather of Canberra and Melbourne could be inconstant - compared to them, UK is a fickle mistress demanding a new sportscar one moment before demanding a ticket to the ballet and then wanting to go slumming straight after.