Firefox 1.5 has just been released! Unfortunately the Irish version is not out yet, it was due to be released at the same time but it hasn’t been cleared by the relevant pers in Mozilla as far as I know. Hopefully we’ll have it soon.
You’ll notice that they’ve also done some work on the website!
Slugger O’Toole have a new Irish language blogger, Cathal O Foirreidh. Mick had previously mentioned to me that perhaps I could contribute some Irish posts to Slugger [since I spend so much time there anyway] but with my remedial Irish there was never a chance, so I’m delighted to see Cathal taking this role. If all his posts are as good as his first then we’re in for a treat.
A telephone poll carried out on behalf of Foinse [an overhaul of that website is long overdue lads!] shows the public is split over whether or not Irish should be a compulsory subject in schools.
The poll revealed [registration cheat] that 65% of people under 34 think that Irish should remain a compulsory subject but support drops to only 26% for those over the age of 34. The positive support for the language doesn’t surprise me at all, it’s in line with what we saw before, but what does surprise me is the poor support in the over-34 group as I would have thought that people’s attitude to the language softens a bit over time. Still ‘over-34’ is a large group and no doubt opinion is fairly mixed amongst them.
Foinse article [in Irish].
On this day, November 27th, in the Year of the Dragon (1940) Lee Jun Fan was born in a Chinatown hospital in San Francisco. His father and mother travelled to the US as his father, Lee Hoi Chuen was performing with the Cantonese Opera Company. Lee Jun Fan, otherwise known as Bruce Lee, would go on to become one of the most celebrated and influential martial artists ever.
Bruce Lee is best known for his film Enter the Dragon and his role as Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet, but he also starred in quite a number of other films which all helped to raise the profile of martial arts films to new heights and pave the way for a range of other martial artist/actors. Bruce also developed his own martial arts style Jun Fan Gung Fu or Jeet Kun Do which is still taught today.
On July 20th 1973, approximately three weeks before the opening of Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee died of a cerebral edema, at the tender age of just 32.
I was just three months old when Bruce Lee died, but he has always been a hero of mine. He wasn’t the best actor, his fight scenes weren’t that spectacular but he had a presence about him which many others like Norris, Van Damme or Seagal could only dream of. And unlike many others this man was a true martial artist. It’s always the good ones that die young.
Bruce Lee Foundation
Time 100: Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee: Wikipedia
Brucelee.com
All About Bruce Lee
The Shrine to Bruce Lee
I’ve had an awful craving for some David Bowie recently, not any of his newer stuff, I need the golden oldies. Problem is I can’t bloody find my Changes Bowie tape anywhere which only makes the craving worse.
I was reading an Irish book earlier (ok it was just a phrase book for parents) and came across the phrase “déanaimis rince” (let’s dance) and that was enough to start the craving again. Now I can’t get that song out of my head…
Déanaimis rince, put on your red shoes and dance the blues
Déanaimis rince, to the song they’re playin’ on the radio
Guess it doesn’t really work, I’ll have to leave that sort of thing to JL.
Anyway, must go now and find some Bowie mp3′s to feed this craving…
As you probably know soccer legend George Best has died in hospital at the age of 59. I won’t waste much time on him because although he was probably the most talented player to ever come from this island he was given a second chance at life with a liver transplant but pissed it away. Many people don’t get a second chance.
Another sad death is a legend of another kind. Pat Morita, the man who played Kesuke Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies, died yesterday at his home in Las Vegas aged 73. Coincidentally the Karate Kid movies have been on here these past few weekends, they bring back good memories.
I’m delighted to read the news this morning that the Irish soldiers who fought at Jadotville in the Congo are finally being honoured by the state today. Willie “Bad motherfucker” O’Dea is to unveil a commemorative plaque at Custume Army Barracks in Athlone at 4.30pm with the CoS of the DF, Lt.Gen. Jim Sreenan.
The Siege at Jadotville was shamefully swept under the rug, the men who fought there branded cowards. In truth those men fought with courage and honour and deserve to be remembered as heroes.
The Siege
When Congo was granted independence in 1960, the province of Katanga attempted to secede by declaring their independence. The then fairly new UN decided to intervene and sent ‘peace keepers’ to the region to help bring stability.
The Irish State, still trying to find her feet on the international stage, decided to offer soldiers to show we were willing to play our part in global peace keeping. In hindsight these were two huge mistakes. The UN was clueless and didn’t know how to handle the situation and the Irish Army, who were simply pawns in a game of politics, were ill-prepared and equipped for any such operation, and many of them were raw teenagers who had barely fired a gun.
In September 1961, “A” Company, 35th Battalion was sent to the town of Jadotville. They were in the town to provide security for the Belgian settlers who felt under threat from the native Congolese. However it was the Belgian settlers along with Katangan mercenaries who turned on the Irish troops, attacking them while they were at morning mass. For 5 days the 150 soldiers of “A” Coy 35 Bn, armed with only small arms, held out against a force of over 4000 Belgian-led forces who bombarded the Irish troops from the land & air. The siege resulted in over 300 Katangans killed and many injured but no Irish fatalities (only 7 injured).
The Irish soldiers were cut off from other UN forces and a number of attempts were made to help them, including an attempt by Ghurkhas, which all failed. In the end the Irish soldiers had no food, no water and no ammunition and “A” Coy Commanding Officer Commandant Quinlan took the only option he could, to surrender to the Katangans forces and avoid further unnecessary loss of life. The Irish soldiers were then held hostage by the Katangan forces before being released one month later under the terms of a prisoner-exchange programme.
This was certainly one of the most dramatic events in our young Army’s history and it’s utterly shameful that it’s taken us this long to honour these soldiers, especially now that so many have already died.
When I joined the FCÁ as a wide eyed 17 year old a veteran Coy Sgt took me under his wing and looked after me. As a young soldier he had served in the Congo and he would often tell me stories of his time there and just how badly prepared they were for duty in the region. It’s shocking that we would put our troops through so much then turn our backs on them when what they deserved was our appreciation for a job well bloody done.
So here’s to the brave men of “A” Company 35th Battalion!
The ROI soccer team slid further down the FIFA rankings following our failure to quality for the world cup. We’re now lying in 23rd behind great soccer nations like Iran, Costa Rica, Greece and Japan! Sad!
The Scots have managed to climb one place to 61st, Wales have also moved up one to 72nd, the N.Irish up three to 101st (they’re still not Brazil) and the English remain the same in 9th place. The French, the langers, are in 5th place, they don’t deserve that.
Gerry O’Sullivan is doing a review of the browsers he uses. It’s something I had intended to do but never found the energy. So far he has reviewed Safari [Safari home] and Camino [Camino home] (both Mac only) and i’m sure there’s more to come. Btw if you’re a Mac user Microsoft actually recommends that you find an alternative to Internet Exploder.
Regarding browser options, there’s quite a few available and worth checking out. The best (that I have tried on Windows anyway) would be Firefox, Netscape or Opera. There’s also Firefox clones such as Flock or K-Meleon if you want to be different, and of course the Mac options above.
Update: Review 3: Shiira.
I’ve finally gotten my copy of GGF and had a chance to review it (1 night).
Before I start I think it’s important to note that there’s no point comparing the game to the best of the best football games (Pro Evolution Soccer 5 or FIFA 2006) after all GGF is produced by a tiny company* for a very limited audience and did not get a fraction of resources dedicated to it of PES5 or FIFA. Speaking of FIFA, I currently have FIFA 2003, this is probably EA Sports’ 8th (at least) attempt at a soccer game yet it still has some serious gameplay issues … just to put things in perspective.
*IR Gurus have 55 employees and 3 games currently on release. EA have 6,100 employees worldwide, in 2005 they have 31 games which sold more than 1 million copies and had revenues of over $1bn in 2005.
Cut the crap, just gimme the verdict
First Look
First thing to notice is that both the booklet (short but who uses it anyway) and game menu is available in both Irish & English. When you start the game you get to select which language you want. The menu screens themselves are basic but alright.
The default camera angle makes the game look dreadful so before starting a game change the camera angle to End Pan (High) and zoom to “close”.
Graphics/Models
The stadiums are pretty good as are the players. The kits look really good IMO. But overall the graphics are ‘fuzzy’, they’re just not that crisp.
The spectators are actually static 2D “cardboard cut-outs”, from a distance that’s fine but up closer or when the camera goes over head it looks really shite.
Commentary
Commentary is done by Michael O’Murrahurty and to be honest it’s average at best. It sounds (it is) like short phrases strung together and can be a bit repetitive. His line about the players going in at half time for a banana and a cup of tea is funny … the first time, after that it’s head wrecking. It’s best to turn the commentary down just a bit.
Gameplay
One of the most disappointing things about the game play is that it is quite slow. After a while you get used to it but for a game like Gaelic football it should be moving twice the speed. The tackling is another big problem. It’s quite awkward to tackle and the aggressive bump (more effective) will often get you penalised. When opposing players are tackling you it’s very difficult to kick the ball and often a hand pass is the only solution. Tackling off the ball is very common … which I suppose is realistic enough. The tackling combined with the slow speed of the game makes it difficult to produce any nice fast flowing movements which for me is the #1 disappointment from the game.
Having said that the game is somewhat addictive, the players are generally responsive enough that you can still get some good passes going and it’s not that difficult to get a few scores on the board.
The goalkeepers are awful! Rather than aggressively attacking the ball like they should they generally flounder about like they’ve just dropped a testicle so scoring a goal is not all that difficult. Scoring a goal from long distance is not too hard either as the keepers seem to have problems raising their hands above shoulder height. If you get a penalty just hit it low, chances are the keeper will just walk over it anyway.
The referee is a prick! Nothing new there. So far I’ve managed to get sent off for fouling a guy while I was actually in possession and trying to pass the ball. Go figure.
Injuries are a pain in the ass, the players get injured very easily sometimes while simply trying to tackle (i.e. lambaste) opposing players.
Players are not named in the game, they are only assigned numbers (P1, P2 etc). You can edit these however it seems that you have to have a competition ongoing to do this, you can’t do this from the main menu and apply it to all future competitions (that I’ve discovered so far anyway). This doesn’t bother me so much except for two cases; 1) in the team management screen if you’re changing subs or organising players you need to check the player stats, if they were named you’d know who was good or not; 2) the lack of names means less commentary and it takes from the atmosphere of the game.
‘Level progression’ is one thing worth mentioning. Each team is rated according to their skill level but it’s possible to raise this level by winning games. I managed to raise my level 10 points by winning the All-Ireland but at the start of the next season it returned to the default value which is annoying.
Atmosphere
As mentioned the lack of player names means less commentary and it detracts from the atmosphere. The crowd is too quiet, there needs to be a lot more buzz in the stadiums and there are actually very few flags flying even in Croker. One of the most noticeable things from a real game in Croker is the atmosphere, they have totally failed to capture that in the game.
One of the features I like is the profile feature, you can create a profile (your name, mar shampla) and record all your basic game stats everytime you play.
Another handy feature is in team set-up, when your browsing through your players before a game it also shows you the opposing player (from the next game) in that position.
The Verdict
Overall it gets 6/10.
If you’re a GAA fan then this is a must have, being a football fan you can easily ignore some of the let-downs with the game. Playing with friends (preferably inebriated) is essential.
If you’re a Pro Evolution man (or cailín) , don’t have much of an interest in Gaelic Football and want a game with cutting edge gameplay & graphics then this game is not for you! (in this case it would only get about 3/10)