Frosty

It looks like winter is finally here. An example of this has to be Sunday, where I was in Rochford playing football, standing there in the middle of the field fighting off the snow/sleet/hail/rain and high winds. The ground went from being firm and icy to a sloppy muddy puddle in the space of an hour. At least we won.

This week has been busy, esepcially since the Budget report was released. It turns out that because the rate of VAT has dropped 2.5%, we are now having to credit quite a number of issued invoices, amend them and then resubmit them to all the customers wanting to go onto courses with us, great fun. This also means that my companies accounts will have a different flavour to them, coroporation tax, VAT and accounts all need to be filed within the next month.

You may have noticed from my Twitter feed, our household suddenly seems to have a rabbit in residence (in addition to our two cats). Katie was able to find a home for a friend’s house rabbit, but as they were on holiday we have been lumbered with the furry little critter. So far he has managed to gnaw his way through one of my CAT5 cables meaning internet access to the PC upstairs is now down until it can be replaced. Katie seems happy with it and I am able to see it go in a month or so.

Katie is soldiering on trying to get employment after her old employer fired her whilst she was off sick from her back surgery, she is getting stir crazy being in the house all the time. There seems to be some movement from some of her interviews so it shouldn’t be too long until she is working again.

Christmas isn’t far away, we are both looking forward to spending Christmas Day by ourselves in relative comfort without having to appease any family. We are spending less on each other this year, mainly because we seem to have all we want.

Films, Films And More Films…

This weekend was somewhat relaxed, it consisted of a few menial tasks and watching a good few films.

Friday night, just walking in the door from work Katie asks me if we can go and see Saw 5, a film that we had down to see a good few weeks earlier. We discussed what screening we would attend over dinner and prepared to head out for the evening.

Then I spotted somebody had posted a DVD Rip of the film on ThePirateBay, this changed everything. Instead of having to spend £14 plus snacks and petrol on getting to the cinema, we decided to open a bottle of wine and watch the film at home. Many people will read this and think, “You’re a dirty Pirate”. My response would be something that would not convert easily to text. The problem with this film was that I felt 100% justified not going to see this film in the cinema, it was a pretty poor release from the always reliable Saw franchise.

Saturday saw us head out shopping and return home early to await the delivery of our dining chairs (of which 4 out of the previous 6 delivered were incorrect) from Debenhams. Once I had brought them inside, I spent most of the afternoon struggling with an Alan Key trying to erect them whilst Katie’s parents popped in briefly.

That afternoon/evening I watched the film Adulthood (of which all films mentioned in this post are rated in my Movie Reviews section), before taking Katie to her friend’s birthday meal. I also managed to catch 75% of the film; Eastern Promises.

Sunday morning saw me play my weekly football match for my team, a day that started of warm only to thunder down with rain. I managed to miss a penalty to win the match, much to the delight of my father in law! The rest of the afternoon was relaxation and we watched another horror film; Splinter.

Yesterday I was in London for a business meeting, meaning this morning I feel like going home early and doing what I have done all weekend…watching a few more films!

Gears of War 2 Ending

Much to the dismay of my wife, I have been playing Gears of War 2 quite full on for the past week. Last night I finished the campaign mode on Hardcore difficulty, signalling the popup of a number of achievements and also the ending credits. Not being able to skip these credits, I left them on and set about tidying the house.

As I came back to them, the Microsoft copyrights ran through the screen and a Gears of War 2 loading screen came on. What happened there was something you would have expected from the end of a Cloverfield type movie.

A man’s voice kicks in (I won’t divulge as to ruin the ending for people playing it), tells us that the grand plan was a huge mistake. I’m left thinking, “I just spent countless hours sinking Jacinto, how is that a huge mistake?!“. What is does signal is that we are in for a third Gears of War instalment (I can hear the collective sighs of the Xbox widows around the world).

Interested on what other people thought of the ending, I searched Twitter for the phrase: “Gears of War 2 Ending”. Here are the results:

View the rest of the search results here.

As you can see, for some it’s a stroke of genius, for others it’s a similar feeling of: “Is this Halo 2 all over again?!”

For those of you who don’t know what the hell I am talking about, I have embedded the ending below, so if you don’t want to spoil it for yourself, this is a massive SPOILER ALERT!

Have you finished the game? What are your thoughts on the ending? Have you got an idea of what the (insinuated) third instalment will deliver? Hit me up in the comments.

We are iPhone Compatible!

I have just this minute activated the files that will allow you to view m4tt.net in it’s iPhone compatible glory.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and like to view this site direct instead of via a feed reader, simply browse to http://www.m4tt.net in Safari. You will be met with a more intuitive interface that is built specifically for smartphones.

You should be able to notice:

• The site loads a lot faster on Edge and 3G connections.
• It features some AJAXy goodness, with pages loading quickly and effortlessly.
• You can view how many comments a post has from the front page.
• …..Hell, I don’t even know all the features yet!

I did all this using a plugin named WPTouch, which can be downloaded here.

Take a look. If you like, leave a comment!

Me? Social?

I am quite heavily engaged in this social media hype machine, I profess to use a multitude of services that people will probably tell you you don’t need to use. Examples of these services are in my sidebar, which hosts a list of all the Web2.0 type sites I belong to.

The truth is though, the sites I do use are extraordinarily useful. Twitter and Plurk allow me to keep in contact with people across the world but also with my wife, who uses Twitter from her IM client on her laptop. I am kept upto date with the latest news by using sites such as Mixx, Digg and Delicious.

What I am trying to point out here is that social media has brought the internet forward decades from what it used to be. Gone are the days where you used the internet for just research and Napster, you are now able to update your webpage from your iPhone, interact with people who you have never met and build professional relationships that you previously wouldn’t have had any chance of initialising.

The main reason I have embedded the sites I use on my sidebar is so that you can interact and join similar networks should you wish to. I have an iPhone, on which 90% of the applications are communication tools, namely Facebook, Twitter and Plurk.

Wanting to boost my activity and share my knowledge and ideas of the internet, I put forward the writing on this blog as my application to one of the most popular technology websites; Makeuseof.com. Within a couple of days I was contacted by the chief editor saying I was successful in my application, I was to be added to their team of writers.

Fast forward two weeks, I have just completed my second article for them and I have many others waiting in the wings. It’s proving to be a very good way to slowly but surely move away from your typical 9-5 workday and move towards a career that would involve me working for myself.

I have a number of projects simmering at the moment that are only days maybe weeks from launch. I am hoping that I can get a second revenue stream coming in, meaning I can apply for bigger and better positions in the future.

Wish me luck.

Is YOUR Cat Plotting To Kill You?