After losing my connection to a video stream of the Manchester United vs Arsenal game that has just finished, I found a radio stream from 105.4 Century FM. It ended Man United 2-0 Arsenal but I could not believe what a dick the presenter was at the end. He was so biased it was unbelievable. "It's quite easy to beat Arsenal isn't it?" "They are whingers. They are big babies when they are rattled." Easy to say that after the result isn't it! I thought it was a proper radio station, not a fan forum.
Anyway, the first month is now over. The final exam for GDF was fine and we got a 90 for our presentation, which isn't so bad. Next month is apparently going to be 9am-5pm Tuesday to Saturday, but things may change.
We are still holding out for laptops. They could have turned up yesterday, but Full Sail didn't want to trouble anyone and have them be there to sign for the delivery. After all, we have only been waiting a month so why the hell should they care if we get them before Monday?
On a lighter note, there have been a few parties this weekend so it has been a laugh to have a few beers with a load of people from the school. You can really notice that the drinking age of 21 here affects everybody's attitude, (and how quickly they get drunk since a lot of them are yet to turn 21.) I'm not sure why I'm mentioning that, but it was something I noticed in between bouts of Donkey Konga.

Our first month here is over tomorrow and it has gone pretty well. I have an A in my first class (Behavioural Science,) but have an exam to complete in the morning for my Game Design Fundamentals class. As of right now I still have no laptop, but I have been out this morning buying a wireless router and Vonage VOIP line so I'm all prepared for when it turns up. I still need to get ahold of a DVD burner though.
Anyway, if you would excuse me, I have some gadgets to play with and some revision to do. :-)

I went to see Team America: World Police last night and conclude it is a very funny film. It just came out on Friday here. It's from Trey Stone and Matt Parker (the guys that make South Park,) in a Thunderbirds (i.e. Puppets) style, basically taking the piss out of America and the celebrities in it. One highlight for me was a brilliant set of Tony and Cherie Blair puppets.
I also have the Internet installed at home now finally, on fat 2.5mb line. Watching football streams should be no problem now! As well as more access to things like email and this blog so I'm more reachable now. My own laptop is not meant to turn up until Thursday and I'll be pretty pissed if it doesn't since the following Monday is our second month of classes which included Programming 1! It's all HP's fault since they ran out of glass to make the screens for our computers apparently. They offered us a replacement laptop, two models older with no widescreen, in replacement which we could have much sooner. We obviously told them as a group to poke it. Not much of a choice really, just the impression of one.
Anyway, that wasn't meant to sound negative or anything. Having a great time still, but gotta get back to work!

Week two is done and dusted. A lot of work has been done and most has to be turned in this week. I'm on top of it all thankfully, (despite a day when I thought nothing else could go wrong earlier.) In fact I've just printed it all. We have had to create an Executive Summary of our game, Character Designs and more. I only have to revise my Level Design Document before I can call that finished. We have also had some midterms, which is a new experience, but as long as you revise, they are no problem. Public speaking is also a big issue here and I'll be doing a lot of that this week.
A panel made up of people high up in companies such as Sony and Midway rolled into town a few days ago. They sit on a board which makes sure Full Sail is doing the right things when they teach us and get us ready for the real world. It was actually a lot of doom and gloom, saying things like the average games developer stays in the industry for only five years and things like that. Fan-bloody-tastic.
I've been watching the presidential debates, which have been quite interesting. I should really pay a bit more attention to things like this back in England! I was undecided for a long time but I think Kerry would have my vote... if I could.
Anyway, I'm hungry and the fridge is nearly empty, so I'm going shopping, then I'll probably go and see Resident Evil 2 before it disappears from the cinemas completely.

My first week of Full Sail is over. Well, I still have meetings with my group members today but we will ignore that fact. I am studing 2 courses at the moment - Behavioual Science (study, research and motivation techniques) and Game Design Fundamentals (learn how to do the background work in planning for a game, such as plot and character design.) All has been going well with that, though they pile the work on from the begining! I'm sure it will get more intense than this as soon as the programming starts, so I should try and get on top of things now. My lessons have been at reasonable times so far, but Chris has been in at 5am and has a 1am next week! I'm not looking forward to those. Oh, and I was meant to get my laptop on the first day, but hurricanes have delayed their delivery which is poo. But the upside is, when they do arrive, they are bad-ass machinces. As in 17" monitor, 3 GHz processor, GeForce graphics etc. Have a look at the product website for the HP NX9500 to see the specs.
And to finish off, here is some proof of my consumerist conformism, (or perhaps not, since I didn't buy an iPod!) since I bought this stuff:
Archos GMini 400: A portable media player which doesn't just mean MP3s, but DivX and XVid too! About the same size as an iPod, but with a sweet colour screen and the ability to play videos and play Mophun games, its a nice little unit. The controls could be a little better thought out though I think, (and it doesn't help one of my buttons doesn't work properly.)
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7: A very nice 5 Megapixel camera with a huge screen, small form factor and a motion stabalising lens that moves to correct your movements and prevent blurry pictures. It seems to be a good unit, but it doesn't act as a webcam, has no dock and the battery needs to be charged externally from the camera which are annoying features after having my Fuji 6800 zoom. This has obviously been done to keep the camera size down, which is a major problem I had with the Fuji in the first place, so you can't have everything!
God, I love the weak Dollar!