Don’t know if anyone actually uses iGoogle, but if you do, why not give this little gadget I made a try. It’s nothing spectacular, but I never heard of a jaw-dropping Memory game either.

Yes, the good old Memory game. Something I thought more people would know! If you are part of that strange group that doesn’t, well, just find two of the same hidden images by clicking on the squares. Yes it’s that simple. Just try to do it in as few clicks possible.

Oh and the great thing is, it uses Flickr. Just go to its settings, type in the tag of your choice and you can play with anything ranging from kitties to girlies.

So, go on and install Flickr Memory, or check here to put the little game on your own site :P

Any comments always welcome through Twitter.

A dear friend of ours (although we never met in real life, but that doesn’t matter in this day and age anymore does it) started blogging!

Head over to Yuki Daily and give him a cheer! At the moment, lots of pictures of food… so stay clear when hungry or on diet.

Crap. Another MMO has gotten me in its grip. Although, this time, it’s not really pointless grinding and questing, reaching useless goals and playing with 12 year olds. Nope, it really is a second life, oddly enough. Just, this life is a bit less limited ;)

The great thing about Second Life is its user-created content. Everything is created by the residents, the players in the game. You have access to a 3D modeling tool, allowing you to create anything you like. Adding your own textures and writing your own scripts, lets you build your own furniture, cars, pets,… anything really. All limited by just your imagination.

Of course, you don’t have to. You can just visit the shopping malls and buy your stuff instead of being creative yourself. What brings us to money issue. The world of SL has its own currency, the Linden Dollar, which has an exchange rate with real life money. So you can exchange it in two directions, meaning you can spend real life cash, but also make it! If you are succesful and have the skills to create great items, you might be able to get some extra pocket money out of it… or even get loaded! (google for some success stories of SL residents)

But the main activity is the networking, meeting people and going out to visit places. There are clubs of all sorts, fun parks, malls,… someone even recreated the town of the Flinstones! The live music streams add to the realism, giving that extra touch to each place you visit. Clubs even have live DJs interacting with the avatars dancing in the club. It’s a crazy new world, but one really worth a visit.

The first day I logged in I was lucky enough to run into a girl named Alyssa, who was kind enough to show me around the world of SL. Together with a guy named Quidam (or kiwi as we call him), we’re now living on this beautiful piece of country land (small island included!) owned by her. Now I got my own little Irish cottage on there. Took me 2 days to find furniture and get the interior right (it’s been a while since I saw 4am and 5am pass by two days in a row), but it’s looking sweet ^^ lol.

I suggest you check it out, as the basic account is free. Just download the 30+mb client, create an avatar and look me up, Suibne Goodnight. I even got white wine in the house ^^. And a drunk cat… walks a bit funny (whoever wrote that script is a retard lol). In the mean time, check out a few screenshots.

/played
Me & My Katamari (psp)
Metal Gear Ac!d 2 (psp)
Second Life (pc/mac)

/listened to
Podcasts…

Okay, no Lost this week. Those 3 episodes of Season 2 sort of made me want to take a break… I’ll get back to it soon I hope.

Me & My Katamari is still keeping me busy. I don’t know whether the game is longer than its PS2 versions, but it sure feels like it. Which is a good thing though, since they were really too short. Also couldn’t resist buying Metal Gear Ac!d 2, the card-based stealth game. And I seriously have stealth problems, even when it’s turn-based, so I end up having to kill every enemy on the field anyway.

And yes, there’s a PC game on the list! *Shock! .. I know I banned MMORPGs from my life, but I blame Adam Curry’s podcast. Hearing about Second Life over and over again and seeing as it is free, I finally got around installing it. And it ended up wasting all my precious weekend time. It’s like an MMO, but without the grinding, questing, annoying parties, etc. Just the good things! :D Chilling, talking, shopping, building, etc. The entire world is completely customizable and just about everything you want to do is possible. The place is only limited by your own imagination.

I’m planning on doing a seperate post on the game a bit later on though and won’t go into too much detail here. I’ll try to get some nice screenshots and some fun stories to tell ;) In the mean time, if you are interested, head over to their site and give it a try!

No, I’m still not starting my own (although I’ve been thinking about it)…

Podcasts have changed my life. No really. A big part of it even… Yes, those 2 hours (minimum) I spent commuting each day have become far less of a pain since I discovered the world of… podcasts. Hey! That’s 10 hours a week. So yeh, it is a big deal ^^.

Anyway, there are too many podcasts out there. And it really is getting hard to filter out the crap. So I’ll give you a list of what I think is worthy of your time… You are reading this blog so chances are big you sort of have the same interests, no?

Enough talk, to the list!

1UP Yours Radio Podcast: In my humble opinion, the best videogame podcast out there. Heated discussions on news, game reviews etc. If you want an honest opinion, this is the place to be.
Listen!

Adam Curry: Daily Source Code: It’s daily, so I can’t really find the time to listen to every single episode. Adam Curry, “the podfather”, talks about podcasting, his personal life and Second Life. Quite entertaining… for a Dutch ^^.
Listen!

Mondays - What Sunday Threw Up: Now these guys/girl are funny. And available almost every Monday! A 1+ hour show to brighten up your start of the week.
Listen!

The Kojima Productions Report: The latest news on Kojima, creators of Metal Gear Solid. Even if you aren’t into MGS, like me, it’s pretty interesting to hear about the latest developments on one of the greatest Japanese titles out there.
Listen!

Major Nelson: Your source for any Xbox 360 related news, head of Xbox Live gives you the latest info on the first next-gen console.
Listen!

Dreamstation.cc: A weekly show, filled with reviews and news on games, by, if I’m not mistaken, a group of Italian-American guys who really do make a fun show. They tend to talk a bit too much about The Godfather though ;)
Listen!

VGM Daily: Not as good as the previous, but these guys always have a bunch of nice game-related interviews ready. They have commercial breaks though. Thank god for the fast-forward button.
Listen!

As you noticed, lots and lots of game news enters my ears during those traffic jams. I’m like a walking games magazine! :D Ask me anything! There’s more, but nothing I’ll keep listening too for much longer. If you have any more to promote, let me know!

Lol

I never understood what all the hype was about. Downloading radio shows and listening whenever you feel like it? Why?

First of all, I never listen to the radio, except during traffic jams. And 99% of the time those radio shows are quite boring. Every day the same music, the same talk, etc etc. So why would I polute my iPod with even more of them?

But a few weeks ago I decided to try some anyway. I googled, asked around and downloaded some podcasts. And what do you now? I’m hooked.

The thing is, where shows on the radio are for a broader audience, talking about more general subjects, podcasts can be just the opposite. They can focus on one or more specific items, singling out a certain audience and thus making for a better experience for the people with the same interests. I could never imagine listening to an all-talk radio show for 1 hour non-stop. With podcasts, 1 hour is sometimes not enough.

I do still only listen during traffic jams though. It takes me an average of 45 minutes to get to work lately, enough time to listen to one long or 2 shorter podcasts and again during the ride home. And time flies by! Plus, with some podcasts being informative, I actually learn something instead of purely wasting my time on the road.

Sure, you can watch a divx at 10km/hour, but I’ve been there and believe me when I say it’s either watch movie or kiss bumpers ;) So yeh, podcasts ftw!

To get you started, here’s a little list of the podcasts I listen to lately:

• Wired Podcast: All Wired related topics, a bit short and sometimes aweful quality but interesting from time to time. Sex Drive’s included, so if you are a bit narrow-minded I’d avoid this one ;)
• Tokyo Calling: Tokyo’s first podcast, nice to hear a Western look on the Eastern living.
• The 1Up Show: A video and audio podcast on games, one for home and one for the road. The video podcast is a joy to watch. It’s a bit more like a reality show, although acted, but the discussions are real. The audio show is just discussions on different gaming topics. One of my favourites.
• Major Nelson: Microsoft’s Major Nelson talks about everything Xbox related. Sometimes he invites quite interesting guests. Worth a listen.
• The Ricky Gervais Show: The most downloaded podcast in the world sadly costs money now. From the makers of The Office, this is one hilareous show!
• The Kojima Productions Report: From the guys behind the Metal Gear games, an interesting podcast, even if like me, you don’t care for the MGS games. A couple of weeks ago they had an interview with the creators of Killer 7!

There are a couple more I’m listening to at the moment and if they are any good I’ll be sure to post them here as well. To download and find podcasts, I advice iTunes, together with an iPod of course ^^. I’m using my iPod shuffle instead of my regular one, because it’s easier to use in the car, but for syncing podcasts it lacks some functionalities.

If you know of any other podcasts, audio or video, please let me know. I got 450 minutes of traffic jams to fill each week ^^.

I ran into this fun little tool today, allowing you to show a sliding images bar of your personal pictures on your desktop and/or website. I don’t really see the point, but it is a fun little gadget nonetheless.

Uploading my pictures to Flickr and to the tool’s site Slides.com however is a waste of time and space, but it seems you can pass it any photo RSS feed. The above slide bar shows what you get using the standard RSS link on your Flickr page.

I presume you would be able to use Apple’s new photocasting too, since it provides RSS as well. Now I would just like to know if the new iPhoto can photocast to Flickr instead of .mac, by default, without using some extra plugin as I do now.

Thanks and congratulations go out to Karsten, for making the 200th comment on our site and being one of our most regular visitors. I wish he would have said something more intelligent but I guess, knowing him, it could have been worse. With 72 comments the chances were big he’d be the winner though.

Of course this is the xth iteration of the site and we’ve been only counting since then. Still, it’s nice to see some people do read this blog ^^. To you all,… thanks! And Karsten, “U heb een frigo gewonnen”.

Almost unnoticable, but they are there. Tiny changes to the website! I could hold a competition to see who can find them, but I’m out of money to give you any prizes, so no…

First of all, you might have noticed the links in the right column kind of changed. We now have friends, blogs and interesting, 3 new categories. Big deal, you say? Well, it’s powered by del.icio.us now, a public bookmark solution. See it as the Flickr of your favorite links and you will get the idea. I’m still busy exporting all my bookmarks to del.icio.us so check it out regularly. A link to all our bookmarks is also available at the top of the site.

Then there’s the feeds, which are located at the bottom of the site, but for more clarity are now also available to your right. For those who are unaware there is such a thing as feeds, I would advise you to google an rss aggregator as soon as possible and click on those links (Firefox and Safari have support for these too).

Last but not least, I have moved the wishlists up a bit. Not that anyone will ever buy us anything, but I felt sorry for them all the way at the bottom of the site ^^. They need a bit of an update, but all in good time.

Seems my lunch break is over… back to work it is!

Edit: funny, I start using the all famous del.icio.us and it’s down at the moment…
Edit II: and it’s up again. Keeping fingers crossed!