CherryPopper

Team Fortress 2 was released on Wednesday 10th October and so began my new addiction. This game is every bit as good as the original Team Fortress Mod for Half-Life but has found ways to improve on that winning formula without destroying what was so good about the original.

The same familia classes are still there. The scout, soldier, pyro, demoman, heavy, medic, sniper, engineer & the spy. But the classes have been tweaked a little and I think for the better as the changes mean you have to work more as a team to win. Unlike in most "team" games you can have one good person carry the team to victory, but with the tweaks they have done in Team Fortress 2 it makes this a lot harder to do.

Take the sniper for example, in the original Team Fortress you had grenades to help defend yourself or to use to blow your way through the enemy's defences to cap their flag. But now the sniper is no longer equipped with grenades, actually no one is, so they rely on their team mates to keep them safe from harms way to snipe from a distance, sure they have a sub-machine gun but its not really that effective against the stronger classes like the soldier. They have also made the classes more dependant on each other but still keeping the balance just right to the point where a good medic or engineer can make or break the team.

They have also changed the way the maps work. So while there is still the classic CTF_2FORT map its no longer a flag your capping but intelligence. The other maps are capture the point/domination style maps. Some of the maps you only play one capture point at a time and you slowly capture all of the territories to win the game. This means you have no idea what point your going for next as it all depends on who wins which makes for great re-playability.

The other thing they have changed is the art style. Its now got a very cartoon feel to it, with smart ass comments coming from the people who kill you to the "who shot you" screen grab that shows you who shot you but with the added feature of showing your "bits" if they are lying around that player (see "read more" for pics).

Overall I'm loving this game, its been a blast so far and I just can't get enough of it. So if you want to get in on the action buy the Orange Box and jump in the MonsterLAN steam community and join me in a game.... just watch for my sniper cross-hair being on your forehead

*** UPDATED: Added Domination Picture ***

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I finally took the plunge and moved into Melbourne from Lala Land (Lara). I moved into a 2 bedroom, 2 story apartment on the 25th floor on Franklin St, its just one block from Melbourne Central. Its a great little place with a breathtaking view of the city out one window & of the western suburbs out another window. I can even see the You Yangs!!!

Its been a good first month after I got all settled in with everything being so close its just great and I'm wondering why I took so long to make the move. I've got sooo many great food places around, lots of great pubs/clubs, bowling, movies and best of all the yummiest ice cream all within a block of me. Yes I think I'm going to end up a whale!!!

The other bonus is being just 5 mins from work. While this may not seem a big deal to some of you I've always worked in Melbourne and lived in Lara so its always been at least an hour in travel to & from work. But now I wake up 10 mins before I need to be at work and grab a nice hudson coffee on the way in.

This is the life Click "Read More" for pics.

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For quite a while now i've been watching ebay for a new lighting console as they are quite expensive to get brand new, over $10,000 for a good one. So i figured if i just waited a while one might pop up on ebay & sure enough it did.

A Jands Hog 500 Lighting Controller Console High End popped up for sale it was from a venue that was closing down in the US and was in great condition. The pics looked good and the seller even had pics of the slight nic in the wood so it looked like a genuine seller even though he had a 0 rating & was his first time on eBay. Now i'm always cautious on eBay and read through the item description carefully and any extra info like postage etc. It all seemed to be legit even with the 0 seller status.

So i started to bid and ended up winning it for $3,552.00 which is a great price, its not quite in "too good to be true" territory but still on the cheaper end of what you could pay for a used desk. So i got an email asking for payment from the seller & this when things started to get a bit iffy!!

I was at work when the bidding ended as i had used Auction Sniper, its a site that puts in a maximum bid 5 seconds before the auction closes to give you a better chance at winning. So when i got home i had 4 emails from the seller with the "invoice" and another email asking me if i got the "invoice" emails? Now this guy is a first time seller & he's sending official looking invoices like he's a top seller?

Here is a copy of his email

As you can see he's crapping on about getting payment through western union, which is NOT convered by eBay at all and they have warnings all over their site about NOT using services like western union for eBay payment. On the listing he had listed paypal as the preferred option of payment which i was happy to do. He also stated he would cover the shipping & insurance costs which seemed odd.

Now I thought to give him the benefit of doubt and emailed him saying NO to using western union but paypal would be ok & asked him how it would be shipped, how long it would take & what customs info i needed to get the desk into Australia as it was in the US. He emailed me back saying he wasn't on paypal & that we would be 100% covered by eBay with western union & it would take 5 days to get to via ups. This is when i really started to get suspicious and checked the UPS website for a cost & time estimate. The cost would be over $400 USD and even more with any insurance. It would also take around 2 weeks to arrive on the cheapest shipping cost. Now i was really sure he was trying to scam me so i decided to see if he was.

I sent another email to him saying that the costs for shipping where over $400 USD not including insurance and western union is NOT covered by eBay so we will now do it via an escrow service (definition of escrow). This is when i knew it was a scammer as his reply email said he would drop the price by $1000 if i paid him now by paypal. If he was a real seller who in their right mind would drop $1000 off their item just to get payment quicker!!!

It was after that email i submitted the email trail to eBay for investigation and left some feedback in his profile to make sure the other bidders knew he was trying to scam them if he offered them a second chance offer.

After all this had happened i check my email to find that he had not yet given up on me and had forged an official looking eBay email saying that i had to pay or have my account suspended.

The email looked like this

It was after this email i thought screw you scammer lets have some fun now... I replied, 10 times with my OWN official looking eBay email which went something like this

My version of an official eBay email

I'm yet to get a reply but i'm sure he gets the picture

Now while I'm happy that an older game like BF2 is still getting some attention, maybe not the right attention like a much needed patch but still its something new in the world of BF2. Through a collaborative effort Intel & EA have released a new *cough* advertisement *cough* map called Highway Tampa. It sounds good until you jump in the map for the first time and start to see these guys everywhere:

Now with images like that how is that NOT taking away from the game? I'm not going to be looking at the ads on the billboards, I'm going to be looking at the sniper sitting in front of the billboard taking shots at me. In my view they would have been better off just calling the map "Intel" or having the map load screen display an ad for Intel being "Cool under pressure". Destroying the look & feel of a game for what will amount to a small percentage of extra brand recognition (yes not sales just brand recognition) is not worth it. I really hope this doesn't become a trend as i can just see EA cashing in on this more & more and destroying the fantasy worlds the developers work hard to create & amerce you in.

It was my last day in Samoa as I was to fly out late that night so i wanted to try and make the last day special. I thought it was going to be hard to beat the night on the island as it really was a great way to forget about the real world and relax. But as we headed back into the real world, well as close to the real world you can get in Samoa, Roneil said he knew the perfect way to end the week in Samoa with a swim in a waterfall. Not just any waterfall but the Samoa equivalent of "wet & wild water park".

We picked up Renu on the way and headed out to Sliding Rocks for a swim in a waterfall in the middle of a rain forest. After walking down a very steep path we ended up looking at a number of smallish waterfalls with a few of the local kids having a ball sliding down these falls into the pools of water, it really was like what you would see at a local pool but in the middle of a rain forest.

The green moss is what made the rocks so slippery and made it possible to slide down the rocks as you would a normal waterslide. The water was so refreshingly cold and clear i was just blown away at how picture perfect this place really is. After watching the kids to see where you were meant to slide they soon noticed i had no idea where to go so were yelling for me to follow them. The kids soon got me in the right spot for the first of the slides. The first one was only a small slide of around 2m into a whirling pool of water. That was easy but then they showed me the next part which was a 6m slide with a huge bump half way down that would get your airborne before you hit the water, I asked the kids if it hurts your ass but they just laughed at me and slid down. I figured if they can do it so can I, so pushed off down the waterfall only to get a lot more air than the little lighter kids did and almost went head first into the water!!! When i finally came up for air the kids were laughing at me & told me to lean forward next time, now they tell me...

Then came the climb back up to the top of the waterfalls... it was a 8m rock face we had to climb up. Now I'm all for a bit of rock climbing but I'm in bare feet and my feet are silky soft (just the way the ladies love them ), so i'm in a little bit of pain scaling this rock face to which the kids are again laughing at me!!!

I went down the falls a few more times before i joined Roneil & Renu in the top pool under the first waterfall where they were getting a nice massage from the waterfall. They were leaning up against the rocks and letting the water gently fall onto their backs. It was at this point where i just stood there with the cool fresh water falling on me and looked around at the rain forest thinking.... wow this place truly is amazing & so untouched.

I can see Samoa in the next 5 years slowly starting to chase the tourist dollar more & more so it will become very westernised & commercial, which will be sad in some ways. It will slowly lose its untouched places and become crowed with loud annoying Americans, like all the other good tourist destinations around the world.

But for now it really is a touch of paradise and I enjoyed every minute of it, if you can go visit Samoa while its still is a slice of heaven.

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