I’m sitting quite happily with my 701 eee PC. It only has a 7” screen, but is perfect for train journeys, lectures and the like. Anyway, enough free advertising for Asus; I’ll get to the point:

The train gets into Bristol and I’m contentedly listening to <insert your favourite track here> when this businessman-type person sits down opposite me (We shall call him ‘pinkie’, since he was wearing a beautiful pink shirt and pink tie and looked very pink). He pulls out his weapon to defeat my netbook: a piece of shit HP centrino with a shoddy fingerprint scanner, a Vodafone 3G PCMCIA card and the most elaborate headphones I’ve ever seen. He also sat his brick of a Nokia N95 on the table for all to gaze at. He would have won, but he ruined it by accompanying this ensemble with a warm can of Carling (I could tell it wasn’t cold because the bitty on the side hadn’t turned blue, thank you).

He is your typical train douche bag with his overpriced Sony headphones and cool pinky ring (dick). He had the choice of other tables but saw me with my perfectly good, cheap laptop and thought he would show me a thing or two. Problem is, buddy, your laptop runs the shit-awful Windows Vista and is an HP. In the IT Shop this year, we have seen far too many HP laptops come in with mainboard problems. Have fun paying £200 to have that fixed. For that money, you could buy - yes, you guessed it - the same laptop I’m using to write this.

I rest my case.

P.S. He has been sat opposite me while I have been writing this, and after taking more than a cursory glance, I have deduced he dressed much more like a hotel valet then any kind of business. (Nothing against valets, of course.)

If you celebrate this holiday by drinking, laughing, crying or getting that noose just right, we at The All Nighter wish you a great few days. Our editor is on Christmas leave, so the chance of any articles being published by New Year are very slim.

Have a great Christmas; I hope you all get a shitload of presents and are comatose by 3pm.

The All Nighter Team

FIFA 2009

The latest incarnation of one of EA’s biggest cash cows was released in October and embraced by our house. Always favouring Fifa over Pro Evo, we were pleased to hear that the new Pro Evo was, basically, shit.

The new installment of Fifa is a vast improvement on 2008, with smoother gameplay and a more natural feel to the players. Fifa 2008 made you feel like your players were running through treacle filled with glue. The problem with the quicker gameplay is that your on-screen players are not used to the freedom and continually run offside. They are so eager to run into the net that the number of offsides per match becomes ridiculous. Screams of “FUUUUUUCK!” and “FOR GOD’S SAKE” are frequently heard as Jamie’s passes are called up by the now-visible referee.

If Jamie reviewed this game, he would comment that it is moderately entertaining with an underlying socialist feel. He would also mention that the on-screen players look disillusioned with the game and should be released into the real world. Jamie, however, is a good student who prefers making notes on parallel processing rather than typing gibberish on a tiny keyboard.

One controversial aspect of the game is the fact that the Welsh national team is not included.

It is rumoured that Tom Jones (who features on the game’s soundtrack) requested that he be included in the game as a Welsh striker. When EA refused, he submitted an awful remix of Feel The Music.

I, however, am happy that they were not included. Until they admit that ‘Love Spoons’ are not a plausible solution to the credit crunch, they should not be included in any sports game.

The game does well at performing different tasks simultaneously. It can render graphics, play audio and detect controller input with virtually no lag. Fifa 2009 obviously takes advantage of the three processing cores of the Xbox 360 and could probably pass a parallel processing exam with 65%.

Here are some other opinions of the game taken from writers of the All Nighter:

Gazz : “It’s alright.”

Tristan: “It’s class, but Crespo doesn’t play for Argentina, so I’m upset.”

Anthony: “I hate any console made in the last 8 years.”

I give it a parallel processing score of 5Mm(tcalc) (Good)

]]> http://www.theallnighter.net/james/games-review-fifa-2009/feed http://www.theallnighter.net/james/jims-hygiene-tips http://www.theallnighter.net/james/jims-hygiene-tips#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:00:51 +0000 James http://www.theallnighter.net/?p=307 In keeping with The All Nighter’s tradition of starting a series of articles that never lead anywhere, here I am again with yet another guide-based series.

Jim’s Hygiene Tips will provide a handy guide on how to keep a clean house and stop your loved ones contracting MRSA or HIV through bad kitchen/needle management. For the first part of this series, we will begin where most diseases also begin: The Kitchen.

The Oven

The biggest tip I can offer for oven hygiene is this: do not shit on the oven. When stools mix with grease from frying pans, it forms a compound called Hydratedfeaselase which can cause vomiting and ensures all food will taste like - guess what - shit.

Another professional tip is to wipe the oven after use. There have been many occasions when I have found almost a kilo of rice left around the hobs after a certain All Nighter author has been cooking.

The Sink

The sink only has two uses:

• To wash various accoutrements which have been used in the process of cooking.
• To keep beer cold.
  - This can be achieved by filling the sink with a mixture of ice and water. Add beer, and voila!

The Fridge

The fridge is commonly used to keep food and drink cold. It is also used to store vodka jelly before a social occasion. To keep it clean, you have to ensure that food is wrapped up properly and that half-eaten pizza is not stored upside-down in the salad drawer.

Next week : The bathroom

The All Nighter team however are so busy writing articles and creating awesome material, we need someone who can ensure that the content we write adheres to the high standard of grammar and structure you have come to expect.

This is why we are running a competition to become an editor for the site.

Here are the qualities the potential editor must posess:

• Must have a very good sense of humour with little to no moral compass.
• Must be a grammar nazi.
• Must be able to read and approve at least 6 articles a week (spread out through the week).
• Must not be a douche bag.

The winner of this little competition will have to read and approve articles that the rest of the team write, you will not be writing your own articles but will of course welcome to suggest articles to the team.
You will get your picture on the website with a biography about yourself and the opportunity to be a part of the student humour revolution!

As an extra incentive, any winner based in Cardiff will get a drink bought for them by each member of The All Nighter. (Each drink can be upto the value of £2.50). That’s at least 4 drinks!

To enter, all you have to do is write a 100 words on why you would be good for the role. Extra marks will be given for drawn pictures and humour. Email your entry to… James (AT)theallnighter.net
including your name, age, and location.

The closing date for this is: 23rd September at 23:59pm.

Terms and Conditions:

The All Nighter reserves the right to cancel the competition at any time. All entries received after the closing date will not count. Only one entry per person/per email address. The All Nighter team will jointly decide on the new editor who will be notified as soon as that decision has been made. The All Nighter’s decisions are final.

There are two main statements that get thrown around when joking about dead people:

1. Give them some respect.

2. They’re dead therefore they don’t care.

I would like to believe the second point prevails more often than not. You are not hurting anybody by sending round your awesome, well thought out jokes so why feel guilty? It would be a different matter however if I sent the following to Madeline McCann’s parents:

“Knock Knock,
Who’s there?
Not Maddie”

That could be seen as inappropriate but I guess her parents do need some cheering up. The millions of pounds they have raised probably aren’t doing much good.

Normally I would have a complex formula to calculate how long after the event it becomes appropriate to joke about it but I am lazy so here is a handy guide using real life events as an example:

Death of an actor/actress (e.g. Heath Ledger): Next day.
Death of a celebrity (Jeremy Beadle): Same day.
Death of a public Figure (Pope John Paul II): Next day (he died at night so not a lot of joke texting time).
Child Abduction (Maddie): A week at the absolute maximum.
Natural Disaster (Tsunami): Next Day.
All others (Shuttle Columbia): However long it takes to send a text.
This one got sent to me yesterday:

There’s a big barbeque next week at Maesbrook House. The last one was awesome, went like a house on fire, but no fosters left by 4.30 am.

Now that is pretty funny you have to admit….

Lastly, a quick message to the people who fall into the “It’s sick and horrible blah blah fuckity blah”. I know for a fact you chuckle or laugh at the joke before judging us all to hell. The “I’ll gauge everybody elses reaction before laughing (IGEERBL)” method does not work. If you want some cheering up I have made a wax work of Gary Glitter shoving Madeline McCann into a sack.

I’m going to hell for this.

• No full time work regardless of money situation.
• Attending as many social events as possible.
• Somehow managing to attend these events with no money. (I’ve had £50 in my account for the last month but have somehow managed to go to Reading Festival and go to the pub numerous occasions.)
• Savings are a god send.
• Doing all the things you didn’t have time to do during term time.

For anybody that is unsure how a student summer day should go, here is a handy pictorial guide to the day I had yesterday.

12:00 noon - Wake up

I woke up at the crack of noon and took a piss. I then spent 10 minutes figuring out why my hair sticks up in one place and won’t go down.

12:00 - 12:30 - Quiet time

**Censored**

12:30 - Breakfast

A full cooked breakfast is the best thing any student can have for breakfast. If this is not available then the following will suffice:

12:45 - 15:00 - Leisure Time

Contrary to popular belief, students do not get a lot of spare time. Therefore for the next couple of hours, you should spend some time playing video games. Here are some example poses that should be achieved if you are having enough fun. If you have trouble getting to a high level of fun. I suggest using these pictures as a guide to how you should look during the leisure time session:

Gaming pose 1:

Gaming pose 2:

If I can take the time out of writing this article to kick ass at Burnout, then you can take the time out of your day to kick ass at “insert game here”.

15:00 - 15:30 - Lunch time

Anything will suffice for lunch. Any food that is high in energy and not that healthy is ideal for a summer student. Yesterday I had cheese on toast, crisps, a muffin and a piece of apple pie. Yum.

16:00 - 18:00 - Internet Catch Up

Now that you are fed and watered, it is important to catch up on current events and various internet happenings. Since you don’t want to be the one who misses out on the next viral video or nuclear strike on Poland, it is very important you include the following sites in your visit:

• Reddit
  - Pro Obama, Jon Stewart, anti McCain - Intelligent Stories.
• Digg
  - Pro Obama, anti McCain - Moronic Comments.
• BBC
  - Pro everything.
• College Humor
  - Pro Boobs, Pro drinking, Pro videos - The best site for topical news.

18:00 - 19:00 - Getting ready to go out

Now the evening has arrived you must get ready to socialise. Have a shower, eat some food and join your friends down the pub for cheap merriment. If you want to save money I recommend pre-drinking. Here is an example of what can be consumed to make your night more enjoyable:

This is the ideal amount to drink before going to any social event. The social event doesn’t have to just be a pub or bar. It can include: funerals, going to the cinema, getting married, buying groceries or even pre-drinking.

19:00 - 00:00 - Blur

I can’t remember much of what happened but I didn’t puke so that’s probably a good sign. I’m still baffled over why I woke up covered in blood with a chunk of blonde hair on my floor. Oh well, it must have been a good night.

There you have it kids, a handy guide on how to spend your average day in the summer holidays. If you want to spice things up a bit I recommend replacing breakfast with 3 double vodkas and replacing the gaming session with going to the pub.

Note:

The pictures were taken in my room at home but since I am now at University my little brother has used it as some kind of Doctor Who landfill.

Thanks to all our readers for sticking with us and keeping in touch during the break.

The All Nighter Team

I don´t know what excuses the rest of the team have but I´m sure they are good. This is the only update I will get round to doing so it´s a bit of a shit it´s an apology..

Wait a second, Why am I apologising? Get off your arses and do some exercise. (Hard to do when it´s 35oC… Hot.)

Adios

The Bro Code is a well documented set of rules that apply to guys around the world. However some of the points in this sacred document do not always apply to situations a lot of students find themselves in.

Because of this, I have had some thoughts about a code of conduct that will apply to all students regardless of sex or race. A code of conduct that will create a utopia for all students..

The code of conduct will be split into sections depending on the situation it applies to. It can and will be added to when appropriate.

Section 1 - Organising an Event:

- An Event constitutes the following:

- A party
- A Night out
- Any sports related activity
- Any other event where by more than two people will be invited

Article #1:

The organisers of an event will endeavor to invite every person within their social circle.
(This can be achieved by assigning a house or group of people to each of the organisers.)

Article #2:

For a night out, the destination is a democratic process where by the majority vote wins.
Clause 1:
The destination should always take into account the financial situation of EVERY person attending.
Clause 2:
If a majority vote does not exist, the initial organisers will make the final decision on the destination while still complying with Clause 1.
Clause 3:
If one of the attending persons is celebrating their birthday then they shall have the final say in destination.

Article #3:

For a party, the organisers have the final say on the following aspects of the event:
- Theme
- Guest restrictions (Can override Article #1 if genuine reasons exist)
- Music restrictions

Section 2 - Pre-Drinking:

Pre-Drinking constitutes the time before a night out that involves the attending people drinking to save money .

Article #1:

The hosts of the pre-drinking event can make a decision with regards to any games/sub-events that can aid the process of pre-drinking.

Article #2:

Any people attending the pre-drinking event who are not included in a particular sub-event (E.g. Drinking Fifa) can take part in another event of their choosing.
Clause 1: The host of the pre-drinking event has the right to refuse alternative event suggestions.

Section 3 - Parties

A party is an event that is often held within the organiser’s house and involves alcoholic beverages, music and general merriment. Note: A party and a gathering are not the same thing.

-A gathering usually involves less people, quieter music and guests are expected to bring all of their own provisions. A gathering can also include film or TV watching.
- A party has more people attending, louder music and the hosts are expected to supply some of the alcoholic beverages. TV or film watching is generally inapparopriate for a party.

Article #1:

The party organiser has the right to refuse entry to any guest who arrives at the party. Approved party guests are expected to help the organiser if the refusal causes a dispute.

Article #2:

The musical playlist at the party has to be approved by the hosts. Any changes to the playlist have to be approved by the hosts. Unauthorised changes to the playlist by any party guest is automatically deemed as “uncool” and the guest will have to allow the host to undo any changes that have been made.

Article #3:

All guests at a party should respect the host’s property and should not proceed to trash any part of the house.

Article #4:

At least one drinking game should be played at all parties and gatherings. The choice of game is down to democratic vote but all guests should include themselves in at least one drinking game.

Next Week: Sections on going out and group politics will be added.

Any other suggestions or additions to the Code of Conduct are of course appreciated.