Haven't really posted anything for a week or so, been a little busy. Anyway Christmas is getting too close for comfort, I have one present! I have yet to do Christmas shopping and really need to do some, think that's a job for Thursday. Well apart from my lazy last minute Christmas shopping, I have some very exiting news...SANTA IS BRINGING ME AN XBOX! wahoo! I'm very exited and unfortunately Santa isn't bringing me the Xbox360, I'm buying it but my girlfriend is paying half as part of my present. I feel like a kid again, she won't even let me have it till Christmas day either!

It's an Xbox360 Elite too, so be jelous! I'm noting down some games to buy on thursday, going to spend quite abit of money to start off my collection. But only going for the essential(must have) games first of all. This is my list:

• Gears of War 1, 2
• Farcry 2
• Crysis
• Fall-out 3
  
• Dead Space
• Resident Evil 5
  

Anyway, in Confetti yesterday Kelly gave us a talk(telling off) about our records, Mine being pretty bad to say the least. I've decided to make an effort and improve, so I'm going to finish all my work off and make sure I'm at college on time. Think of it as an early new years resolution.

Many times I've been in the petrol station, and my phone starts to ring. I then see the concern on the face of the worker behind the till, followed by a warning to turn off my phone. I've always wondered why the hell mobile phones are banned in petrol stations. While I was researching radio waves and phone devices for my college project I came across this interesting post by 'Paul' on The Naked Scientist forum, it's quite funny because he notes every detail.

"Mobile phones are blamed for all kinds of health problems, ranging from brain cancer to memory loss. There's not a lot of real evidence for this, so people don't seem to be worried, and it certainly doesn't stop them from using their phones. Mobile phones are also the cause of a lot of stupidity when in the hands of pedestrians and motorists. In fact, it's illegal to use a hand-held phone when driving a car. But strangely, most people won't use their mobile phone while they are refuelling their car's petrol tank - and in this case, it's even less likely to be dangerous.

Every month or so, I get an earnest email warning me of the hazards of using my mobile phone on the forecourt of a petrol station. Usually, the email mentions the Shell Oil Company as its source, and quotes the same three incidents of petrol fires while refuelling. The first one has the mobile phone sitting on the boot - the phone rings, generating an instant ball of fire. The second episode has a person speaking on the phone, leading to nasty facial burns. The third occurrence has the phone in the pocket suddenly ring, causing unfortunateß burns to the groin and thigh.

This email has been traced back to a hoax email that landed in the inbox of a Shell employee in Jamaica . He rebroadcast it, but with the Shell Company signature now on the email - and this accidental non-approved signature gave the hoax more credibility.

So, has a mobile phone ever set off a petrol station fire? No, according to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, who looked at 243 petrol station fires worldwide, happening in the 11 years between 1993 and 2004. And no, according to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, and no, according the Robert Renkes, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, who said, “We have not found a cell phone responsible for any fire since the beginning of mankind” . And finally no, according to the popular Mythbusters TV show, which tried mightily to make a mobile phone explode a chamber full of petrol vapour, and failed.

It is theoretically possible to set off a petrol fire with a phone. The amount of energy needed for a spark to ignite petrol vapour is 0.2 mJ, which is roughly one five-millionth of the energy stored in a fully-charged phone battery. The difficulty is that the phone is not designed to make sparks.

The lithium battery could explode while charging if its internal regulator circuit was very faulty. But you don't normally simultaneously charge and talk on your mobile phone while refuelling your car. The internal electronics of the phone could fail and make a spark - but the spark would be too small.

And why worry about the phone battery when you have batteries in your iPod, CD player, mini-torch, and yes, don't forget the big 15 kg car battery that powers the electrics of your car?

Well, what about the electric field put out by your phone? Yes, the electric field has been measured at 2-5 volts/meter, and has been known to interfere with heart monitors and infant incubators in hospitals, and various electronic equipment in planes. But the electric field from a mobile phone has never been known to set off a fire in a petrol station. And consider that in the UK , some 200 Shell petrol stations have mobile phone towers in the tall petrol price indicators, which stand right there on the forecourt, a few metres from the petrol pumps. The towers put out a lot more grunt than your small mobile phone.

So what did set off those 243 petrol station fires? Most of the time, static electricity was the culprit. We've all seen or felt a spark from clothing. If you are wearing synthetic clothes in the dryness of winter, and are sliding in and out of the car, across the synthetic material of the car seat, then you can build up a big static charge. Then, if the earthing wire on the petrol hose is broken, when you touch the metal nozzle of the petrol hose to the metal neck of the petrol tank, you can discharge a visible spark. Even more dangerous, from the static electricity point-of-view, is filling up a small fuel drum.

The phone companies post warnings about using phones in petrol stations for two reasons. First, mobile phones are not designed with “Intrinsic Safety” to make them able to operate safely in truly hazardous inflammable vapour situations, and second, fear of legal liability, despite all the evidence showing that mobile phones don't cause fires in petrol stations.

So overall, the mobile phone myth is just endless chatter generating a whole lot of static."

Basically not using your phone in a petrol station is bullshit, and just some stupid conspiracy.

Picked this game up yesterday for £15 second hand and it's pretty good. It's the prequel to STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl which was full of bugs and glitches. This game comes with a new story, and a few updates on the graphics engine. I followed Shadow of Chernobyl through the development stages, however once released after numerous drawbacks, the multiplayer portion of the game was almost unplayable and the single player was a little buggy. The developers over at GSC Game World have released this in hope of reviving the game which was expected to be so good. I haven't played on it for long, but from what I see the multiplayer has been fixed, a new story has been created for single player(although very similar to it's predecessor) and basically the game has just had a revamp.

This morning I found out that there was a multiplayer beta demo release of Call of Duty: World at War for the PC and Xbox. I was actually oblivious to this new title being released on PC, as it has been developed by Treyarch which have developed most of the CoD console games, so I've stayed remotely uninterested in the game. The beta demo is available now and has only been released on the Xbox 360 and the PC, I'm not sure why they havn't released the demo for the other platforms, but they are definitely releasing the game on the PC, Xbox360, PS3, Wii and the DS as far as I know.

Anyway being a HUGE fan of Call of Duty, I was quite exited to play the demo. When I heard about the new Call of Duty a few weeks ago, I was extremelly shocked to find that it was again, WWII, why they went from WWII to modern warfare and then back again is a mystery to me. Anyway, putting that aside, the game is set in various landmarks of world war 2, and as a player you get to visit various locations which have appeared in the previous CoD games(and numerous other games). However they have decided to add the Pacific Theatre to the equation, last covered in the Medal of Honour: Pacific Assault game in 2004. Medal of Honour has stepped back from the spotlight of war games, and Call of Duty has practically took it's place in this genre, however I don't believe this is a good thing as Medal of Honour was merely a label and each game was created by different developers, therfore making each game totally different. I believe Call of Duty is begining to get like this because it's generated so much popularity, Activision are greadily mass producing titles and throwing them out as fast as possible to make money.

Anyway, I want to talk a little more about the demo. It comes with only two maps(which is about normal for a demo) one of which is set in a China themed map titled 'Towers', the other map titled 'Roundhouse' is set in a destroyed industrial enviroment which im guessing is Russia. The Roundhouse is the least interesting one of the two, as it's set in a location which has been around since the birth of CoD, however the China themed map 'Towers' is a pretty refreshing addition to the series, and the mapping is also very impressive. I could talk about the game a little more, but there is really no need, as it's nothing more than Call of Duty 4 set in WWII. It looks to me like Treyarch grabbed CoD4, and just revamped the artwork such as the models, textures and maps then named it Call of Duty 5. However, I don't really like to judge a game by a beta demo, so I'm not going to rate it on how good it is at this point, but if the game is how I'm imagining it to be, then i'll be in no rush to buy it.

I havn't updated my blog in a while, been busy with my new job at Frankie & Bennies. However now I'm settled into the job, I can concentrate on my college work a little more. I do have some bad news before I start on the interesting stuff.

I purchased a Sony Vaio FZ laptop back in January of this year, and the screen cracked unexpectedely. As far as we know it wasn't our fault but they claim it had recieved impact damage, after months of fighting I have finally gave in and gone through the insurance company. Anyway the point is I'm getting it back sometime this week, so I'm looking forward to that. My desktop computer has blown up, so that leaves me with a terrible loan laptop from John Lewis that just manages to run Photoshop.

I'm quite exited about a new forum we are setting up for Confetti, we decided on the name 'Confetti Playground'. I think the idea is brilliant, as it gives the students at Confetti a chance to showcase their work to the rest of the college, and receive feedback on their projects. At the moment the students at Confetti don't really interact with each other, the college is basically split into Music, Film and Gamers. I believe these different sectors of the media compliment each other, therfore we shouldn't really be ignoring each other. Thats why I think it will be very interesting to watch this project expand into what I think will be a great online community for Confetti students.

I guess thats all for now, but tomorrow I will post some potential Confetti Playground logos that I've been working on.

  My names Michael Wood, I'm beginning this Blog to post anything concerning my course here at Confetti Institute. I began at Confetti by enrolling in a Media/Video course in late 2007, once I completed this course I realized that a career in interactive media was my true ambition. I recently began the course in interactive media at Confetti and it's pretty good,  I'm looking forward to the future of the course.