Dukes Digital Domain…

I played a round of Golf when I was in Toronto last year and I spent a lot of time with my bro at the driving range. Since I got back to the UK I have spent a lot of time looking for a decent golf club. I think I have finally found one. I’ am going to visit the Trent Park Golf Centre tomorrow and it is highly likely that I’ll be booking a day at the course in early March.

I want to practice my swing. I can reach the 250 marker at the range but I want to try and increase that to 300 - 400 marker. If you’d like to come along, contact me via cell or email ASAP - I’ll update this post with costs, confirmed date etc tomorrow evening.

Update: Due to my ISP going offline on Friday I have only been able to update this post today, Monday 23rd February.

Based upon the amount of emails I have received so far, I will not be posting details of the golf day online. This is mainly because I don’t want ‘certain’ people just turning up and bugging my friends and I. For those that will be attending, you will receive an email before 20:00 hours tonight.

Easter weekend saw the return of XL, one of the UK’s longest running Xbox and Xbox 360 LAN’s. The event was held at the Birmingham NEC, and from what I’ve picked up on the gaming grapevine is that the event was a great success.

Unfortunately I couldn’t attend XL due to prior commitments but I’m hoping to make an appearance at the next XL event. It would have been cool to get live twitter updates from XL, maybe somebody could get one going for the next event?!

When I saw Jon over at Play.com Live! he mentioned his next LAN event would be taking place over the May spring break. On another note, did anyone attend The Gathering ’08 last week? I was there last year and it was fun.

At some point I should really update my schedule to coincide with this years LAN’s!

Online retailer, Play.com held it’s first Play.com Live event at Wembley Stadium this weekend. I ventured over to Wembley yesterday and the event itself turned out to be alright, there were a lot of people packed into the exhibition halls of Wembley Stadium and numerous publishers were showcasing a number of pre-release games.

It was cool to catch up with the folks from Vivendi Games as well as TWNA. I love the fact that Vivendi had a giant Mr Stay Puft Marshmallow man greeting gamers as they walked down the long concourse of the stadium.

I was able to see a number of games in action, although Ghostbusters and Prototype were not playable. However, I was able to have a brief play of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy. All three titles look pretty good and I really can’t wait to try out the new Ghostbusters game.

I posted up a short video of the Vivendi Games booth and uploaded a few pictures but Jon has a lot more on his gallery.

Here are my New Years resolutions for 2008:

• Give up smoking.
• Give up candy so I don’t end up looking like Jabba the Hut once I’ve given up smoking.
• Cut down on alcohol.
• Save more of my UK based income.
• Design, research and look into building my own home.

We’re going down to the River Thames to watch the firework display for New Years Eve, it should be fun. I just hope it doesn’t rain.

Happy New Year folks!

Hit this link for live coverage from LeWeb ‘07.

I think I’ve forgotten to do something but I cannot recall what it is, I don’t think it was too important otherwise I would have had a reminder in my inbox. Ah well.

The London Geek Dinner is taking place tonight and I’m going to meet up with Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Hugh MacLeod and Steve Clayton alongside a number of social media-tech-folks. After the dinner they’ll be a photowalking pub crawl which should be fun. If your in town and would like to meet up, give me a call

I’ve  haven’t had a chance to meet up with Loïc but I’ve had a few conversations with him via Twitter. I’m following the developments of his latest venture; Seesmic, and I’m really impressed with the way he has gathered so much attention to the product without the public having access to it.

Oh yeh, Loïc mentioned via twitter that the FT has published a really interesting article, I recommend reading the article in full but I quite like his ten rules for business success:

* Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
* Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
* Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
* Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
* Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
* Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
* Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
* Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
* Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
* Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

He’s hosting LeWeb during the latter part of the week. I was hoping to attend the event in Paris later this week but due to a few other commitments I won’t be able to attend the conference. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend LeWeb in 2008.

I titled this blog post KV 62 because it pinpoints the location of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

I’ve watched a lot of documentary’s on Egyptology via the National Geographic channel and I’ve always had a keen interest in ancient Egypt.  I decided to take my mother to see the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition at the o2.

The  exhibition was really good and the way it started was pretty cool. You get ushered into a darkened room with a few television screens - the rules of the exhibit are explained i.e. no food, drink or photography – a ninety second program begins, narrated by Omar Sharif and then the tour around the exhibit begins. Everything begins in darkness then one beam of light showcases a golden figuring in-cased in glass. That was quite cool. I won’t write anymore about the exhibition because you should experience it for yourselves, that’s if you’re interested in history.

When I get back to the UK in early ‘08, I’m most likely going to plan a trip to Egypt. I think a cruise on the River Nile would be suitable.

On Thursday afternoon I went down to Ubisoft’s offices and was able to see a number of yet to be released titles. I’m covering the games for the Book of Games Volume Two. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you which Xbox 360 game I got to play but the brand manager for a certain title let me play the game for a few minutes…. I think its going to do  well when it’s released in November.

Was able to jam with Jam Sessions for while on the DS. The game is pretty sweet and is certainly worth picking up when it’s released. I was given a copy of Happy Cooking and Blazing Angels 2. I’ve got to find some time over the weekend to try out the games.

Eventually, when I arrived back in London. I met up with Gunit at Waterloo and headed over to The Match Bar for Simon’s leaving party. Simon was the Product Manager at Sierra Entertainment / Vivendi Games for World in Conflict, F.E.A.R and a number of other great games. It’s sad that he is leaving the fray at Vivendi. It was good to catch up with everyone and finally meet Rupert, the MD of the Eurogamer Network.  I was introduced to Duncan, an entertaining dude that runs Cranberry Publishing.

Thursday night was a lot of fun and I think everyone was wasted by the end of the night. Pictures are on FaceBook. I’m still feeling the effects today but it was a good night out.

Simon, thanks for the party. It was good fun and as I mentioned on Thursday night, it was a pleasure working with you, have fun in Oz next month and all the best in the future

Gunit: I put up with your shit for three days but it was fun, just wanted to say thank you for an entertaining weekend. However, you still owe me beer!

Oh yeh, has the battle scar dissipated?