Pretty much since we purchased our house we’ve been saving money for an overseas holiday.

About six months ago I did a ‘back of the envelope’ calculation of how much it would cost us for a holiday and determined it would be around about $15,000 (including everything, e.g. mortgage payments etc). Despite our best efforts, it was pretty unlikely we were going to hit that target any time in 2007, and it seemed absurd that we could spend that much money in four or five weeks. So, the idea of us moving to the UK in 2007 was born.

Since then, we’d still been saving as much as possible to pay for stuff. Now we’re hemorrhaging that money, on toys!

Yesterday we attended the Emirates Team New Zealand Open Day. We went through the base pretty quickly and were left wondering what we were going to do for the rest of the afternoon. “I could show you the video camera I’m keen on buying?” I said to Megan. So off we went to Queen Street and Parallel Imported.

We had a look at the Video Camera that I had (after extensive research) decided upon; the Panasonic NV-GS300.

After looking at it, Megan was slightly more positive, but still had some reservations. “Let’s have a look at the still cameras.” She said (I’d been pushing for us to buy a new digital still camera as well to replace our three year old Kodak).

We were then shown a camera I hadn’t done any research on, the Lumix (Panasonic) FX01 (in white).

The camera is tiny (one of the smallest on the market) with almost the entire rear being filled by the 2.5 inch LCD screen. It probably would have felt too small for my hands, but given that Megan is the still photographer in our house, and her hands are much smaller than mine, she fell in love with it. It was on special for about $90 less than it’s normal price but yesterday was the last day of the sale.

However, I wasn’t going to buy a camera without doing any research, so we took off and found an internet cafe. We read a number of reviews which were pretty much positive, so we decided to go ahead and get it. Much to my surprise, Megan was also keen to get the Panasonic video camera.

So we managed to splurge over $1500 on some very cool electronics. I love buying electronic gadgets, I just love it.

So readers of P&M should expect plenty of new photo and video content of our travels in the coming months.

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Over the next year, I’m planning on taking this blog back to what it was originally intended to be, a personal blog outlining the happenings of Megan and myself (Pete). So I’m going to kick that off by outlining where we’re up to in our move to the UK.

A lot has happened since we last spoke to most people. It’s been an incredibly busy time, and we haven’t been able to spread the word very far, as it wasn’t very high on the list of things to do.

Basically we are definitely going to Newcastle in the UK soon.

I’ve received, signed and returned my contract and would be free to book my flights and other such things, if Megan had her UK entry visa. She’s applied for permanent residence in the UK as a ‘dependent’ of a British Citizen (believe it or not, me). They are saying that these applications are taking four to six weeks and since we were only able to send the application last week, at the six week end of that timeline, we’ll be getting an answer a week after we were planning on leaving NZ (22nd February). So if you know anyone in the British High Commission in Wellington, please put a word in for us

So this is a little bit worrying, but all we can do is wait, hope and pray that it comes through in time. Otherwise, we may just finish work at the same time and spend one or two weeks on an ultra-low budget camping trip around the North Island, not an entirely unpleasant scenario.

Anyway, since we confirmed that we were definitely going, we listed our house with an agent to be rented, and after a couple of weeks, signed up a suitable couple. So the last week has been nothing short of a nightmare trying to get the house packed up, our belongings stored and the house cleaned. Megan and I are incredibly relieved to have that done, and to be living at my parents house ‘out of our packs’ until we leave.

So that’s where we are. If you need to contact us, we both still have our mobiles, and we will be checking our emails sporadically.

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As promised, today I’m going to share my thoughts on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. However it’s not going to be a review. If you want a review, try here or here or here or perhaps here.

What a game. Sitting here thinking back, I just wish it wasn’t over. It’s not like I wanted the game to go on and on like I did with some of Wilbur Smith’s novels, but the desire to leave work early, or not go to bed (an extreme step for me) just so that I could play a few missions of San Andreas proved this game was a powerful drug.

I waited a long time to play San Andreas. I played GTA 1, 2 and 3. However by the time San Andreas came out, I was a legal games buyer, and the normally hefty price tag was a retardant.

I have to say that playing games long after their release has it’s benefits. You get a much cheaper game, and you also, by this point have a computer that is far more powerful that what the game was designed for.

i actually wondered if I’d made a mistake when I first started playing however, as for quite a long time, I found the “floating camera” view very hard to control. At first driving was a write-off because as soon as I turned a corner, I couldn’t move the mouse accurately enough to see where I was going. However I soon mastered this, and by the time I got to missions that required tight camera control, it had long since been sorted.

I’m selling the game ($35 if anyone I know wants it) since I’m unlikely to play it any more, but I honestly believe that every gamer should play this game. That is, if you’re over 18.

It is absolutely wonderful. GTA IV is scheduled to hit the PS3 in October 2007. Many are saying this won’t happen (in time) and many others are saying that it won’t stay exclusive to the PS3. If it does release initially just for the PS3, I’d be betting money on it being available for the PC and other platforms in the following months. That’s pretty exciting, but given it could be more than a year away, and that it’ll be another 18 months after that before my wallet can pay for it, I won’t start holding my breath.

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It’s an interesting truism that when you have lots of full games to play through, the desire to review games, and in general, to write anything diminishes.

Before Christmas, after great delay I picked up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Then for Christmas I got my beloved Nintendo DS with Mario Kart. Then when we got back I picked up Donkey Kong Country 3 and Touch Golf: Birdie Challenge.

Stuck at home last week, I spent all my time between SA, DK3 and Golf, and didn’t even think about reviewing anything.

But the time has come to add my views to the cacophany of voices crying in acclamation of Mario Kart for the DS.

As trademe prices for DS games soared in the run up to Christmas, I was forced into the realisation that I would have to pick just one game to have with my DS on Christmas day. I thought about it, and was in little doubt that Mario Kart was the game to carry the burden of Christmas excitement. This was based on the fact that I knew from playing previous versions that I love the MK concept and that when searching gamerankings for all DS games sorted by the ratings of the main sites, MK comes out on top with 97.7%.

So, to the review.

When you start MK, you already have a huge amount of content open to you, but there’s much more waiting to be unlocked.

You start out with three engine classes (50cc, 100cc, and 150cc) that represent three difficulty levels. Within each of these engine classes you have various race modes. I only played grand prix. All the normal characters are available, eight in total, with an additional two that can be unlocked. You start out with relatively limited kart selection, but eventually you can choose between 36 karts. Within the grand prix you have two categories of race series, original and classic.

Each of these categories contains two series which are available and two which must be unlocked by finishing first in each of the available series. Each of the series has four tracks, adding up to sixteen tracks available at the outset which can be doubled by unlocking series, and doubled again once you open up the “mirror” engine class which allows you to play every track backwards.

By the time I’d achieved all this, I’d definitely got my money worth out of the game. However, MK isn’t finished here.

It has a mission mode with six levels. In each of the levels there are eight missions (like driving backwards around a course or collecting all the stars) and then a boss. These can be quite challenging and enjoyable at times. There are also a few other single player modes that I didn’t really get into.

And we haven’t even touched multiplayer! I would hazard a guess that multiplayer is the primary reason that MK got such high reviews. It features flexible play with other DS owners by local wireless or racing against fellow players through Wifi. It works! I have yet to find another player in my vicinity, but I can proudly say that it was a breeze to connect by DS to my wireless network and play others over the system of tubes.

So. We have quite possibly the best value game ever produced.

But was it good? No one wants to read a 10,000 page novel if it’s like swallowing 10,000 golf balls.

The answer is yes, if you know what you’re getting.

Mario Kart shouldn’t be confused with a PC/PS2/Whatever racing game. At no point do you desire a wheel to steer with. It’s pleasure is more in battling the other karts than in pure racing. This is because you could drive the perfect race, then get hit by one of those damn blue flying shells right at the finish line.

The fact is that Mario Kart is fun. It is so much fun that you just want to keep playing and playing and playing.

It’s not surprising that it got 97.7% from gamerankings, it deserves every hundredth.

9.5/10

Tomorrow….San Andreas

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