My plan to arrive fashionably late at GameStation to avoid any queing failed as there was quite a big queue in front of me when I arrived there.

So back home for 40 minutes then a quick cycle back and I walked straight to the front. A minute later and the doors would have been locked.

So far I’m loving the console. It took about 4 minutes to set up and start playing. And only a couple of minutes to get online with it. The Wiimote wand is very responsive and ten pin bowling as real fun. More news later.

Christopher Scally is a Hove artist producing some fine fresh paintings. He has a new site to showcase his work called Rock Shake Ape. Please check out his wonderful illustrations on his new blog/online gallery.

Another friend with a new website is Tim Stannard. He now lives in Madrid and is an expert in La Primera, the top Spanish football league. He has been a football pundit for Spanish television and now writes on his own website La Liga Loca.

Today I checked out the Nintendo Wii Roadshow happening down at Churchill Square shopping centre. The installation looked great consisting of four demonstration sections each running different games. I’ve laid down a deposit for one of these the moment the release date was announced, being a new Nintendo convert, but this was my first look at the console in action.

My first impressions? Not good. I was told about the demo but the knowledgeable staff at GameStation on Western Road. They knew all the titles that would be available on the launch date and mentioned the possibility of a midnight opening - that would be my first ever. Ha! What a nerd. But spending 15 minutes with the Wii team took the wind out of my sails a little.

It wasn’t due to the hardware. This looked great and the remote control looked responsive, if a little difficult to master. The games on display looked fine, if not as detailed as it’s Xbox 360 rival, and all the passer-by players seemed to be having fun. Unfortunately a group of kids seemed to be hogging the controls so there was no go for me. I may try again tomorrow morning.

What was really disappointing was the staff running the setup. The first member I talked didn’t know the name of the game they were demonstrating, a kid standing next to me had to tell me. Another member of staff couldn’t tell me if the game they were demonstrating, Wii Sports, came bundled with the console, cue another kid telling me it does. One of the team was asleep! Ha! It did look like they were all out on the lash the night before. The other demonstrator seemed to be enjoying his Nintendo DS so much he just sat on the sofa playing it for the 10 minutes I was there. Now I know why sales teams have commission incentives.

All this means that passers by who could have been tempted to buy one for Christmas have probably decided not to. Without having a go with the controllers the Wii looked as standard as one of those 50-games-on-a-joystick you plug into your TV. And the staff, well the ones who were awake anyway, wouldn’t have been able to answer their questions anyway. But still I can’t wait till December the 8th. Just like Cartman in this clip from South Park.

Oh well. I didn’t win the award yesterday for Brighton & Hove’s best personal website or blog. Instead it went to Adactio. Which is a well coded and regularly updated website. Well done!

One thing I did notice was the number of extremely good looking websites being made in Brighton & Hove. There really is some first class design out there, so I’m glad my fledgling web design business has some really good graphic designers I can call upon if needed.

I also have tons of ideas for this site’s redesign. If I can just get the header image I’m after right I could get started on this puppy within a week or two. Keep you eyes peeled!

Yes! I’ve been announced as a finalist in the Brighton & Hove Web Awards after all. Whoever said that a childish rant wont get you anywhere was wrong. Actually, there was a small administrative error meaning that the wrong name was entered, the US A List Apart site, and mine has been put in instead.

So that leaves all my readers here no choice but to VOTE FOR ME!!! So please click the image below to register your vote, thanks!

Yes, this year I’ve failed to make the last five in the Brighton & Hove Web Awards in the Best Personal Sites and Blogs category, sob! So I’ll take my rage and criticise the five finalists. Bitter? Me?

1. Adactio. Very well designed site. The content may be a bit too tech-happy and personal for my liking but for a look at the mind of someone who eats, sleeps and farts web design it’s very good.

2. Andy Budd. Just like Adactio the design is very nice. Unfortunately the content is a bit sparse. There’s a total of 6 posts in October and two of them were about booking train tickets. I now see where my site is going wrong.

3. A List Apart. This is the best of the bunch. I’m always using this site to read articles on CSS standards and cross-browser compatibility. The articles are informative, well written and cover a whole range of web design subjects. The only thing I can’t work out is why a New York based website is up for the Brighton & Hove Awards.

4. Brighton & Hove Councillors. No, this site isn’t for people needing to talk through their mental issues with somebody who will listen. It’s those other types of councillors, the local do-good political wannabes. And I’m very impressed. It works well with clear and direct links to the councillors blogs, all of which are regularly updated with interesting local issues. A brilliant idea which has been well designed and coded.

5. Clagnut. Not as funny as it’s name suggests. This has only four posts from the month of October so I wouldn’t go checking the site that often. Oh and the blogger is a web designer who, like the Adactio and Andy Budd site bloggers, has also written books on web standards. Hmm, I’m noticing a trend of selecting the Brighton web design mafia in this award every year!

So there you have it. See what I’m up against? Three of Brighton’s uber-elite web design cartel, councillors and a big American web site. My vote will be for A List Apart and I hope you vote for the same.

I do see where I have to improve though. All those sites have some great coding standards. This site’s coding standards are appalling but it was my first site ever and I was getting to grips with Word Press and a liquid content area which wasn’t that easy. It’ll get a redesign soon and then I’ll show them. Yes I will!

Well I decide to see how easy it was to take some video and put it on YouTube. The answer is extremely easy. I took this using my Nokia N90 phone and then just moved the file to my PC, registered with YouTube and then uploaded the file. And here it is, 2 minutes of Hove beach huts:

Edit: I managed to break YouTube with my last video so I’ve had to upload it again. This time I think it’s working. So much for simplicity!

I’m looking forward to the i-360 if it ever gets built. Standing at the top of Sussex Heights, which I believe at 25 floors is the tallest building in England south of the Thames, you get an amazing view of Brighton, Hove and the surrounding areas. You get a sense that this town isn’t just a glorified seaside resort but something more. Here’s some computer imagery of the i-360 in situ: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/videos/index.var.738.0.0.php

Looking towards the coast from Hollingbury Hill Sussex Heights sticks out above the city yet the i-360 will be even taller than the hill itself. I’ll have to get over my medium-level fear of heights before I’ll go up in it though. And I wont be going on a windy day, thats for sure.

Brighton has a long history of weird and wonderful architecture that’s different from the norm. This is why I support the building of the Frank Gehry buildings at the site of the King Alfred. I also quite like this new design for Medina House just 100 metres towards Brighton - full story at The Argus:

As long as we still get these views I think we should build every weird and wonderful design that comes along. This is Brighton not Eastbourne.

Well I was very embarrassed when my card got declined at the Hedonizm Record Sale yesterday. Luckily I dusted off my old Credit Card and remembered the PIN number first time. The same thing happenend to me in the Windmill pub which is when I started to think that something was wrong with my account. A quick check online when I got home and a call this morning showed that my account was fine and that there had indeed been a problem with HSBC’s Switch/Maestro system.

You would have thought that the fact that over 3 million people couldn’t use their cards on Sunday would have made national news but the most I’ve heard of it is from this article at The Register. It seems that HSBC ATM’s were swallowing all sorts of cards too. UK Businesses could have lost millions of pounds but you won’t hear much talk of it at the www.ft.com.

I did buy some classic tracks from the house music sale. Lion Rock’s first 12″, Leftfield’s Song Of Life - Underworld mixes, The Moody Boy’s King Of The Funky Zulus, Outrage - That Piano Track on Junior Boy’s Own, Mickey Finn’s She’s Breaking Up on Fokus Recordings and some Touche 12″s.

The people who run Brighton’s best House Music store are having a huge sale this Sunday. If you’re anywhere near the North Laines then please check it out.

You could even take the rain from London which only takes two minutes as can be seen in this video.