Does this affect the Top Gear series at all? We all know who he is. It all seems to lose its humour…

Well I guess it’s the end of an era. I only hope that it all blows over for poor old Ben.

There’s a really good article about the whole “Who is the Stig?” thing at BBC News and wikipedia has been updated with the Stig news too.

Comments etc.

It’s hard to move away from Mazda once you’ve had a Mazda. The 6 series gives the most fantastic drive and even for an estate, the car is pretty fun. It’s got a bit of edge that I really admire. So I thought I’d stick with Mazda, at least this time round.

I’ve been reading up a lot about various different cars and judging how much money I had to spend on my latest fix and came to the conclusion that the Mazda 6 MPS was the best way to go.

I did a search on autotrader.co.uk and found about 8 Mazda 6 MPS on sale, 3 of which were worth looking at. After sending a few emails off, I managed to book a test drive in Ashford, Kent (about a 2 hour drive from where I live) for the following Saturday. Friday approached. I was on edge the whole evening just bursting at the seams with excitement, I knew I was going to be buying it. I Randomly went to check my emails only to find that the car had been sold and would be out of the garage on Saturday… Bugger.

Since that day, all of the Mazda 6 MPS of worth are gone. I’m struggling to pick one up in black and with a Mazda warranty attached.

So there you have it, Mazda 6 MPS is a bloody hard car to get your hands on but when I do possess its power, I will reign hell upon the earth.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Enough to be ridiculously excited about the release of Gran Turismo 5.

Gran Turismo UK Release date is confirmed: 2nd November 2010.

Here’s the official E3 2010 trailer to get you as excited as I am:

Compliments to IGNentertainment

What’s this? Payment declined?

Apparently Abbey don’t like their customers spending over £1000 at any one time so they lock the account… I’m a thief!

Ok fair enough, a little protection on my debit card is probably a good thing, so I decided to ring up Santander, get the card unlocked and proceed with my holiday payment. No big deal!

I dialed the phone number and was greeted by the most amazingly fucking annoying music I have ever heard, like some epic adventure of banking grief. This women is telling me every 30 seconds “we’re very sorry to keep you waiting but we aren’t working hard enough to answer your call because we suck more than a Dyson”.

25 fucking minutes later I cancel the call and re-dial; more enraged than a pot of Naga Chilli.

“The custom service is currently closed, please select from the following options”

Ok, so the custom service counter is closed yet I can choose from options and wait in an infinite loop for noone to fucking answer.

*claps hands*.

Cheers Santander. Thanks for the great holiday you piece of shit.

A little birdie told me that Mafia 2 was available for download on Steam.

“Vito has started to make a name for himself on the streets of Empire Bay, someone who can be trusted to get a job done. In this hot leaded playable demo, you and Joe get one of your first serious assignments, to deal with a chump that isn’t playing ball the way the Mob likes it.”

So go download the demo here and tell me what you think of it by posting a comment below!

It looks freaking awesome! I can’t wait…

If you were interested in my “Diabetics have to queue in Chessington” post, then please join the crazy discussions that are going on at diabetes.co.uk

Please share your opinion on the subject as it’s bugging me to death!

My comments are submitted as “jimmyt1988″ so please share your views here… or there!

Really hope you enjoy your day.

James Trusler

• FT FacePress II
• Post To Twitter

They are great and the Twitter plugin pretty much works straight off. It allows your posts, when published/updated, to automatically be added into Twitter. Unfortunately, FT FacePress II was not such a chalmer.

The problem was that One.com limit PHP mailer emails to 20 per day, and so I was cursing and blinding for about an hour before realising why the plugin did not work. So here’s the work around:

1. Create an email address with your host and call it something like out@domain.com
2. Download the Plugin: FT FacePress II
3. Edit the plugin and replace the following code:

if (!function_exists("ft_publish_status")) {
 function ft_publish_status($emailAddr, $status) { 

 $message = '-';
 $headers = 'From: '. get_bloginfo('admin_email') . "\r\n" .
 'Reply-To: '. get_bloginfo('admin_email') . "\r\n" .
 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
 wp_mail($emailAddr, $status, $message, $headers);

 if (is_wp_error($result)) {
 return $result->get_error_message();
 } else if (isset($result["response"]["code"])) {
 return $result["response"]["code"];
 } else {
 return false;    }
 }
}

with:

if (!function_exists("ft_publish_status")) {
 function ft_publish_status($emailAddr, $status) { 

 $message = '-';
 $headers = 'From: out@yourdomain.com' . "\r\n" .
 'Reply-To: '. get_bloginfo('admin_email') . "\r\n" .
 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
 wp_mail($emailAddr, $status, $message, $headers);

 if (is_wp_error($result)) {
 return $result->get_error_message();
 } else if (isset($result["response"]["code"])) {
 return $result["response"]["code"];
 } else {
 return false;    }
 }
}

And there we have it. You can now send as many freaking status updates as your host allows.

Enjoy success

Do they fear the world they enter as I pull them in?

I just found out there will be a Tekken vs Street Fighter game. W00t!

As If I wasn’t already excited enough about The old Republic for PC,  Street Fighter and Tekken 6 for the PS3. This is going to be amazing…

I thought the best way to hype you all for this pretty gnarly news was to post a few links to some forums and vids that share the same enthusiasm as me for this revolution!

Compliments to Machinimarespawn’s

Compliments to RajmanGamingHD

And a few forums that got me excited:

• WR Forums – Tekken vs Street Fighter
• Gamespot – Playstation Forum
• PS3 attitude – Tekken Vs Street Fighter
• Vortez – Street Fighter Vs Tekken

Here’s some news that will get your blood boiling and your sugar levels low.

I decided to go to Chessington World of Adventures to have a ruddy good time and as usual, I went directly to the medical hut to sort out my disability bands for my diabetes; they allow me to go to the front of queues due to the risk of getting low blood sugars whilst waiting.

I was greeted by a disabled man (not sure what he had) and I explained my situation of being diabetic, handed him a note from the doctor clearly stating that it is a risk for me to wait in the queues and listened intently to what he had to say:

CWA Staff: “Is that the only disability you have?”

ME: “erm, yes, it IS the disability I have”

CWA Staff: “Well we only hand out the bands to people who find it difficult to wait in queues”

I was stunned. I simply said ok and left the hut. The story doesn’t get much better than this. Luckily I went back in with some guts and explained:

ME: “How is this acceptable? I pay £36 to enter Chessington to have a good time, not to constantly worry about my blood sugars. When I wait in a queue, my blood sugar levels lower; especially in the sun. I get to the ride and ignore my symptoms because I am excited about getting on and then have a hypo whilst on it.”

CWA Staff: “Well we will give you the band this time, but next time you need to bring a letter stating it’s difficult for you to wait in a queue”

Well hangon… Didn’t I just tell you it’s difficult you fool, and read the damn letter too, it explains it.

So anyway, I got the band but what a total waste of my time.

I guess what I want to try and say is that Chessington World of Adventurers is way off the mark when it comes to defining what a disability is.

Grr, James