I really have no fucking idea what time it is, I've just flown back from Cork after flying out friday the day after getting back from the US.

Anyway I had a good time over in Ireland with my sister, I now have Monday off to recover then it's back to the grindstone.

In the mean time I've played a little of "The Darkness" on the PS3 (which thankfully does seem to be region free for games) seems pretty good so far the stealth creeping dark tentacle thing had a tendency to get stuck on bodies, it also seems to lack any sort of hud which means I'm never sure how much darkness juice I have. Maybe it's covered in the manual but naturally I haven't read it, most games teach you how to play them with inevitable tutorial mission so I rarely bother with manuals, it's also a sign of weakness.

I saw a few films on the way back, the excellent hot fuzz, the odd meet the robinsons, and the very peculiar and stamping on my treasured childhood memories Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles / TMNT which seemed to have Sarah Michelle Gellar as the voice of April and Patrick Stewart as some bloke. I think that was all, I did try my best to get some sleep and failed miserably mainly due to the bloke next to me constantly elbowing me in the ribs.

Hopefully I can now spend a few weeks without having to get on a jet so I can recover a bit, maybe see some films on something other than the back of a seat.

So I fly back home later today, I had to move hotels for the last night. This place is a little rough around the edges, they lock the front doors in the evening, I'm not sure if that's to keep people out or the guests in.

I'm using wifi at the moment, this laptop was without wireless despite the labels on the box so I went and got a usb dongle for a few bucks. Unfortunately this laptop has no CD drive either and naturally it didn't just work. Eventually I managed to use my PSP to download the drivers to it's memory stick so I could then use the dongle. Next time they send me off half way round the world I will want a better laptop this thing is a joke. I think my old pre MMX 166 pentium laptop is more featured and more powerful.

Anyway, I managed to get in trouble with the admin people at home, because the date I was travelling back changed rapidly from Tuesday to Wednesday someone (my boss) forgot to update them and they didn't read the email I sent with the new itinerary. So they had to pay for a car that was booked for the wrong day. Not quite sure why I have to be the one to sort all these bloody things out, I think it might just be because my boss can't be arsed.

I've got a bit more work to do then a load of bouncing around in a tin can, I get home have a nights rest and then fly off to Cork to see my sister, so it's all go.

At some point maybe we'll get some films in but at the moment it's just mad hecticness, I think for both of us. Well better be off I have a conference call where hopefully it will be 'job well done' as a posed to 'it still doesn't work! stay another week!' fingers crossed.

I went to see Michael Bay's Transformers a bit earlier. It was a good deal more comical in parts than I was expecting but reasonably good fun.

I know a lot of the fans are up in arms about it but the only bit I had real issue with was the use of the beagle 2 lander as a plot device. Where it was referred to as "The lost nasa beagle 2 rover" before showing stock footage of what looks like sojourner, only the first part is accurate it was not NASA and it wasn't even really a rover. I'm sure Colin Pillinger is spinning in his grave at the description of it as a NASA space craft, well he would be if he were dead. Bloody Americans stealing our damn science initiatives away from us, even the ones that fucking failed, bastards.

I've only been to an American cinema maybe twice but I always find it odd that everyone claps at the end. WHY! The people on the screen cannot hear you you dumb fucks! In the UK the only time I've seen that sort of thing happen is with old people who very occasionally do it but even then it's not a stirring round of applause, or even in some cases a standing ovation, more a brief clapping.

Anyway, other than that it was a fun film with some nice special effects and action sequences. It cheered me up a bit, I just spent all weekend working to find out I have to stay at least another day. Which I wouldn't mind but I have plans to go see my sister on the weekend and I rather not either be too jet lagged to enjoy it or if I'm delayed yet further loose close to 300 quids worth of plane tickets and parking arrangements.

I cannot believe some of the adverts I'm seeing in the states. I saw this thing which seemed to be one of these scams where you send off cash to some "millionaire business genius" who then tells you how to make easy millions on the internet.

I've seen this sort of thing in the UK before and while it may make millions it's usually only for the guy who invented it. This was so blatant I was shocked, it had two lovely young women who essentially had their breasts on display talking about how much money "they" had made on this get rich quick scheme, using their charms to try to entice the idiot viewer to send their cash to some scam merchant. I'm sure these two actresses were getting more than adequately compensated, so they didn't give a shit, all they then needed was a bunch of "success" stories of average joe Americans to sell it, and a paid for "expert" to endorse the thing.

Even taking into account the gullibility of people after the easy money, but I can't imagine how anyone looking at that could be taken in by the thing.

To be honest when I saw these two well endowed women in skimpy tops, leaning far forward arching their backs to present as much cleavage as possible to the camera, talking about how much money they had been able to make setting up websites and how little effort it was, my mind was going in a whole different direction to home and garden eshops.

Once again I find myself adrift in the desolate shores of southern California.

I'm out in the US on business again I was actually here for the for the fourth of July, an odd experience for any Englishman much like visiting some of the east coasts revolutionary historic sites. You get the odd feeling that if you were to open your mouth and be identified as English you would be branded a red coat and promptly lynched. In this case I was just off the plane after having to get up at 5am, then having my flight delayed by an hour, 11 hours in the air, and then an hour and a half in customs, so I crashed long before it was dark enough for fireworks.

They seem to have upgraded the plane since the last trip I took, with an on demand video system, as opposed to 4 vhs machines running on a loop. It must have been fairly recent as it didn't yet work, you select the film you wanted it would then pause for a bit showing your choice of black or green screen then bomb out back to the menu. In the end after much persuasion I managed to watch Armageddon, men in black, harry potter 1, and got most of the way through lethal weapon before we started to land.

This time I'm in a better hotel one with facilities, within walking distance of several restaurants, and 4 different types of sub sandwich shops only one of which we have in the UK (subway, which I'm informed by my native guide is regarded as the Starbucks of sandwich shops).

I've managed a new low though as I'm going to be working over the weekend in my hotel room, there is a cinema nearby so I might go and see a movie just to break up the monotony of coding and bug fixing. I would have quite liked to see Michael Moores new film Sicko but it doesn't appear to be running here.

Now I have access to food I managed to make the same mistake I often make when visiting the US. Unless you have been starving for over 3 days or have a desire to commit suicide by internal rupture, never order more than a main course. Even then a starter is probably overkill.

I picked up a copy of 'the darkness' for ps3 which I'm reliably informed will work on my UK ps3, I'll be miffed if it doesn't. I had ordered the UK version which looked good. I'm a fan of Starbreeze studio's work on the excellent chronicles of ridick game (the only movie licence that has ever been worth playing) and I have read some of and been intrigued by the comics, but for some reason the ps3 version was delayed in Europe till the end of this month.

So I grabbed a copy here where my English money goes further and my English accent confuses the attractive female sales staff who when I said "Right" thought I said "does it have scratches on it" not sure how she got from one to the other but there you go.