owenSoft.net

Tastee Couple Up (Food and Eats)

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 11:12:10 +0000

Cross Roads. Sept 2023

Alan Wake on Xbox 360 Review (Video Games)

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 15:50:59 +0000

After finishing up Thief I popped in Alan Wake thinking that it was a quick old game but the title screen said 2010. First impression the game feels very scripted. Like a simpler version of uncharted. Lots of single use, scripted set pieces and audio narration telling you to move on and stop wasting time looking for stuff in the corners. I feel like I might not be finishing this game. Hopefully it opens up at some point before I get bored with the whole thing.

I am not sure if this is a game or a tv show. Alan wake likes to narrate to himself - alot. He narrates for things that seem obvious, "show dont tell" is what they always say. The narration and voice acting - very excellent - makes be want to avoid doing what I am told but in most cases so far the space is empty with nothing else to do but that which is laid out before you. So I guess you are stuck in a tv show, not much I can do but play along. Definitely a one time play through or a watch on youtube kinda game.

So far the shooting feels good except I keep running out of ammo and I can only carry so much. This is definitely going to be a problem as the game gets tougher. Not every game that is highly rated on the internet is actually good. Sometimes it is just hype and fanboy-ism. But I will play it a bit more before I give up.

Conclusion

Its a good game. 7/10. I will certainly never play it again. There are some sections of the late game that are insufferable to play through. Also other sections where you ask yourself "wtf just wait until daytime!". Silent hill with guns in a forest. There are collectables you can search for in the levels.

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Portmore Fontana, Pricemart (Street Photography)

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:00:44 +0000

Driving round town. shopping for stuff. November 2023

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Sovereign Village, Portmore (Street Photography)

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 07:37:23 +0000

Dec 2023

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Police (And the Sign Says..)

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 11:24:02 +0000

Downtown, Dec 2023

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Downtown, Dec 2023 (The shadow project)

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 11:21:13 +0000

Downtown, Dec 2023

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Mass Effect 3 for Xbox 360 review (Video Games)

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 10:31:32 +0000

This being my first Mass effect game I may be coming in to the franchise very late but this story feels like the Halo live action - you go somewhere to get something because of something else. As per usual I am playing on casual/easy mode because I do not see much use in making choices after every convo. Tell me a story and leave me alone. I also turned on auto upgrades once I saw the layout of the skill tree. It is nice to have these options in a video game; It stream lines the experience and removes pointless menu clicking that I experienced in Dead Island.

Lots of talking and story building in this game. The mechanics are simple except for throwing grenades/power but they do not matter much just shoot the baddies. I am on the ship now, we will see where this goes.

For this session I spent some time walking around the ship talking to the NPCs that I could find. Eventually I had to leave the galaxy to get the story going again. The ship is not as fleshed out. It has alot of rooms but the rooms are empty. DeusExHR has more feel to its rooms.

Whenever I go back to a central hub or my ship I literally have to run around the place talking to everyone. So much talking in this game and very little shooting. At least it lets me keep track of the story but I have not found the ability to love anyone yet. Aint no love in this game, only war.

I am getting to visit more interesting planets. Some are only for a little shooting but I do find it fun to do all these side quests.

Conclusion

Space opera with a few shoot-e bits. 6/10. You spend alot of time watching other people talk. I am not sure if I am enjoying it or just patiently waiting for it to end. The little planets your visit are fun and interesting, some more than others.

Strategy

Play on casual and turn off dialog choices. I spend alot of time running around the Citadel talking to everyone just to complete some conversations. Most of it is pointless but some areas are interesting to interact with. Basically after every vision I talk to everyone on the ship to check if they have any new quests - same thing with the citadel. Its annoying but its my base strat.

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PGR4 is a retro dream (Video Games)

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 08:56:33 +0000

Its like HD PS2 vibes. I was not going to buy another racing game for the xbox360 but Project Gotham Racing 4 kept popping up on the internet forums so I took a chance on it. Plus it was cheap ( free $4.99 + tarrifs). I am gonna do a full review of it late but here are some screenshots for now. Oh and this is the first game that allowed me to takes ingame screenshots! These blog posts would be so much more fun if all the games on the console allowed me to capture screen shots but alas retro struggle.

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Juici Patties, Dec 2023 (On the menu)

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 08:02:03 +0000

Mandeville

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By the water (Gallery Wall)

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:30:48 +0000

Dec 2023

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Downtown, Waterfront, Kingston (The Jamaica photo project)

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:50:54 +0000

December 2023

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NFS Rivals for Xbox 360 Review (Video Games)

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:43:05 +0000

It seems to be a thing with these EA games with soundtracks where they tie the SFX and in game Voices are on the same audio control. So if you turn down the SFX you cannot hear the tutorial. The tutorial and the story doesnt matter either way just do the objective. The game looks good, kinda funky handling on the turns. It keeps pushing online features, and minor objectives or other connected features that pull me out of the game. I swear all these EA games are the same and I cannot even get to enjoy the licensed music without interruption.

I already feel a dread coming over me even at this early stage of starting the game. It forces you to install it to the harddrive. I will drive around in the open world a bit to see what fun there is but I am already getting that Skate 3 vibes of pointless open world bloat. The game does feel alittle like Burnout Paradise but not as fun.

In my second play session I managed to figure out the map situation and buy some "pursuit tech" which makes it easier to catch racers as a cop. Using the map to spawn at different command posts makes it easier to see different sections of the map.

The more I play the more I am enjoying the graphics - its a pretty game in some spots. The objectives are busy work but at least I get to drive around the map while listening to the music. I decided to turn the sfx all the way down because the story narration is not really worth the annoyance. So far I have been playing as a cop and doing the point to point missions - forgot what they where called in the game. An annoying aspect of the open world is that you can be cruising around minding you own business and accidentally bum a racer and the game goes in to chase pursuit mode which changes your music a standard dramatic soundtrack that you have heard a million times before.

Conclusion

I give it a 6/10, triple A slop. This is another of those games where you either like driving around an open world, doing activities or you dont. The game did grow on me.
Everything is slick polished, a hard drive is required to play the game and this game disk makes the xbox 360 sound like a jet engine - Its spinning faster than ever! So make sure to install all your xbox 360 games! It got good fun out of it after about 8 hours of learning the mechanics.

Play Strategy

Play the hot pursuit races, select it right from the world map. I do the same race over and over because it is the easiest way catch racers as the police. You can catch 4 racers per run without needing to search the over world. Make sure you equip "race tech" to help your quickly take down the other cars. Tech that shoots ahead of you is most effective because you will spend most of your time behind the cars you are chasing.

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Long summer (The shadow project)

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 07:31:09 +0000

Cross Roads, Kingston, November 2023. Sun hot.

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YengYeng (The wheels project)

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 07:17:09 +0000

October2023

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Reds Cycle (And the Sign Says..)

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 06:45:38 +0000

Jakes, August 2023

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Salt Water pool (And the Sign Says..)

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 06:43:31 +0000

Jakes 2023

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Buying Xbox 360 games - Round 4 - June 2025 (Video Games)

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 19:43:15 +0000

There were some gaps that I wanted to fill in my xbox360 collection. One game that kept popping up was metal gear rising but it was always sold out on thevideogamecompany website. I also wanted some replacement cases because I bought Skate 3 on amazon (terrible mistake) which arrived loose in a dvd case. Skate 3 is also a clunky game. So I bought 4+1 xbox 360 replacement cases to swap out some of my previous amazon purchases. This time around I am trying to keep my purchases below $100.

The other games are gap fillers. Some of them are worse sequels but I choose to always buy the latest game in a series. I have also started to buying loose games which are cheaper and easier to store than CIB(complete in box) games. Mafia 2 and Alan Wake pops up in discussions and lists on the internet very often. Rayman Legends is a classic 2d, it might be 4 player - I should have at least one co-op multiplayer game.

The list

Dead Space 3 - $14.99 USD
Metal Gear Rising: Re-vengeance - $25.99 USD
Dead Island Riptide - $8.99 USD
Lost Planet 2 (loose) - $0.00 USD
Alan Wake (loose) - $7.99 USD
Bayonetta - $9.99 USD
Mafia II - $11.99 USD
Rayman Legends - $10.99 USD
Replacement Game Case for 360 x 5 - $11.96 USD

Subtotal $102.89 USD
Shipping $34.00 USD

Amazon Purchases

As I mentioned I bought skate 3 hoping that it would be good but it was not. I bought 128gb flash drives for use as additional storage in the 360. The drives had to be as small as possible to fit into the back of the console. I also got inline power switchs so I can switch off the power brick without unplugging it from the wall.

Skate 3 - $10.98 USD
128 gb USB flash drive x 2 - $22 USD
Power Cord Switch x 2 - $26 USD
Game Case Storage Bag for 360 cases x 3 - $60 USD

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New Kingston, September 2023 (Street Photography)

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 09:40:16 +0000

Cant park there sir.

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Post Hurricane (Blog Jamaica)

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 10:45:09 +0000

Of course I am posting content from pre-hurricane Melissa. For up to date info see website; supportjamaica.gov.jm/

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Earthquake, Oct 2023 (Office Space)

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 22:47:34 +0000

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Cross Roads, Sep 2023 (Street Photography)

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 09:56:22 +0000

No description

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Downtown, Kingston. (Street Photography)

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 09:02:47 +0000

Sept 2023

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The problems with Ai that no one talks about (Articles)

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 08:49:35 +0000

I avoided writing anything on AI 2025 while the hype train was still hot. I figure that no one lives forever and I might as well drop something before the bubble burst. So I might as well write some notes. I am gonna keep this simple with a list of hurdles;

Poisoning and Dogfooding

You will dump a bunch of data into your Ai model, do lots of testing then compile what you think is a stable model. There is this point before and after the model is released. Before release the input data is pure. After the release your model starts polluting the environment from which the data originates. This is a feed back loop which will make it harder and harder to deduce what is original data as opposed to data created by the Ai. Poisoning your own well. Each rebuild there-after of the Ai model has the potential to run the ship into the dock. The summary becomes the detail. Everything looks like a hammer because you are living in a hammer factory.

Changing anything, breaks everything

Ai could end up in a situation where slight changes can break whole sections of logic. Like flying through space where moving a finger throws off your trajectory by 10 years. The more data you ingest, the higher the chance that some of that data might generate a bad model. The more users you have the faster these issues will bubble to the top of the pile. In the best scenario; one could simply block all the edge cases but eventually you will end up boxing yourself into a corner where every move is fatal. Check mate.

The power consumption

Ai is using alot of electricity to build a huge data cache/index. That "thing" - in my mind - is basically pattern matching search. This power usage is only going up. At some point we will need human batteries and even then there will still not be enough power to produce the model. Also note that this power is not insignificant - it is a lot of power - we know this power curve like we know light speed. It limits who can create and use "Ai". Most companies are using someone else's cloud services and/or data. Ai cant exist without the power draw. Everyone else is pure talk and subscriptions. SAAS.

Glorified Search

From what I have noticed use cases around Ai nowadays is "search". Fancy search but still search. Search is essentially the ability to find something, but with computers you can find it super quickly. Ai lets you find stuff really, really quickly with some extra fluff around it. This extra fluff is nice but the fluff is just that; fluff. I swear most answers I see in Ai web search are reddit/stackoverflow posts. Funneling people into a easy "catch all" solution is a kind of "web search your way to success" - yes you get your answer quickly but you lose all the other benefits that surround the act of "looking for something". This is coming from someone who used an encyclopedia Britannica for research in high school. Fun times.

Ai has no context of time and space

A trend on modern websites is to not put dates on their content because they want the content to stay "ever green". Added to that social media does not want you to stop scrolling because it wants your attention. These things combined are worse with Ai because responses have no concept of the time that has passed between when the data was collected and when it is output. So Ai produces this lovely data but it might be wrong in the past, present or the future. Bits of the data might be from 10 years ago or 5 minutes ago. Lets not even mention censorship and blocking information. ignorance is bliss.

Ai is Blackbox Tech

This is one of those things which layman like to talk about because they have no idea what it is. The more ambiguous the subject - the easier it is to speculate and market it. A plane crashes in the desert and the report says it was caused by pilot error. I have never seen the inside of a airplane blackbox, is it full of mp3 files? video? graphs? little text logs with telemetry?

We kind of imagine what is inside but no one really knows except the few people who can view the curve of the planet from space. All this enables layman to talk about Ai in "suppositions", acting as if something is inevitable based on something else then applying it to everything. Hammer theory - the over reliance on a familiar tool, but in this case Ai hype is Chinese telephone: someone telling someone else's lie. "Ai is where everything is going" and other folk tales. All this while secretly hoping that no one tests their assumptions. What matters is the fire or the ash that remains?

Ai creates nothing new

Besides creepy Ai slop videos and slop art, most Ai content creates is mostly remixing. Everything is a remix. At some point we will hope that the remixes will get better but the most popular Ai slop can almost instantly be followed back to the source(s). Ai isn't helping anybody outside of the internet. And people on the internet tend to only talk about things in terms of internet physics - they stay far away from real work problems and effects. At some point the internet became 100% marketing and having something to market became more important than life itself.

Conclusion

There is alot of investor capital inflating this tech bubble. Ai like every other buzzword pie kite is heading into space. One thing for sure Ai will not solve world hunger, make flying cars or free Palestine. If you are doing neither of those things you are just marketing. What matters.

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What matters (Logbook)

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 08:38:32 +0000

At some point between your opinion and my opinion there is some form of reality. Some sort of shared content that is both years and mine. The internet would appear to be a confusing muddy place in some aspects. In other aspects it is the future. In most cases it is nothing but a shadows of the physics that rules us all.

More and more it seems that most people do not care or know anything about anything. They simply exist to follow the breadcrumbs of a 50 episode soap opera until they inevitably die of old age and dementia. Somewhere between opinions there is a modicum of truth. That truth is hidden so that people never come to any kind of agreement. Eventually everything runs its course. God and time.

The past is a part of who you are. Its a waste of time to constant wish to be back in the past while ignoring the present. As a being you have to be somewhere in some space and time. That place is the place where you are. All your hopes and dreams and memories are elsewhere or in your head. The best thing you can do is be where you are and angle your sails in a direction. What will be will be. The past is complete.

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Watch Dogs for Xbox 360 Review (Video Games)

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 08:59:00 +0000

I finally popped this in and was instantly hit by the clean UI and colour scheme. I love lines and wireframes. Most of it seems to be video running in the background but it looks slick none the less. The game itself is pretty clean although I did spot skill tree systens which I find super annoying. Classic Ubisoft trash. I dislike over complicated skills that block you from unlocking things until you complete specific branches. Why not allow me to get the things I actually want instead of walking through pointless upgrades. Might as well just auto upgrade me instead of make me interact with a fixed tree.

The interiors look good. The game UI takes a bit getting accustomed (press/long press) but it all runs slick and colorful. Driving in the city is sluggish like its 30fps. This is the best UI I have seen in a 360 game so far.

In this play session I finally got let lose on the open world and I dicked around for like 3 hours doing side missions and running around. Its fun. The police are really annoying to shake off. Even more annoying than in GTA. I really should head to the main story mission but this world is sucking me in.

I met some guy selling drugs which turned out to be minigames which I played for a bit. The first mini-game I chose over stayed its welcome - its the one with where you bounce on the flowers. I played a couple rounds of this then ducked out for the night.

In this session I finally made it to the next story session. It seems that every time you get into a car they give you a random side mission and I say to myself; "hey why not" which causes me to never reach the mission. I eventually get to the main mission after running from the cops for like an hour. The world is fun to mess around in and the controls are simple. I did find another mini-game called spider tank - its like the best the thing ever. Why isnt there a whole game based on this spider tank minigame?

I am not sure how many hours I am into the game but I am loving this game - all the hate about the graphics is just a distraction from a competent GTA+Assassins Creed mashup. It is kinda the same ubisoft stuff with a mix of Assassin's Creed Parkour but one you get the controls its fun to run around and listen to music on your walkman. This game is going to be in my rotation for a while so I will end the review here.

Conclusion

The game is fun. The game got alot of hate back in the day for the downgraded graphics but in 2025 this is retro. Sometimes its 30fps most times its 25 but as long as I am having fun it doesnt really matter. There is alot to do and lots of random ways to do it. 8/10. Open world fun. Time suck but fun.

Strategy

I mostly just runaway from everything. Use the cameras to bounce from building to building like spiderman.

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