...and it is there, only there that you shall find the master

It really doesn’t matter how long I’ve trained for, I permanently feel like I’m only just getting to grips with a lot of things.  Last week we worked one of my favourite combinations;  san dan tollyo chagi > san dan dwi huri chagi (high section roundhouse to high section spin hook kick), and doing that against a slap paddle is enormously satisfying when you feel the heel whip through. Right-sided was fine, I’m quite obtuse in as much as I prefer left footed spin hooks, which is unusual for a righty. Left side though was a nightmare, the roundhouse coming out 6 inches lower than they should with enormous tight pain across the front of my pelvis. Something’s not right here I thought, and over the course of the next few kicks I started trying to analyse what I was doing wrong.

I’ve always trained for myself, to make myself better. Being a big guy I was never in any illusion of being 6 feet in the air with a perfect box splits kick, or side kicking vertically, so right from the off I’ve never been too… competitive. I’m naturally a very competitive person, and it’s not a trait I’m always very proud of, but I temper it back significantly during training. I think it can be good in a way, but only when it’s either asked of us (endurance and speed exercises), or when you’re competing against yourself. Some people seem to try to compete at just about everything, and the times when I see it most I notice how detrimental it is to progression. It’s not even when you might expect it, like sparring for example (where it obviously does belong to an extent), but something as silly as stretching. I’ve seen people trying to be the furthest turning during spinal stretches, the longest in a splits stretch etc., but all of that negates the point of a good stretch.

I think the problem comes mostly with advancing rank when it does happen, which is ironic as we should be showing more kyum son (humilty) as we progress. It’s almost as if some feel the need to prove their rank, and more often than not it seems to lead to bad technique if nothing else. I’ve been guilty of it in the past I know, but I make a concerted effort to keep my head in the moment now.

The reason for my apparent tangent above is because the situation I found myself in on that Friday could well have led me to making my technique sloppy just to try and touch the target and avoid some pushups, and I hate it when hook kicks get sloppy, as they turn into ugly looking crescents. Instead I just made a concerted effort to look at what I was doing and see what I could do to fix it. In this case I was holding my hips back, under-rotating, and not leaning back on it far enough. I didn’t fix it, but I at least managed to get a few kicks out without hurting myself or looking like a praying mantis with an inner ear infection.

I still find it amazing that even now, over four-and-a-half years after I started learning, I still have to look at how I throw a roundhouse kick and make big changes. And it’s not just with roundhouses either, I could write a list of things which need improvement but I’d be here all day. If I could give anyone any advice to help them make the most of their training, it would be to swallow their pride and look at themselves, not the people around them. I’ve been training for such a short time relatively, so this will probably sound very up myself with an over-inflated sense of self-importance, and I feel a bit stupid writing it if I’m totally honest, but this is my place so there you go .

(and I managed to get a very tenuous link to The Last Dragon in there too!)

Technorati Tags Kyum Son, The Last Dragon, training

The first task was deciding what to learn to program in. In the past I’ve had a quite a bit of experience with various forms of BASIC (QBasic, Amos, ZX Basic, Blitzbasic etc.), a bit of Pascal (I sitll use pascal of a kind as the built in language with the database I use at work), and I even did a few evening courses in C++. However, there’s a lot of choice nowadays, and it’s been surprisingly hard work whittling it down. I was wavering between the likes of C++, C, C#, Java, Ruby and a few others, but in the end I’ve gone for Python. After a lot of reading it seems to be a very powerful, very adaptable language, and it’s already proving to be very easy to get into. How long that Honeymoon period lasts is another matter of course. The IDLE interface and built in editor are quite good, but I’m loving Komodo at the moment for authoring stuff, I love the way it illustrates loops for me.

I’ve stumbled across the very excellent-looking Pygame libraries and modules, so I hope to be learning to use those once I’ve got to grips with the basics. Basic logic is fine, I can handle that with no problems, my hurdles are going to come in the form of maths and physics. I have no idea what kind of game I want to cut my teeth on, but a simple platformer seems my best bet at the moment. I’ve found some great collision detection tutorials and references, and I even spent an hour reading up on A* pathfinding (that’s an interesting read in its own right, even if you aren’t going to program a thing).

I expect I’ll pop the results of my work on here, the growing expectancy from you lot (yeah, right) will force me to keep my hand in and keep working on it. More as and when it comes, and only if I don’t deem it coma-inducingly dull.

(the post title is a reference to the first program you learn in just about any language, how to print “Hello World!”)

Technorati Tags hello world!, Programming, Python

Last weekend was the first Moo Do Summer Retreat for our club, which meant ~15 of us packed up and headed off onto Dartmoor for a few days to completely immerse ourselves in Tang Soo Do. We had a hostel to ourselves to cook and sleep, and a field about half a mile away for training, and we didn’t need any more. I couldn’t get the Friday off that I’d already booked (….not that I’m bitter), so my brother and I headed up on the Friday night. I was gutted to have missed the first day of training, but glad that I could be there for the other two.

A 4am wakeup call was harrowing after a couple of hours sleep, and that Saturday was a long one, but at the same time the various sessions went very quickly. Before I knew it 10 hours of training were over and it was back for a chilled out evening with a couple of barbecues. Sunday started with a more humane 7am alarm, but again was a very tiring day. I won’t go into all the details of what we did here, as the vast majority of people reading really won’t be interested, suffice to say I came back exhausted, blistered and very happy. The fact that people are already asking to be booked onto the 2011 camp is a sign that it went very well.

Because of being away all weekend, and then being so tired I could barely function for the next couple of days, I’ve not been out for a proper ride for a week now. I mean, I’ve ridden it training and to the shops, but that doesn’t really count. If the weather stays not-too-monsoony today I’ll try to get out for an hour tonight, but the impending apocalypse clouds out the window suggest otherwise. The cycling is really working my legs, and the weight is continuing to drop off which I’m very pleased about. It was one of the main reasons I bought a bike again, as I know how good the exercise is. Time will tell how far it’ll get me before I have to start putting some more serious miles in, although I hope being lighter by then will make it less arduous than it feels right now.

Things are going well all in all at the moment, a bit more summer sun would top it all off.

Technorati Tags bike, Moo Do, tang soo do, training

The biggest decision I had to make was what kind of bike I wanted to get; should I get a Mountain Bike (MTB), a straight out road bike or something else. Once I’d looked at what I actually wanted to do with it I went with the third option, which turned out to be a hybrid. Hybrids can be a real mixed bag (as the name probably suggests) and range from the not-very-different-to-a-mountain-bike-at-all to the almost-a-road-bike, and I went for the latter. What I wanted it for from the outset is a mixture of commuting and fitness, and definitely nothing off-road, so I knew suspension of any kind was unnecessary and would just be slowing me down and adding weight to it, so anything MTB-ish went out the window straight away. With the likelihood of going for bags or packs of some kind at some point any advantage gained speed-wise by going for a pure road bike would probably have been negated, and until I get my confidence back up in heavy traffic I’d prefer the upright seating position a flat bar would give me. So I narrowed it down to a few different choices, including a really nice Trek and the new Specialized Sirrus, but in the end it had to be this…

My shiny new best friend

It’s a Bianchi Cameleonte (Alu II) and I’m over the moon with it. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of what’s on it, but in a nutshell it’s got disc brakes which are really only just coming through on Hybrids, and much thinner tyres than many, much closer to Road wheels. In fact Bianchi refer to them as Sports rather than Hybrids, and they’re much closer to a road bike than many. For now I’m sticking with the toe clips which came with the pedals already fitted for me, just until I can afford to get a half-decent set of clip-ins and a pair of cleated shoes, it’ll give me a chance to get a bit more fitness and leg strength.

The first time out on the road on the evening I took it home was pretty wobbly. Once I thought back I realised I hadn’t really ridden a bike (not counting a ride on the Camel Trail a few years back) for about 15 years, so it’s no great surprise that I wasn’t completely comfortable with being sat up very high on a much lighter frame than I’d ever been on, looking down on wheels that seemed far too thin to be carrying me. For the first half-mile every bump had me thinking ‘crap I’m going to crash’, and I wasn’t having much joy with getting my other foot into its toe clip (which I figured out much later was because I hadn’t secured the buckle in the side of the pedal). Three or four miles on a quick loop around the block was all I needed to confirm to me that I really needed to get some miles under me and get comfortable in the saddle again. So, with best intentions (and after buying a bracket and recommended bottle) I got up extra early on Saturday morning with a route in mind and was on the road by 8am.

I took myself on some small roads out past the woods, down to the beach and then along the North cliffs road all the way down to a local viewing spot (and end-it-all jumping off point…) called Hell’s Mouth for a quick drink stop. After a few minutes enjoying the view and quietness of a Saturday morning on the cliffs, I hopped back on and took a different route back past the house my Granddad used to own. Unfortunately, I don’t go that way very often and I’d forgotten just how many hills there were on the way home! An hour after I set out I was home, thirteen miles under my belt and a lot of sweat lost – most of which seemed to have soaked into the chinstrap and padding in my helmet. I absolutely loved it, it was exhilarating whizzing down hills, albeit with a bit of trepidation as my brakes haven’t quite bedded in yet. I also need to get the front gear shifter looked at as it was reluctant to jump up to the biggest chainring unless I held it just past the clicking point. I get a free service at eight weeks from the shop though, which will give the cables plenty of time to find their length and settle in.

The view over Hell's Mouth on a sunny Saturday morning

Now all I have to do is keep going out, two or three times a week at least, until I get my stamina up where it needs to be. Ideally I’d love to be riding in to work in the mornings, which is thirteen miles each way, as it probably won’t take me much longer than it already does. I also need to plan out some routes for weekend rides, to get out and use some of the back roads and have a good look around the county. Great fun, although I’m not looking forward to making my first ‘I crashed’ post here .

Technorati Tags Bianchi, bike, Cameleonte, Cycling

The afternoon started with a big group warmup led by Master (Jan) De Vry which as well as being very hot, was hilarious. Master Kumar Jr took us through some basics which were far harder than they had to be. I don’t mean what he was asking us to do was difficult, because it wasn’t particularly, but the combination of the heat and my outrageously long dobok bottoms (I really must take them up!) made me give a much worse account of myself – and more annoyingly my club – than I’d have liked. But glancing around it was clear I wasn’t the only one struggling, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Later we split into smaller groups each with a couple of masters teaching, and I was with the very likable Master Mantle who took us through Jinto (one of the forms I’ll need at my next full grade) and my favourite form-I-won’t-need-for-a-long-time, Rohai. It was a really strange experience being taught by a different master, as everyone teaches differently, but it was valuable. Rohai especially; it’s not a form I actively practise, but I love the shape and movement in it. I cracked my knee on the floor far too hard with an over-enthusiastic ‘break’ punch halfway through, which still hurts if I kneel.

Later we all re-grouped and went through the second dan gum (dagger) form. I’d been through it a few times before with the people who went to the first seminar, but it was nice to have it drummed into my head with constant repetition for an hour or so. There were some finer details that I wasn’t sure about too which I’ve been able to clear up since which was good. The main problem with the day for me and many others wasn’t the heat directly (although it was really debilitating) but the kicking and turning on the wooden floor. I think a combination of the humidity and the wood meant that we ended up with a lot of blisters. Proper nasty, deep blisters. Most of them have healed now, but one tore open last weekend and now I have that super-soft baby skin on the bottom of my foot; I can’t see it being much fun to train on. The Masters ended the seminar by being taught the first new sword form introduced to the EMTF. It’s a very nice looking bit of very Korean sword, and I’m looking forward to learning it in the future. Our great hosts made sure we went away with full bellies as Master Kumar Snr’s wife prepared a great buffet with homemade samosas and pakoras – heaven!.

Skip forward a week, and it’s another weekend of Tang Soo Do. Saturday say my brother take his First Dan grading, and two others take their Senior First Dan tests in a scorchingly hot dojang back here in Cornwall. The heat was really oppressive, but everyone gave a great account of themselves despite it, I felt tired just helping out with the Ho Sin Sool, Il Soo Sik Dae Ryun and free sparring at the end – I can’t imagine how it felt for everyone else. The following day we all went down to the Falmouth dojang for the gup grading, which again was very hot, but a lot better thanks to the breeze. Again, everyone did very well, and at the end of another long day (which thankfully kept me from watching England’s dismal display in the World Cup) we had a quick lesson to brush up on some of the changes made to various bits and pieces we do. My blister tore open during one of the races we had at the end, but by then I didn’t even notice. A really good, if long, weekend which saw a lot of people take their next step on the ladder.

This weekend is free so far, so I’m planning a Saturday involving a long lazy barbecue in the afternoon followed by a trip to the Blue Bar in the evening for a pint on the beach watching the sun go down. I’d better make the most of it, it’s the club’s first annual summer retreat the next weekend, three days of 4:30 am starts and 12 hours a day training, eating and sleeping Tang Soo Do.

Awesome.

Technorati Tags Blue Bar, EMTF, tang soo do, training

Seven of us had a really nice flight out to Alicante from Newquay (after a few beers in the airport, and a few gins on the plane), and landed in Spain to the traditional Ryanair ‘fanfare’ which saw a slightly merry me cheer out loud. I’m surprised they didn’t charge us for hearing it actually, they charge for everything else… Anyway, after a quick beer in the airport we found the hire cars and made the 110KM journey up the Spanish coast to Javea, the town that was to be our home for the next seven days. The drive up was gorgeous, the motorway was empty and the scenery varied between beautiful coastline, mountains, gorgeous and the very alien Benidorm lit up like some kind of sci-fi moonbase from a ’50s comic book. The sat-nav guided us straight to the villa where we met up with the London contingent who got there earlier after flying into Valencia instead. There’s only one thing to do when you get to your villa – claim a decent room and get in the swimming pool! Ok, it was 1:30 in the morning, but that first swim was fantastic, I’d arrived. The villa was fantastic; six bedrooms, two kitchens, two lounges, our own pool, roof terrace and no-one within ear- or eye-shot.

Our pool, home of some of the finest pool volleyball ever seen!

There was a bit of an incident the next day when our eleventh somehow missed our greeting party at the airport and lost her phone, spent the rest of the day driving to the wrong town and arriving to find herself locked out of the villa as we’d all gone out for a meal, but that was quickly forgotten. The reason I was so descriptive with our journey to the villa is because the week itself was (thankfully) largely uneventful. We swam, lounged, read and drank a staggering amount of San Miguel and Cruzcampo beers. Pool volleyball was the flavour of the day again, although the amount of exercise it gave us was far outweighed by what we ate and drank. The evenings were when we mainly came to life, and we had a good explore of our surroundings.

Arty shot from the balcony at night, 30 sec exposure

One night we walked into the old town of Javea which was beautiful, and had obviously had some recent money poured into it, and ate at a lovely tapas bar. It wasn’t too cheap eating out, so nights out were mixed with more sedate nights barbecuing on our roof terrace/balcony thing, which included a murder mystery kit that someone kindly left at the villa and was hysterical. By far my favourite night out started with a wander along the promenade at Arenal beach in Javea, where we found a restaurant called Lungo Mare. It was an Italian place and packed with people, which is always a good sign when you’re looking for somewhere to eat. I’m so glad we did too, because despite not being overly keen on Italian food (hey, I don’t really like tomatoes or cheese – Italian’s normally a dead-end for me), I can safely say I had the best meal of my entire life there. Fresh Tortellini filled with beef and Spanish ham served in garlic and chilli oil – it was obscenely good, I could happily eat only that food again for the rest of my life. After stuffing ourselves stupid on pasta and the largest pizzas ever, we found an amazing cocktail bar and had a few more drinks (are you spotting a theme here?) before finding our way to Bora Bora.

The promenade at Arenal beach, that's Lungo Mare on the right

Bora Bora is a karaoke bar near the beach with a seemingly non-existent closing time, and although it was quiet when we got there we owned the place! I was still trying to pick a song to start with when my name was called out to go up. Unbeknown to me one of my cohorts had put my choice in for me, so I got up and belted out (at least that’s how it seemed in my head) my rendition of Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers. It just got better from there, more beer flowed, more gin (which seems to come in measures of at least triples!) and more songs including The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Suspicious Minds. It was an absolutely epic night which left me trolleyed and grinning from ear to ear. The restaurant was so good we went back the following night for our farewell dinner, but the free Limoncello shots after the meal finished me off I’m afraid, and led to the less-than-educated decision to that night paint half my face blue when we got home. To whoever owns the villa, I’m sorry about your towels and bathroom(s).

These little guys were everywhere at night, so cute!

The drive to back to the airport the day after was very quiet, not through hangovers but just because we were leaving our own little paradise and coming back to reality and work. We stopped off in El Campello for lunch and a last walk in the sun, and as much as I love flying, the flight home was bittersweet. Javea is a beautiful area and I’d thoroughly recommend it (and the villa) to anyone.

Technorati Tags holiday, Javea, Lungo Mare, Spain

Created by Oatmeal

Technorati Tags velociraptor

The eponymous Bayonetta

I won’t bore you with the story (kick-ass witch wakes up in a coffin in a lake, tris to find out WTF is going on and kills a stupid number of angels in elaborate and gruesome ways), cos this one is all about the action. On first impression you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s just another Devil May Cry clone, and to be honest, after a few hours you might still think the same, but it’s done so well it doesn’t matter. Kicks and punches form the combos, with the addition of four(!) guns, one attached to each limb. Every combo can be cancelled into another, which means the combo count regularly goes into silly numbers, and it all looks gorgeous at the same time, ticking along at an impressive frame-rate.

A couple of angels get a taste of 'Scarborough Fair', the name of this gun-set

What I still can’t get my head around when I’m playing it, is that this is a Sega game. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not speaking ill of Sega (god knows I poured enough time into Outrun 2/C2C), but Bayonetta feels every bit like a Capcom game, right through to its core. I remember thinking ‘Hang on… this is the music from OutRun, how did they get away with that?!’ before realising that it was a Sega game and therefore their music to use in the first place. The whole game feels like a blatant rip-off of Devil May Cry (with the tongue-in-cheek feeling from God Hand), but I think it’d be unfair to call it a rip-off; it’s much more like a homage.

The lighting and atmosphere are subtle and brilliant

I haven’t come across anything I dislike about the game yet; the graphics and sound are great, it’s well-acted, the gameplay is so tight and the presentation is awesome. Whether or not I finish it is up for debate, as I famously tend to fall short of completion in most games, but for the time being I’m loving it. Oh, and most importantly, it’s dirt cheap! £12.98 in Game at the moment, and I had £2.50 on my Game card to spend. Just a shade over a tenner for a game that recently got 10/10 in Edge is an absolute steal.

Technorati Tags Bayonetta, capcom, Sega

Despite being in the departure lounge as early as quarter past ten on Saturday morning, it was definitely time for a beer, so we decided to get the weekend started with some ale and Guinness before boarding the little turboprop Dash-8 to Gatwick. It was a gorgeous flight up, really sunny and with almost no turbulence. I like flying at the best of times, so it was a real treat for me, although it was odd to be sat in the sunshine in a plane, drinking a gin and tonic and listening to music and not being on my way abroad. I love the fact you’re above the clouds so it’s always glorious up there.

Once we landed it was a quick dash to the Gatwick Express for the half-hour ride into Victoria station, then a short trip up the line to Oxford Circus to find a pub to watch the FA Cup final in and get some food (and a few more beers…). Stuffed, merry and dazzled by the sunshine outside the pub (it’s weird how when it’s darker inside and you’ve got a beer in your hand, your brain assumes it’s night-time!), we hopped aboard the tube and then the DLR to Beckton and the hotel. We didn’t get long there, just enough time to freshen up and get changed, then it was back on the DLR and tube and off to Upton Park for the evening’s entertainment.

It wasn't exactly packed when we got there....

Frank Warren put on a full card of decent fighters, but we got there too late to see Billy-Joe Saunders and Frankie Gavin. It didn’t matter too much, the place was still filling at that point and the atmosphere was a bit subdued, but I did get to watch Danny Williams doing what Danny Williams does best lately – not throwing any punches and getting his ass handed to him. Chisora needed less than two rounds to finish the fight, and with a bit of luck, Williams’ career. On his day, he was a good fighter, but recently it’s been almost painful to watch him lumbering around like a walking punchbag, I hope he retires now for his sake.

Once dusk set in the stands started filling properly and we got on to the two fights I really wanted to see. First up was James DeGale taking a shot at the interim Super-Middleweight title, and he was on top form. Between him and Haye we’ve got some exciting boxers coming through now, and he went in swinging as soon as he realised that a) he was hurting Horton, and b) Horton couldn’t hurt him. It only lasted a few rounds and the combination that finished him off was awesome, I can’t wait to see how he develops over the next couple of years. Last up was the main event as local boy (local to West Ham at least) Kevin Mitchell took on Katsidis. I know a lot of people wanted to see Mitchell win, but I really didn’t think he’d be able too, Katsidis on his day is awesome. Katsidis didn’t disappoint either, he destroyed Mitchell over four rounds with an amazing display of power.

...but things soon picked up.

The atmosphere in the ground was brilliant, I’d never sat in the terraces at a big ground like that, and the Hammers fans singing and chanting really added to it. There were a few ‘tense’ moments when die-hards looked like they were looking to start something, but luckily it died out. Marching back through the streets with ~15,000 other people was an experience, and one I’m glad I don’t have to repeat on a regular basis. By the time we’d fought through the crowds on the underground and made it back to the hotel we were flagging badly; a combination of tiredness and a hangover I think. Still, the night’s boxing action wasn’t over yet, so we headed to bed with an alarm set to get up and watch the Khan vs Malignaggi fight from New York. Khan absolutely schooled him after a frantic first few rounds, it was great to watch, and I really hope he avoids any big money fights against has-beens and goes straight for unifying the division. The way he’s going, it’s looking very realistic now.

The trip back was pretty much the same as the way there, nothing to speak of really, except for just avoiding the ash cloud before the airports got shut down this morning. A massive hotel breakfast was the perfect end to a great weekend away. Being back to work today was a bit depressing, but with the prospect of a holiday in Spain just 10 working days away, I’m not going to complain for now .

My mementos from the weekend, which should really include Plymouth Gin miniatures

Technorati Tags boxing, DeGale, flying to London, Katsidis, Khan, Mitchell, Upton Park

I switched from my long-time football game favourite series of Winning Eleven/Pro Evo last year after years of dedication because the Fifa series finally made the jump to being a great game, whereas WE/PES stayed the same and feels very stale. I’d been enjoying Fifa 10 for a long time when I started getting random crashes; the game freezes and the buttons are unresponsive. At first it wasn’t too frequent, and I put it down to overheating or an odd glitch. I started noticing that it doesn’t happen when I take the game to my friends’ houses which made me start looking for a solution.

When I first started searching online I noticed there are a lot of crashing problems being mentioned on various forums, but with no real solution. I stuck at it until recently when the predictable re-vamp for the World Cup came around with Fifa World Cup 2010, and a demo was released over Xbox Live. The demo didn’t crash once, which I took as a sign to say that they’d fixed whatever the problem was, and when I found I had some unspent Tessco clubcard vouchers I decided to treat myself to the full game…

…which crashed. So began a trying email conversation between me and EA support, who seemed completely incapable of reading anything I’d actually written, giving me such gems of advice as ‘run dxdiag on your computer’. Yeah, thanks for that, I mean, my problem’s with a completely different format, but I’m sure that’ll help. I eventually found a Microsoft guide for possible solutions to the freezing problem and worked my way through that. After a lot of trial and error, frustration and annoyance, and even some money, I think I’ve finally found a solution. So for anyone finding their way here from google, tearing your hair out and just wanting to play the game, here’s a list of what didn’t work for me, and a solution that did.

Things I tried that didn’t work, but may for you:

• Clean the disc. Pretty obvious, but just check the 360 isn’t scratching the disc.
• Delete Fifa save games and option files. This was suggested on a forum, apparently they can become corrupt and cause problems.
• Make sure the 360 isn’t overheating. Don’t sit your console or PSU in deep pile carpet, or in the oven or something – common sense people.
• Delete the 360 cache file. Fifa stores data in the cache, if this becomes corrupted it can cause freezing. From memory, from your dashboard go to System Settings > Storage > Press Y and choose the option to clear the cache.

What actually worked for me:

• Replace the hard drive.

The last suggestion on the Microsoft guide is to try removing the 360’s hard drive while the console’s off and play without it on. I did this and managed to play several matches in a row without a single problem, and to be honest I really didn’t think it would’ve been the problem. Apparently it can be symptomatic of a problem with the hard drive, so whether it’s on its way out or not I don’t know. I bought a cheap, new 120GB hard drive on ebay (which I’m still waiting for) and started looking for a data transfer cable.

Microsoft make a data transfer/migration kit consisting of a special USB cable and disc, which allows you to move your stuff from one drive to a new one. My problem was that I couldn’t find one for love nor money, and was getting annoyed. Microsoft will sell you one over the phone for £16, but if you ever need to migrate from one drive to another, DON’T BUY IT! Since the recent dashboard update, the 360 now recognises USB storage devices as storage for games and files, so I hooked up my portable hard drive, chose the ‘customise’ option from the 360 storage menu when preparing a USB device, and allocated 16GB (the maximum) to the console. I copied everything on my 360 HD to the portable one and then disconnected the Xbox’s hard drive.

Ever since I’ve been playing with my console, and more importantly Fifa, without a single problem, direct from the USB drive. There are no problems or issues with doing it, I honestly can’t tell the difference between the portable drive and the built-in one. I’ll still be using the 120GB one once it arrives, so I can download more demos and add-ons, and also so I can install the games I play a lot, but as a stopgap the USB drive is an excellent alternative.

So yeah, if you’ve got a freezing problem with Fifa 10, Fifa World Cup 2010, or any other game for that matter, try the steps outlined above. Hopefully it won’t come to the ’spending money’ option I had to resort to, but if it does at least you know there’s a good chance it’ll work.

Technorati Tags crash, Fifa 10, Fifa World Cup, freeze, freezing, problem, solution, xbox 360