Life, stuff and things: May 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Inns family's blogs

Although I only started this blog earlier this month, my son Peter has been blogging for exactly four years today, and his wife Su has been blogging since late last year, so that's three members of the Inns family that now regularly write blogs.

Peter told me that between his and Su's blogs they have posted a combined total of over 350 entries since 2006, almost two per week, which is a pretty impressive amount of work.

Peter's blogs are as follows: England, Thailand and Other Things, MarioSonicGames.com - Mario & Sonic Games News and Peter Inns's WordPress Blog. Su's blog is here: Life in Thailand, by Sureephon Inns.

Here are some of the best and most popular posts from Peter's "England, Thailand and Other Things" blog:

If you have a look at this post in Peter's MarioSonicGames.com blog on the same subject, you can also see some of the best posts from that blog.

(See also here, here and here)

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Thailand political protests and violence

My son Peter and his wife Su live in Thailand, and as you probably know by now there have been some deadly political protests in the Thai capital Bangkok during the past six weeks or so, particularly last night and also on April 10th.

Su (who is Thai) runs a blog of her own and she regularly updates it (in English) with her view of what's going on over there. So if you're interested in reading a local person's thoughts on the recent Thai political troubles, why not have a look at her blog here:

My Life in Thailand, by Sureephon Inns

Or if you prefer, you can bypass the main blog and read her entire thread on the subject on its own here:

Thai Political Trouble 2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

My favourite holiday destinations

My two favourite holiday destinations are Naples on the Gulf Coast of Florida, USA, and Altura in the Algarve, Portugal. Both places have wonderful huge clean sandy beaches, friendly locals and lots of great places to dine out.

Altura especially is a lovely, peaceful and friendly place and we try to go there as often as possible - being 60-something retirees it's one of the things we've worked hard all our lives to achieve.

Our son Peter lives in Thailand these days, and we don't see him very often as a result. But in October last year he came with us to Altura for our first family holiday together in almost 25 years, and we all had a wonderful time. You can read Peter's blog post about it here.

The weather was fantastic even though it was October, and we were able to sunbathe and go for walks along the enormously long beach every day. I recommend anyone who likes relaxing peaceful family beach holidays to come to Altura, it is the perfect place.

Here is my Picasa Web Album of some of the photos that Peter took while we were there together last year:

Free Mario and Sonic games to download

My daughter-in-law's MarioSonicGames.com website currently has nine free Flash games that have been made specially for the site. You can download them and use them in your own website, or download them and play them on your computer without the further need of an internet connection. Here are links to compressed .zip files for each of them:

Sonic the Hedgehog: Super Sonic Pinball

(View it and play it online here: Super Sonic Pinball Online)

Super Mario Bros.: Mario Matchit

(View it and play it online here: Mario Matchit Online)

Super Mario Bros.: Paper Mario World

(View it and play it online here: Paper Mario World Online)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic Matchit

(View it and play it online here: Sonic Matchit Online)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic Sky Chase

(View it and play it online here: Sonic Sky Chase Online)

Sonic Sky Chase (2nd Version)

(View it and play it online here: Sonic Sky Chase (2nd Version) Online)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy's Whack-A-Nik

(View it and play it online here: Amy's Whack-A-Nik Online)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic Abstracta

(View it and play it online here: Sonic Abstracta Online)

Super Mario Bros.: Super Shy Guy Universe

(View it and play it online here: Super Shy Guy Universe PSP Online)

To use the downloads and play the games, click on each of the links above, then select "Save" for the .zip compressed files that will be downloaded, and select a folder on your computer to save the .zip files into. Once the files have downloaded successfully, unzip them and then you can play the games by double-clicking on the .htm files that were unzipped. (Note that each .htm file is an offline webpage that runs an associated .swf file which is the actual Flash game - you don't need an active internet connection to run them and play the games.)

To use the games in your own website, upload the .htm webpage files (which you might want to modify to your own site's format first) and the .swf Flash game files to your web server, link to the .htm files from you site's home page, and then you and your visitors can play the games in your site.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

My new Google profile and Webs site

I have just set up a profile page in Google.com and created a mini-website in Webs.com.

The Google Profiles system allows people with Google accounts to easily create a page of personal information, photos and links for other people using the various Google systems (as well as the rest of the web) to see. Here is my profile:

Anne Inns's Google Profile

The Webs Sites system allows people to create small websites and wikis, with inclusive hosting, for free. My site is here:

Anne Inns's Webs Site

Wallpaper backgrounds for your computer

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, my son Peter runs a number of free online games websites as a hobby, and one of the most popular things in his sites are the hundreds of desktop wallpaper pictures that are related to the games.

There are high quality, non-watermarked sci-fi wallpapers, movie wallpapers, cartoon wallpapers and video game wallpapers, available in all sorts of different screen sizes.

Here are links to the best of the them, which all point to pages with sizes of 1024 x 768 pixels - within those pages you will find links to lots of other sizes for each of the wallpapers. All the wallpapers also have at least one related Flash online game for you to play too:

Star Wars
Star Wars - R2-D2
Star Wars - The Clone Wars
Harry Potter
Sonic the Hedgehog (x 5 alternate versions)
Sonic Heroes
Shadow the Hedgehog
Super Mario Bros. (x 5)
Mario Memories
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
PoKeMoN (x 4)
Puyo Pop Fever
Super Monkey Ball
Crash Bandicoot
Donkey Kong
The Legend of Zelda
Kirby
Mega Man
Metroid
Street Fighter
Tekken
Prince of Persia (x 3)
The Banana Splits
The Flintstones
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo Movie
Scooby-Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed
Wacky Races
Hong Kong Phooey
Tom and Jerry
Looney Tunes (x 2)
The Simpsons (x 3)
More Simpsons
The Simpsons Movie (x 2)
Futurama
Red Dwarf
Thunderbirds Movie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
TMNT Movie
Power Rangers Dino Thunder (x 2)
Power Rangers S.P.D.
Power Rangers Mystic Force
Power Rangers Jungle Fury (x 2)
Power Rangers Super Legends
Transformers
Transformers Movie
Transformers 2 - Revenge of the Fallen (x 4)
The Matrix (x 2)
Hellboy II - The Golden Army (x 2)
Batman Begins
Batman - The Dark Knight (x 2)
Superman Returns
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 3
Hulk
The Incredible Hulk
James Cameron's Avatar (x 4)
Star Trek (x 3)
Star Trek Ships of the Line
Star Trek USS Enterprise Collection (x 5)
Star Trek Movie
The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious - Tokyo Drift
Fast and Furious
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
National Treasure - Book of Secrets
Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End
The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
High School Musical 3
Toy Story 2 (x 2)
Toy Story 2 Little Green Men
A Bug's Life
For the Birds
Monsters, Inc. (x 2)
Finding Nemo (x 2)
The Incredibles (x 2)
Cars (x 2)
"Real" Cars
Ratatouille (x 3)
WALL-E (x 3)
UP (x 2)
Walt Disney / Mickey Mouse (x 2)
Winnie the Pooh (x 2)
The Lion King
Lilo & Stitch (x 2)
Chicken Little
Meet the Robinsons
Bolt (x 2)
The Princess and the Frog (x 2)
Disney Princess
Ice Age 2
Ice Age 3
Robots
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who
Shrek
Shrek the Third
Shark Tale
Madagascar (x 2)
Flushed Away
Bee Movie
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters vs. Aliens
Open Season
Happy Feet
The Ant Bully
SpongeBob SquarePants (x 2)
More SpongeBob SquarePants
Catscratch
Danny Phantom
Avatar: The Last Airbender (x 2)
Naruto
Ben 10 (x 2)
American Dragon (x 2)
Camp Lazlo
Dexter's Laboratory
Astro Boy
Astro Boy Movie
The Smurfs
Mr. Men and Little Miss
Garfield
Garfield Movie
The Muppet Show
The Muppets
A Christmas Carol
The Polar Express
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Felix the Cat
Betty Boop (x 2)
Dan Dare (x 4)
South Park
Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas
GTA IV (x 2)

(See this wallpaper site for visual links to some of the above.)

Monday, May 10, 2010

Some great free Flash online games to play

My son Peter runs some fun and games websites (eg. Dan-Dare.org and Dan-Dare.info - see here for a list of them all) as one of his main hobbies. Here are some of the best character-based Flash games in his sites for you to try whenever you have some spare time: