Will a new Xbox One get in the way of my writing?

Morning gang,

The answer is... not so far.

Those of you who know me won't be surprised to learn that I acquired a shiny new Xbox One Day One Edition earlier today. With a couple of games it cost me £530 which, even with my earnings and lack of dependants, made me think twice before buying.

As with any new device there was some faffing about with updates etc so I decided to leave it to sort itself out and did a few pages of editing. Then I got sidetracked by the dog, then the wife wanted a lift from the station (she's been to London for the day) and we decided to pick up an Indian for tea on the way home.

Long boring story short I finally got stuck into the new console about 11PM until just now. But I still managed to edit another 5% of the book today so I'm pretty happy.

Quick review of the Xbox? Looks smart to me, not keen on the Kinect but I'm old school. I like to slump on the couch, pad in hand, and play. If I wanted to be "in" the game and jump about I'd go outside and actually participate. The voice control is predictably crap, just like Siri on the iPhone and the voice control on my very expensive Tele. The motion control is poor too, not half as sharp as the one on the Tele. Miles quicker to use the pad - which is very nice by the way.

FIFA looks lovely, it'll take some adjustment because I've only ever played PES. Forza looks, sounds and plays as you'd expect. Stunning. The Kinect adds nothing for me. Why do I need it to track my leaning motion while driving? I don't. Bog off.

The new Assassins Creed is on it's way too which I suspect will be epic. But what I really like is the picture in picture ability which I will be using tomorrow. It means I can now be playing a game but have the Tele on in the corner so I don't miss the start of the football. That's clever and useful unlike the Kinect. I'm not keen on the HDMI pass through, it makes the Satellite picture a little worse which, on a Tele like mine, is noticeable.

All in all it's good and it's handy having another Blu Ray player in the house. I've yet to connect it to my 9 foot screen and 7.1 surround, I think then it might be truly stunning especially if I can get it to record Tele.

Right, that's all for now. The wife is planning to batter her essay for uni tomorrow which means I can sit there and edit my book in peace. Looking forward to it.

By the way - I've typed this on my new Surface tablet with keyboard. While the new Xbox is Microsoft very nearly being awesome, the surface tablet, in my view, is an example of Microsoft nailing it. Keyboard is utter genius and I have to admit, after some learning, I really like Windows 8. Including full Office 2013 as part of the package doesn't hurt either. Full marks.

Night

How do you cope with pressure?

Evening gang,

Pressure. Something of a hot topic in our house at the moment. Entirely self imposed of course. We're cancerians. It's how we're wired.

The wife handles it in a fairly traditional way. Shouts a bit, drinks wine etc. I tend to clean the house a lot. I see this as being quite positive because it alleviates my mental stress and the house looks good. The wife might not agree.

I also write fiction as a way to escape the drudgery of every day life. But because it's so important to me I put pressure on myself to do it as well as I can within the constraints of working full time etc. Which leads to more cleaning and the occasional ale. Again the end result is positive i.e. a new book to share with the world.

To that end, I have now edited 41% of the final draft of the sequel to the Jazz Café. Tomorrow I will aim to make that 50% and then during the week perhaps have a look at the other book I'm working on. Day job allowing.

Just as an aside - I've been offered a contract extension on my current role and got an interview for another job near Preston. So lot's of positives, the main one being that I should now be in a position to buy another house by Easter next year and none of the senior managers want me to return to my old job. In a rather old school, humbling, gesture, they all emailed the director and said that they wanted me to stay to support them. No arguing with that. But then I have delivered all sorts this year and my old job was total shit.

Right, that's all for tonight. I've been staring at this screen for too long.

Last thing - we've bought a new tablet. One of them Windows ones with the snap on snap off keyboard. Paid for it with Nectar points! Very tidy.

Oh, and sales are slow in America again so if you could see your way clear to buying a few copies of something that would be appreciated.

Night...