Family man

It’s a very special family time for me at the moment – Su and I have been married for 4 years, our daughter Lily was born at the end of June just gone, our son Boss is 6 years old in another 10 days, and my parents are over here in Thailand with us for the first time ever. It is wonderful to be a family man, I am so very happy!

A new and better type of online games site

A brand new free Flash online games site is now live on the web: FlashyOnlineGames.com

It is a very special site, one which will provide a new kind of free online gaming experience for you to enjoy:

Firstly, the site features only the very best, highest quality games. There are no buggy games that will crash at a crucial point during gameplay. All the games are fully tested to ensure they work properly, all the way through. And there are no games which spawn pop-up windows or any other annoying tricks. There are just very good games for you to play.

Secondly, there are no tricks or gimmicks anywhere in the site. There are no click-through pages - when you click on a game link, you go straight to the game page and can play it immediately (once it has loaded). And there are no pop-up or pop-under advert windows anywhere to get in the way of your gaming fun.

FlashyOnlineGames.com has three "sister" sites too, all of which adhere to the same very high standards: LightningCarsGames.com, MarioWebGames.com and SonicWebGames.com.

(See also here)

Su and Lily are both at home now!

A week after she was born, our new baby daughter Lily and my wife Su were both allowed to leave hospital and come home last night. Hooray and thanks be! Here are two photos of Lily:

My wife Su gave birth to our new daughter, Lily, yesterday!

Location: Sri Racha, Chon Buri, Thailand.

Despite Su having to have an emergency cesarean one month ahead of the due date, both Su and Lily Anne Inns are doing fine. Lily is in intensive care for a while just as a precaution because she is one month premature.

Here is the only photo of Lily that I have been able to take so far:

New home in Pattaya

After deciding to come and live here in Pattaya in November last year, Su and I rented an apartment for while and started looking for a proper home to live in ready for when our new baby is born.

We bought a three bedroom swimming pool villa in March, about a mile from Na Jomtien beach, and it is finally all furnished and sorted out for us to live in now, about two months before our new baby is due to be born. Phew, that's a relief! :-)

(See here for some photos)

Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Force online games

I really like Ben 10, it's the best kids TV cartoon series since the good old Hanna-Barbera days back in the 1960s and 70s. The newest series, Ultimate Alien, is even better than the previous Alien Force series. It's really cleverly written stuff, enjoyable for all of us adults-who-never-quite-grow-up as well as actual kids! :-)

If you're a Ben 10 like me, you might enjoy playing these excellent free Flash online games based on the the shows:

  Ben 10: Humungousaur Giant Force

  Ben 10: Cannonbolt Pinball

  Ben 10: Forever Defense

  Ben 10: Power Splash

  Ben 10: Spore Attack

  Ben 10: Critical Impact

  Ben 10: Krakken Attack

  Ben 10: Underworld

Each game also includes some excellent Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien desktop wallpaper pictures for you to use on your computer:

Ben 10 Wallpaper (3 different designs)
Ben 10: Alien Force Wallpaper
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Wallpaper

All the above games and wallpapers can be found in my Free Online Games site, together with hundreds more great games and wallpaper based on cartoons, movies and TV shows!

Happy 2012 everyone!

Happy New Year from Thailand to you, wherever you are!

It's going to be a very interesting 2012 for me because my wife Su is 3 months pregnant! The provisional due-date is July 25th, which is our 4th Wedding Anniversary. Oh my goodness! :-)

I now own a Samsung Galaxy S2, and it's awesome!

I bought a brand new Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone last month with a 32GB memory card in it, giving 48GB of total memory, for around £375. I bought it from the Samsung shop in Central Festival Center in Pattaya. It is the best gadget/smartphone/pocket PC/piece of technology that I have ever owned, it really is perfect in every way!

I previously had a Nokia N97 for 2 years, which is by far the worst piece of technology I have ever owned, utter garbage, the complete opposite of the Galaxy s II (see my blog about that here: The Nokia N97 - it's rubbish really).

It was so bad all of the time that I swear I will never buy another Nokia product ever again, no matter what they make in future. Nokia - YOU SUCK!! What a rip-off of over £400 the damned thing was! It cost too much money for me to be able to change it until last month, but now I wish I'd bought an Android phone instead of the N97. Oh well, you live and learn!

If you're looking to get a new smartphone any time soon, go and get a Galaxy S II right now - nothing else, not even the latest iPhone, comes close to being as good for doing everything you want. The Galaxy S II is the best all-in-one mobile phone, pocket PC, mobile web browser, social network manager, HD photo and video camera, portable media player and pocket games console that there is!

Su and I have moved to Pattaya now

We got a bit bored living in the family village near Suphan Buri so we decided to come and live down here for a more interesting life, lol!

Actually, we're staying in Jomtien which is the next town down the coast from Pattaya City, although the two are only separated by a large hill on the beach side and there is no break at all between the two inland. Despite the nearness of the two, Jomtien is much quieter and more family-oriented than it's larger, brasher neighbour. It's the prefect place to live.

Here's a really useful guide to the area if you're ever thinking of coming here for a holiday, which I would thoroughly recommend to be honest, as it's only about an hour and a half from Bangkok by road, and it's great fun:

Pattaya Travel and Tourist Guide

England holiday photos

Just about the most boring thing in the world sometimes, isn't it - looking at other people's holiday photos, lol. Anyway, yesterday Su created an album in Picasa of photos from our recent one month trip to England, and she's done a pretty good job of it too:

England Trip 2011

Cars 2 gets its UK release today

Just under a month after it was released in America, Pixar's "Cars 2" is released in UK cinemas today. I have seen it already and I thought it was brilliant fun, the perfect family film for this summer.

Writing this post reminded me that I have written blog posts about all the Disney and Pixar cartoon movies released over the past five years, which I have listed here in case you might like to have a little read through them:

Pixar: Toy Story 3

Disney: The Princess and the Frog

Disney: A Christmas Carol

Pixar: Up

Disney: Bolt

Pixar: WALL-E

Pixar: Ratatouille

Pixar's Cars 2 is released in the US today

Pixar's eagerly awaited new film "Cars 2" goes on general release in the US today. Early reviews of the movie have been somewhat mixed, but what do film critics know about anything, lol! (Only joking!) I'm sure it will be a great film for all the family to enjoy, just like last year's Toy story 3 and the other recent Pixar classics such as UP, WALL-E and Ratatouille.

Fans in the UK will have to wait until July 22nd to see it, but at least that's a bit less of a wait that usual for Pixar's films to cross over the Atlantic Ocean!

To celebrate the release of Cars 2 today here are 12 official Cars Flash online games featuring fan favourites Lightning McQueen, Mater, Doc Hudson, Luigi, Guido, Flo and Ramone that you can play completely for free:

  Cars: McQueen and Mater Tractor Tipping

  Cars: Lightning McQueen's Desert Dash

  Cars: Lightning McQueen Racing Demo

  Cars: Doc Hudson's Time Trial

  Cars: Mater to the Rescue!

  Cars: Mater's Memory Game

  Cars: Luigi and Guido's Tire Rush

  Cars: Luigi's Casa Della Tires

  Cars: Flo's Fuel Game

  Cars: Ramone's Coloring Book

  Cars: Ramone's Painting

  Cars: Interactive Movie Poster

Would you like some more great free Pixar stuff? You can find Cars 2 wallpaper pictures for your computer, plus over 100 more awesome Disney and Pixar games, at my Free Disney and Pixar Online Games site. I hope you like it.

(See also here)

Apparently we're all aliens!

This article in The Independent newspaper is very interesting:

We're all aliens... how humans began life in outer space

Su has joined me on Newgrounds

That means we're both members now, which will be useful for submitting future new Flash games developed for our MarioSonicGames.com site. You can find our Newgrounds profiles here:

Peter Inns's Newgrounds Profile

Sureephon Inns's Newgrounds Profile

All our Mario and Sonic Flash games at Newgrounds

A special year for Mario and Sonic

As I mentioned over in my MarioSonicGames.com blog yesterday, this year is the 30th Anniversary of Mario, and the 20th Anniversary of Sonic.

The first ever Mario game, the original Donkey Kong arcade game, appeared in 1981. Although the hero character of that game was originally known as Jumpman, he quickly became known by his now world famous name instead, and since then Mario has appeared in over 200 different games.

The first ever Sonic the Hedgehog game appeared on June 23, 1991 on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive 16-bit games console, and a few months later on Sega's Master System and Game Gear 8-bit games consoles as well.

Over the years since their creation they have become the two best-known video game characters in the world.

CG cartoons on YouTube

I have just been watching some great computer animated cartoons in this YouTube channel: CGcartoons4u. There are three cartoons in there from the Blender Foundation which are as good as any of the stuff put out by the major studios. Take a look and see for yourself, as I am pretty sure you will be impressed.

Happy New Year!

All the very best for 2011 (or 2554 as the year is here in Thailand)!

Complete Dan Dare story reprints online

If, like me, you enjoy reading classic comic strips, then these free Dan Dare reprints (courtesy of DanDare.org.uk and the Dan Dare Corporation) will be right up your street:

From 1954: Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future in Operation Triceratops

From 1960: Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future in Moon Run

From 1965: Dan Dare in Space Rocks

From 1968: Dan Dare and the Moon-Eaters (also available here)

From 1969: Dan Dare and the World of Thought

From 1970: Funfair of Death (also available here)

From 1982: Return of the Mekon

Tron videos

Here are some very cool videos from the new "Tron Legacy" film that was released a few days ago, plus an even cooler video from the original "Tron" film from 1982 (courtesy of Disney and my Mum's YouTube channel):

Original 1982 Tron Light Cycle Race - movie clip

Tron Legacy Light Cycle Race - concept test (HD)

Tron Legacy - original movie trailer (HD)

Tron Legacy - newest movie trailer (HD)

Fantastic Christmas online games

Here are some brilliant free Flash online games for you to play over the Christmas and New Year holidays, featuring the likes of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Jack Skellington from Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas", Ebenezer Scrooge from Disney's "A Christmas Carol" and many more:

  Casper's Haunted Christmas

  The Nightmare Before Christmas

  A Christmas Carol: Soarin' Star Ride

  A Christmas Carol: Ghostly Adventure

  A Christmas Carol: Rooftop Surfer

  A Christmas Carol: Penny Pincher

  The Polar Express Ticket Chase

  Jingle Ballistics

  Snow Throw

  Snowball

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you!!

I've now got a new WordPress blog

I have migrated my Windows Live Spaces blog over to WordPress in view of the fact that Windows Live Spaces is being killed off early next year.

You can find the new blog here:

Yet another blog by Peter Inns

There are some extra pages in the blog in addition to the actual posts, and they are:

About Peter Inns

Free Flash Games

Free Desktop Wallpaper

Finally got back to Thailand ok!

It's taken three days to get back here to Thailand from England!! Here's why:

I was due to fly out of London Heathrow airport to Abu Dhabi in the U.A.E. with Etihad Airways last Friday night (October 29th), with a flight transfer from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok at midday on Saturday. But just as the plane was going to taxi out onto the runway at Heathrow there was an engine failure which, although it didn't cause any kind of accident, did turn out to be a major problem that couldn't be fixed quickly. So myself and all the other passengers were taken to a nearby hotel to wait for a replacement flight the next day.

On Saturday morning we were told that the plane was now fixed and could take us to Abu Dhabi, but for me that meant I would miss my connecting flight to Bangkok. When I eventually arrived in Abu Dhabi late night on Saturday October 30th I was told I would have to wait until Monday November 1st for my connecting flight, due to there being no free seats until then. It wasn't a major hassle for me though, as the airline put me up in the lovely Radisson Blu hotel on Yas Island for two nights for free, which was very nice indeed.

So, I eventually got to Bangkok on the evening of Monday November 1st, three days after leaving England!

Going back to Thailand today

Time to go home now.

Going back to England tomorrow

It's time to go and see my parents and friends in the UK because it's been a whole year now since I was last there and saw them. I'm going for two weeks and will be back here in Thailand at the end of this month.

Toy Story 3 reaches $1 billion in worldwide box office takings

Last Friday saw Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story 3" become only the seventh film ever to reach the $1 billion worldwide box office mark, and it is now currently sixth in the all-time chart having overtaken "Batman: The Dark Knight" in the process.

Given that "Alice in Wonderland" also crossed the $1 billion mark earlier in the year, 2010 has been an amazing year for Disney, and in fact it is the first time that a studio has had two $1 billion movies in the same year.

See my previous post about Toy Story 3 for links to a fantastic collection of free Toy Story online games and wallpaper background pictures (or alternatively see here and here).

The Nokia N97 - it's rubbish really

I've had my Nokia N97 smartphone (the full-size version, not the mini) for nearly a year now, and I have to say I haven't been very happy with it - considering that it cost just over 400 GB Pounds it really is quite rubbish.

Now, I'm not talking about the usual phone crashes and lock-ups that most people experience with smartphones from time to time - I've suffered plenty of those with my N97, and I can generally live with such things. They're to be somewhat expected due to the very complex and intricate nature of these types of device.

The main problem with the N97 for me is that it is extremely slow to do anything, especially with the multimedia I have stored on it. It takes around two minutes to access my MP3 music library of around 3000 songs and 100 playlists each and every time I go into the music player, which is absolutely terrible. The N97's main rival, the iPhone, has no such problems, giving almost instantaneous access to a similar sized music library.

The N97 is also pretty poor at playing MP4 videos (which have been formatted specifically for the N97 using Nokia's OVI Suite), often freezing and/or skipping during playback, which is very annoying.

And the N97 is also dreadfully slow to access my photo library of around 500 photos.

I have tried all manner of things to try to improve the situation, including a soft reset and a hard reset of the phone, a reformat of the phone's mass storage device, and a careful reload of all the multimedia, but nothing ever makes any difference.

Clearly there are two major problems with the N97:

1. The processor is not powerful enough, and...

2. There is not enough dedicated RAM for the processor to use - there is only ever about 50 MB of free internal phone memory showing on my phone, with almost no apps installed or running, which is a shockingly low amount. (And which is similar to what most other people report having free on their N97's during use.)

Both of these factors combine to make the N97 very slow to do anything - unacceptably slow for such an expensive smartphone. For what is basically Nokia's flagship product, it really is a very sorry story.

In summary, I don't recommend anyone to buy the Nokia N97, which is the first time I have ever had to say anything negative about one of Nokia's products. Oh dear.

The Last Airbender film is released in the UK tomorrow

After a long wait (it was released in the US on July 1st and Thailand on July 29th), M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender" movie, based on the first season of the very popular Nickelodeon cartoon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender", is finally released in UK cinemas tomorrow.

To tie in with the film's release, here are some free official Avatar: The Last Airbender Flash online games for you to play:

  The Last Airbender - Elemental Battles

  The Last Airbender - Trial of Air

  The Last Airbender - Bending Battle

  The Last Airbender - Elemental Escape

  The Last Airbender - Fortress Fight

These games also include Avatar: The Last Airbender film and Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon desktop wallpaper pictures for you to use on your computer if you wish.

You can find all the above games, together with 100's more film and cartoon-based games, at my Cartoons, Movies and TV Online Games site.

Enjoy! :-)

(See also here and here)

The top 5 best Mario and Sonic online games ever!

See today's entry in the MarioSonicGames.com blog for my list of the "All-time Top 5" Mario and Sonic online games.

Pixar movie trailers and clips (plus others)

I have been adding lots of new videos to my main YouTube channel recently, and as a result there is now an impressive collection of 180 videos in total.

To make it easier to use the channel I have created a number of playlists that group related videos together, and here are some of the best and most popular ones:

Pixar and other CG movie trailers collection

Pixar: Luxo Jr. cartoon collection

Pixar: WALL-E video collection

Pixar: Up video collection

Pixar: Toy Story 1, 2 and 3 video collection

2009 sci-fi and fantasy movie trailers collection

2010 sci-fi and fantasy movie trailers collection

Dan Dare video collection

Harry Potter video collection

The Twilight Saga video collection

My Twitter is working fine again, hoorah!

During the first half of May my Twitter profile (see Peter Inns's Twitter) started to suffer from a serious technical problem whereby older tweets began to randomly disappear from my timeline. This was a problem suffered by many other Twitter users too.

Yesterday I noticed that at long last Twitter have fixed everything, so I have started using the system again after a month and a half away from it. I'm amazed it took them so long to sort it out!

Doomwatch - a classic British sci-fi TV series remembered

Most people have heard of the BBC's sci-fi series Dr. Who, but how many of you out there have heard of Doomwatch, another great BBC sci-fi series that ran in the early 1970s?

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:
"Doomwatch was a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC One between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist (played by John Paul), responsible for investigating and combating various ecological and technological dangers.

"The series was followed by a feature film adaptation produced by Tigon British Film Productions and released in 1972, and a revival TV movie broadcast on Channel 5 in 1999."

I remember watching repeats of the earlier series when I was quite a bit younger, and I really enjoyed the episodes I got to see. The show was very unusual because it was the first television series I can recall to feature the dangers of uncontrolled real-world science and technology as its major plotlines.

I won't go on any more about this brilliant show here though, because if you want to know more there is an awesome blog dedicated to the series that I recommend you to read instead:

Doomwatch.org - For fans of the classic BBC TV series

Free online games based on famous characters

Here is a selection of the very best character-based Flash online games from the hundreds and hundreds in my group of free online game websites (see the navbar on the right for links to the sites):

  New Super Mario Flash

  Ultimate Flash Sonic

  Super Smash Bros. Brawl Flash

  Pokemon: Breakdown Blast

  Ben 10: Power Splash

  Naruto: Battle for Leaf Village

  Power Rangers Dino Thunder

  Transformers: Roll Out

  Astro Boy: Blast-A-Bot

  Ice Age 3: Bubble Trouble

  Monsters vs. Aliens: Panic in the Streets

  Shrek Shreds Skateboarding

  Disney's Run Bolt Run

  UP: Kevin's Chocogobble

  WALL-E Pinball

  Cars: Tractor Tippin'

  The Incredibles: Top Trumps

  Toy Story: Buzz Lightyear's Alien Rescue

  SpongeBob SquarePants: Anchovy Assault

  Tom and Jerry: Refiger-Raiders

  Scooby-Doo Skateboarding 2

  Wacky Races: Wacky Racing

  A Christmas Carol: Ghostly Adventure

  Star Trek: Flash Trek V2.0

  Gangster Life (GTA II)

  Dan Dare Matchit

I hope you enjoy them all! :)

(See also here and here)