FAIL

Mass Effect 2: Blog-commitment-forgettably good. Highly recommended.

New Fiction: Part Two

"OK. So! First thing, always, before every trip, you check this panel, on the right there, for air, water, and fuel. Very, very important. The number of rescues made to people who went out without enough air, I dunno..."

"This panel? The one with the green lights saying "FULL FULL FULL"?"

"Yes, that one. Very good. Now, time to undock. We've got an automated system here, so it's just that lit button on the comm panel, bottom left."

"Oh, the "UNDOCK" one? OK. This isn't so difficult, is it?"

"There's a little more to it than easily labelled buttons. OK, so now we're in position at the airlock, time to ignite the engines, those two big switches above your head there, and then slowly ease her outside."

"This one..." THRUMMM "and this one..." TTHHRRUUMMMMMM

"Yes, and now both sticks, ease forward gently... gently..."

New Fiction: Part One

"So... first time?"

"...yeah. Is it that obvious?"

"Sorry. Most people have this sort of... scared look about them, thinking of the damage they can do to themselves and others behind the sticks. It's a good attitude to start out with, but eventually you'll learn that just relaxing is better. You and the ship in perfect harmony, flowing past everything and everyone else, just another pebble in the stream."

"A pebble in the stream? Sounds nice, when you put it like that. Me, I'd call it 'Tossing a fusion bomb into a crowd of other bombs, trying desperately to steer and avoid 'em all whilst we're all overtaking light itself!'"

"Heh. That does sound scary. And I'll teach you how to do precisely that. Shall we start?"

"What, you mean fly into traffic, now?"

"Don't worry. I time my early lessons to coincide with the dockworkers' mealtimes. They're all grabbing their curries right now. We've got the entire dock to ourselves for the next half-hour. Avoiding those bombs already, eh?"

"Ah, well, we'll see about that when we get to that stream of yours."

Link: Gaming Gents

Gaming Gents is another in the fine tradition of internet-based Scottish videogame shows, following on from the late, lamented Consolevania. Combining the review sections of regular gaming shows, with sketches poking fun at contemporary gaming culture seems to be a great recipe that they teach in schools up north. They've just finished the first series (hopefully there'll be more) so, if you haven't yet seen it, you've got six episodes of fun awaiting you.

Bonus: link to my picture of Nightcrawler, created in MSPaint, for a competition I deservedly lost: http://twitpic.com/zrthd

Oldest Game I Still Own

Look around you. Look around you. Look at your videogames. Which is the oldest game? What have you personally owned the oldest? Mine is WWF Superstars on the GameBoy. (EDIT: Image removed. Apologies!)

I don't remember playing it (and I doubt the GameBoy still works, although I'm pretty sure it'd work in the GBA SP). The strongest memory of it I have is unwrapping it one Christmas, and feeling slightly nonplussed, since at this point I didn't have a GameBoy. A careful examination of my remaining presents revealed the GameBoy-box-sized one, which I opened next and was very pleased with. Tetris got lost one day, when someone borrowed it and never returned it. And, like the stupid hoarder I am, it's still in my GameBoy carry case, in a corner of my room.

That's the oldest game I own. What's yours?

Pre-owned

I'm ambivalent about the whole pre-owned games market. For one thing, I'm a terrible hoarder, who for some reason has a copy of Duke Nukem 64 within cat-swinging distance, even though I've never owned an N64. Must have been a housemate's. Needless to say, I've never traded a game in. I try to avoid buying pre-owned games, on the presumption that they'll inevitably be of inferior quality than new, only taking the plunge when the game is sufficiently rare and old, like my copy of Super Mario World for GBA.

There's a lot of brouhaha about it siphoning off game sales that would normally go to the creators of the work; on the other hand, people have a right to do with their property whatever they want, including reselling.

The main problem I see with this market is that it takes place in the exact same shops that the new games market also occupies. Waterstones don't sell used books; Next and H&M don't sell second-hand clothes, and as for reselling pre-owned beer, well, that's taking the piss (and selling it). The only industry I can think of where the goods are used and resold by the original vendors is the car industry. I honestly wonder what the reaction would be if I took some CDs and DVD to HMV and tried to pawn them. "You do it for games, why not DVDs?" I'd whine, before they lamped me.

Having the slightly-foxed copy on the exact same shelves as the unspoilt new copy, at a cheaper price, means that surely the only people who'll pay the premium are the believers and fusspots such as myself. But you can't put the genie back in the bottle, and retailers won't give up this profitable revenue stream. Nothing we can do but wait and see, and buy new games whenever possible.

Shoe Shopping

Dear sweet zombie Jesus, but shoe shopping is tedious. Only about 10% of the shop is relevant to your size. And how many people have had their skanky, diseased feet and mouldy socks that's they've worn for the past two months since they don't have any other pairs, and hey, no point buying more since they'll get some at Christmas, inside that there leather confection of a shoe which looks like someone's gone to town on it with a hole punch and sewing machine, the shoe you're holding right now in your ungloved hand and inhaling the scent of to see the price label, hidden so far down you wonder if it'd be better to risk the verruca and get the price label stuck to your toes. And while the selection at first appearances seems vast, it gets narrowed down quickly when you're such an arsey, lazy bastard like myself.

I can't be bothered owning more than one pair of shoes at a time, as this Raises Questions about What Shoes To Wear, which I just can't be faffed with. So the criteria shoes must meet:
a) Right size
b) Be OK for work
c) Comfy
d) Black
e) As inconspicuous as possible (Some people may want to wander round in luminous green feet-hats that scream "I wear wacky shoes! I am wacky!! CHECK THE SOUTH PARK SOCKS TOO!!!!!" I am not one of these people.)
f) Thick laces (Thin laces snap. Slip-ons slip off.)

And then, the final indignity; once, via minor miracle, suitable footwear is located, you must perform the self concious test-walk, long strides and short strides, fast and slow, turning left and right, wandering around the shop in a painfully obvious fashion, a process in which you become hyper-sensitive to any sensation in the leg-ends. Then you go to another five shops to repeat the process, hiding the suitable shoes somewhere in the shop lest another buys them, reducing your sartorial options.

But on the bright side, I got new shoes today.

Link: Conceptis Puzzles

I had an iPod once, a few years ago, but it seemed to die completely when I upgraded iTunes. Tried wiping the whole thing, but to no avail. Eventually I jumped to the conclusion that Apple killed the old iPods so that the younglings may live, and have stayed away from Apple ever since. But I am tempted by the iPhone.

Anyhoo. What the above paragraph was trying to say is that I have no portable music device. To be honest, I hardly ever used it, fearing the tell-tale white wires might summon some subterranean stuff-snatcher. So, when I wish to listen to podcasts such as the always-delightful DarkZero game talks, (worthy of a link-blogpost of their own!) I sit at the computer. And it's what I doing at the computer while listening that is the subject of this post.

No, not THAT. You've been listening to that podcast too much.

Conceptis Puzzles is the website of a company that produces a bucketload of puzzles for the puzzle mags in shops, but have combined that with a truly excellent range of online-solvable puzzles. Lots of work has gone into the applets, and the range has grown from just the picture-logic puzzles like Pic-a-pix (Picross) via the Sudokus and Kakuros to new games like Slitherlink, Hashi and online multicolour dot-to-dots that go as high as a thousand dots.

New puzzles are published every Friday via the "My Conceptis" section, although they installed a paywall fairly recently, so the free selection has been trimmed down to one easy puzzle of each type a week. But that's still enough solving fun to last two hours of crass jokes and gaming insights.

Book Review: The War Of The Worlds

I've just finished reading "The War Of The Worlds" by HG Wells for my reading group. (No matter that the meeting to discuss the book was two weeks ago.) Although the text is in some ways starting to show its age, with references to now-defunct items and the prevalence of horses for transportation, the sheer amount of imagination poured into this book is stunning. The Martians (spoilzors!) are described in incredible detail, with every aspect justified, even the weakness to microbes. It also goes into a great amount of detail on how an invasion would play out in post-Victorian south-east England, from the initial newspaper reports and the inclusion of Martians in the funny papers, to the mass stampede of all of London fleeing at once in a huge cascade of humanity and inhumanity.
One slight quibble I have with the book is the lack of characterisation; none of the main characters have names, and are referred to by either their job titles or their relation to the narrator, himself unnamed. Also, very few aspects of their personalities are shown, and you're left feeling slightly detached from them, as if they're just there for things to happen to them instead of having some control over their lives.
My favourite part was a paragraph very near the end: "Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seed-bed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a remote dream. It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of the Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, perhaps, is the future ordained."

Hat/Ring Interface

I think that's twelve posts I've done now. Time to officially announce participation in the #oneaday blog challenge. I was toying with the idea of starting a blog for the new year, and with this campaign starting up, three four of my Twitter people starting new blogs, and extra-strong Dutch courage, yet another self-indulgent website was born. I kept it quiet the first few days because I was scared of failing in front of people. And the thought of being the first person to miss a day and crash the entire thirty-plus One-a-Day network truly terrifies me. But that's a silly reason. What's the worst case scenario? "No, Phil, you failed to blog every day for 365 days, the sentence is death by coriander."



But what is twelve posts? 3.288% complete. That sounds bad. But, if you consider the hypothetical pie chart as a clock, then it's just under two minutes of a clock-face gone. And that's a small but significant chunk of the challenge done already.

Just 353 blogs to go. Easy, right?

Fiction: Brand New Diary

Homework for tomorrow's writing group meeting.

The first question you ask yourself, on receiving a brand new diary, is what to use it for. A repository for the important events of your day? An appointment book for work? The birthdays of relatives and nothing else?
For Sally, it represented a challenge. Too many false starts, broken promises, drizzly nights in pub courtyards making small-talk with strangers. Come January 1st, no cigarette would come near her lips. Every day, she would forgo the fags, and put a big tick in that day's box in her diary.
The first few days were the worst. Straws, pens, gum, anything to keep her mouth occupied. She almost cracked a few days, but was put off by the sheer amount of snow littering her workplace's designated smoking area. Better to stay in the toasty warm office, with a mug of hot tea and another box of those chocolate biscuit sticks. And, at the end of every day, the satisfaction of ticking the diary, looking at the progress she's made. Almost three weeks off the coffin nails! That definitely calls for another glass of wine.

Of course, like most resolutions, it didn't last. The diary lay forlornly in the drawer of junk, with only sixty-two boxes ticked. But, by then, Sally didn't need to tick the boxes any more.

Link: TV Tropes

Short of time and inspiration again, so I'll cash in another link coupon. TV Tropes is a lovely website where the minutiae of popular culture are catalogued and discussed, where a simple enquiry and end up on twenty different pages an hour later. It's where I found the idea of the Tommy Westphall hypothesis which states that, since TV shows tend to do crossovers and shout-outs to other works, that they are all part of the same interconnected fictional universe, making it possible to say that "The Wire" and "Red Dwarf" happen in the same continuity.

A character in The Wire mentions a character from Homicide: Life On The Street... where another character questioned The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files... where The Cigarette-Smoking Man smoked the same brand of cigarettes as Spike, from Buffy and Angel... where an evil lawyer firm represented the Weyland-Yutani corporation... who have a wrecked ship in the background of an episode of Red Dwarf. Mmmm, tenuous!

"He's An Easy Lover!"

I first tried to play Mass Effect in the spring of 2008. Everything was going okay until a sniper killed me from full health in one shot, setting me back a half-hour's progress. I ragequit the game and left it on the shelf to gather dust, where it stayed for 21 months. Inspired by the sequel's imminent release, and an article on Destructoid about playing as a female character, I returned and completed the game, only dying once (stupid car levels!). The differences? I did specialise in guns this time, but the main difference was playing it on Easy. And that difference made me enjoy the game a lot more.

I'm firmly on the side of the narratologists in the big ludology vs. narratology videogame debate; story is one of the most important elements of a game to me, and I resent being denied access to the ends of stories I've purchased due to my button-pressing incompetence. Back when I was a sullen teenager, I always played games on the easiest level I could. I've tried to ignore these impulses in later years, but one horrible bump in the road and I'm making the computer as stupid as possible.

I suspect some people might argue that I miss out on the challenge, pitting my skills against that of the machines, making for a tenser, more emotional, more involving playthrough. But that's not why I play games. I want to be told a wonderful story where my actions shape the world and save the day. I borrowed Modern Warfare 2 off a friend, and ploughed through Easy Mode in 2 days, even though the the mini-test at the start recommended Normal. Why? I just wanted to see what happens.

And there's no point my playing the multiplayer, because I'd suck.

20-min Fiction: Lego Darth Vader

At the writing group I attend we sometimes play a writing game where we each write a story in 20 minutes. I can't remember the details of how this one came about, but I had to write something about Lego Darth Vader. This is what happened.

Lego Darth Vader woke with a start. This was not his usual quarters on the Lego Death Star (only £399.99! Buy now!). Instead, he woke to yellow cotton sheets, a yellow duvet cover with lace trim, in a well-apportioned bedroom with TV, walk-in wardrobe with a variety of job-related outfits, a tall 6" mirror, and what appeared to be a modern kitchen that turned out, on inspection, to be a few cupboards with lights inside.
His trusty lightsaber was nowhere to be found, and he had no means of contacting any other Imperial forces. He stretched out a hand to the wardrobe and closed his eyes: when he opened them, his hands contained an air hostess outfit. Not entirely powerless then, he thought.
Darth stepped out of the strange house, onto thick pink grass. He had barely got his bearings when he noticed the most enormous beast he had ever seen, the size of a thousand Hutts, extending a limb towards him. Too quick to use any powers to avoid it. The situation was hopeless. Lego Darth Vader took a deep breath. There is no death, he thought. There is merely The Force.

Link: Concept Ships

It's a complete fudge of this blog-a-day thing I'm attempting, but here's a link to a website I like. Concept Ships posts wonderful pictures by graphic artists who have been inspired by the majesty and wonder of the future, spaceships and the desire to kick-start the next wave of exploration. The top animated picture takes an age to load, but you can always scroll down to the pretty. A brilliant site to draw inspiration from. And it's all run by a man with a t-shirt shop.

I mean, one of the posts on there now has Nazi flying saucers. And that's just AWESOME. PS Also available in robots.

Self-Scanning Checkout Machines

After Mr. Kelly's wonderful post yesterday, I'd thought I'd share my technique for using the beeping contraptions.

1. Don't touch the screen to start. Get your item, and just scan it. The machine will read the barcode. This also has the added benefit of avoiding the machine's welcome speech.

2. Put item down onto the scales. Think of the till as divided into two areas. One is unscanned stuff, the other scanned. Don't mix the two or you will cause annoyance, which could escalate to open sighs of contempt.

3. Once all items are scanned, start putting cash in. No need to press finish as long as you're paying by cash.

4. If possible, pay the exact money. This stops the machine from saying "Please take your change. Cash is dispensed below the scanner." If combined with tip 1, you can have an entirely speech-free till experience. Doesn't even say thank you.

Using this technique, I bought one item for £1 today. Till, scan, down, coin, slot, grab item, glance at screen to double-check all is okay, go. Less than 10 seconds, no machine chatter. I WIN AT TILL.

Pesto!

Man, I love pesto. I have my sister to thank for this; hearing of my terrible cooking experiments in my first year of Uni, namely "pasta and salt", she suggested this wonderful sauce, and when sachets were given away with the uni paper, I began my life anew. It's gotten to the point where, trying a new jar from a different brand than my usual, I get the urge to talk like a wine-buff, things like "quite a nutty punch, with strong citrus tones". This is surely not sane.

My current favourite variation is rocket pesto with roughly-sliced kabanos sausage stirred into freshly cooked pasta, which I try to limit to once a week. The only cooking skills you need are chop, boil and stir, which is within even my meagre capabilities. I'm still having problems with omelette, let alone the dizzying eights of beef curry with rice and fresh salad.

Extra: A Duck's Day Out, to accompany the quiz post.
Tomorrow: Self-service tills.
Soon: Fiery Chilli Pesto review.

Oh man, that's a thought. Pesto review website. Free samples of the latest trends? Oh boy!

Blood Donation

Last year, when I tried to give blood, they missed the vein and I was left with the bruise you see above. I didn't particularly mind, as the staff were contrite, I immediately got a leaflet explaining what symptoms to expect (stiffness in the joint, bruising) and I got a letter of apology two days later. Stung a little as they were taking it out, though. And the whole thing faded after two to three weeks, so no great harm done.

Today I went to give blood for the first time since the bruise. Everything was going okay until they tried to put the needle in, where I think they couldn't find any suitable veins. They tried one, and the needle went in, but the stinging was too uncomfortable and I asked them to stop like the big girly wuss I am. Apparently I have very small veins. They'll try the other arm next time. But some people aren't cut out to be blood donors, I was reassured.

This left me in a bit of a funk. Surely, if I am so rubbish I cannot even bleed properly, what possible value does my life have? What is the point of me if I am not even good enough to contribute to the blood stocks? Truly, I am a despicable waste of human flesh.

Eventually I realised I was just being a mopey, overreacting sod and started to feel better after lunch. Besides, there's always next time in about six months or so. Still, donating blood was one of the few purely unselfish acts I did. If I have to stop, I'll be ever-so-slightly less smug.

Quiz!

On an ideal week, I attend two quizzes. The first is at a local community centre, which is sparsely attended, has art rounds such as "Draw a duck's day out" (Scan forthcoming), and the prize is a round of drinks for the team. The second is in a pub, run by an internet company and presumably syndicated across the country, all the tables are taken, and I have no idea what the prize is.

So why do I like to attend quizzes? Partly for the beer, partly for the chance of free beer. Mostly for an excuse to sit in a pub for over two hours, dazzling friends with the sheer breadth of stupid rubbish you know, and the slim chance of feeling better than all the other people in the room on an demonstrable scale. Plus, you get to show off, which helps.

It's probably that same feeling that keeps dragging me back to 1 vs 100, the quiz game on Xbox Live, although that's more a test of reflexes and strategy with skips than pure trivia-testing.

Fiction: Duplikatessen

Christos took a deep breath and looked around the kitchen. The sauces sat there simmering, as did the vegetables. Everything's ready. He looked out into the restaurant. The wait staff were clearing away the last of the starter plates. It's time.

He headed over to the tiny fridge, and typed in the combination. It unlocked with a quiet beep. Christos took out the precious steak and put it to one side. Add a little oil and herbed butter to the pan, turn up the heat. Coat the bottom of the pan with the fat. Switch on the camera.

You can hear the 'ooh's of the customers as their screens flick on, everyone now focusing on the hologrammatic vision of Christos' pan, appearing in the centre of their table. As he flips over the steak, voting cards appear in front of every customer. Blue, rare, medium rare, medium, medium well done, well done. Christos glanced at the monitor as the votes came in, and sighed. Sure enough, the winner of the vote is medium rare. “Same as always”, he said to himself.

The steak is ready. Christos gingerly lifted the steak out of the pan, and laid it on a pure graphite black plate, which he then placed into the first of a row of eight small boxes, divided into four groups of two. He pressed the button, and the duplicator whirred into life. Siphoning carbon and other minerals from a large storage tank in the basement, the duplicator analyses the contents of the first box, and then atomically reconstructs these contents in the other box.

After about 25 seconds, the machine emits a small 'ding'. Christos opened the doors, and showed off both perfectly-cooked, medium-rare steaks on identical graphite plates to the restaurant. A ripple of applause went through the customers. He placed the steaks back inside the bank of duplicators, and repeated the process. Once four steaks are created, the last two machines are filled and wholesale production of perfectly cooked, medium-rare steaks for consumption can begin. Price is staggered according to how many iterations the steak you'll eat has gone through; a premium for once-copied steak, although still well below what you'd pay for original meat; a discount for thrice-copied, on the assumption that serial copies inevitably degrade the taste.

Later, once the shift is over and the restaurant is closed, Christos popped open one of the duplicators, grabbed the cold steak, and wrapped it in a paper bag. A treat for his dog.

Never Was Any Good With Titles

A blog, then. Mainly to show off the things I write for the writing group I go to, which mainly involve spaceships. A place to put links so I don't have to remember websites anymore. Somewhere where I can write more than 140 characters.

I should point out that, at this precise moment in time, that I am quite, quite drunk.