Tired?

I'm knackered.

Not just in a 'a bit exhausted' way - in a 'oh God, yesterday I passed out asleep whilst reading' way. Its quite scary as I simply cannot lie in whatsoever and I hate going to bed early at night as I tend to be at my most awake around 10pm. Really, I could do with a life of four six hour periods rather than two twelve hours ones. But this is just an aside.

I'm also coming to the conclusion that I am tired of many things. Things that seem to be ever present in the world and have annoyed me for a while, but now I just cannot be arsed. Like comics. The new DC Universe reboot has hit me like a large wave of 'meh'. I've told Glenn at FP that I'll just let my order end when it happens. I can't be bothered with the constant re-inventing the wheel, the constant need to chase the new readers at the expense of the old. The need to fiddle. Nope, thats knackered me out. I can't even be arsed to get riled up about politics anymore - and considering the tenderhooks that my job has me on at almost every turn, thats like turkeys forgetting what month comes after November.

I'm tired of 'fans' as well. One of the more intriguing parts of the latest half series of Dr Who has not been the show itself, but the reaction of the fans - on facebook, twitter etc. What a bunch of entitled fools. Two messages stick with me. The first one condemned the entire show as 'fail' because the poster had managed to guess the identity of River Song earlier on. Boo hoo! You guessed, you won, well done. That doesn't make the show a failure. The other one was one early on that condemned the show as an utter disaster because of one set of overnight ratings that made it the 'least watched Nu-Who' of some such. A week later when the official figures were announced, this changed substantially, but that mercenary poster was desperate to have his pound of flesh.

I've seen this before in wrestling - when the comparative ratings between the WWE and TNA were scoured over, quarter hour by quarter hour, to see whether the observers could glean some meaning - like modern day soothsayers picking through the entrails of a dead sheep. It just ends in ill feeling and tribalism.

I'm tired - so very tired - of being made to feel like I should apologise for the TV I watch and the books that I read.  Not by people who watch radically different shows, or read radically different books. That would be understandable. No, its by people who are essentially forcing a cigarette paper between two things and then calling one side good and one side bad. I'm tired of people telling me how bad Green Lantern will be next week - I'm going to watch it regardless, you know?

Moreover I'm tired of the relentless need to pronounce things 'Awesome!' or 'Terrible!' with no middle ground. Can nothing just be 'Good','Acceptable','Perfectly Acceptable Viewing'? Why does it always have to be the most erection inducing thing EVER or so utter disdainful that its mere mention kills puppies.

And I'm tired of puppies. Because I want one and too many people have them.

I yearn for a world of positivity - where the ability the internet and the communications revolution has given us is tempered by an old Mam's saying ... 'If you can't say something nice, don't say it at all.'

Right, time to go to sle...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Improper!

This summer I travelled to the USA with a companion. We sat next to each other on the plane and occassionally, our legs touched each other. We shared tense moments in an airport discovering our flight was delayed but relaxed that evening during a late supper in a deserted restaurant in our exclusive stop-over hotel. We shared a room .. for five days. We laughed, we joked, we even had a time and a place to rendevous should fate mean our paths parted. On the return leg my luggage was lost and my companion waited, patiently, for me to solve my issue.

Of course, my companion was a man and therefore, under the rules of the day, we may have taken part in an 'improper relationship'

What a load of shite.

The furore over the relationship between the Foreign Secretary William Hague and his advisor is such a ridiculous framing of the continued deep-seated homophobia that runs through this country that it makes me furious.

We start with the idea that two men cannot be friends without their relationship being 'improper'. We then move on to the idea that two men sharing a room is somehow 'improper'. Not a bed, mind you - a twin room! We then drill down into some of the more murky depths of the insinuation - that somehow a gay man's relationship with another gay man is a threat to national security in a way that a man and woman could never be. Oh no. That somehow by hiding this 'non-fact' that William Hague is somehow showing a lack of integrity?

It gets worse. Max 'Leech on Modern Society' Clifford suggests that questions need to be answered why a multi-millionaire would need to share a room? Well, I'm not a highly trained journalist looking to cover all the angles (/sarc) but I can think of half a dozen possible reasons off the top of my head including the not unreasonable prospect that William fancied someone to have a chat to late at night?

Because, you know guys, being in the same room as someone does not mean you have to slip your slender majority into the opposition benches!

Has there been any implication that the impropriety within the alleged relationship might be adulterous? No. Not at all. Its all about the G-A-Y.

In my mind, the only improper thing around here is the sad mirror this throws up on our society.

How Much Money Makes You A Customer

As many of you know, I quite like professional wrestling and on occassion I have been known to 'e-fed' - a sort of wrestling based group fanfic. I have also been playing a browser game called 'The Wrestling Game' for over two years now and nestle quite nicely in amongst the top 200 or so players in the game. Its fun, mindless and costs nothing apart from time and a little attention.

Years ago, I started playing a facebook game called 'Wrestler' which, with a little more interactivity, attempted the same thing. It was OK, but like many of these games it really only rewarded time-sinkable players and I grew a little bored and abandoned it. Cut to a couple of years later and I stumbled across 'Wrestler:Unstoppable' (essentially Wrestler 2.0) and started playing it. Its quite good, I enjoy it - mindless, free fun etc.

However, for some people it isn't free. As with most FB games nowadays, an area of the game has been monetised to generate income. By taking part in matches you earn coins, which can be spent on new costumes, training slots etc. However the really cool stuff costs Wrestler BUCKS which can be got in two ways: buying them direct or signing up to survey companies, installing (and deleting!) FB apps etc.

Its not hard to do the second method, carefully, and generate a few bucks. However its far easier to just push a few buttons and grab them using paypal, should you want to. Well, why would you? Aha! The roleplaying side of the game - the federations - costs bucks to set up. Thirty, I believe. In real money that constitutes almost £2.50 worth of investment. To get a few special items, a fancy nameplate for your character and a nice background - cosmetic things - will cost you around 120 bucks, or a wallet tearing £8.

Seriously, you would think people were mortgaging their homes!

"We cannot afford this!"

"You are forcing us to spend REAL money!"

"I cannot believe that all the cool stuff costs bucks!"

Its the same refrain that comes from the Zynga stable of games as well.

The fly in the Wrestler ointment however, appears to be that the player base quite liked v1.0 and were mighty miffed when it was closed and 2.0 was opened. All that time and effort into developing their characters has been wasted. Now they are 'investing' in this new game, they have a voice, some ownership, a 'right' as 'consumers' to have their words listened to.

And of course, because it is the internet, their 'word' means telling the owner - a guy called Jon - exactly what he should be doing to 'save' his game. His dying game. The game he is killing before them by his stupid decisions and moreover, the game they HAVE PAID REAL MONEY (£3) to take part in!!! That makes them PAYING CUSTOMERS (I don't know the mark-up for a trumpet volley, but it should accompany that phrase) and therefore they have RIGHTS and if you ignore their rantings you are BAD BUSINESS and you are KILLING THE GAME.

You know, his game. The one he has invested his real money - and probably a damned sight more than £3 into. And he should listen to all of you, the vast majority who are still, eight months on, demanding a rollback to v1.0....

I often wonder about the mob mentality of the internet. I often wonder what turns a rational human being into an entitled wanker just because they have a keyboard in front of them. If you bought a pint and some crisps for £3 would you then think that you had the divine right to bellow at the directors of the pub chain about their choice of juke box tracks? No, not really.

But you can on the internet. Bless it.

SuperMetroFootballPunditsGo!!

I have had the pleasure of sharing the Metro this week with two gems of Geordie football knowledge. They are only on the train for a couple of stops but the pundit style gems that have come from their mouths have made my day. For example:

Manchester Utd 3-0 Newcastle United

BBC View: Manchester United made the perfect start to their title bid with a comfortable victory against promoted side Newcastle at Old Trafford.

SuperMetroFootballPunditView!: Newcastle should have easily beaten Man Utd. With the squad Newcastle has, it should have been easy. If they cannot beat Man Utd away, they are doomed to relegation.

Or how about this one?

Young Boys 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur

BBC View: Tottenham's dreams of qualifying for the Champions League group stages hang in the balance after a first leg play-off defeat by Young Boys

SuperMetroFootballPunditView!: Utter disaster for Spurs showing them up for the relegation candidates that they are. Must mock my Spurs-supporting work colleagues about their impending Championship status when I get to work.

Its all totally without a hint of irony either - just two blokes talking very solemnly about football and they way they see the league playing out. Its addictive!

Too Hot? Too Spicy? HOT! HOT!

Holidays can do a lot of things for you. They can allow you to experience new cultures, taste new foods, meet new people and even, if you are lucky, relax. I've pretty much managed all four whilst I have been away in Tunisia and not always to my benefit.

The chance to live in an Arab country, even for just a week, has been illuminating. First off, it wasn't all that bad! Obviously we were in a tourist resort but I never once experienced any anti-western feeling. Indeed, it was a very international experience, with British, French, German, Italian and African tourists all mingling. I even found myself slipping into my pseudo-esparanto tongue mixing three parts English with one part French and one part German. Of course not everyone was nice. The place was crawling with 'vendors' - all willing to sell you rubbish for inflated prices - and bartering shopkeepers who start at ridiculous levels (£20 for a £2 toy) in a hope to catch a fool. Relentless is not the word for these guys and you have to learn a firm NO! quickly to avoid annoyance. It's not always that easy as they are masters of open questioning and many of them have bribed the hotel staff to have access to the actual hotel lobby, passing themselves off as hotel entertainment staff.

I think that one of the starkest things to understand here is that whilst not quite third world, the area we were in was very ... desolate. Broken buildings, dust track roads, barely functional cars and nearly no municipal sanatation. Dead cat in the street in full rigor mortis? No worries. Huge empty hotels overgrown? Of course! Aggressive taxi drivers that driver death traps? Par for the course. However on the other hand, we saw not one beggar, unlike at home. The prices for commodities such as fruit and fish are set by the government, as is the exchange rate of their closed currency. It felt contented and 'safe', safer than many areas in Newcastle.

I think what struck me the most was the desperate and predatory nature of their commerce. We visited the medina in Sousse, which was beautiful begat this 9thC ancient walled city contained was, essentially, a massive series of souvenir and fake stalls. Tat as far as the eye can see. It was hard to think that these people relied on gulliable tourists to make a living although that would explain their attitude and persistence.

Of course this probably isn't helped by asshole tourists. We encountered a delightful family from Glasgow who demanded they had their own regular table in the restaurant. We made the mistake of sitting in their territory once and the father exploded at the staff. Full on f-ing and blinding about the useless hotel, the crap staff and them 'fucking towelheads'. For his whining he got a designated table and complimentary water and our shared waiter got a bollocking. And Muppet Boy eyeballed me all week, clearly wanting to make something of it. Silly thing is, if he had asked, we would have moved. The waiter was awesome, laughing with the kids, charming Christine and telling me all about the food and the weather ( it was bloody hot - in excess of 42 degrees). On our final night, the muppets had their own table and we had flowers, table settings, water laid on and the full works. Right next to them. Oh how we laughed. Needless to say, he got his tip!

And I relaxed. No, really! No Internet. No phone. No tv. Well, no tv for the first five days and then we relented. One English channel, MBC Action, which showed subtitled (in Arabic) shows like CSI, Heroes, Bones, The Unit etc.

I read mostly, ploughing through four Dresden Files novels and some background reading on the reasons for the Anglo-Zulu War. I even put pen to paper on some outlines for DFRPG adventures and a BTQ campaign book. Most of all though, I had time and space to do nothing, with no real need to worry about anything, even if jut for a few fleeting days. Very cool.

So was it a good holiday? Of course it was. It was very different from my expectations and that was a good thing. I did reflect, as I was sat opposite the mosque in Sousse, watching a man trying desperately to sell photos with a sparrowhawk whilst listening to some Arabic drumming, thy in two week time, I will be in the middle of the USA, draping myself in American popular culture. It should be quite the juxtaposition, I think

ps. I wrote the above the night before we left. On the plane coming home, I was sat in front of two couple who whinged and moaned about EVERYTHING on their holiday, from the moment they arrived until the moment they left. It was like a comedy sketch - complaints about the foreigners not all speaking English, about them serving them foreign food, about the presence of flies, about the 'funny money', about the quality of everything, the lack of english TV channels, the heat, the sand, the rooms - even the way people looked at them around the pool. Remarkable.

Fortune vs. Caution

I remember when I got my iPhone. New Years Eve 2008. Now I don't remember the date because I got the phone then, that would be very silly. No, I remember getting the phone then because of the date and thus how easy I thought it would be to remember when my contract expired. End of June 2010. It seemed like so far away then...

I am also not usually the most lucky of people when it comes to getting free stuff. You know, when all of those building societies were handing out dividends in the 90s? I always had money in the wrong account, or a couple of quid too few to qualify or whatever. Never quite in the right place at the right time.

And then today I discovered that O2 are doing a limited time upgrade from the normal iPhone to the new iPhone4. It would appear that for once, I have the chance to be right at the cutting edge! The question is, should I?

I have been exceptionally happy with the performance of my iPhone. I pondered getting one for a while, swapping out my old Orange smartphone with its slide-down keyboard. In the end it was very much the right move. The main use for it is for mobile internet and it works great for that, especially with 02's properly unlimited access plan. I've even rediscovered music over the last year and I have acquired quite a nice collection of old albums from my youth. In general its just the right bit of kit for what I need - and it does calls too.

So it would seem that I am a shoe-in for the iPhone4, yeah?

That would seem sensible, except I'm never really too happy as the early adopter. Second wave? Fine by me, but the cutting edge is a place for those with a tolerance for bugs and 'waiting for the update' cyber-warriors. Its always a gamble. Is it one worth taking to save the hassle of the post-offer upgrade business?

I think it probably will be, if only for a bit of a treat for myself. Its about time I truly became one of the cool kids ... it had to happen one day.

Creative Tsunami

There are some things that I really have to avoid. One of them is watching the ITV news, as I may be forced to put my foot through the TV screen. Another is going to one of those Big Lukes 'Eat all you can' American Meat eateries, as I may gorge myself to death. However, above all else, I need to avoid 'genre' magazines - specifically things like SFX, SciFiNow or Previews.

The problem with these things is that they light a burning fire in my head. The assault of ideas, imagery and easily digestible information is like ... well, you know in those silly films where they try to brainwash the hero by pinning his eyes open and then flashing loads of images of war and death and evil into his mind? Thats the effect it has on me. It fills my head with all of the possibilities that are out there, waiting to be exploited and explored. Not in a 'Oh, I must go to the moon tomorrow!' way, but rather in a creative way.

Throughout my life I have always struggled with the perceived mismatch between my desire to create and my ability to do so to my satisfaction. Am I a perfectionist? No, not really, but I can be terribly hypercritical of my own work on one hand and yet exceptionally defensive of it on the other. You know, *I* am allowed to call my stuff (whatever it is) crap, but nobody else can! Certainly, the former has been the main reason why I stopped drawing when I went to Uni - I was never going to be a comic book artist so what was the point? Its been the reason why I have failed to pursue a number of creative avenues and the excuse on why I have failed to complete a number of others. The entire Omnihedron Games experience has been an exceptional one for me, if only because I have actually carried something creative through to completion.

And yet, I still get these overpowering urges to create. Something. To write, draw, design, build something. They may lay dormant for some time but then they erupt again, stimulated by something which catches my eye or ear or whatever.

Today's culprit was SciFiNow and its commentary on the phenomenon of paranormal romance - which you will all know is a favourite of mine. Gah, I want to play with that stuff in some way. I know its in there, something, bursting to get out but I cannot seem to get an outlet which satisfies.

And why? Well, this particular urge came at 9pm at night, after a 12 hour teaching shift in the middle of a three day, 12 hours per day session which has to be followed up by marking and research for my last college assignment (yes, another one...) and then writing up notes for my latest D&H expansion.

If Perfect is the enemy of Done, then Time is the arch nemesis of Creativity in my world.

But it still doesn't stop the build up and the frustration.

Grrrr!

300 Posts and the Sun in Shining!

You can feel something in the air. People are smiling, laughing and joking. The world is a brighter place. The oppression has been lifted, the future is laid out before us and it is good. Today is a better place than yesterday and the day before that. What has brought about this wonderful emotional epiphany?

The sun is shining.

Now I have occassionally cracked a joke about the weird shining disc in the sky but this is the real thing. Its a bona fide spring day and boy does it feel good. The weather has been officially shitty since about October last year and this is the first day I can remember where I saw blue sky and felt like it was right. Its stupid but true - it makes a massive difference to the way I and it would appear many other people feel.

Of course, this is probably it and tomorrow it will go back to dull, with a side order of crappy - but today, this glorious wonderful day, its bright and sparkling.

(And yes, this is 300 posts on the blog. Thats a lot of shite)

Valve

In honour of my New Years resolution, I will not be talking about any of the following topics:

• People complaining about poor weather in the winter
• The proposed BBC cuts and how they make me want to punch someone
• The inevitable witchhunt over our poor showing at the Winter Olympics (see #1..)

Why? Because I have already exploded at the TV twice today and I'm all ranted out.

Storm in a D-Cup

..or how slow a news day was it yesterday?

So I'm reading the Metro this morning going into work and I scan across an article about a student from Oxbridge (that fictional higher plane that links Oxford and Cambridge despite them being nowhere near each other) has written a sex diary blog about her exploits in bed. It is, the papers say, the next Belle de Jour and images of Billy Piper in a v-necked jumper, Ugg boots and a pashmina drinking Skittles raced around my head.

So I exercised the wonders of modern technology and hunted down this cesspit of human depravity on my iPhone. It took a while because the newspaper didn't give a URL and when I searched for it, I found a lot of newspaper coverage - Guardian, Mail, Telegraph etc. Eventually, I found the site in question.

It has three posts on it - and the majority of the content had been relayed to the reader through the exerpts from the press.

Now we all know sex sells, and posh, literate totty who doesn't mind a quicky sells even better in the broadsheets (bringing back memories of halcyon days for the journalists, no doubt) but three posts?! Its not like its even explicit stuff.

Post 1 is 'I have OCD, I was a latecomer to sex, here's what I intend to do here.'
Post 2 is 'How I lost my virginity in a dignified manner'
Post 3 is 'Rugby lads - ok in bed, wanted anal, as if?!'

I am, of course, just jealous. Said 'closet nympho' has managed in three posts to generate no doubt a gazillion hits and will spiral into 15 minutes of fame. Clearly what I need to do is post something other than gaming and anti-media 'why can't we all be sensible' rantings and start talking about something more smutty.

No takers?

I'm stunned....

Living in a Google World

Another day, another Google product - this time, Google Buzz (a sort of Google-ised Twitter-cum-Facebook Status Update). The advance of the Google empire across the digital world seems to be an unstoppable force. I wonder however, whether it will reach the immoveable object of public suspicion?

The computer literati have a history of suspicion when it comes to having One Big Company controlling all of their resources and this suspicion is mirrored in legal circles by various attempts to dismantle these alleged monopolies. I am, of course, nodding towards the various amounts of litigation against Microsoft and the rise of the small but vocal advocates for 'alternate' browser systems to Windows.

I was pondering yesterday whether the spread of Google was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. Consider this - could you do a complete web-based project using only Google products? They provide a search engine, a chat function, a collaborative tool, a groups tool, a blogging tool, a social networking tool, a shared calendar tool, a photo library tool, a map tool, a video library tool, a website creation tool and even an online checkout tool. Assuming you don't have to do any image manipulation, yes, I reckon you could create a complete web-based project of some degree of sophistication using just the Google tools.

I'm normally the last person to complain about these sort of things as I find it a little funny that you have people profiting from a capitalist society complaining that someone (Microsoft) is a far better capitalist than they are. Sob sob boo hoo. However, something doesn't sit right with me that Google should have this level of integration but for the life of me, I cannot think why. I'm posting this on a Google blog, powered by a Google browser all generated by an account for a Google email. Hypocrite? Moi?

Then again, it might just be that everyonehas managed to link their Twitter, Facebook and Buzz feeds together so that everywhere I turn, I see the same bloody messages!

Terminating Facebook?

Its funny how things tend to come along in bunches. I was talking to Dave (who is doing his PhD on some complicated marketing thingamebob that has stuff to do with online games) about termination costs on Saturday night. We have the best, more interesting conversations, you see. We were talking about the methods that companies use to increase the termination costs of their products, especially online products to hold onto customers.

This week, Facebook changed its interface again. It moved a few bits around and altered the way that some things worked and there is an extra click here or there. Those people addicted to the various online games that are played on Facebook will have known this was coming because they have been altering how the games interact with the site over the last couple of months, probably due to load issues.

And, like every other time that this has happened, there has been an uproar of people bemoaning the changes that have been made. They are accusing Facebook of changes for changes sake, terrible design choices, ignoring the needs of the user and above all else returning them to the deluge of 'Bobby has just planted some Elephant Corn in FarmTownVille' messages. (Although why, for the life of me, the people that play the games simply don't ignore the offers to post these messages, I do not know.)

And I pondered this for a while, reading the vitriol that the users were pouring onto the newsfeeds and I thought 'Why not just stop using it then?'

And then I remembered - termination costs.

I think a lot can be said about us that we can hate a product (well, for this week anyway, until we all get used to the changes and they become the norm, until the next change comes along) so much that we set up a group to attack that self-same product and yet we simply cannot bring ourselves to cease the usage of that product.

Them's damned high termination costs.

Rickets, Paedos and Home Invasions

So, apparently, there has been an upsurge in the incidence of rickets amongst children in the UK and that has been blamed on ... computer games. What a shocker! Apparently, instead of children staying indoors and playing dark and satanic console games, they should be frolicing in the fields, running around in the brilliant sunlight and playing football, cricket and other wholesome activities.

What a wonderful concept eh?

Of course, on virtually every point its utter tosh. Firstly, have these doctors ever looked out of the window? Its not without some truth amidst the sarcasm that we ask each other what the strange glowing sphere in the sky is - I'm bloody sick of being in a dull, grey country with shitty weather. That these scientists are from Newcastle makes this even funnier. Of course, I am being a little hyperbolic, but we don't exactly have a surfeit of sunshine at the moment.

And of course, we still have all of these playing fields and wonderful facilities for our children to use. Or not as the case may be. I met with some of my old school friends recently and we agreed that almost every place we played when we were kids has now been built over with houses or offices. The back lanes that we played football in are now double-parked with very expensive company cars, nose to tail. My children have a garden, but the next accessible piece of playspace is about two miles away.

So take them? Yeah, thats possible I suppose. Of course, in the time when you have to take the kids to their daily frolic in the 'sun' you also have to hold down your job, move around their after-school club activities, do their homework, do one of YOUR five 30-minute exercise routines a day, cooka nourishing family meal packed with the requisite 5-a-day and .... at this point, the clock explodes. Of course, I also snigger at the idea that every parent in the North Shields. Royal Quays and Meadowell area turned up at the park at the same time. It would be carnage.

Well, what about letting the kids 'play out'? Thats a prescribed activity nowadays, as regular readers know. I laughed until I hurt at Charlie Brooker's latest Newswipe re: the 'terror' media and the various hysterical episodes they have visited upon the masses. The fear of paedophiles is still everywhere and the concept of your child disappearing is so chilling, so present and so likely (?) that you simply don't take the risk. Even beyond the Clear and Present Danger of Kiddy Fiddling Inc. there is still the danger of playing with balls (aka weapons of property destruction) and laughing and shouting (anti-social behaviour 101)

Indeed, any grouping of young people is now considered a terrible danger. I was sat in my living room on Saturday when a group of teenage boys passed the house. They were 'hoodies' and having a laugh and lark about with each other. My wife was on red alert, like a meercat ready to protect her young. I asked her what was the matter and she pointed to the youths. I asked, curiously, whether they looked like they were going to turn, form an organised phalanx and storm our house? Indeed, have any group of youngsters in modern history simply decided to randomly attack a brick building like so many modern visigoths? No. So what was the problem? Was the prospect of home invasion imminent? Should we have raised the hearthside terror level to 'severe'?

Madness.

You want kids to play out and become healthy? How about building some more play areas? How about stopping drawing upon their time with 101 other things? How about becoming more tolerant of the things that kids do when they play - balls, noise, walking and how about setting up a massive solar mirror to bring some more sunshine to our blighted isle?

And why do I think the latter is more likely than any of the former?

Console Gaming - Five Years Late

I have never had a games console. OK, I tell a lie, for a few months when I lived in Rugby I had a SNES. It was a total impulse buy because I was bored shitless living on my own and I only ever had one game for it - Super Mario Somethingorother.

Since then I have never touched another console. PC gamer all the way. That was until yesterday when I inherited a PS2 from a friend who was moving house. The game came with Guitar Hero (I & II) and some old-school racing games. I am about as musical as a brick but Guitar Hero has proved to be doable. However it has been an absolute smash hit with the girls, who have regular battles now whenever our backs are turned.

And the one thing that has always caused me to back away from the console has not transpired - it has not caused TV-schedule nightmares. Instead of the house being filled with iCarly or MTV hits or some other rubbish, its now filled with ROCK! Indeed the acceptance of the console has spawned Mrs G. to suggest we bought some more pre-owned games - and boy, PS2 games are damned cheap.

So we snaffled up Star Wars Lego, Madden 2007 and Super Mario Somethingorother for a tenner. Of course, in order to play them I am going to have to unplug the girls from their new rock addiction.

So readers, what PS2 games are the MUST HAVE games I have missed over the last decade?

In Search of the Greatest Chili Sauce

Its time again to brew a batch of chili sauce and this time I think I'm nearly there. I love sweet chili sauce but I also love hot sauce and I rarely find one which manages to do both. With this in mind I undertook a mission a couple of months ago to make my own.

The trick, it seems, is in the mix of chilis. A lot of sauces I have read use capsicum peppers and tomatoes for body but I find that they meddle with the sauce too much. I prefer to use meaty medium heat chilis and lots of them, like a kilo of them. I add to that minced Birds Eye chilis and some Scots Bonnet too. That delivers the heat. Minced ginger, a little lime rind, coriander seed and some pepper corns for flavour and some whole cinnamon for aroma. White vinegar and jam sugar make up the rest of the mix. Heat it, reduce it, let it cool and bottle it. It really works.

If this batch works out OK, I reckon I have got it sorted. Next trick - the perfect 'brown' sauce.

The Hypocritical Oath

My wife and I were musing last night that it hardly seems like yesterday since the grand Millennium celebrations were rocking the world, and yet its ten whole years. My youngest daughter is ten years old and she marks the passage of time in the 21st century. This got me thinking about the world as it exists at the moment and how I feel about it and I realised that for the first time in my life I am reluctant to be a participant in many things and have started to withdraw. Thats not a natural state for me, but I reflected that its because of the emergence of five sorts of people and the almost constant haze of shite that they generate. Who are these people?

Haters - Live and Let Live is a wonderful way to exist, but it seems to have disappeared into the aether nowadays. Its much easier to hate something now and to be exceptionally vocal about it. Not things that matter, like racism or homophobia, but totally inconsequential things like a series of books, a comics storyline, a record, a sport, a TV personality, a foodstuff, a TV show, a word, a website, a hobby, a game etc. I'll raise my hand and say that I have, in my time, been one of these people, specifically towards Brian Micheal Bendis and his effect on the Avengers comic book line. Seething, vitriolic hatred permeates our society now like a virus.

Hyper-critics - different from the haters, are the hypercritics. I have noticed an increased level of nit-picking and general moaning about the quality of entertainment over the last few years. Moreover, a number of these decisions on the quality of films, books, comics etc. are made sight-unseen. They are based off a rumour, a trailer or just the idea of the piece. Moreover, the more people who are likely to like something, the more the hyper-critics are looking to find a way to shoot it up. Blow it out of the sky. Take it down a peg or two. Of course, if you disagree with them, you are beset by other hyper-critics and more than a few haters to the point where its becoming increasingly difficult to actually like something publicly without courting disaster.

Political Fantasists - We live in a world of political fantasy. In this world, politicians are good, selfless people who have cast aside any ideas of self-promotion or advancement and instead taken to a life in under the public microscope, doing their very best for the people and not asking for a jot in return. Upon completing this service, they will disappear into the aether and never be heard of again. Every decision made by these puritan politicians will naturally suit everyone and no-one will be disadvantaged or disconcerted by anything. Only in this world will the political system be pure and unsullied and *shudder* democratic. Of course, this is the fantasy and about as far away from the reality as it can get. I'm not suggesting that some of these are no aspirations that can be aimed at, but some people need to understand that we live in a representative democracy, not a participatory democracy and that politics is a cyclical business. Even I, as a left-wing leaning life-long Labour supporter can see that it is healthy for a change of government however it isn't a tribal thing. Its not a case of winning or losing. Its part of the natural state of things.

Conspiracy Theorists - Nothing ever just 'is' - there always has to be something behind it that we cannot see. Were 'we' means 'you' because the person informing you of the theory has perfect 20/20 vision on the matter and almost supernatural perceptions and insight beyond those of normal man. Wars, terrorism, climate change, politics, elections - its all been a massive conspiracy theory from Day One it would seem. Lets just consider that the conspiracy theorists are right and say, the US government did cause 9/11? What you gonna do about it? If they are willing and capable to do that, what makes you think you make one piece of a difference? In a world where nothing is as it seems, no-one is willing to be the King wearing the Invisible Clothese in case they make a fool of themselves. No-one will be tricked and therefore when it matters, no-one cares.

'My World' Selfishness - more than anything else, the rise of 'My World' selfishness has caused me to develop an almost violent twitch of anguish. For example, a games company posted that it had released a new service and the very first post that someone replied with said 'sorry, but its too late for my game, we just finished playing.' So what? Should they have pre-empted your needs and produced it earlier? What? Honestly, what was the point of that utterance? The entire doctrine of 'First!' and 'TL;DR' on forums is all about me-me-me! The preponderance of arguments based on 'it doesn't apply to me, therefore it must be false' is ridiculous. Any sense of being part of a larger diverse community seems to have been lost in a mantra of 'don't waste my time with stuff that doesn't concern me!'

Almost all of this has been facilitated by the increased ease of access to information, volume of content and near-anonymous personality brought to us through internet communication. I think when our children look back on this time, the internet will be seen as an innovation and indeed, a revolution on the same scale as the industrial revolution of the 19th century - and indeed like that revolution it has got some unintended pollution attached to it.

So, before anyone reading this says 'hang on Neil? Aren't you legendary for your ranting and raving about things? Haven't you bored us to tears with your diatribes about the undue influence of the media on the world and its thinking? Don't you tick just about every box on this list?' I will 'fess up and say 'Yes'. And thats the point of this post.

Its time for it to stop or I am just going to become an angry old man. So, this year, I am going to make a concerted effort to excuse myself from that seething, teeth-grinding anger. I'm not going to be a hater or a critic. I'm going to realise that rarely can debates be won or lost - nowadays its more like a case of First World War trench warfare. I'm going to enjoy the world on my own terms and well, sod everyone else. Too much energy lost and too many distractions caused by the people that wind me up. In my 39th year, its time to just chill out a little.

Art or Capitalism?

In a recent online conversation, a friend of mine stated that he was doing games design for 'art not capitalism'. This is a phrase that has stuck in the back of my mind for some time now, niggling away at me. When I started to think around it, my creative persona and my rather hard-wired marketing-driven mindset clashed quite abruptly.

On the one hand, I can see exactly where he was coming from. One of the benefits of small-press publishing is that you can do things and go to places that mainstream publishers simply cannot. You can explore game ideas that would simply not be feasible in the world of three-tier, glossy hardback publishing. This becomes even more blatant when you consider the world of pdf publishing, the ultimate in 'legit but low cost' games publishing. If you really really want to write a game about the trials and tribulations of cartoon underwater animal lawyers, then you can - and someone did! Want to write a freeform game about the siege of Montesgur? Yup, you can do that too! Game of teenage self-destruction in the Warsaw Ghetto? Knock yourself out! The same naturally extends to mechanics - beyond the lunacy of Jenga as a mechanic, some games designers are working on things as bizarre as self-tattooing and performing operations on paper bowel templates. The mind boggles ... but in some way, this is where its at when it comes to being allowed the freedom from constraint that an art-driven game provides.

On the other hand, however, if your game is played at an empty table does anyone hear the dice falling? Every fibre of my being says that you should always consider the commercial viability of your game, even if you are going to give it away for free! I cannot see the point of creating a game that no-one will play so giving yourself a fighting start by choosing a topic or a genre which at least has a hook that people can attach themselves to is something. Beyond that, of course, publishing is filled with 1001 different business decisions - the most important of all being, in my opinion, how far do I want to go with this venture?

Not everyone is going to have the ambition to be the Next Big Thing. Indeed, realistically, you stand very little chance of doing that. Setting yourself goals to achieve and parameters to work within would seem a reasonable choice for the small publisher. My goals have always been quite modest. Some people would suggest that was a measured, realistic and prudent approach to the venture. Others would say I am just horrendously risk averse and don't have the courage of my convictions. Whatever the reasons, I have tried to pursue those goals with vigour and use every trick I know to leverage the advantages I have in the market - be that skills, contacts or knowledge. I'm well versed in the machinery of capitalism and I like to make it work for me a little bit now and then.

However, is that just some hypocrisy on my part? Would my artist friend not just be fulfilling his goals in the same way - just different goals? Has my creative vision been compromised by my need to work within a market and indeed in some ways pander to that market? Every time I have changed an aspect of my game in order to make it more sellable, have I lost a little of its soul in my pursuit of filthy sterling? Or am I simply exercising common sense in making my game spread through planning rather than happenstance?

I find it intriguing as a concept that someone could make something with the intent to sell it, but with no eye to what would sell or who it would be sold to? Intellectually, I can see what drives people in that direction but I'm just not wired that way.

Roman Holiday

I think its fair to say that my wife and I come from wholly different backgrounds when it comes to 'Things You Do on a Bank Holiday'. I was always allowed to play out for ages, or sit and watch some back-to-back kids films or, if it was sunny, go to the beach. My wife comes from what I cynically dub 'the school of enforced family fun' - you must go somewhere and do something, regardless!



So, with this in mind, I found myself bombing along the A68 (9?) from Newcastle to Corbridge at 10.30 in the morning, on the way to the Roman Fort site for a Roman History Day. Now many of you may know that I quite like my history, but Roman stuff simply doesn't do it for me. Its all a bit too distant and abstract for my liking. So, I was less than thrilled at the prospect of 'yet more rocks in the ground', after all, if I wanted to see them I could just pop along to Wallsend. Actually that might well be the source of my lack of interest in things Roman? Growing up in Newcastle, you become fairly dulled to (a) Romans, (b) Medieval Castles and (c) Christian Saints by the time you reach your teenage years.



So when I got there and was herded into a field to park by some perky English Heritage types, I was sceptical. Then I saw a horse, in barding. Not a stone horse, but a real one?! Things were looking up! I baulked slightly at the £20 entry fee - I wonder sometimes whether it would be easier to surrender and just buy an English Heritage membership - and entered a world of bacon and burger smells. Great. Just what I need on my diet!



And then things took a turn for the decidedly good. There was a large re-enactment crew doing weapon displays. Awesome. One guy did some sharp weapons stuff and then they did 'fights from the movies and how they are crap' and then they did a full of set of Romans vs Britons melees and then some horse riding and fighting displays. It was a full hour of entertainment and well worth sitting and watching. After that we had a picnic of sorts and then wandered around the exhibits for a while, which was all very nice and arty. We then checked out 'Boudica's Revolt ... with vegetables' on the assurance from the kids that it was awesome. Turns out that the guy that does this 'historical theatre with vegetable actors' has been on Brainiac: History Abuse and is therefore a minor kiddy celeb. It was very funny and a great way to get the story over to kids. Emma pottered around the textiles place doing some weaving whilst Lara and I chilled out in the ruins and then we saw a supposedly funny guy teaching us about how little we knew about physics and Roman technology.

This was actually the bit that really spoiled it for me, as he was so cleverer-than-thou about the entire affair that it actually became off-putting. The swordsman at the start scotched a few myths about fighting for people (for example, a gladius is a slashing weapon, not a stabbing weapon and the massive overacted spear stabs are indeed, massive and overacted as the spear was a swiping and slashing weapon) but he did it in a funny way. The technology guy was just all 'you think you know stuff, but really you know nothing and I know exactly what is what, ha!'

His main points seemed to be (a) the Romans invented very little but imported a lot from other parts of their empire (implying that 'What Did the Romans Do For Us?' should actually more accurately be called 'What Ideas Did the Romans Steal and Import into This Country and Blag Off as Their Own' and (b) if children have computers you are bad parents because they should be doing water pressure experiments instead or the world will end. The science bit was good but really, I could have done without the preaching that went along with it!

After that, we were tiring and there was an hour to kill before the missile combat display, so we decided to cut and run, heading back to civilisation. It was, in retrospect, a really good day out and great value for money between the four of us - about £1 each for each 'show'. I probably wouldn't bother doing it again, but as a one-off it was very pleasant.

The Next Big Thing

As the latest playtesting stage of Beat to Quarters trundles along, my mind has wandered to what I will do after it is finished. Its certainly not a secret amongst my closest friends that I am pretty Napoleonic'd out - I feel almost physically sick at the thought of reading another book about the era! I'm still full steam ahead with BtQ but thats it! No more! Three years of working on one topic has taken its toll.

However, I am not someone who just sits there and does nothing. In fact even a few moments of inactivity makes me nervous and shifty. Its like a sort of perpetual intellectual motion addiction. I've been like this since I was a kid - which was horrific for an only child. My catchphrase when I was a bairn was 'I'm booooooored!'

Anyway, what comes next? Well, what it isn't going to be is another roleplaying game. Not writing it anyway. Its been an amazing experience but I am determined not to become a serial games designer. I am, however, considering some roleplaying venture. As Andrew keeps reminding me, the genre I love but I don't feel that I have conquered is Urban Fantasy and it acts as a tantalus for me. However, if I do it, its going to have to be done right, with a reasonably long campaign and my full weight behind not only the GMing, but also the production and peripherals around the game. More than just a game, I would want to deliver an experience. Its been some time since I actually ran a campaign (rather than one-shots and playtests) and I'm not getting any younger! As to what I would run, thats a wonderful question. If and when the Dresden Files RPG comes out, that would seem to be the obvious vehicle. However I'm not holding my breath for that. I'm about to come into possession of the old Underworld rpg which might give me a basis. I have considered even using Hot War as thats a system that I have enjoyed in the past.

I'm going to have to consider what I do with my education as well. If I do (finally) get settled in as a proper lecturer at the college, I will have to upgrade by PTLLS to a CTLLS or DTLLS sooner rather than later. I can't say it would be a hardship but in the end it wouldn't be too much fun either. I've also had the yearnings to do some formal learning, either in history or (bizarrely) french! I was stunned by how much I enjoyed my journeys in France this summer and I was disappointed that my lack of linguistic skills meant I missed some of the details of what was going on. It would be a tough sell for me to do something with an exam at the end, but it might be what I need to get over this silly aversion I have to them.

I also have my standing promise to myself that I will finally learn how to do the database+website thing, so that I can restart my web design interest. I'd have to learn to do the database thing first, of course, but thats a given.

Its strange - the world is my oyster but I'm at a bit of a short end as to what to do. I only really know that doing nothing is not an option!

The End...

...of my little girls junior school life (or career, as they now refer to it, strangely) was today. It was her Leavers Assembly. Its been something that she has been talking about for two years and I have to say it was by far the most traumatic moment I have seen in the kids school experience. This goes beyond nervous steps into stage productions (that was last week) or exam results (the week before). It even goes beyond that moment when you realise that not everyone is going to be your friend.

It was a half-hour long class retrospective of the years they have spent together since nursery, recounting in that rather twee manner that school 'performances' do, the ups and downs. It was very funny in parts and showed off some of the talents of the kids. It involved a lot of singing. A lot of singing. With the entire year there in front of you, you could see where genetics was playing its tricks. There were the rapidly maturing young woman standing alongside girls who would have looked at home in Reception. There were boys who were clearly approaching 'those difficult years' and others that looked like your stereotypical waifs. Some of the kids were very confident, others were nervous, others were paralysed with fear.

And then, at the end, they had to sing 'The Greatest Day' by Take That. These are the opening lyrics:

Today this could be, the greatest day of our lives
Before it all ends, before we run out of time
Stay close to me,
Stay close to me
Watch the world come alive tonight
Stay close to me.

Tonight this could be the greatest night of our lives
Let’s make a new start,
The future is ours to find
Can you see it,
can you see it in my eyes
Can you feel it now,
can you hold it in your arms tonight

And tears. Floods of tears. The adults in the audience - teachers, parents, grandparents, classroom assistants. Crying. The kids, one by one, started to cry. And the little buggers were still banging out the tune with the tears streaming down their eyes. Even the lads were crying!

It came to an end, the headmaster said some platitudes, as did the headmaster of the high school that 95% of them will be going to and then some prizes were handed out. And then, in a move of the most barbaric, cold-hearted and unsympathetic sort, the headmaster asked them to sing the song again as the lower school kids trooped out.

It was carnage. Really, it was too much for some of them. Boys openly crying and hugging other boys. Girls with their arms around each other. Teachers passing out tissues along the rows to try to add a veneer of dignity to the occassion as parents saw their children put through mental torture. It was like Torchwood had prepared us for this moment!

In the end, of course, everyone was fine. Everyone always is - and the words of the High School head resonated. "You know you have a good school when the kids are crying because they are leaving."

The silly thing is, they will all be popping into each others houses over the summer and then seeing each other in seven weeks time. I tried to broach this topic and suggest that it wasn't the people she would miss but the teachers and the school itself. I was soundly told I was wrong. It was still an amazing, slightly harrowing and yet somehow hilarious and uplifting sight.

Mr Baines. You sir are a class one bastard, but you do run an amazingly good school!