One A Day, Day 42: TV Time Machine

Jane and I have been watching some old TV recently, thanks to the magic of YouTube Shows, YouTube’s new(ish) section that now contains TV shows officially uploaded by the broadcasters, and not broken into 9-minute chunks. Okay, there are irritating adverts at the beginning, midpoint and end that inexplicably always freeze at exactly the same moment, but it’s a small price to pay for a huge amount of content from Channel 4 and, should you have ever found anything worth watching on there, Five. The big plus over the BBC’s iPlayer service is that it’s not just for catching up on programmes up to seven days after they’ve been broadcast. No, the new YouTube page is a replacement for Channel 4’s old 4OD (aka “4 On Demand”) service, which used to only work on PCs via Windows Media Player and some proprietary software to log in to the service. The move to YouTube means that you can watch these programmes on anything that can “get” YouTube, including devices like the PS3 and Wii.

I’ve been watching a few different things on there, including Whose Line Is It Anyway‘s gradual change from British comedy showcase (including early sightings of Stephen Fry, John Sessions and numerous others) to the almost-fixed cast of Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles and the rotating “other two” that is more familiar to those who picked up on it quite late.

Most recently, though, Jane and I have been watching Drop The Dead Donkey, a satirical newsroom-based sitcom which ran from 1990-1998. It was prepared and broadcast at incredibly short notice so it could always be bleeding-edge topical. Each episode on YouTube helpfully starts with a brief summary of that week’s news events, so when the characters name-check the things that went on (as they frequently do) you have at least a vague idea what they’re talking about.

The funny thing about …Donkey is that, despite being twenty years old (a fact which my wife is not at all happy about) a lot of the things in there are still just as relevant today. In particular, we have the interfering management busybody “Gus”, who habitually shows up with a smarmy “Hello! Remember, I’m not here. I am just a sort of managemental support unit” whom is a fine example of everything that is wrong with corporate usage of the English language these days. We also have roving reporter Damien’s blatant attempts to “spice up” his on-location reports, including one wonderfully perverse sequence where he is being bothered by people wandering past in the background waving, so he borrows a grenade from a passing soldier and lobs it into the background to cause a panic.

These things are still relevant today, as Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe (all of which can also be “unofficially” found online – with the full knowledge and appreciation of Mr Brooker, I might add – thanks to this fine chap on YouTube) frequently comments on. It’s always nice to find something that is still entertaining after a good few years, particularly if you never got the chance to catch it first time around, like I didn’t. …Donkey clearly had such a low budget (both in terms of time and money) that it is all about the characters and the situations, and that’s what makes it such a success. There’s no special effects to laugh at, and everyone’s hairstyle and clothes are (relatively) normal. These things make it somewhat timeless – so if you’ve never seen it, why not give it a shot?

On a side note, if you want yet another online TV site to check out, you can do far worse than check out SeeSaw, which also has a ton of content from the BBC, Channel 4 and Five. ITV’s content is conspicuously absent from both SeeSaw and YouTube, but that’s no great loss, given the fact that most programmes on ITV are enough to make you want to kill yourself.

One A Day, Day 41: Storm Passed

I just finished Heavy Rain. I’m intending on writing a more lengthy piece about it for BitMob over the next couple of days, but for now I’d just like to share some bullet-point thoughts with you all, hopefully without spoilers. In no particular order…

Agent Norman Jayden is the only character in the game who doesn’t pronounce the name “Norman” correctly.
Those facial animations are incredible. There’s a number of scenes where characters show “genuine” emotion.
I dig the fact that the interface conveys emotions. If a character is scared or nervous about something, the interaction icon for it wobbles about to varying degrees. Same for the “thoughts” you can pull up by pressing L2.
Say what you like about QTEs, Heavy Rain’s are some of the best around. Several of them actually left me with sweaty palms.
The integration of Sixaxis motion controls in the QTEs is a nice touch. Thumping someone around the head by actually slamming your controller into their face is immensely satisfying.
I didn’t think the voice acting (a common criticism) was that bad. The characters sounded like real people, which is something video game actors often forget. The simple fact that the characters puff, pant, wheeze, grunt and moan convincingly as well as just talking helps with this.
The camerawork is very realistic. I don’t think there were any parts where the camera stays completely “still”. It always has a slight “hand-held wobble” to it.
The game is genuinely emotionally engaging throughout. I can’t put my finger on why, but I know that once I started playing, I didn’t want to stop. As a result, I’ve finished it two days after acquiring it. With no regrets.
Finally we’ve got a game who can make CG characters cry reasonably convincingly…
…but still not kiss very well.
This is the first game I’ve seen where characters can actually put on and remove clothes without having to cut away to avoid animating cloth.
I’m now intrigued to try another playthrough, knowing what I know now. It likely won’t have the same emotional impact, but I’m interested to see if there were any… ahh… “clues” throughout.

Right. Enough, otherwise I’ll get into spoiler territory. Off to bed!

One A Day, Day 40: Caught Up

There you go, told you I’d catch up.

On the way home today, filled with stress at our impending school inspection (which has been confirmed for next Tuesday… a genuine case of See You Next… you know.) I got to thinking. Dangerous pastime, I know. I was thinking about what I’m going to do next once this job’s over and done with. Given that I haven’t got myself a new position yet, I was thinking about alternatives.

My music teaching site, which I set up some time ago, has brought in a slow but steady trickle of enquiries for people looking for tuition. I haven’t been able to take any of these people on due to the stupidly long (and traffic-heavy) commute I have to do on a daily basis, but once I don’t have to do that, there’s definitely the possibility of being able to get a bunch of pupils for some regular income each week.

Then, on the side, I’d like to do some more freelance writing. I gave some editors a poke a while back, and will be poking them again shortly to try and get some work. Once that “starts” and I prove myself some more, that can be a semi-regular income stream, too.

Then, on the other side, I was thinking about setting up a site for computer tuition, too. I’m sure there’s a market for it – particularly if I’d be willing to do home visits. There are all sorts of people around at varying degrees of ability with their computer – my time with Apple showed me as much – so I wonder how many of them would be willing to pay for personalised, one-on-one tuition in their home.

Between these things, I’m wondering if that will bring together enough scratch to survive each month. I guess the only question is 1) how long it will take to get enough music and/or computer pupils to make it worthwhile and 2) whether these will all be “regular” income. Freelance writing is, certainly to begin with anyway, not known for its reliability as an income stream – at least until you get “noticed” a bit more – but it is something I love doing. And I’d enjoy the other things.

The biggest perk of doing this would be not having to answer to anyone. All my past jobs have ended up with me getting pissed off with some aspect of the incompetency of the people who are supposed to be “managing” me. (To be fair, I’ve had rotten luck with regard to management.) Doing this sort of thing would mean I’d only be responsible for myself which is, I won’t lie, an appealing option.

It’s a scary prospect, though. Ditching the idea of “structured” employment and taking control is both appealing and terrifying. I definitely want to give it some thought, though, and if ever there was a time to save in a new slot, this would be it.

One A Day, Day 39: Inclement Weather Conditions

Whoops! I know this is technically breaking the rules but as long as I’m caught up by the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.

So where was I last night? Heavy Rain is the simple answer to that.

The gamers among you will already be familiar with this game and you’ll probably have your own opinions on it, but for those of you who haven’t come across it yet or were asking about it, here’s what it’s about.

Heavy Rain markets itself as “interactive drama”. Despite being on the PlayStation 3, it’s keen to distance itself from the idea of traditional “video games” and by its own admission isn’t afraid to “break with conventions”. This basically means that it’s an interactive movie where you take part in the murder/kidnapping mystery story as four protagonists (none of whom are guaranteed to survive to the end credits) and interact with the world, making choices about how to act, what to say and so on.

Those of you who have played adventure games before will think this all sounds terribly familiar, but it’s the means through which Heavy Rain is executed which makes it something a bit different from the norm. For starters, it doesn’t play like a traditional “adventure” as such. You don’t have an inventory screen, for one thing, there are no status screens, menu bars or anything like that. Interaction all takes place by moving your character around the various locations and small icons popping up with “movements” depicted on them. The movements are intended to mimic what your hands would actually do to take that action in reality, so for example, opening a door is often a case of pulling down (to move the handle) then “out” (to open the door). It also makes use of the motion sensitivity of the PlayStation 3’s controller, so, for example, to kick a door down you might “throw” the controller down (obviously making sure you hold on to it).

It’s an interesting method of interaction that was first seen in the developers’ previous game, Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit, as it was known in Europe) – a game which also had pretensions of being a movie rather than a game, including the “New Game” option on the title screen being replaced by the “New Movie” option.

The thing I particularly like about Heavy Rain is the emotional engagement factor. The story is unashamedly adult, and that doesn’t mean gratuitously violent or sexual (though the game isn’t afraid to show either) – it means a mature story that deals with themes and emotions that (I imagine) children would find difficult to comprehend, such as bereavement, anxiety, depression and, at times, outright panic. There are quite a few things that happen (and I won’t spoil anything here) that it’s unusual to see handled in a “video game” with the same degree of care that they are here – at least, I think so. There are others who feel differently, but in a sense I think the fact that this game means different things to different people (whether those things they feel are positive or negative) is a good thing.

One protagonist, Ethan, suffers from anxiety, depression and discomfort around crowds, all things which I’ve had experience of. His reasons for suffering these things are very different from mine, but I can understand the emotions which he is going through which are depicted in the game. Much of the early part of the game revolves around his increasingly uncomfortable relationship with his son, and the game does awkward silences well, too. You have the option to sit Ethan down next to his son, but when the conversation options run out, there’s not necessarily an indication that it’s “time to move on” – you could find yourself sitting in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, and unlike other games where you’re constantly pushed on to the next objective, sitting in uncomfortable silence feels like an important part of the Heavy Rain experience.

The term “interactive movie” will inevitably conjure up images of the terrible video-based games that were around in the mid-1990s, but it’s good to see that with the advent of impressive, realistic graphics that can be rendered in real-time that we can finally have a movie-like experience with some interactions that are rather more meaningful than “movie stops, click a button to see the next clip”. There’s a touch of the Uncanny Valley about the characters to some, but there’s no doubt that particularly when it comes to facial animations and lip-sync that these are some of the most realistic controllable computer-generated characters you’ll see. I remember being struck by this some time ago when this first promotional video was shown:

Interestingly, this movie is from several years back, and the characters look even better now.

I played for a while last night and the game clearly had an impact on me, as I feel like I spent most of the night dreaming about it. I don’t often dream about games, movies or books, so there must have been something there which had an “impact” – even Mass Effect 2, absolutely the best game I’ve played recently both in terms of story and gameplay, didn’t have the same effect.

I look forward to seeing how the story continues, and if the developers’ much-vaunted “YOUR DECISIONS MATTER!” schtick is genuine.

One A Day, Day 38: False Start

I got it the right way around.

Normally, teachers surviving until half-term will immediately collapse upon finishing a big block of time at school, then be struck down with some mystery unpleasant illness, rendering them incapable of enjoying their holiday due to any combination of snot, sneezing, coughing, puking, diarrhoeaing, headaching or good old-fashioned exhaustion. I managed to get through most of the holiday without feeling too bad, with only what I thought to be a “stress cough” showing itself in the last few days, before developing into full-blown unpleasantness on the Monday I returned to work. Found myself burning up, sore-throated, coughing, clumsy and generally a complete mess. So I’ve had the last couple of days off sick.

Being off sick is always a strange experience. When you’re off sick from a teaching post, the feeling of guilt is enormous, even if you know you genuinely are sick. Of course, there are people everywhere who take the piss with sick days, but that’s no reason that the rest of us should feel guilty at taking some time off to recover. Fortunately, the one good thing I can say about the school I currently work at is that they’re pleasantly understanding about illness and don’t even demand a day’s worth of cover work to be sent through, unlike a previous place I worked. Yes, that’s right – one previous school I worked at actually expected you, however sick you were, to send in some cover work for the day. That didn’t help with the guilt.

Still. I will be back in tomorrow, worse luck. Not looking forward to it. The first day back wasn’t fun, though that was probably mostly the “not feeling well” talking. Going back again after the class having had a couple of days of supply teachers isn’t going to be any more pleasant. And the knowledge that the inspectors are coming back soon, along with a whole host of “monitoring” activities, is not making me feel any more positive about the whole thing – but at least there’s not that long to go. In fact, there are only three and a half weeks to go. By now, I don’t give a shit about the outcome of the aforementioned “monitoring” or the inspection, but that doesn’t mean I can just switch off from the whole unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, there’s no way of me “opting out”, despite the fact that my negligible contribution to the school will soon be a distant memory.

Oh well. I guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that the inspectors decide to show up after I’ve left. It could happen. But, with my track record of “luck”, it probably won’t…

One A Day, Day 37: I Have Never

I realise that this game is more fun when you’re drinking and/or sitting in a darkened room with a number of people you’d like to have sex with, but looking at it on this page will have to do for now. Besides, I’m ill. You wouldn’t want to add alcohol to that mix. Nor, I imagine, would you like to add any kind of sexual intimacy to that mix either, unless you have a snot-and-cough fetish. In which case, seek help.

So, without further ado,

I have never…

…seen Citizen Kane.
…listened to a Smiths album.
…been hospitalised.
…(by extension) had an operation.
…climbed a rock wall.
…been to a “developing” country.
…been on Chatroulette.
…read Hamlet.
…played on a Virtual Boy.
…owned a Sega Master System.
…owned an NES.
…listened to anything by Jay-Z and enjoyed it.
…liked a political party enough to vote for them.
…shaved my own head.
…taken ecstasy (even after, some years back, a drunkard saw how I acted after a few too many vodka and Red Bulls and commented “shit, man, you’d LOVE ecstasy”)
…passed out from drinking too much (and have only suffered memory loss once)
…written a dissertation (somehow my choice of units at university managed to let me escape that ordeal)
…had a full-time job in the publishing industry (though I want one)
…had a job where I am in charge of other people (excepting children)
…had a job where someone or something hasn’t fucked up the enjoyment of the experience for me at one point or another.
…watched a Mad Max movie.
…been able to hold any kind of sports-based conversation.
…played R-Type.
…finished reading my two H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus books (despite starting several times).
…read anything by Ayn Rand.
…read anything by Nietzsche.
…understood anything Freud was on about.
…read a copy of Hello! magazine or any of its odious rivals.
…opened a copy of Nuts or Zoo magazine.
…been on a plane by myself (though this will shortly change)
…employed the services of a lawyer.
…been in court.
…been arrested.
…been caught speeding.
…had a fight (as an adult, anyway)
…seen a human corpse.
…understood why “R&B” music is so popular.
…listened to an N-Dubz track from start to finish.
…taken a photograph of my genitalia.
…taken a photograph of my genitalia and sent it to someone.
…appeared naked on a webcam.
…appeared on a webcam to a complete stranger.
…been in a car accident while driving.
…been hit by a car.
…made a list of all the things I’ve never done before.

I think that’s enough for now. There are plenty of things on that list I can live without ever doing and sleep easy at night. I realise that in writing this, I have probably cursed myself and will undoubtedly suffer all the unpleasant things very shortly (probably being caught speeding, crashing into something, being thrown out of my car, then run over, taken to hospital, operated on, then arrested while the whole thing is watched by a webcam) – so if there’s no more entries after this one, you know what happened.

One A Day, Day 36: An Open Letter

Dear Universe,

I write with regard to the recent delivery you made to my person – specifically, the bumper package of coughing fits, temperatures and shaky hands.

I do not remember ordering these items, nor do I wish to keep them. As such, I must humbly request that you dispatch a courier posthaste to come and pick them up. Technically the items have been “opened” and “used” since they are coursing through my body as we speak, but since I did not order them and they appear to have been delivered in the dead of night directly to my person rather than appropriately packaged at a more sociable hour, I do not feel that the premature opening and usage of said items is my responsibility.

I am of the mind that this delivery was perhaps intended for someone else. If this is the case, would you kindly furnish me with the details of the intended recipient and I will do my best to forward on the items as soon as possible. I would not wish the items’ rightful owner to miss out on the experience of coughing so forcefully it creates a side-effect of unintentional flatulence.

If, on the other hand, the items are an unnanounced “gift” from someone (which is possible, seeing as there did not appear to be a receipt with the items) then I request, with respect, that you provide me with their name and address so I may return the favour, perhaps through the medium of Uzbekistani sledgehammer dancing – a dangerous yet beautiful artform which frequently places bystanders’ testicles in mortal peril.

I thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Davison

One A Day, Day 35: Eve of the War

Don’t know what happened with yesterday’s post – I definitely wrote the whole thing, but for some inexplicable reason, half of it disappeared. Oh well. Can’t go back now.

Well, here it is – the end of my week-long vacation, which has gone by far too quickly for my liking. I feel suitably rested – or I did, at least. Right now? I don’t feel very good about tomorrow. I have a 40 mile drive followed by 8 hours of being somewhere I don’t want to be with people I don’t want to be with, followed by another 40 mile drive back. But at least there are only four weeks to go. Four weeks! I can manage that, right? Of course I can.

It’s the other obstacles that are in my way that are stressing me out more, to be honest. The daily grind I can just about deal with, by simply telling myself “It doesn’t matter” (in the style of The Rock) repeatedly, over and over again. The things I’m not looking forward to are the two-day Parents Evening (yes, you read that correctly – a two-day Parents Evening), where I will inevitably be stuck 40 miles from home until late at night; the inevitable re-inspection of the school (which, knowing it doesn’t matter, I don’t really care about the result of but still don’t want to have to put up with the stupidity of); and finding a new job.

I don’t have a new job yet. I have applied to several. I haven’t heard anything back from any of them yet, but going on past experiences of applying for jobs, HR departments are extremely slow. I haven’t given up hope yet, and the Universe may well surprise me by throwing something I actually want to do for a good amount of money my way. Until then, though, the uncertainty is the killer. If I had the security of knowing that I had a new job to go to – to look forward to – after the end of this particular nightmare, I’d feel a lot better about my remaining time.

Still, can’t be helped. All I can do is just keep applying for things and eventually someone will appreciate me. Right? Right. Of course.

On a lighter note, we recorded the SquadCast for Machinarium tonight – an adorable little indie point-and-click adventure featuring robots and no language. My current tentative plan is to edit that next weekend, so keep an eye out for that one. Also watch this space for more exciting Squadron of Shame podcast news.

See, I like doing that stuff. The annoying thing is no-one wants to pay me for it!

One A Day, Day 34: Progress Update

Well, I have to say, this is going well so far. Doubly so given that the original proponent of the whole “oneaday” thing has given up. It’s fair enough, really – committing yourself to writing something every single day, even if it’s complete crap and doesn’t mean anything to anyone but yourself can be a bind, but I’ve made sure (so far) to ensure that I don’t get behind – even if that means frantically typing something on my iPhone while lying in bed, or typing something at 3 in the morning while pissed up on gin and tonic.

So the blogging’s going well, at least. I’m approaching the end of my week off now, though, and my body is starting to let me know this fact. I hadn’t been directly thinking about my return to work, but still I’ve developed a cough and a horrible nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomac

[The remainder of this post disappeared into WordPress oblivion – only noticed today. Apologies!]

One A Day, Day 33: Freewriting #1

[As promised, here is an example of freewriting. I’ve given myself ten minutes to just write… or type in this case… and see what comes out. It could be anything – fact, fiction, prose, poetry (unlikely), nonsensical… err… sensical? Let’s see what happens. My time starts… NOW.]

It’s warm in here. A little too warm if I’m honest, but at least it’s nice and quiet. It’s good to have peace and quiet while you’re writing. I’m in my wife’s office, away from my usual blogging spot of in the lounge, because she’s watching the “live” episode of Eastenders that is on the TV at the moment. This despite never ever watching Eastenders when it is on TV in its normal form.

Eastenders is a depressing programme and I’ve never found myself wanting to watch it. I rarely get interested in soap operas at all, though I did find myself drawn to Neighbours a little bit during my time at university, though this was more out of interest in running jokes regarding Harold Bishop more than anything else. Harold Bishop even found his way into “The Adventures of Dave Thunder”, an RPG Maker 2000 project which I worked on off and on and which is now sadly lost to the mists of time and the failed hard drive on my old Sony Vaio desktop computer.

I can never type “Vaio” without first typing “Vaoi”. I don’t know why. It’s not as if “Vaoi” is any more a word than “Vaio” is. Stupid really. I should also stop going back and correcting the mistakes I make on here, which is perhaps missing the point of freewriting slightly, but by now it’s an automatic response. Anyone watching me write things is always surprised to see quite how quickly I type and how quickly and automatically I can go back and correct things.

Having nimble fingers is probably a result of two things – being able to play the piano and years of typing things in, both for pleasure and from copying things out of magazines. The old Atari 8-bit magazines used to have “type-in” listings in them which, when typed in and saved onto a diskette or cassette tape, allowed you to play the games which the authors had come up with for that issue. There were several authors of these games who were rather prolific, with one in particular sticking in my mind being Bill Halsall. I even went to the effort of putting all Mr Halsall’s games on one 5.25″ floppy disk and writing my own menu system for the disk. Yes, I was a supergeek even at that age.

Went out for a cup of coffee with a very good friend (and ex-workmate) earlier. It was a nice experience. We sat, we exchanged stories and ranted about the things that were pissing us off. There are a lot of things pissing us both off, and it’s always good to share those things with someone else. Neither one of us would want to be in the other’s position, I don’t think, but it’s always “nice” to share your pain with someone else. Perhaps “nice” isn’t the right word, but it’s – I don’t know. Cathartic? Is that the right word? Perhaps.

I haven’t stopped typing yet. This is good going. It’s 5:51 into my ten minutes. I wonder what other things will pop into my mind. I’m literally emptying my thoughts out onto the paper. Page. Web. Whatever. I’m literally emptying my thoughts out onto… this blog entry. Right. And I’m clearly stalling for time while I think of something else to talk about. I shouldn’t think. I should just write. What to write next. What next? Hmmm.

Let’s talk about the sound of my fingers typing on the keyboard. When slow typists type, you can hear each key being pressed – click, click, click. When a skilled (or at least fast) typist types, the individual click click clicks take on their own almost musical rhythm, the high-pitched clickity-clickity-click punctuated by the heavier thump of the thumbs on the spacebar. In fact, that’s one memory I have of home – I can always tell when my Dad is typing because the old keyboard he has attached to his computer (or had attached… I’m not sure if he still does) was one of those keyboards that clattered to a ridiculous degree while you were typing, and the thump of the spacebar would reverberate around the whole house, with shockwaves going down through the desk, through the floor.

Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but it’s a vivid memory. I find the sound of typing quite relaxing. It’s the sound of creativity. Sometimes. You hear the sound of typing in boring offices as well as amongst writers, and unfortunately boring offices tend not to be the places for creativity. I temped in a boring office for a while – a “loss adjusters” (a profession whose purpose still escapes me) and I had to type up the very boring men and women’s dictation on the subject of subsidence. That’s when your house is sinking into the ground and is supposedly the fault of a tree or something. Very dull.

I have ten seconds left, so with that, I think it’s time to sign off. Good night!