One thing about me that I think is part of my Asperger's is the fact that I find doing "adult" things quite difficult and scary. I'm not talking about "adult" in the sexual sense, I hasten to add; I'm talking about functioning as a normal adult human being in the regular world.

A lot of the things that I find difficult or scary are related to my anxiety. I don't like phoning people, for example, and if there's one positive thing to be said for the modern Internet-connected world, it's that it's actually rather rare you need to phone someone any more. Even if, instead, you typically end up stuck in a hell of a text chat with some minimum-wage robot who doesn't speak English very well and copy-pastes all their responses to you.

But then there's other things that I don't have any rational reason to find particularly scary or difficult, but for one reason or another I just put up a mental "block" against doing them. Doing anything related to car maintenance is one of those things, particularly dealing with my tyres. My tyre pressure light had been on for a few days and I'd been putting off dealing with it. Part of this was because there was always someone using the air thing at the petrol station whenever I actually thought about doing it, but also I have an irrational fear of overinflating my tyres and blowing them up or something. This is something that, I believe, is literally impossible to do with modern air thingies so long as you set the correct initial value, but it still worries me.

The flipside of this, of course, is that when I successfully do accomplish something as mundane as pumping all my tyres up and making that annoying light go out… I feel like I've scored a significant "victory" of sorts. I've achieved something. I've acted like a normal human being for once.

Not anything to be particularly proud of, I know, but every little thing like this that I notice helps me to understand myself a bit better.

Ever wished you could just "check out" from existence for a few days? This used to be something you could actually do by going on holiday far away from your computer, the television and all that sort of thing, but thanks to the never-ending march of technological advancement, it's actually very difficult to "escape" things these days.

I'm really feeling the need right now. It's been a really crappy week for a lot of people. I had a shit week at work, all corners of the UK retro gaming community on Twitter appear to be having a "who can be the most intolerant wanker" competition, Octav1us Kitten is a (justifiably) emotional wreck after a copyright troll kicked the shit out of her YouTube channel, Mr Biffo (of Digitiser fame) and his wife were in a car crash (and thankfully got away with "just" a few injuries rather than anything worse) while on their honeymoon… and doubtless some other shit happened elsewhere, too.

Also the never-ending saga of toss that is Brexit continues, not that I have ever particularly given a shit about that… I just want it over one way or another now, to be perfectly honest.

I'm just at a point where I feel like I need time on another planet or something. Far away from all this. Far away from the constant anger that seems to permeate everything in the world — not just the "serious" stuff like politics any more, either, but the things that are supposed to be fun, like video games.

I do my best to try and remain positive, and to make MoeGamer and my YouTube channel the sort of places where people who want a little haven of calm and positivity might want to hang out. I think I do a pretty good job at that, but I won't pretend it's not incredibly exhausting sometimes.

It's that time again when I talk awkwardly to a camera in the hope that at least one person is listening. Got a few interesting things to show you this time around, including what I consider to be a massive eBay victory.

I think I forgot to write something yesterday, didn't I? Apologies for that. This week has been long and stressful and exhausting and to be perfectly honest I got home and just fell asleep for several hours! I then got up, wrote yesterday's MoeGamer article and published Final Fantasy Marathon for the day… then went back to bed and didn't wake up until noon today.

Evidently I needed the rest.

Oh well. Sometimes it happens, and it's usually best to listen to your body when it tells you such things, because pushing yourself too hard is a a sure route to burnout, and burnout doesn't help anyone. (Capital-B Burnout does, however, because it's a fantastic series. But that's not what we're talking about.)

So what have I been up to today? Not a great deal, to be honest; I've sort of drifted through in a bit of a "meh" haze, but I did manage to get this week's Atari A to Z Flashback video up as well as a new vlog (which is coming shortly after this post as "today's" entry) so it hasn't been a complete waste of time.

I was hoping to get some videos recorded, but I don't really feel like I have the energy at the moment, so I think I might just sit and play some Gun Gun Pixies for an hour or two, then hit the gym in the late evening. Videos can wait until tomorrow when I feel a bit more refreshed.

Hope your weekend has been pleasant so far!

I didn't get that job I've been dancing around discussing recently, so I guess I can talk about it a bit more now! Before I go on, I want to say that I'm not upset or mad or anything; for reasons that are probably already clear, I was expecting things not to work out, but the fact I got an interview and it was such a positive experience was a nice confidence boost, plus it may well pave the way to a future relationship that will help out the work I do on both MoeGamer and Atari A to Z. We'll see.

The job was to be the site editor and social media manager for both Rice Digital and Funstock Retro. These are two sites that are part of the software company PQube, with the former focusing on localised Japanese video games and related popular media/merchandise, while the latter concentrates on retro games.

Both have shops attached; Rice Digital is responsible for a number of nice limited editions over the last few years — not just from PQube themselves — while Funstock's interesting new product right now is known as the Evercade, a pretty neat-looking handheld (and TV-connectible) retro gaming device with collectible cartridges containing officially licensed games from Namco, Atari, Technos Japan and modern indie developers. (I kind of want one. If anyone wants to buy me one for Christmas I certainly wouldn't complain.)

The job wouldn't have related to the e-commerce side of things; it would have been taking care of the actual content. PQube set up Rice and Funstock's sites to be their own independent outlets that just happened to be attached to a localisation company; they don't shout about the connection between them and make a point of not using them as "marketing" as such — they cover stuff from their rivals, and, like I do on MoeGamer, try and engender a positive atmosphere surrounding these games and retro gaming products rather than indulging in popular cynicism and schadenfreude.

Essentially, running those two sites would have meant that I would have pretty much got to do what I do with MoeGamer and Atari A to Z on a fully professional basis, which would have been extremely cool — although I don't know what that would have meant for MoeGamer and Atari A to Z themselves, particularly given the main reason I didn't get the job: the distance, and the time and money it would have cost to get to and from the office.

I live in Southampton, which is on the south coast of the UK; the job was in Letchworth, which is about a hundred miles away from here. It would have been at least a two hour commute, probably more given that a portion of that commute would have been on one of the country's busiest roads: the dreaded M25 London orbital motorway. During the application and interview process, we had some discussions about the possibility of remote working or sharing my time between the office and home, but sadly this was not a possibility for one reason or another.

I understand completely; it's good to have people all in the same place to work together, though a job like this is one that could have been performed perfectly well remotely. It's a shame that wasn't an option, as if I'd have been able to do the whole thing remotely, I would have probably been able to ditch my car and save myself a lot of money each month.

In some ways, I'm a little relieved; I wasn't looking forward to the possibility of that commute, even if it was only a few days each week. Doing it every day simply wouldn't have been practical, mostly because of how much it would have cost in petrol and wear on my car. The actual time I wouldn't have minded too much, because I have a mountain of audiobooks, podcasts and music I could have listened to, and on past occasions when I had a long commute (only 50 miles last time around) I actually quite enjoyed that period of solitude and reflection.

The main thing I was worried about, though, was that the amount of time it would have taken up travelling would have probably meant I would have had to either scale back or quit my creative projects completely. And that would have been disappointing; I've worked hard to make what I've made to date and while in some respects I've still got a long way to go in terms of growth (particularly here on Patreon) it would be a shame to have to put all that aside temporarily or permanently.

Still, the whole thing was a nice confidence boost. The folks at PQube reiterated that I was a very strong candidate and they specifically noted that my willingness to stand up for them over the recent Nintendo Life/Gun Gun Pixies debacle was something they were especially grateful for. So that's good. It would have been cool to say a Twitter spat played a significant role in getting me a job, but I guess it's not to be.

On the flip side of all this, I'm frustrated with my current day job right now for reasons I won't go into. All I'll say for now is that recent events have been playing havoc with my anxiety, the fact I'm prone to stress and my Asperger's, and it just kind of makes me want to run and hide. But, well, here I am still; it pays the bills if nothing else.

Now, if I could only make my creative endeavours a full-time thing, that would solve all my problems! Maybe. Oh well. That's not happening for now, anyway — though the fact you lot reading this keep me in new games, website expenses and other bits and pieces each month is very much appreciated, I'd like to reiterate.

Back to the grindstone for now…

It's been a horrible day today, for a variety of reasons.

I had a shitty day at work that left me feeling like absolute crap; I won't go into specific details, but it's the first time in quite a while I feel like my Asperger's has let me down, and it left me feeling like a total failure of a human being for most of the rest of the working day. Rationally speaking what happened ultimately doesn't matter and I'm sure everyone (except me) will have probably forgotten about it by tomorrow, but it still made me feel like crap, particularly as I'm already in a bit of a shitty place mental health-wise.

I've witnessed a bunch of real unpleasantness among the retro gaming community on Twitter recently, including bullying and harassment of several people, and culminating with the thoroughly pleasant and entertaining Octav1us posting a tearful video about how terrified she is after being on the receiving end of what can only be described as copyright harassment via YouTube's stupid systems.

And my Dad's best friend passed away today. I didn't know Bob that well, but I met him a few times and he was always a wonderful, joyful man with a kind and funny word to say. Plus he helped me get my first car. I know how important he was to my parents — particularly once they managed to reconnect after many years thanks to Friends Reunited, of all things, remember that? — so it's upsetting to think of them grieving over someone who was so important to them. Rest in peace, Bob; you will be greatly missed.

All in all, a pretty shit day. I think I just need to shut down for the night and hope there's one hell of a "reboot" in the morning.

Hope your day has been better.

A few of us managed to get together for the first time in about three months to play some board games this evening. Well, board game; we got one round of Pandemic Legacy in before it was time to head home, but that's all good; we managed to actually beat the July scenario, though it was a close-run thing.

I've talked about Pandemic Legacy before in past posts, but for the benefit of those who've never come across it before, allow me to explain what it's all about, and I'll minimise spoilers this time around.

For the uninitiated, a "Legacy" board game is one intended to be played a finite number of times, changing somewhat each time you play. In the case of Pandemic, the game is split into twelve "months" (which can be played up to twice each if you fail the scenario the first time around), each of which adds something interesting to the game mechanics and setup.

Pandemic, in its original incarnation, is a game about finding cures for diseases while managing their spread around the globe. It's a cooperative game, in which multiple players with unique abilities work together in an attempt to collect sets of coloured cards, manage the amount of disease cubes on the board and prevent "outbreaks" — diseases "overflowing" from their current location into surrounding areas.

Pandemic Legacy begins exactly like this in its January scenario, but by the end of that, strange things start to happen. They're small, gradual changes at first, but as you progress through the game additional mechanics and possibilities that might have seemed useless in earlier months suddenly become very, very relevant. You start getting a lot more things to think about in a single session, and strategies that you used in the early months have to be rethought completely with the later months' additions in mind.

I'm being vague because I don't want to spoil things for those interested in giving it a try. Part of the fascination with the game is seeing how it evolves over time, because when something happens to the game, it's permanent. If a character gets wounded or killed, they are wounded or killed forever — in the latter case, you tear up their character card so they can't be used again. If you unlock special abilities, you stick those onto cards or character sheets so they can always be used. If a city falls to disease, you put a sticker on the board and it's fallen forever. You get the idea.

Once you've played through all twelve months of the game, you'll have ended up with a very different game to the one you started with. It's still possible to play the "December" scenario once you've beaten (or failed!) it, but there's no turning back to the mechanics and objectives of previous months.

It's a really great game that is constantly exciting and full of discovery. Its actual mechanics are simple to pick up and understand, too, so it's a good game to play with family or perhaps people who haven't come across tabletop gaming much in the past. And the way the "Legacy" rules work mean that even if you start playing with inexperienced tabletop newbies, the additional mechanics are added at a slow, gradual rate so as not to overwhelm said newcomers.

All in all, it's a really great game, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the subsequent months have in store for us. We're officially halfway through the overall campaign now, and we're not doing too badly! Can we save the world? I doubt it, but we'll have fun giving it a go.

As I type this, my wife Andie is upstairs watching some beauty/fashion YouTuber called Annalise somethingorother, and she really irritates me. (The YouTuber, not Andie. Andie is pretty good.)

I've been trying to figure out exactly why this YouTuber in particular is so irritating, and I think I've got to the bottom of it. It's actually a combination of things.

Firstly, she's one of the myriad YouTubers who endlessly use jumpcuts for no apparent reason. I still do not understand this. I find it difficult to believe that people have so much difficulty stringing more than one sentence together that they need to edit each and every sentence together like this.

Secondly, a side-effect of this is that her sentences never fucking end. The video has been going for about five minutes now and I haven't heard a single "comma", let alone a "full stop". She just talks and talks and talks and the sentence never ends and it's just exhausting to listen to and I can't deal with it because… you get the idea.

Thirdly, this is seemingly just how she talks, because she has an annoying habit of taking breaths in really weird parts of a sentence. This brings back memories of primary school, where the class idiot (who I won't name, because I'm sure he grew up to be a fine example of manhood) would rabbit on about absolute bullshit for hours at a time, occasionally even taking a breath in the middle of a word. (The word "vid-gasp-eo" always sticks in my mind for some reason. I even remember the context; we were trying to get to sleep in our Year 6 school camp tent, and he would not shut the fuck up about Predator.)

Fourthly, she uses the word "extra" too much. As in, "this is so extra". I don't know what that means. I think it's bad, but I can never be sure. "Extra" sounds like it should be a good thing. I like it when you get extra ice-cream.

Fifthly, all she bloody does (like 90% of the beauty/fashion vlogger community, from what I can make out) is buy a bunch of shit from Wish.com and then whinge about how it's all shit. Yes, of course it is, lovey, you bought it from Wish.

I mean, I'm sure you could complain about a lot of things about me on YouTube, so I probably shouldn't complain too much. All I do is play old games and talk about them, after all. But at least I know how to end a sentence, and I don't abuse the humble jump cut.

Except in that one video where I did it for fun, of course. Can you find it?

I won an eBay auction for The Temple of Apshai Trilogy on Atari 8-bit today. Very soon I should be the proud owner of a boxed copy of this hard-to-find and often quite expensive game, and I only had to pay £8.50 for it.

The only catch? The fact that the seller isn't sure if the disk in the box is actually The Temple of Apshai Trilogy or not. But to be honest, that actually doesn't matter to me; the main thing I wanted from this transaction was the box and, more importantly, the documentation.

You see, the Dunjonquest series, of which The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is a part, is a fascinating one; it combines elements of tabletop roleplaying and computer gaming to produce something that was entirely unique to the technological limitations of the 8-bit era.

I'll talk more about this when I cover The Temple of Apshai Trilogy on Atari A to Z — because you better believe I'm covering it if I've got an actual copy of it! — but the gist is that the Dunjonquest engine is based on Dungeons & Dragons to such a degree that you can directly "port" characters from one to the other. In other words, you can manually enter your stats from a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons campaign into The Temple of Apshai Trilogy to play your character in that game, or you can play a bit of The Temple of Apshai Trilogy and then write down all your stats and use them in a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game.

The more fascinating part for me, though, is how the "role-playing" side of things is handled. The actual computer-based side of The Temple of Apshai Trilogy handles things like moving, exploring, fatigue, inventory management and combat, while the "Book of Apshai" included in the box supports what you do with things like treasure and room descriptions.

Essentially everything in The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is numbered, so when you enter room [x] or pick up treasure [y], you refer to the book and read that relevant passage. The room descriptions in particular provide you with valuable clues that will help you track down hidden treasures and secret doors, while the treasure descriptors help you discover exactly what it is that you found in that last chest you opened.

I remember liking The Temple of Apshai Trilogy as a kid, but not really understanding it, because I didn't really "get" RPGs until Final Fantasy VII. Also we only ever had a pirate copy, so we didn't have any of the documentation to go with it. As such, I'm really looking forward to finally playing the game as it was intended to be played — and to be able to have you fine folks along for the ride!

On today's vlog we talk about picking your battles and how you fight those battles, then take a look at a couple of recent pickups I'm excited to delve into.

As always, thank you for your kind support — and if there's anything you'd like me to explore in these videos in the future as a special Patrons Only exclusive — be it game, book, magazine, piece of software, whatever — please do feel free to let me know!