#oneaday Day 986: A Very Big House in the Country

One of the appealing things about this weekend away was getting the opportunity to spend some time at my friend Tim's childhood home, which is an impressively large mansion in the middle of nowhere in the British countryside. It's up for sale, so it's also quite possibly something of a farewell for Tim, but for most of us it's the chance to spend some time in the sort of place you normally only get to visit if you're attending someone's wedding.

It brings up an interesting consideration though. Most people, when confronted with the possibility of winning the Lottery or something will claim that one of their first priorities would be to purchase a gigantic house. And while a gigantic house is certainly a fine status symbol, a lot of people clearly don't think of some of the issues that only come about in big country houses.

For one, when was the last time you looked behind the TV and found a dead bird? That's exactly what happened to us last night when attempting to set up the TV in order to chill out with some DVDs.

Spiders, too. Everyone gets spiders in their houses but it's nothing compared to the behemoths you get lurking between the beams in an old wooden-framed house. And mosquitoes. And all manner of other little creepy crawly bastards.

And low doorways. I've lost count of the number of times I've banged my head on a low doorway this weekend, even when I'm well aware of where the danger zones are. It still hurts.

And yet despite all this there's still something kind of wonderful about being in a house with multiple staircases, about fifteen bathrooms and a bizarre layout. Even if its just enjoying a few Resident Evil fantasies.

#oneaday Day 985: BANG

As I mentioned yesterday, this weekend was set to see us shooting each other with Airsoft weaponry. And indeed that is how we spent a healthy proportion of the day.

I haven't done Airsoft before today, but it's a lot of fun. A big part of the appeal is the fact that the weaponry involved is very realistic — most of the guns available are based on real-life guns to varying degrees and thus must be painted bright orange so as to not get the participants arrested. The gun I got was modelled closely on a Beretta and made entirely of metal, so had a pleasing amount of heft to it and a satisfying degree of kickback when fired. It made a great noise too.

I haven't fired guns on many occasions in my life but it's an oddly thrilling experience. I recall in the first week of university several of us decided to try going along to a trial session of the Rifle Club. It was a lot of fun but also had an element of danger — the instructors repeatedly reminded us that firing the gun at the floor would probably kill us. Scary.

More recently, I've done paintballing a few times. Paintball is good fun, but the weaponry isn't particularly realistic. It really, really fucking hurts when you get hit, though. And you get a lot of the satisfaction of crawling around in the undergrowth and shooting at far-off enemies.

Games such as paintball and Airsoft give you a good insight into what soldiers must go through on a regular basis. It makes me feel like I most certainly couldn't be in the army. I'm sort of fine with that — although it's fun to fire these fake guns, I imagine it would be absolutely terrifying to fire a real one that could actually kill someone.

Anyway. It is late so I am feeling the call of bed.

#oneaday Day 984: Stagging

I'm away for the weekend. Specifically, I'm in the middle of nowhere in Worcestershire for my friend Tim's stag weekend (or "bachelor party" as you Americans prefer to call it). We're having a weekend of drinking, board games and shooting each other (but mostly Tim) with Airsoft guns. Sounds like fun.

Of my friends who have got married whose stag dos I've been to, none of them have done the stereotypical "get hammered in Amsterdam, hire hookers then leave Stag Boy in an embarrassing position to be discovered by the police/his parents after several hours of considerable discomfort". And I'm actually quite grateful for that. Although everyone jokes about that being the way that stag dos are "supposed" to go it never struck me as particularly fun — especially not for the Stag, who will probably be left rethinking his friendships in the hours between being chained to the lamppost and having to explain to the nice police officer why he is naked and covered in margarine.

My own stag do was relatively stereotypical — paintballing in the daytime followed by drinks in the evening — but I chose to invite my female friends also, and nothing embarrassing happened. Not that I remember, anyway. I remember it being a rather fun night — there are certainly a bunch of photos suggesting it was lurking around somewhere — but I didn't leave it thinking "wow, my friends are a bunch of bellends." Which, again, I'm quite grateful for.

A stag do should be an opportunity for the groom-to-be to have some time with his closest friends — regardless of gender if he so desires — and have a memorable "send off" before married life. That looks like exactly what this weekend is going to be, so I'm going to take the time to relax and enjoy it hopefully as much as Tim will.

Bed now. The drinks have been flowing freely and we've been playing Cards Against Humanity for the past few hours. Hilarity, as usual, ensued, but I'm more than ready for sleep now!

#oneaday Day 981: Sword Art Online

So, I guess it's finally happened — much to the delight of my dear friend Lynette, I might add — I appear to have "got into" anime. So much so that this post is the first ever use of my all new "anime" topic category, although I will probably go back and add that post about Haiyore! Nyaruko-san if I remember.

I've already talked about Haiyore! Nyaruko-san in that post I just linked so I won't say too much more about that for now, save for the fact that discussing it with a hardcore fan of H.P. Lovecraft allows you to have an even greater appreciation of how clever that show is despite its utterly barmy, chaotic exterior. Check out this blog (spoilers to the fucking MAX) for even further indisputable evidence that the creators of that show both 1) know and 2) love H.P. Lovecraft and the authors who followed him.

Anyway. Enough of the Crawling Chaos; what I really wanted to talk about today is the show I started watching after I finished all of the currently-available episodes of Haiyore! Nyaruko-san — Sword Art Online.

I'd come across the name Sword Art Online in much the same way as I heard about Haiyore! Nyaruko-san: through Peter Payne of J-List. Sword Art Online is, it seems, rather popular right now, so there's a lot of merchandise surrounding it. I'm not normally one to go for things that are popular right now, but I figured I'd give it a try as 1) the premise sounded intriguing and 2) the female lead is an attractive redhead. (Well, technically she's ginger, I guess. Still counts. Do not underestimate the power of an attractive redhead when trying to get me to do something.)

For those unfamiliar and/or curious, Sword Art Online's basic concept is thus. It is The Near Future, and computer gaming has evolved enough to have full-sensory virtual reality experiences. The latest title to get everyone excited is the brand new massively-multiplayer online role-playing game Sword Art Online. Prospective players queued around the block to get their hands on a copy, but only 10,000 units were available in the first run. On the game's launch day, said 10,000 players all logged in and began to immerse themselves in the virtual reality world, only to discover that there was no means to log out. The creator of the game, mad with power, had decided to "lock" everyone in the game until someone cleared the whole thing. Not only that, but he'd rigged it so that if someone's character in the game died, the VR equipment would kill them in reality. Not only that, but if someone forcibly removed the VR equipment from the player, that would also kill them.

Thus begins an intriguing tale that is partly conventional fantasy, but with a layer of high-tech sci-fi atop it. The blend works extremely well. The challenges the characters face are "real" so far as they are concerned — their lives are on the line, after all — but at the same time, the fact that it is a game regularly shows itself with players popping up menus to change items, levelling up and using crafting skills simply by whacking things with the relevant tools. What's impressive is how straight the show plays all this, and how seamlessly it switches back and forth between these two disparate elements — one moment it's all a bit Highlander, the next there's a cast member cooking "S-class ingredients" by tapping them once with a knife, causing them to explode in a shower of data fragments. In this way, it'll attract two different — though admittedly somewhat overlapping — demographics and provide plenty to make them both smile and cheer.

I have to confess, I've always had something of a soft spot for the whole "fusion" thing between high-tech sci-fi and low-tech fantasy or historical stuff. It's for this reason I'm quite surprised the Assassin's Creed series hasn't really grabbed me over the years. I did really like the concept of the old .hack games on PS2, though, even though I never finished them — though hopefully I'll be rectifying that soon. There's something about the whole concept of "MMO gone mad" in particular that I really like, though — .hack had a wonderfully palpable sense of menace about it, for example, and Sword Art Online certainly lives up to that. Perhaps it's nothing more than the fact that you can literally see how close characters are to death when they're in a pinch. I don't know. I like it, whatever it is.

Getting back on topic, Sword Art Online has some great characters, too, and the structure of the series means that we get to explore them in detail. While the majority of the game's overarching plot surrounds protagonist Kirito and his relationship with aforementioned cute redhead Asuna, many episodes throw the spotlight on a seemingly incidental character and their own personal issues. I shan't spoil any specifics here, but through these episodes we gain a deep understanding of both the character in question and also learn some more about Kirito and Asuna — the way they respond to situations, the things they are capable of (and the things they are not) and the nature of their feelings for one another. The fact that there is often conflict between the persona they want to portray in the world and the real life they are struggling to get back to also helps make for some intriguing, complex characters whom I would like to see more of.

I'm about ten episodes in to the series so far and I believe it's still airing so I don't know how (or if) it ends as yet. I'm well and truly hooked, though. If you've been looking for something new to watch, then be sure to give Sword Art Online a shot.

#oneaday Day 978: This Was A Triumph

The other day, Andie rather luckily spotted that Jonathan Coulton was performing a show in Bristol today. We hadn't "been out" for a little while, so we decided on a whim to grab some tickets and head along to the performance.

I'm extremely glad we did. It was a wonderful experience. I've only ever seen videos of JoCo's shows before, but being there live was even better — particularly as he was also accompanied by his usual companions Paul & Storm, who also acted as the "warm-up" act.

Paul & Storm are the perfect warm-up act. Blending some light-hearted stage comedy with some genuinely amusing songs, they have a wonderful sense of chemistry with one another and with the audience. They can adapt to the mood of the room at a moment's notice and engage with hecklers faster than any dedicated stand-up I've ever seen. Plus their songs are just plain good — and The Captain's Wife's Lament always brings a smile to everyone's face, however long it ends up going on for.

Jonathan Coulton, meanwhile, is a little more understated than the antics of his friends. His songs are often amusing, but in a way that ensures you have to actively listen to the lyrics in order to "get" them. Some of them assume knowledge of certain mathematical and scientific concepts — he does a love song as sung by Pluto's moon to Pluto, for example, as well as one about the Mandelbrot Set — but he also does a great job of explaining to the audience what his songs are about.

He describes his music as being '70s-style soft rock, and beautifully encapsulated this in a self-parodying song in which "soft rock" was used as a not-terribly-subtle euphemism. This piece also included a variety of spectacular, seamless and possibly improvised homages to various popular songs

More than being amusing, though, his songs are clever and often quite touching. Even when he's singing about scientists destroying the world with robot armies, you know that he's channelling concepts that the audience can relate to — loneliness, alienation, a sense of not fitting in with "normal" society — and that's what makes him such a beloved performer among the "nerd" community.

While sitting in that venue this evening, listening to the songs and laughing at the silly jokes, I got a very similar feeling to what I felt when I went to PAX a couple of years ago. A sense of "this is for me. This is something I am a part of, and I like being a part of it." It's not a feeling I have particularly often, so I relish it when it shows itself. And that, really, is all I could have asked from this show — I'm happy it delivered.

It's 3:30am now. I should probably get some sleep. (I'm up so late because I was attempting to finish the latest visual novel I'm playing, Deus Machina Demonbane, but it's just going on and on and on. It's good though. Watch out for a writeup on Games Are Evil tomorrow.)

#oneaday Day 976: An Open Letter to the Robot Lady Who Lives in the Sainsbury's Self-Checkout Machines

Dear Robot Lady who lives in the Sainsbury's self-checkout machines,

I'm sorry to write to you out of the blue — and so publicly, too — but no longer can I go on with my life and our relationship without saying something.

It's not you, it's me. No, wait, it is you.

I know you're just doing your job. I know you're just reading the things that the nice people who pay your wages — do robots get wages? — tell you to read, but seriously. I know how to use you by now. I know that I jiggle the things I want to buy over your scanny bit until you go "bip!" and then I put them in a bag, and then I repeat the process until I want to pay. Then I put my card in and type in my number and we're all done. Then I go home and cook and/or eat the things I've paid you for.

This is all fine. You should know by now that I'm fine with this, as indeed are most of the people who avail themselves of your services.

So why are you so needy?

"Unexpected item in bagging area," you say as I put the item I've just told you to expect in said bagging area. "Checking item weight," you'll retort as I put an item that isn't sold by weight into the bagging area. "Approval needed," you'll helpfully inform me as I put an age-restricted product into the bagging area.

Why must you do this to me? I came to you because of your promises of efficiency; of not having to wait behind the old grandma who has bought fifteen thousand tins of dog food and a microwaveable corned beef hash; of not having to make small talk with a cashier who has to have a piece of paper taped to their console saying "SAY HELLO, THANK FOR WAITING, ASK HOW THEY ARE" in order to remember how to have a genuine interaction with another human being. I came to you because I thought you could help me and that you could ensure the whole miserable process of shopping in a supermarket is dealt with as quickly as possible. But you taunt me, you wound me by forcing me to stand around waiting for someone in a Sainsbury's fleece to notice the big flashing red light above my head — that light that seems to imply ha! this person fucked something up! HELP!

Your lack of faith in me is disturbing. Why can't you trust me? What have I ever done to you? I push all your buttons with loving care and attention and still you can't trust me. I've bought everything from a big slab of meat to a basket full of blind-bag My Little Pony figures from you, so you know I trust you. At least I did. Now I'm not so sure. Now all I want to do as soon as I see you is press your volume button until your voice goes quiet. Still you mock me from your screen, but at least I don't have to hear your voice any more. At least I don't have to deal with you talking at me just slightly too slowly and calmly to be comfortable. At least I don't have to put up with you telling me to do things I'm already doing. Your friends over at Tesco and Asda don't patronise me anywhere near as much. So why must you mock me, you damnable machine? Why?

We could have had something. Something special. But no. I'm sorry. This is it. No more.

Oh, what am I saying? I know I'll be back. I always am. I need you. I don't want to admit it, but I do. Together forever, enraptured in a relationship of mutual disdain, our lives pressing ever onward until our inevitable demise. I might buy some sushi from you tomorrow, or possibly a muffin. It doesn't really matter. Nothing really matters. Nothing except your cold, heartless slavery to the capitalist machine, and my ever-present need to buy food from you and then eat it.

Regards,

Pete

#oneaday Day 975: The Chaos that Always Crawls Up to You with a Smile

With all the Japanese media (mostly games) that I've been voraciously consuming recently, I quite naturally figured that I may as well go full-on otaku and investigate some anime too.

I've tried to get into anime in the past. In theory it should push all my buttons — Japanese video games and visual novels are based very closely on the tropes and conventions of anime, after all — but somehow I've never managed more than a fleeting investigation into the medium.

The problem, you see, is knowing where to start. Anime is not some small, little thing you can just jump into at the "beginning" and follow a set "canon" of things you simply must see. If you're unfamiliar with the medium, saying that you want to "get into anime" is like saying that you want to "get into movies" or "get into books" — it's not a single, simple, easily-defined thing, as within itself it carries a huge collection of genres and formats, and is aimed at all ages from young to old and everything in between.

The first time I investigated anime was back when I was still living with my parents. My brother, who was working on PC Zone at the time (if I remember correctly — it might have been PC Player. One of those two, anyway. Not that it really matters.) had been given a metric fuckton of promotional anime videos, as the fledgling Manga Video label in the UK was just starting to come to prominence, and PC Zone had run a feature on anime-themed games too. The box of videos contained a diverse array of anime ranging from the bizarre (Ultimate Teacher, the story of a schoolgirl who could only fight well if she was wearing her modest Velvet Pussy Panties rather than skimpy cotton knickers, and her quest to defeat the genetically modified teacher Ganpachi) to the horrifying (Urotsukidoji, which gave me my first taste of tentacle porn and the subsequent confused feelings said first taste tends to evoke) via titles more grounded in "reality" (Crying Freeman, a drama about an assassin who sheds tears after every kill). I got quite into some of these but also became frustrated at videos that came in partway through a series, or ones which I didn't have any real means of finding subsequent episodes of. As such, I didn't really pursue my investigation of the medium any further.

When I got big into visual novels relatively recently, I started following J-List on Twitter and Facebook. Peter Payne, the guy behind the site, posts all manner of stuff on those accounts at seemingly all hours of the day and night, ranging from interesting descriptions of life as a Westerner living in Japan to pics of hot anime girls (and, occasionally, guys) — and, of course, discussions of what is worth checking out in the land of anime in general.

One show that Peter mentioned recently that caught my attention was Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, a show that takes the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft (specifically as depicted in the Call of Cthulhu pen-and-paper RPG), runs it through a mangle and inexplicably decides to make some of the most horrifying of the Old Ones into moe anime characters, beginning with Nyarlathotep (aka Nyarko) and following shortly afterwards with Cthugha and Hastur. A rather large degree of artistic license is taken with these characters — Nyarko is just one of a race of Nyarlathoteps, for example, and it turns out they're not as evil and horrible as popular opinion might have it — but there's just enough lip service paid to Lovecraft's work to please fans while remaining totally accessible to those who have only a passing familiarity with the Cthulhu mythos. (You'll miss quite a lot of the jokes if you have no familiarity with it whatsoever.)

The show is hugely entertaining, and manages to get the viewer hugely engaged with the weird and wonderful cast of characters very quickly while not taking itself seriously in the slightest. There's a lot of fourth wall-breaking, a lot of self-referential humour and some truly inspired episodes that lampoon aspects of popular culture such as the console wars and the "dating sim" visual novel subgenre. (There's also a lot of people stabbing each other in the head with a fork as a means to get them to be quiet, for some reason.) Much like how My Girlfriend is the President consistently raised the bar on how crazy it got as it progressed — and yet somehow remained coherent, engaging and touching at times — so, too does Haiyore! Nyaruko-san. It starts with an utterly absurd premise and only gets more ridiculous from there — but at the same time it draws the viewer in with endearing, well-defined characters (most of whom initially appear to be stock characters but who subsequently tend to reveal a strong degree of ironic self-awareness) and quite a touching — if painfully awkward and immensely frustrating — romance story.

It also has the most infuritatingly catchy intro and outro songs I think I have ever heard. This is either something you will be into or something you will never want to sully your ears with ever again, so I present both to you now in order that you may make up your mind.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYlAq-NhR1w] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1qX5GsBfuI]

Basically, if you can deal with those two credits sequences, you're in the appropriate demographic to enjoy Haiyore! Nyaruko-san. If they make you want to vomit, then perhaps you should go and treat yourself to something a bit more gritty.

#oneaday Day 974: The Caffeine Review

I review games and mobile apps every day. So really, how difficult can it possibly be to review something that isn't a game or a mobile app?

I thought I'd try today with coffee. I am going to work my way through all the different types of coffee in the house today in an attempt to determine whether or not said different types of coffee do, in fact, taste any different or whether we're just being taken for a ride.

Let's begin! (Note: I drink my coffee with a splash of milk and no sugar. I know, I know, if I'm truly hardcore I should drink it black, but… no.)

Kenco Millicano

Kenco Millicano purports to be a "wholebean instant" coffee that, in theory, should taste a whole lot better than regular instants such as Nescafe et al. And indeed it does — there's none of that "dirty water" taste (though granted, given the state of our kettle, it's entirely possible that it is just dirty water when that taste comes up) and a pleasing aroma. It has a smooth flavour that is just the thing for a morning coffee — enough of a taste to wake you up a bit, but not so intense that you're wincing at the bitterness.

Rocket Fuel

This coffee supposedly contains guarana, that mysterious ingredient that powered those weird Boost bars with crunchy green bits in them a while back. I remember a friend and I eating too many of those in one day once — some promotional ladies were handing them out in the student union — and literally being unable to stay still for afternoon classes. I'm not entirely sure if this coffee will have that effect as yet. Actually, I do feel slightly more alert after getting through that whole cup. Interesting. Caffeine normally doesn't feel like it affects me that much, but I can certainly feel this one kicking in.

As for the coffee itself, it's not especially great. It tastes like cheap instant (and isn't that cheap) and has a weird aftertaste. Specifically, it has that distinct "dirty water" taste about it, though not to the same degree as cheap own-brand supermarket coffee. It's certainly drinkable. We'll see how I feel a bit later to determine whether the "kick" is worth the peculiar taste.

Nescafe Latte Macchiato

Rocket Fuel's surprising intensity also came with a big caffeine crash a couple of hours later, so I decided to dial back the intensity somewhat. Nescafe's Latte Macchiato sachets make a cup of weak, milky, bubbly coffee and are all too easy to make lumpy if you don't stir them hard enough. They're not particularly strong or "coffee-y", but they're nice and smooth if you're just looking for a warm drink.

Real lattes take the piss out of them, though.

Starbucks VIA Italian Roast

This stuff makes a strong cup of coffee with a smoky flavour, and was just the thing to top up my flagging caffeine levels, as I'm not entirely convinced there's any caffeine in those poncey bubbly Nescafe things. Starbucks coffee has a kick, though, and the Italian Roast blend is definitely on the "strong" side of the spectrum, both in flavour and in caffeine content. At least it felt like it was on the strong side, anyway. It's good, but expensive. Now I feel a bit more awake.

Nescafe Azera

This is Nescafe's equivalent of Starbucks' pretentious VIA coffee. Like Starbucks' pretentious VIA coffee, it's a very finely-ground instant coffee that makes a convincing-looking cup that has the appearance of having come out of a machine, complete with crema on top. It's about half the intensity of the Starbucks' blend, however, meaning you need to use twice as much of it to get a satisfying cup of coffee. Fortunately, the little pots they sell it in are about twice as big as the pots of Starbucks' pretentious VIA coffee for half the price, which is nice, and I like the way the little bubbles make the nice crema on top when the water goes in and I already said that and wheeeeee this is nice and I'll never get to sleep tonight after all this.

Percol Decaf Colombian

BuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzI'mabeeI'mabeeI'mabee like the Black Eyed Peas wheeeeeeeee coffee coffee coffee too much coffee argh I can't take any more coffee please make it stop I can't sleep I want to sleep WANT TO SLEEP SO BAD but can't too much coffee why am I still drinking this I don't know it's not as good as the Starbucks and Azera ones but its still quite nice and I'm just glad it doesn't have any caffeine in it supposedly I hope so any more caffeine and my head will explode EXPLODE DO YOU HEAR ME ARGH NYARLATHOTEP that's what I'll do now I'll watch Haiyore! Nyaruko-san until this buzzing sensation in my head wears off and I facvvvvvvvvvvbyhgbngybnm;lcv

Changed my blog theme. Let me know what you think!

I changed my theme. EXCITEMENT. I've been using the WordPress "Twenty Ten" theme until now but I thought I'd see what the newer "Twenty Twelve" looked like. Pretty similar, as it happens, albeit with a bit of extra white space and borders around images. It also makes these brief "aside" posts stand out a bit better. Let me know what you think.