We went to visit my parents a short while ago, and while I was there I had a rummage through some cobweb-covered boxes of crap that they'd been holding onto. I came away with a bunch of cassette tapes (to use in the freebie hi-fi Andie acquired and restored recently), a selection of mixed floppy disks (which I will go through and report on at some point) and some books that I remember I used to enjoy reading.

I hadn't thought about a lot of these books for quite a while, but when I stumbled across them I thought "yeah, I wouldn't mind having those". So I took 'em. And now they are providing excellent toilet reading material that is far more enjoyable than just doomscrolling on the phone.

Among the selection I recovered was a collection of books by the author Judy Blume. I remembered really liking these books as a kid, but not a lot in the way of specifics. So I thought I'd read through them again; as novels intended for children, they're easy and quick to read, short and enjoyable, but I've come away from what I've read so far very impressed with what Blume did with her characterisation, narrative perspective and even some of the themes tackled in the books.

I looked her up on Wikipedia after reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, the first of the "Fudge" series, and discovered that indeed she has been both renowned and controversial over the years for the fact she was willing to compose stories for children that didn't really hold back from exploring things you might not typically expect to see in works for that age group.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, for example, concludes with the protagonist Peter's little brother "Fudge" literally eating his pet turtle and having to go into hospital until he either passes it or has it removed. The turtle, naturally, does not survive his time in a toddler's stomach, and the reaction of the protagonist to this whole situation is kind of fascinating to observe; he goes through a very believable series of emotions.

Having read all of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and most of its follow-up Superfudge, I do find myself wondering how much of an influence these books actually had on me. I vaguely recall feeling something of a connection with the protagonist Peter because we shared a name, though I (thankfully) didn't have a little brother like Fudge to deal with.

It was more than that, though; the way Peter thinks and talks is very familiar to me, because I remember thinking and feeling the way he describes various situations. I remember trying to be grown-up and mature and not quite managing it, and I remember having moments of childishness when things didn't go my way. These are all things that are still part of my personality now; seeing it laid out on the page like that really made me think "oh. Oh yeah."

I also find myself wondering how much of my general dislike of children stems from these books. Fudge is a terrible human being, and the amount of restraint both his parents and Peter demonstrate towards him is admirable, because I don't think I'd have been able to deal with the various things he gets up to. And the trouble — or rather the genius of Blume's writing — is that it's all so believable. In my own past encounters with children (both in teaching and otherwise) I've seen kids behave like Fudge; he's not an exaggerated caricature by any means.

Part of the moral of the stories, though, is learning to deal and cope with difficulties presented by situations like this. To a certain extent, Fudge's obnoxiousness stems from the fact that he is very young and still learning about right, wrong and an appropriate sense of boundaries — but you could probably also interpret his behaviour of being symptomatic of any one of a number of mental health conditions or special educational needs.

Blume doesn't say anything directly about this — it's a first-person perspective narrative delivered by Peter, after all, and since he's a nine year old when the stories begin, he would have no way of knowing about such things — but looking back on these as an adult… there are certain tell-tale signs, shall we say.

I'm actually curious to maybe pick up some of Blume's other books at some point. She's written both children's and young adult books, and some of them sound rather interesting. Plus, I won't lie, having not really spent a lot of time reading proper paper novels for a while (visual novels are another matter, of course), it's been rather pleasant to dig into something that is short, accessible and not at all demanding to read. Sometimes you just want to let the words wash over you.

So yeah. That's what I've been reading on the toilet of late, along with The Usborne Detective's Handbook and Peter Eldin's range of The [x]'s Handbook — I'll talk more about those another time. Thoroughly nostalgic and enjoyable, and much more fun to accompany a poo than the endless misery of Twitter, for sure. I recommend the experience.

Made it to the gym yesterday, and to the pool today. Slowly getting there, though two weeks of almost complete inactivity has left me extremely achey. Remind me not to sprain my ankle again. I'm now super-paranoid about the corner of my drive where I did it; with any luck, that paranoia will ensure it won't happen again.

I'd only been building up a "routine" for a little while before the accident, but I was still a bit concerned I'd have lost any of the progress I might have made in that brief period. Thankfully I still appear to be roughly where I was in terms of what I can handle reasonably comfortably — and I tend to find the achiness goes away when I'm actually using the bits in question. Going up and particularly down stairs is still a bit painful, though.

Anyway, onwards we go I guess. Not been doing too great mental health-wise of late, but I suspect a lot of that is due to frustration over my physical condition. Perhaps I'll start feeling a bit better with some more regular activity — I know swimming tonight certainly felt like it was releasing some stress.

Exercise is funny like that. It can actually physically manifest mental health matters. I've had it happen on a couple of occasions; a while back when I'd had to temporarily move back in with my parents after the breakdown of my first marriage, I took to going running a bit. I was never particularly good at it — and I certainly doubt I would be now — but I successfully made it through the Couch to 5K programme and even ran a 10K in London at one point.

One evening I was running the route I'd established for myself around my home village, and I was coming towards the "cooldown" period. As I stopped running and slowed to a walk, I just started crying. Not about anything in particular; I just felt a weird "release" and suddenly my body decided that now was the time to let out the physical symptoms of all the things that had been weighing on my mind.

I felt something similar in the pool this evening. It wasn't as strong — I didn't start crying or anything — but I definitely felt a distinct sense of "stress relief". Followed by new stress and depressive triggers to take its place. Oh well. It's a start, at least.

Hopefully at least some of you have seen this already today, but I thought I'd share it here too.

After 35 years, the "Digger Dan" trilogy is finally complete! Up until very recently, there were only two Digger Dan games for Atari 8-bit: Diamonds and Dan Strikes Back. But back in April, Simon Hunt, creator of these games, stumbled across my Atari A to Z videos covering them — and accepted a challenge I set the Atari 8-bit community in the second of the two videos.

Basically, I explained the history of the games and said that Hunt had put together a title sequence for a proposed third game in 1986, but it had never got beyond the design phase. I wondered if anyone would step forward and finally finish off the trilogy once and for all?

I most certainly didn't expect the original creator to respond… but, well, here we are. And I'm thrilled to have been part of this.

If you want to read the full story, check out my writeup over on Retrounite today — and be sure to give the three Digger Dan games a go if you haven't already; they're all great fun, including the brand new one!

I'm really enjoying Atelier Firis, but it feels like it's taking a long time for me to get through. Part of this is down to day job commitments sometimes meaning I haven't had as much time in the week to play it as much as I like, but it also feels like there's an absolute ton of stuff to play through.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Atelier Firis could quite reasonably be described as World of Atelier, and could easily have been a final installment in the franchise, perhaps continually added to and expanded with new areas, quests and characters. I'm in two minds as to whether it's my absolute favourite in the series — but it's certainly damn near the top. The open-world structure works brilliantly, and any time I sit down to play the damn thing I know I'm going to be there for several hours without moving.

Of course, the fact that this is a sprawling games means it's taken a little longer to cover over on MoeGamer than I perhaps expected, but I'm going to ride this out and keep playing (and writing) until I'm satisfied that I've seen everything it has to offer… or at least, seen everything that I have the energy to track down. There may well be some "superbosses" and optional challenges I'm not up to, but at the very least I want to pursue some of the more interesting-sounding and involved endings for the game. At present I don't feel like I'm anywhere near any of them, though a few of the more minor storylines are starting to wrap up now.

I really am super-impressed with this. It simultaneously feels like the Atelier you know well by this point, and something completely different. It's got a wonderfully organic feeling of progression and discovering things to do; at no point do I feel like I've been working through a "checklist". Instead, I've been constantly stumbling across things, discovering new information, getting quests, taking them on if I can and moving on if not. That, to me, is a perfect example of how an open-world game is supposed to work.

For me, the benchmark for open-world games is the Xenoblade games. And while Atelier Firis isn't quite up to that standard — mostly from a technical standpoint, meaning the world areas aren't designed with anywhere near as much "freedom" about them as in Xenoblade — it's certainly a great example of what a Japanese developer can do with the open-world format. Not to mention proof if proof were needed that "open world" doesn't have to mean "game where you hoover up all the icons on the map".

Anyway, at this point I have absolutely no idea how much longer I'm going to be on Atelier Firis, but like I say, I'm committed to this project and I will see it through to its conclusion! I'm trying to prioritise Atelier Firis for my own personal gaming time at the moment because I do want to finish it… but at the same time I want to keep hanging out with Firis and Liane and Sophie and Plachta and Drossel and Shanon and… you know how it is when you find an RPG that really "clicks" with you.

Anyway, just wanted to keep you posted on progress. That's the situation! Now I'm off to bed. Some exciting retro-related news tomorrow — keep an eye on my YouTube and Retrounite to find out more!

It's the weekend again. This week has just sort of drifted by — with my general sense of tiredness and Andie not being all that well, I've kind of just sort of gone along in a bit of a haze of depression and ennui.

Going to try and give myself a nice weekend though. Andie has got some medicine to help with the problem she's been having, so hopefully she'll be all better soon. I'm going to get a reasonably early night tonight. Then tomorrow I think I'm going to keep mostly for relaxation purposes — though I may write something on Atelier Firis. Sunday, I'll record some videos — that's always fun.

Just in case you didn't see me say so on Twitter, there's no Retro Select or Atari A to Z Flashback this week as with everything else going on I didn't have the time or the energy to put them together. We should be back on a normal schedule next week!

Was going to spend the evening chilling out with Flight Simulator, but there's a 40GB update that is taking ages to download, so I guess that's out until either much later tonight or tomorrow! Ah well. Plenty of other things to enjoy in the meantime — now to just pick what!

Hope you've had a better week than I have. Onwards and upwards and all that!

Having one of those days where I feel very much like I've been "left behind" by the modern world. And in some respects I am 100% okay with that; in others, it's frustrating.

A couple of specific things have triggered this feeling today. One of them is the omnipresence of TikTok, which I still absolutely do not understand the point of. Various people have tried to sell it to me as "it has girls dancing on it" (just go to PornHub) and "it's more real and raw than YouTube" (I don't want "real" and "raw", I want well-produced, informative and truthful) and I absolutely, positively Do Not Get It.

And yet people will not shut up about it. Everywhere you go, someone is blathering on about TikTok "influencers" (ugh). Annoying TikTok videos of people shouting at themselves from different camera angles are shared on other social media platforms. And people seem to think that someone talking fake-earnestly to their phone camera is somehow a more compelling and convincing way to make an argument than writing something coherent.

I hate it. Fuck off with you, TikTok.

The other thing is Cookie Clicker. This got released on Steam recently, and you have to pay for it. I thought it was stupid back in 2013, and I think it's stupid now. Idle games are, by their very nature, a complete waste of time — and indeed many of their original incarnations (Cow Clicker springs to mind) were intended to point out the inherent absurdity of such mechanics. And yet somewhere along the line, the joke was lost and people started taking it seriously.

Now people go crazy for Cookie Clicker. It has 9,662 "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews on Steam. No-one will say why it is good, other than "hur, I click cookie, numbers go up". No-one can justify why it is a worthwhile use of your time, other than saying "you can leave it running while you do other things".

I don't get it. And that annoys me. Not because I begrudge people their fun, but because I'm increasingly feeling like everyone is going absolutely insane. I'm well aware how much of an old fart complaining about all this makes me sound, but seriously. Remember when we read books? Tell someone reading a book 20 years ago that thousands, possibly millions of people would be choosing to spend their free time clicking on a picture of a cookie so a number got a bit bigger and they would probably laugh at you.

At least in PowerWash Simulator, which I'm sure many could argue is just as much of a waste of time, you're actively participating in something. I guess some people just find Cookie Clicker comfy and relaxing in the same way? Fair play to them if that's the case, but like I say; I didn't get it in 2013, and I really don't get it now when there are so many other ways you can spend your free time.

Now I'm off to go read a visual novel in bed. All of you, get off my lawn.

Still really tired. Hopefully will get some decent sleep again tonight; had a good nap after work and went to the gym for a relatively gentle session this evening and my ankle isn't complaining, so that's good.

My tiredness is just making me grouchy, though. The Internet in general is frustrating and irritating to me; I'm especially sick of the relentless arguing on social media, because it never ends. I saw a 250-tweet argument that went absolutely nowhere on a British Gas tweet earlier and it just made me wonder how we came to this as a species. What a colossal waste of time and brainpower.

On the upside, I've made a promise to myself to spend more time reading visual novels, so I'm going to read a bit of Code: Realize before bed. I was really enjoying what I read a while back, so I'd like to continue with that — I hope I remember what was going on! I think I do. Cute girl with poison skin, Arsene Lupin, Frankenstein… yeah, something like that, anyway.

Anyway, my brain is melting so I'm afraid I don't have much else of note to share with you this evening. Hope you're all feeling a bit better than I am right now — make sure you get plenty of good quality rest when you have the opportunity to, because you sure feel it when you don't get it, I can tell you!

Feeling marginally better today, though I did go and have a long nap in the middle of the day. That helped somewhat. Another good night's sleep tonight will probably help even more, so I should probably go and do that very soon.

I've been enjoying Cruis'n Blast today, though. I wasn't sure what to expect, because I distinctly remember games magazines over here absolutely hating the original Cruis'n games back in the N64 era, but it seems a lot of people (Americans, anyway) look back rather fondly on them today.

Cruis'n Blast, though, is absolutely great; it's a shot of pure old-school arcade racer adrenaline that feels like it's just stepped out of a time warp from 2010. It's got ridiculously cheesy music that would make Daytona USA proud, it's got insane physics and stunts, it's got enough speed to make F-Zero blush and it's just a ton of fun to play.

I feel like it's one of those games you might be able to "beat" quite easily, but it's also one that you can easily come back to any time you just want a sugar rush in gaming form. It's an absolute delight, and I hope I can convince some people to try it in split-screen multiplayer at some point in the near future!

Check out my full article on it over at Rice Digital if you haven't already.

Now I'm Cruis'n off to bed.

I am exhausted beyond belief. Think everything has just caught up with me today a bit, so it may be just 9pm as I write this, but I'm going to bed. Haven't slept well at all for the last few nights so I'm hoping tonight will fix that.

Had good intentions to get gym and swimming back underway this evening but I'm just too tired right now. I have an evening out at a friend's place tomorrow evening, then on Wednesday I'll get back to things properly.

On the plus side, I think my foot is mostly healed. The leg I'd been putting most of my weight on while it hurt is very achey now, but I suspect putting it back into regular use will help with that. At least I hope so. If not I guess I'm just one of those perpetually achey old men now.

Anyway, my eyes are drooping so I'll bid you adieu for now. Hopefully I'll be in a generally better condition and mood tomorrow!

While reading through some old ACE magazines the other day, I was struck by an interesting idea: what would a console designed using '80s and '90s conventions but modern technology look like if released today?

I was inspired to think this by ACE's  "Pink Pages" section, which, among other things, provided a "buyer's guide" for all the then-current computers and consoles, including tech specs about graphics modes, hardware sprites, scrolling and suchlike.

These days, modern consoles are effectively custom built PCs, and thus have very generic technology inside them. This means that they're theoretically capable of anything within reason, but also extremely boring. There's nothing unique about them.

Look back at the 16-bit gen, for example, and all the consoles available then had a very distinct personality about them due to their technology — and the games that were released on them reflected that sense of personality. I wonder what that approach would look like today?

Can you imagine how many hardware sprites a modern system would be capable of pumping out without a hint of slowdown today? Can you imagine how slick 1080p or 4K hardware scrolling would look? Can you imagine what a dedicated sound chip created today would be able to synthesise without using samples?

Of course, there's absolutely no need for a system like this today because that generic PC style hardware used for everything can turn its hand to whatever you want it to. But I still think it would be interesting; I'd certainly give a system like that a shot!