Category: Personal and Opinion

#oneaday Day 85: Help Wanted

Sometimes it's not clear how video game heroes got themselves into the situations they're in at the start of a game. It's at times like this that I like to imagine they answered a job advertisement like one of the following. Can you spot the games they're from?

—

WANTED: Caretaker for large medieval castle. Some internal renovations required. Successful applicants will have good athletic ability and will be unconcerned by stories of "the undead". What is a man? Anyone who can apply for this job—we don't discriminate. £DOE. Call Simon.

—

WANTED: Pest control technician to operate in secluded literacy-heavy society. Good performance in this role will lead to quick promotion prospects and the opportunity for a considerable amount of travel. The successful candidate must have good interpersonal and leadership skills, be open to the idea of taking on seemingly insurmountable challenges and be interested in their own lineage. £excellent. Ask for Gorion.

—

WANTED: Computer specialist for exciting new project in space. Must be well-versed in use of lead piping for improvisatory technical solutions, interested in the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and not easily terrified. £available on application. Call 01010011 01001000 01001111 01000100 01000001 01001110 and ask for Sharon.

—

WANTED: New recruits to police force for small Mid-Western town prone to outbreaks of bizarre crime and disease. Must be able to handle small to large firearms with no training, and have difficulty running both in a straight line and around corners. Floppy hair is beneficial, though not essential. £good. Call Claire.

—

WANTED: Refuse collection operative to trial new system of collecting waste. Successful applicant will have good ball-handling skills and be open to the idea of travel. £amazing. Call K. Cosmos.

—

WANTED: Ex-soldier with good leadership skills sought for assistance with new environmental project. Background unimportant. Familiarity with anachronistic weapon technologies a distinct advantage. £stupendous. Call Mr Wallace.

—

WANTED: New recruits to police force for the most geographically diverse region in North America. Must hold full, clean driving licence and be familiar with the operation of high-powered sports cars—we don't do things by halves here. Split-personality applicants who enjoy occasionally delving into street racing themselves are welcome to apply. £outrageous. Call Dispatch.

—

WANTED: Rapping dog to assist with unexpected noodle-related issues. Specialist problem requires specialist recruitment. £inconceivable. Call C. C. M. Onion.

—

WANTED: Color-blind gentleman with large neck sought for friendship, camaraderie and maybe more. Must not be afraid of insects. £not bad. Call Dom.

—

WANTED: New owner for ailing bookshop in French Quarter. Assistant provided. Your role will involve very little working in the shop and a lot of wandering around town. Would suit lazy, arrogant prig. £rubbish. Call Grace.

—

WANTED: Witch sought for a job that is "out of this world". Height a distinct advantage, as is familiarity with the use of pistols with both hands and feet. Can you sparkle, are you gonna shine? £fabulous. Call Rodin.

—

WANTED: News reporter. Must be able to dance and produce bulletins that look good but have no real content whatsoever. Female applicants preferred. £superfabulous. Call Fuse.

#oneaday Day 84: The Crossovers That Will Never Be

There's a ton of untapped potential in the world of the crossover. Comics have been wise to this for a long time, with DC and Marvel in particular being highly aware of the fact that all their superheroes are running around disparate parts of the same world and might just bump into each other on occasion.

But what would happen if some of the more bizarre crossovers came to fruition? Well, let's explore that, shall we?

Castlevania: Deep Space Nine

The most modern the series has got was with Soma Cruz, and even then it was still all bats and caves and swords and whatnot. Castlevania should go to space, and specifically to Deep Space Nine. Why? Because I had a dream about it so therefore it must be a good idea.

Benjamin Sisko discovers that as well as being the Emissary he is also a descendent of the Belmont clan and—horrors!—Dracula has found a way to harness the power of the Bajoran wormhole to summon forth the forces of Darkness into our reality. Fortunately, power of said wormhole also manages to summon Alucard, with little to no explanation as to why (this is Castlevania, you don't ask silly questions like "why?") who very carefully passes Sisko the Vampire Killer whip. Thus begins an exciting and thrilling co-operative adventure throughout the many decks of Deep Space Nine, culminating in a thrilling showdown with Dracula, who reprises his famous "What Is A Man?" speech in zero gravity.

Features narration by Patrick Stewart, as is the law for all new Castlevania games.

Dragon's Den: Origins

The Archdemon is rising, and the world needs a hero. But heroes don't just come out of nowhere. They need to be found.

Enter The Dragons: Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis, Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan. A series of aspiring Heroes of Ferelden climb the stairs of destiny and pitch their ideas with which they believe they'll be able to take down the Archdemon. Only by securing a Dragon's investment in their expedition will they have a chance of success, otherwise they'll be doomed to wandering the land in rusty chainmail using swords that fall apart as soon as you hit a log with them.

Superman: The Krypton Factor

A brand new gameshow featuring Superman attempting to overcome a variety of physical and mental challenges, all of which are laced with kryptonite. Will Superman survive this episode? Will he finally succumb to kryptonite's influence? As the series finale, Superman has to defeat Gordon Burns in single combat, as it turns out that Burns, too, is also a superhero, but one who draws power from kryptonite instead of being weakened by it. WHO WILL PREVAIL?

Total WipeOut HD Fury

A combination of futuristic racing and people falling in the water repeatedly, the twist is that the courses which the high-speed anti-grav racers and the people running around have to follow are the same, causing significant risk to life and limb for anyone hopping over those giant Super Mario mushrooms whilst the pack bears down on them at approximately 700mph. The winner is the team whose antigrav racer and panicking human both survive.

The Hairy Bikers in: Road Rash

The Hairy Bikers have had enough, and have decided to take on a gruesome, brutal world tour atop their throbbing motorbikes. Along the way, they smack the shit out of anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path, collect the meat from the smouldering corpses and cook it into a delicious recipe between each stage of their journey.

#oneaday Day 83: Read The Gorram Manual

I bought a new Xbox headset a few months back because several years of accidentally standing and/or sitting on my old one had caused it to finally give up the ghost. I was excited to see that they're now made of black plastic and have a mute switch on the cable instead of sticking out of the controller. (I wasn't really excited.)

What I was a little surprised by, though, was this:

One of these must be useful for something.

Yes, those are six instruction leaflets. For a headset. A headset whose functionality can be summed up by telling the chronically stupid and/or non tech-savvy to plug it into their controller, attach it to their head and talk into it whilst making sure the switch is green, not red. And making sure their Xbox is turned on, obviously, and that they're in a situation where they are able to talk to people.

Actually, most of those leaflets aren't taken up with useful information on how to use the headset. A considerable proportion of them are spent making sure you don't spend your time jamming it up your arse or swallowing it or accidentally dismantling it instead of talking into it. In several different languages. Which is nice and Continental, but ultimately rather redundant.

Ironically, considering we live in an age where things are supposed to be so intuitive we don't need manuals, then, that even the most mundane things come with instruction leaflets designed to ensure we 1) don't kill ourselves with things that you'd have to work really hard to kill yourself with and 2) don't sue the manufacturers when we accidentally kill ourselves with things that you'd have to work really hard to kill yourself with.

Imagine, then, if literally everything had an associated instruction leaflet. Can you identify what the following three things are?

—

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE

1. Remove from storage and place on flat, stable surface.
2. Ensure receptacle is empty.
3. Fill receptacle with liquid of your choice, ensuring to leave 1-2cm of empty space.
4. Grasp handle with dominant hand.
5. Raise, apply to front facial orifice and tilt back slightly, ensuring that liquid flows into orifice and not around.

—

IMPORTANT NOTICE

This device operates in different manners according to gender and required usage. Please follow the appropriate instructions.

1. Switch seat to required position. Ensure there is an open space available and receptacle is not covered.
2. If male and requiring usage (a) (see Appendix), stand in front of device. If female and requiring usage (a) or either gender and requiring usage (b) (see Appendix), sit on device, ensuring feet remain firmly on floor if possible.
3. If male and requiring usage (a), ensure clear line of sight is available between appendage P and device (see diagram 4.1) before commencing. For all other uses, ensure lower body is free of obstructions.
4. If male and requiring usage (a), activate flow from appendage P using muscle F (see diagram 6.9). If female and requiring usage (a), activate flow from region V using muscle F (see diagram 5.2). For all other uses, release safety catch on region A using muscle Q (see diagram 7.6).
5. Continue use until no longer required. Discontinue flow or return safety catch on region A to Regular position.
6. If usage (b) has been undertaken, use of accessory T may be required. Follow instructions in the Appendix for appropriate usage of accessory T.

—

NOTE

This device requires a compatible accessory. See Appendix B for suggested devices to use in conjunction with this one.

1. Ensure device is firmly attached to compatible accessory via smaller end.
2. Insert larger ends of device into aural cavities.
3. Activate compatible device. In the case of discomfort during use, refer to compatible device's instructions to minimise aural discomfort and/or ensure content compatible with local guidelines of taste and decorum is in use.

—

To make a comment, click in the boxes below and supply the relevant information, inserting your comment into the largest box. Move the mouse pointer onto the Post Comment button by moving the mouse, and depress the left mouse button with your index finger, then quickly release it to confirm the posting of your comment.

#oneaday Day 82: Mind. Blown.

It's a really good thing that humans have the capacity to take things for granted. It's not always the best thing to do, but occasionally, it's quite fun to just step back (not literally, otherwise you'll bump into that guy behind you and he'll drop his fine china tea-set, making a horrible stain on the carpet and making him wonder whether or not he should ask you to pay for it because he's actually quite anxious about talking to other people and doesn't want to become acquainted with someone by yelling at them, but at the same time that tea-set was very expensive and belonged to his grandmother so he feels like he should at least say something so basically, don't bump into him) and think about how awesome "things" are.

Take cars, for example, and by extension most means of motorised transportation. Most of us use some form of transport every single day and don't give it a second thought. But think about it. You get into a car through a door, like a room. It has carpets and windows and furniture, like a room. But it moves. When you sit in a car, you're in a room that moves. When you're driving on the motorway, you're sitting in a chair that's going 90 70 miles per hour. That's pretty amazing, right?

And the Internet. Particularly wireless Internet. Walk into pretty much any coffee shop and the Internet is in the air around you. You can't see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, but turn on your iPhone (other smartphones and Wi-Fi compatible devices are available) and it's there, allowing you to watch videos of cats at your convenience while you enjoy a half-caff skinny tall frappucino with extra coolwhip spoogebang sprinklywotsits and a slab of cake. Cat videos from thin air! Amazing.

Or the fact you're reading this blog (which is amazing in itself) — I'm sitting here typing this in my makeshift study in Cambridgeshire while you could be sitting absolutely anywhere, even high in the sky on some airline services, reading this. Perhaps you're in the future right now, scanning back through my past entries to get a better picture of who I am and whether I'm the sort of person who likes bludgeoning kittens to death (hint: I'm not… although that's just the sort of thing someone who had a secret life bludgeoning kittens to death might say) — and you're reading this. You're in my brain, sucking up my soul. Stop it. But it's still pretty amazing.

Of course, if you take all this to its natural conclusion, the fact that we're here at all doing the things we do is pretty amazing, too. We are walking, talking lumps of chemical reactions that are reacting in such a way as to make us aware of our own existence and able to control our own destinies… or at least, so it seems, anyway. Chemical reactions who can write blog posts, talk to people who are 160 miles away, drink coffee and listen to music at the same time. Amazing.

I'll stop now before my head explodes at the fact we're on a big lump of rock hurtling through space that just happens to move in a nice elliptical orbit around a MASSIVE BURNING GLOB OF GAS and start taking everything for granted again.

#oneaday Day 81: Improv Theatre

[Preamble: We listen to stories when we're kids because they have a soporific effect. There's no reason why you should stop telling stories when you "grow up", particularly if you enjoy improvising. This is a story I came up with on the fly at the request of a certain young lady who couldn't sleep last night, given the stimulus words of "robots", "clocks" and "cheesecake". No preparation was involved, hence the total lack of structure and nonsensical, improvised nature of it. But I was quite pleased with the eventual result.]

There once was a robot. His name was Trundlebot, because he wasn't very good at moving quickly on the wheels he had instead of feet. Trundlebot didn't mind though, because he was a robot and didn't know any better.

Trundlebot was the only robot employee at the Grognak clock factory, the first of his kind and something of an experiment for the factory owners. He was made from leftover clock parts and a few electronic gizmos that old Mr Grognak had ordered from the Internet against the express wishes of Mrs Grognak.

The Grognaks' son, Jeremiah, who was five years old, was fascinated by Trundlebot, but Mr Grognak, still wary of the robot's unproven track record, didn't let him too close. But Jeremiah longed to see Trundlebot up close, to look at him, talk to him and see what sort of person he was.

Mr and Mrs Grognak indulged Jeremiah with fanciful tales of what Trundlebot used to get up to before he came to the Grognak clock factory, taking care not to disappoint Jeremiah with the sad truth that Trundlebot was an unthinking, unfeeling machine who knew nothing of human life.

But Jeremiah was unsatisfied with just stories. He wanted to know what made Trundlebot tick himself, so one chilly winter night, he wrapped himself up in the warmest clothes he could find, stole his way downstairs and crept out of the house door and into the grounds of the factory.

The chill wind battered his young face, but it wasn't far to go. He crept across the courtyard to the front door of the main building and knowing that his father always left it unlocked due to the big iron gates outside, pushed it open slowly and carefully. It was dark inside, but the faint glow of the power-saving lights was enough for Jeremiah to see by. He heard the familiar ticking of the clocks as he walked through the corridors, looking around for what he desperately hoped would be his new robot friend.

He found his way to a door, which he recognised from the times his father had shown him around as the staff's break room. It was eerily quiet inside, the ticking of the clocks outside a stark contrast to the gentle hum of the fridge that was the only sound in here.

Overcome with curiosity and not really knowing why, he reached for the fridge door and opened it. The bright light from within flooded out, and he shielded his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden change in ambience. The fridge was mostly bare, save for a single plate on the middle shelf which bore a cheesecake, topped with sticky sauce and sweet berries. Jeremiah reached for the plate, then paused for a moment. The cheesecake clearly belonged to someone, but it also clearly hadn't been touched. Who would leave a delicious-looking cheesecake like that just lying around? He extended a finger and took off just a tiny blob of the sticky crimson sauce atop the cake, and licked his finger. It was as good as it looked, but he knew he shouldn't touch any more.

He closed the fridge and was about to walk out, when he heard a clattering from outside the break room door. It sounded like someone was coming. Jeremiah didn't know what to do. The only way out of the break room was through the door he'd come in by, and that was where the sounds were coming from. He looked around frantically and eventually opted to dive under a chair and hope whoever was coming wouldn't see him. He heard the door open, and a ticking noise, along with what sounded like something being dragged along the floor.

Looking out from under the chair, he saw a familiar set of wheels. It was Trundlebot, but what was he up to?

The ticking robot trundled over to the fridge and jerkily extended one of its arms, yanking the door open rather forcefully. Jeremiah was fascinated. What on Earth was the silly little robot doing in the fridge? He heard the "clink" of metal on porcelain, and it was apparent that the robot was taking the cheesecake out of the fridge. Jeremiah heard the door shut again, and Trundlebot wheeled himself out, apparently oblivious to the young boy's presence.

Jeremiah followed Trundlebot back through the factory corridors at a discreet distance, to the building's front entrance and out into the courtyard. Across the courtyard, and into the Grognak household.

Jeremiah didn't follow the robot in straight away, because he didn't want to get caught. But after a moment, curiosity got the better of him and he crept in.

Inside, he was astonished to discover Trundlebot had not only set down the cheesecake in the middle of the dining table, but also set three places with plates, knives and forks.

"What are you doing?" said Jeremiah, unable to restrain his childish curiosity, and not even sure if the robot could understand him. The robot, apparently only now becoming aware of the child's presence, paused for a moment and turned around on his wheels.

"One year since activation," he said in a raspy metallic voice. "Operator Grognak efficient and kind operator. Protocol dictates giving of gift."

Of course, thought Jeremiah. Trundlebot had been a part of their life for a year from tomorrow, and he wanted to celebrate.

"Did you make the cake?" asked Jeremiah.

"Affirmative," said Trundlebot. "Internet recipe. Delia Smith."

Jeremiah smiled at the robot. He was sure this would be a big surprise for his mother and father, and he looked forward to seeing their faces.

There was a sudden "snark" sound, and a long strip of paper began to emerge from a slot on the front of Trundlebot. Jeremiah took hold of it as it came out, further and further. Eventually, the other end dropped from the slot and Jeremiah picked up the finished article.

It was a banner, printed in red and gold. "THANK YOU", it said in large friendly letters. Trundlebot raised his arms and Jeremiah, sensing what the robot was thinking, carefully laid the banner across so it looked like he was holding it up.

"Gratitude for assistance," said Trundlebot. "Now child-unit must engage sleep programme." Jeremiah nodded, and crept up the stairs to bed.

The following morning, the Grognak family rose early and went down to breakfast. They were astonished to discover Trundlebot standing mutely in their living room, holding a large red and gold "THANK YOU" banner, and a delicious-looking cheesecake on the table.

"Oh my goodness!" said Mrs Grognak. "Did you do all this, Jeremiah?"

Jeremiah peered at Trundlebot, who said nothing. He swore that one of the robot's eyes blinked on and off briefly, and he smiled.

"Yes," he said. "It's Trundlebot's birthday. So it's only fair we celebrate it, even if he can't, isn't it?"

So they all ate cake and had a lovely breakfast. Trundlebot and Mr Grognak made their way back to the factory and started their day of work.

Jeremiah didn't hear Trundlebot speak again, but he knew that the silly little robot was more than just old clock parts and mysterious electronics. He was alive, and that made Jeremiah very happy indeed.

The End.

#oneaday Day 80: I Swear, By The Moon And The Stars In The Skies

(If you are offended by swearing you may wish to skip this one. But then that's kind of the point of this post. So perhaps you should read it.)

Swearing's a funny thing. On the one hand, a well-timed expletive—particularly a creative compound one, such as "felchbastard"—can make everyone laugh. On the other hand, people who use the word "fucking" as verbal punctuation and/or a non-fluency feature are, well to be frank, complete arseholes.

It's curious how some swear words are more acceptable than others though, especially given the fact that many of them refer to the same thing. Refer to someone as a "twat" and that's generally seen as just fine and peachy (unless you're, say, talking to the Queen or your grandparents (assuming they're not the kind of grandparents who swear like sailors (possibly because they were sailors) or squaddies (ditto) and now I'm not sure how many nested brackets I've used so I'll just hope) or the local vicar) but call them a "cunt" and you'll quite possibly be the recipient of a stony silence, a slap in the face or a detention, depending on your age/social status and/or occupation.

But why should this be? "Twat" and "cunt" both refer to the female genitalia, yet some people feel more uncomfortable saying the word "vagina" out loud than "twat", yet "cunt" is still some sort of horrendous secret taboo. They all mean the same thing.

Oddly enough, no synonyms for the penis (of which there are many, as the back page of my Year 8 homework journal from secondary school will attest) appear to be regarded as anywhere near as taboo as words for the vajayjay. "Cock", theoretically the most offensive one, as it's (arguably) the one you're most likely to hear during pornography, is flung around with gay abandon (not literally) pre-watershed on Top Gear, while "penis" is still seen as somewhat awkward, despite being an anatomical term and not a swear.

"Fuck" and/or "fucking" are the words that gets a lot of people though. "Fuck/fucking" are, in themselves, rather multi-purpose words. They can be used as a verb meaning sexual congress ("He fucked her good and proper") or as a verb meaning "broke" or "beat up" ("She fucked him up good and proper") or as an adjective ("Cover that fucking bruise on your face, you big wuss") or as an intensifier ("That was brilliant." "No, it was fucking brilliant.") or just a an expletive ("Fuck!").

The trouble with "fuck", though, is that it's overused. First five minutes of Four Weddings and a Funeral aside, you just have to walk down any inner-city street in the UK to hear the word "fuck(ing)" used so frequently you wonder if the people uttering it are actually aware they're saying it quite so much. In theory, a lot of their usage of it is as an intensifier—but seriously, saying "I went to the fucking shops" is utterly redundant. Saying something is "fucking brilliant" makes it very clear that it's better than brilliant. However, saying you went to the "fucking shops" is useless, because the shops are the shops, and however much "fucking" you put in front of them, they cannot be any more shoppy than they already are, in that they are already 100% shoppy, and if making them into the "fucking shops" made them more shoppy than 100% shoppy, then that would defy all laws of physics, metaphysics, logic and possibly a few bits of theology, too. And no-one wants that.

The only exception to this is when you're annoyed at the place you've been. Then you can do that sulky teenage stroppyface and say "Yeah, I went to the fucking shops" as if it's the biggest hardship in the world that you had to suffer being dragged around New Look a little bit when all you really wanted to do was get home and masturbate/take drugs/yell at a gerbil that just isn't pulling its weight any more/watch Noel Edmonds (on TV, obviously, unless you live with him, which would be a hellish existence in and of itself more than worthy of using the word "fucking" at every opportunity).

Basically, cockweasel, stop being such a fucking prudish cunt, and enjoy the rich tapestry of bullshit that the English cocking language has blessed us twats with.

#oneaday Day 79: MeatMaid

BRISTOL, MARCH 19 2011

Käselichliebewurst Produktionen GmbH, makers of the hugely successful line of Cock-Hands products, today announced a revolution in morningtime routine technology. The MeatMaid line of products promise to do for fry-ups what the famous Teasmaid did for morning drinks.

"We are very excited about the possibilities that MeatMaid offers the discerning professional fry-up connoisseur," said Käselichliebewurst Produktionen's Associate VP of Marketing for EMEA, Helmut Wringer. "We believe that the provision of timely fry-ups on an automated basis is a gap in the market which has remained unfilled for too long."

The MeatMaid range of products will initially be launching in the UK with a lineup of three unique breakfast automation solutions to fit every budget and lifestyle.

MeatMaid Classic offers its users the unique opportunity to pre-prepare a fryup to be ready on schedule for their morning routine. Special compartments allow for the insertion of bacon, sausage, egg, tomato, mushroom and hash browns. Optional toaster, black pudding, juicer and hot drink attachments are available to customise the MeatMaid experience. Simply insert the ingredients the night before, set the timer for when you want your breakfast and MeatMaid Classic will take care of the rest, carefully cooking and preparing your fryup to be waiting for you beside your bed right on schedule. Available in 1, 2, 4 and House Full Of Guests-person models, starting from £250.

MeatMaid Express offers the perfect breakfast solution for busy professionals who don't have the time to cook things. Simply insert one of the range of MeatMaid Express capsules, set the timer and MeatMaid Express will take care of the rest, carefully preparing the ingredients from the capsule into a full breakfast within 30 seconds. Perfect for the fry-up connoisseur on the go. Full English, Veggie Breakfast and Big Breakfast capsules will be available on launch, with additional options available in the coming months. Starting from £350, with packs of 7 capsules costing £5 each.

MeatMaid On The Go provides all the benefits of MeatMaid Express in a handy briefcase-sized device that you can take anywhere, with no need to plug in! Load up the stylish carrying case with MeatMaid On The Go capsules, press the button when you're hungry and voila! An all-day breakfast on demand! Starting from £500. Packs of 5 capsules cost £5 each. Additional battery packs £89 each.

"We anticipate that MeatMaid will be a huge success, particularly in the United Kingdom," said Wringer. "We've been using it in our own offices daily and everyone appreciates starting the day with a good breakfast."

ABOUT KÄSELICHLIEBEWURST PRODUKTIONEN GMBH

Founded in 1999 by renowned German businessman Werner von Wellensittichschmerzen, this European company have consistently been on the cutting-edge of modern technology, always following their motto "Finding the answers to questions no-one is asking". Past successes include the popular line of Cock-Hands products as well as the Socialite's Friend range of customisable kebab-storage systems.

#oneaday Day 78: Reliable Source

Search terms are the blog topic that never gets old. Well, it might get old. I don't know. No-one's ever complained yet. So I'm going to cover it, even though I've done it several times in the past. This time, I'm going to look at search terms over different time periods, however, so it will be New and Exciting. And will also give you some insight into what people think I'm an expert on.

Let's start with search terms from the past week. The top 5 are as follows:

  • Offensive gifs
  • meetings gif.animation
  • "call of cthuty"
  • internet dickwad
  • things to do while waiting for a guy to call

None of these are things I've written about in the past week, which suggests I should return to some topics I wrote about some time ago. Now, I can actually pinpoint why most of these search terms have come up. "Offensive gifs" and "meetings gif.animation" are likely pointing at this post, though I'm not sure where "meetings" came from. Oh no, wait, the first animation is called "first meeting". I stand corrected.

"Call of Cthuty" refers to this post, where I wrote a press release of the game I wished Call of Duty: Black Ops actually was.

"internet dickwad" refers to this post, where I pointed and laughed at 4chan having a pathetic little war with Tumblr and also posted the John Gabriel Greater Internet Dickwad Theory.

And "things to do while waiting for a guy to call" is not something I've specifically written about, but this post is about the nearest I think it's possible to get.

Okay. So that's this week. Let's look over the last year. The top 5 for the last year looks like this:

  • Divine Divinity (top by a considerable margin)
  • offensive gifs
  • I'm not Doctor Who
  • fatal labyrinth
  • persona 4

"Offensive gifs" is still hanging in there, but "Divine Divinity" hung around in my search terms for a considerable proportion of last year, thanks mostly, I assume, to this pre-#oneaday post. Divine Divinity, incidentally, is an excellent game, though its recent sequel is apparently not that great.

"I'm Not Doctor Who" is, of course, the title of this page, so you'd sort of expect it to come up in search terms a bit, though it's not the kind of thing I would have expected people to be searching for on Google, unless they really wanted to find people who weren't Doctor Who. Which I'm not, despite sharing my name with one of them. (Hence the name of this blog, in case you didn't know.)

"Fatal Labyrinth" is a Sega Mega Drive roguelike game that I was excited to discover on the Xbox 360 Sega Mega Drive Collection. I wrote about it in another pre-#oneaday post.

"Persona 4", oddly enough, despite being one of my favourite games of all time, doesn't appear to be something I've written many specific posts on. Slightly misleadingly, searching for "persona 4" on this blog also brings up all posts in the "Personal and Opinion" category (which is most of them) and all posts with the number 4 in them (which is quite a lot of them). So… yeah.

All right. Let's do the biggie. What are the most popular search terms that find my blog… of all time?

  • Bioshock (2079)
  • Divine Divinity (629)
  • Bioshock Big Daddy (365)
  • Big Daddy Bioshock (220)
  • Fatal Labyrinth (149)

Well. There you go. Apparently, I liked Bioshock more than I thought I did.

#oneaday Day 77: Updates Are Available

Remember when we didn't have to update things? I do. It was a good time. You could put something in to your computer or console, safe in the knowledge that it (probably) worked… and if it didn't work, it would probably get recalled and/or refunded. It was a binary state. In the world of consoles, this situation prevailed until the last generation ended—the era of the 360 and PS3 ushered in the Age of the Patch.

Of course, PC users have been dealing with this for considerably longer. Anyone who has ever used Windows will be intimately familiar with the incremental update process. It just used to happen slightly less regularly before we had the Internet there with easy access. You might get a disc (or huge pile of floppy disks) with an updated version on providing significant new features, rather than just plugging Security Hole Number 5,237,429.

Nowhere is "update culture" more apparent than in the world of smartphone apps. It's like keeping on top of your email inbox—you'll never beat it. Update everything on your phone and within an hour or two at least one app will have been updated with either "bug fixes" or "AMAZING NEW FEATURES". And people have come to expect, nay, demand these updates. Read reviews in the App Store (I know, I know) and you'll see products which have just been released with consumers demanding updates.

Of course, you don't have to update things when they come up. People who don't have an Internet connection don't, of course. And in theory, this shouldn't cause much of an issue—unless you own an Apple device.

I've become convinced with the past few iOS updates that Steve Jobs has a big magic "obsolescence" button in his office that immediately renders all iOS-based devices nigh-on unusable unless they're running the absolute latest version of the system software—even if they were happily working just fine the day before.

You may accuse me of paranoia at this juncture, and it wouldn't be an unreasonable assumption. However, let me cite the example of last night to you. Last night, Twitter for iPhone started playing silly buggers and decided to start crashing every five seconds. I deleted and reinstalled it and still it had trouble. So I downloaded Echofon instead. This ran, but slowly and jerkily. Given that I'm running an iPhone 4, supposedly THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE (Smartphone. I meant smartphone.) the word "slowdown" really shouldn't be in the vocabulary I use when talking about it. But slowdown there was. And lo, it was annoying.

It then occurred to me that I hadn't updated to iOS 4.3, which came out a few days earlier. So I quickly (ha!) updated my phone. And wouldn't you know, everything suddenly, magically ran the way it was supposed to. How about that?

So, the moral of this story, then, is update your shit. Otherwise the CEOs of the world will enjoy torturing you from afar.

#oneaday Day 76: The Alternative Video Game BAFTAs

So the BAFTA Video Games Awards happened. Last night, in fact. And while the nominations were fairly predictable, there was a relatively pleasing spread of different titles that actually won. In fact, I did a lovely writeup over at GamePro that you should probably go read.

But enough of that. Those awards are all very conventional. So I thought I'd come up with some of my own. Without further ado, I present the Alternative Video Game BAFTAs.

Most Opportunities To Go To The Toilet In A Video Game

Winner: Heavy Rain, where despite the fact there is no logical reason for you to make your characters go to the toilet, you find yourself doing so anyway.

Honourable mention: The Sims 3, which only didn't win because it didn't come out in 2010, unless you count the console version, which I don't, except when putting it in as an Honourable Mention.

Game No-One Had Heard Of When I Played But Now Most People Have Heard Of

Winner: Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, one of the most charming games I played last year, promptly got very excited about and some months later everyone else seemed to discover.

Game That Has Been On My Shelf The Longest, Unopened

Winner: Resident Evil 4 on PlayStation 2, which I'm not sure counts any more because I started playing it last night.

Former Winner: Final Fantasy XII.

The "MMO That Isn't Boring" Award

Winner: DC Universe Online, which I am aware came out in January of this year, not last year, but these are my awards, so my rules.

Game Most Likely To Make You Feel Uncomfortable If Someone Walks In On You Playing It

Winner: Deathsmiles, for reasons that are well-documented.

Runner-Up: Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. "That looks shit and cheesy and their voices are really annoying and my God that music!" "No, but it's really funny! Seriously!" "Shut up. I'm going to go and play Starcraft."

Honourable Mention: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, the most summery game in the Universe. I know it didn't come out last year, but I still play it in the summertime because it's like being on holiday with improbably-proportioned women who like jetskiing. I have an Achievement and everything.

Sadomasochism Award

Winner: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, a game which enjoys kicking you in the balls so much that it's enough to put most people off within a matter of minutes. I, on the other hand, have sunk over 20 hours into it and have just started playing it again.

The "I Love You But You Make Me Angry" Award

Winner: Mass Effect 2, for being a magnificent game that I finished before all the DLC came out and considered going back to just to play the extra stuff but then decided to wait for the "definitive" PS3 version, which then has some extra DLC announced for it, too. STOP IT. STOP MAKING THAT GAME. YOU FINISHED IT. MAKE THE SEQUEL. AND DON'T FUCK IT UP OR RUSH IT OR POST REVIEWS FOR IT ON METACRITIC.

The Game I Keep Forgetting Exists But Is Actually Really Good

Winner: Frozen Synapse, a wonderfully inventive take on the competitive shooter that is turn-based and play-by-email. And awesome.

The Game I Got Best At While I Was Really Totally Off My Face On Expensive Cider

Winner: Joe Danger, a game which my friend Sam and I started playing early in the evening, got drunk and accidentally played for over 3 hours. Highlight of the night was when I discovered how to get massive scores while Sam was in the toilet, meaning that when he came back my average score was roughly 1,000 times more than when he left.

Best Game

Winner: Deadly Premonition. No further explanation required.

Best Video Game Podcast

Winner: The Squadron of Shame SquadCast. Of course.

The Alternative BAFTA Fellowship

Winner: @SpaceDrakeCF from Carpe Fulgur for the magnificent localisation job on Recettear. We're talking a translation of Phoenix Wright quality here. Not only that, but he was consistently entertaining to follow during GDC and provided some excellent "liveblogs" of the sessions he attended.