Perplexions of a Dangerous Mind

Howdy. Been off for the past week and couldn't be arsed writing owt. That, and it's been quite sunny so I've had no inclination to sit indoors on my laptop writing arse just for no fucker to read. But now I'm back for another week of the dreaded night shift, so blog away I will!

Just read on the BBC News website that PC Zone magazine is closing down in September. Seems that a lot of mags are being wound down at the moment because no-one is buying them. I'm not particularly fussed about PC Zone shutting it's doors as I've probably only read it once or twice (I've always been more of a PC Gamer kinda guy), but it's still sad that yet another mag is going to the wall. During my teenage years, my whole life was gaming - buying/swapping games, talking about games, arguing about games, fighting - yes, fighting - about games and reading/writing about games. I was obsessed with games and more to the point, games mags. I regularly bought about 3 or 4 of the things a month and still have the vast majority of them stacked up in a bedroom at my dad's gaff. There are hundreds of them and if someone with a sadder life than mine actually wanted to arrange them in date order (requests via email, peeps), you could probably see which console I had at the time due to the leanings in the purchased content.

I used to get CVG and Gamesmaster every month anyway, but along with those I bought stuff like Mean Machines Sega, Saturn Power, Official Saturn Mag, N64 Magazine, DC-UK, Dreamcast Magazine etc. Because of the mags, It soon came about that I started to think that maybe I could become a games journalist and began writing reviews for a local newspaper (South Manchester Area News...anyone know if it's still going?!). I did that for about 2 years all in all and got paid £20 per article...which was a fair old bit for a tramp like me back then. As usual, this isn't going anywhere - I just thought I'd regale you with a tale of Tomleecee of yore. A trampy, skint cunt who played too many computer games and wanted to write about them for a living. It didn't work out as I planned - I'm in the navy now. But who knows where I'll be in 20 years. I could be the editor of Edge by then. And if I am, I'll sack the whole editorial team and reform the team from Amiga Power circa 1994 and turn it into a decent, fun and entertaining periodical. Edge: taking the fun out of gaming since time began.

So yeah, PC Zone is no more. Which is sad. Sort of.

Did some volunteering last week. I've not suddenly become some kind of charitable avenger of justice - I just did it to avert my attention from the boredom of living in Hades (Somerset). The week before, I signed up with a volunteering website and then someone from the Council rang me a few days later...and viola - the following week I was building a gate in a field. Oh, and removing some graffiti from a fence. And pulling up weeds. It was a pretty good day to be honest and quite a good laugh. I may go back and help out again next week - it certainly beats walking around the town centre on my Jack Jones looking at crap in shops that I don't really want or need but am buying because my life is dull and void of interesting shit. Although, speaking of interesting shit - I'm going to Paris in September with my ladyfriend. Actually quite excited as I've never been to France before - hell, I've never organised a holiday before - so it's a whole new (grown-up(ish)) experience for me. Me - doing 'grown-up' shit. There's an oxymoron right there. Hmmm.

The hotel I've booked is pretty basic (and has received some horrendous reviews), but to be fair - I don't give a flying toss. I spent the early part of my life living in battered wives refuges and homeless families hostels so I'm sure I can handle sleeping in a basic-looking hotel for a week. Furthermore, I'm not going to be sitting in the fucking hotel 24 hours a day - I'm going to be out and about and revelling in the culture and hustle bustle of a 24-hour continental capital city. It's going to be about as far removed from fucking Yeovil as you can possibly get. And for that, I am truly, truly thankful. That's because - and I make no apologies whatsoever for the following statement - Yeovil is a boring cess-hole. But I digress.

Completed the single player campaign on Modern Warfare 2 today. I'm a bit perplexed. Y'see - I was just getting in to it...and then it ended. What a goddamn joke! And what a crap final scene! Sure - I'm happy to take back my previous comments about the game, but the ending is such an anti-climax. Bah! And what's all that shit with the museum thing at the end?! Bizarre. I'm going to take it to Gamestation this week and swap it for Alan Wake or Lost Planet 2. Hopefully they'll give me a decent trade-in amount for it as they've bumped the price of a new copy back up to £44.99...aaaand here I am talking about swapping games again. Old habits die hard, evidently.

I've got more stuff to write about, but I'm going to try and stretch it across the week. Because it gives me something to do when I'm at work, to be honest. Bye bye, me hearties.

Guess What?

Its raining and I just ate some crisps. However...

Don't usually talk about current affairs on here because, well, I don't want to - but what the fuck is going on with Israel? Boarding aid ships full of civilians and blasting the hell out of them? That ain't on, seriously. Can you imagine if British forces did that? or French or German? Hell, forces from ANY supposedly 'developed' country? No, me neither. Those fuckers seriously need to be dealt with by the international community. A nation that allows it's special forces to board an AID SHIP full of unarmed CIVILIANS and then shoot a load of them, is a nation that could potentially cause problems of the mushroom cloud-shaped variety, if you catch my (radioactive) drift. Anyway, that's enough about pseudo-interesting news items - lets discuss ME. That's me, by the way, not M.E., just so we're clear.

Really need to sort my shit out. Not literally, you understand - I'm not implying that I need to take a dump into a petri dish and have a rummage around with a scalpel/breadstick - no, I mean I need to actually unpack all my belongings and get my current (albeit hopefully temporary) abode in some kind of order. Since I moved last week I haven't had the inclination or the willpower to get up off my arse and get all of my crap out of my myriad suitcases and put it all away. Ergo, my room looks like the kids' bedroom from Poltergeist after the little girl gets sucked into the telly. But fuck it, that shit can wait. I have more pressing matters to attend to - namely Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now, I know that I lambasted this game upon it's (in my honest yet humble opinion) over-hyped release, but I finally bit the bullet on Sunday and bought it. It was reduced to £22 in CEX (used) because Gamestation has recently reduced the price of a new copy to £25, so I just thought "why not?"

And yeah, I have to concede I may have been a little hasty in my slagging of the game, as from what I've seen so far, it's a quality piece of software. Granted, I only managed to get up to the infamous Airport mission, where you have to mow down scores of innocent civilians in the terminal with a massive great gun (Israeli military training aid, perhaps?) before I had to retire to my pit, but yeah - I'm suitably impressed. Great graphics, brilliant shoot-outs, baffling storyline - it has it all. Don't know if I'd have been as impressed if I'd shelled out 50 notes for it like some knobs did, but what you gonna do?

Went for another run last night. It was pretty balmy and my balls kept squashing out of the side of the lycra boxers I was wearing under my shorts, but it felt good to be running the old routes again. Somerset - even though I think most of the towns are chav-infested shitholes with fuck all going for them - has some beautiful countryside, and for this reason I find running round here more of a pleasure than a hindrance. I'm also going to join a proper running club and start entering runs etc, just to keep me busy. And with any luck, my fucking knees will hold out permanently this time.

Anyway, that's enough inane bullshit for one morning. Might check in later with some more. Peace, bitches.

Living and Learning

Well. How the devil art thou? It's been a long time since I updated this little baby hasn't it? A month and a day if I'm not mistaken, and rather shockingly, quite a bit has happened in my social-wraith-like existence.

Went camping in South Wales during the second weekend of May. I went with my better half to the idyllic, shining beacon of industry known as Swansea...and it rained. It wasn't actually Swansea town centre that we camped in - it was a place called Clyne, a bit further down the coast, and had it been as sunny as it was when I decided to book the campsite, I wager it would have been a pretty spectacular weekend away. As it was, we got there on the Friday evening and had a little BBQ in the brief spell of sunshine that the Gods granted us...before the heavens opened and unleashed Dante's vision of Hell upon the campsite. And there said vision presided - through the night, into the Saturday and then on into Saturday night. The weather was, happily, the only shite thing about our little excursion. We had a nice walk into the town centre, ate a fucking enormous meal in a pub, and walked around some ornamental gardens. All in all, a rather enjoyable weekend. Shame the tent was fucking tiny and the rain came through in one corner, but you can't have it all.

Which is pretty fucking weird, considering the weather has been pretty damn fine throughout most of the rest of the month. Ah well. Speaking of the fine weather, I have made the most of it by resuming my running. My knee has finally decided to stop pissing me about and sorted it's act out. So no more ridiculous pains and no more painful feet when out pounding pavement. I, as previously documented at great length, had reverted to using a cross-trainer to get my exercise done whilst my knee was out of action, but in recent weeks it seems to have fully recovered and as such I'm back out in the wilderness again. Not to the excessive levels I was previously, you understand, but out there nonetheless. As such, last week I bought some new running trainers: Saucony are back in my life.

Saucony are, without a shadow of a doubt, the best running trainers I have ever used. I was previously wearing Nike, and the physio I was seeing advised that I get some dedicated running footwear in order to lessen the effects of my injury. Alas, I couldn't afford any new trainers at the time and that's where my love affair with the cross-trainer began. Last week though, I pooped into the new TK Maxx store in Weymouth and spotted a pair of (gasp!) size 9 Saucony Grid running trainers for the meagre sum of £29.99 wedged in between the hideous bright blue pairs of Converse basketball shoes (who the fuck buys those?!). As soon as I spotted them, I knew they had to be mine...so I handed over the card and purchased them. And as predicted, they are every bit as comfortable as both of my previous pairs - the first of which fell apart after so much use; and the second which shrank after I washed them and tried to dry them on the radiator (as previously documented here, on this very blog folks).

Also been doing a bit of reading. After the marvellous Frankenstein, I have acquired a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it is superb. Far better than the film adaptation, but then that's to be expected these days. Not finished it yet, but getting there.

Remember how I was going on a few months ago about trying to find somewhere to live and then deliberating about how I was thinking of moving out? Well, the decision was made for me earlier this week by my landlord: I was evicted via text message. Seriously. The reasons are still a little cloudy, but the story leading up to the aforementioned text message are as follows.

On Sunday last, my dad and cousin ventured down from Manchester to visit me in my shared house for a few days. I had previously asked the (live-in) landlord if this was OK, and he was quite enthusiastic and had said it was fine - they could use the spare room. He even went to the trouble of making up beds etc. Which was very good of him. When my guests arrived on Sunday evening, I had already arranged a bit of a BBQ for them and a few beers in the extensive garden, and also strategically arranged the seating etc in an area as far away from the occupied bedroom windows as I could in order to a) prevent smoke going into open windows from the BBQ; and b) prevent anyone being bothered by noise. Furthermore, I invited several of my housemates to come and join us. None of them did, but the landlord and his partner (he's gay) came out to chat with us for a while. It was all fine, up until half eleven that night when the previously jovial landlord came storming out of the house in his dressing gown to tell us, quite abruptly to shut up and keep the noise down. It was news to us that we had been making an inordinate amount of noise, but with that we decided to call it a night and went to bed after tidying up our mess. The next morning, I spoke to him (the landlord) and apologised for the 'noise' and that was the end of it...or so I thought.

That same night, after being out of the house all day showing my old man and cousin around the town and the beaches etc, we went back to the house end ended up sat outside again, as we had the previous evening. Not long after we had got back, one of my housemates appeared with his girlfriend, a crate of Budweiser and a bottle of vodka. Cue much merry making, but in greatly hushed tones due to the previous night's chastisement. We finally retired at around 2am, making sure as not to disturb any of the other people in the house. And so the night was done. Until the following morning, at about 8am when the landlord decided to boot my bedroom door open (while I was still asleep and thus waking me up), and go into a raving tantrum about how we'd kept him up all night with our 'yapping' and how we'd left the garden looking like we'd had a 'festival.' Don't know how many festivals the tit has been to, but if any of them looked like how we'd left the garden, they must've been pretty shit.

I got up, went downstairs and tidied up the beer bottles and ashtrays that had been left on the table. It was done in under 3 minutes - just to illustrate the scale of the debris. Landlord then flounced off to work. After this (and after also, unbeknown to me, being rude to my dad and cousin), neither of my guests wanted to stay in the house and cut short their visit by a day. I avoided the landlord for a further two evenings by staying one night in my room and then the next night at my girlfriend's house. By this time, it was Thursday morning and I still hadn't seen or heard from the melodramatic twat. I decided to try to clear the air by sending a text message to him asking if we could sort it out. He responded by saying he thought it would be best if I moved out by the middle of June!

For a bit of fucking noise!

I'm actually working for most of June, and won't be at the house very much, so decided to move out there and then, humping all my worldly possessions back to my previous residence at the military base I sometimes (but once again, exclusively) called home. In some ways, I'm a bit disgruntled because there are some people living in that house share who have done some pretty shocking things whilst lodging (one guy held a fucking knife up the throat of a previous resident, for example...but still happily resides there); but in others I'm quite happy to be out of the place as I no longer have to give a chunk of my wage away just to live a lonely existence in a town where I know nobody whilst sleeping in a room the size of a shoebox. Silver linings and all that.

Other events that have littered May are: a cricket match that turned into a piss-up that nearly turned into me pissing in my girlfriend's wardrobe; a visit to a tapas bar that, again, turned into a piss-up; a day's temp work on a building site that saw me dig a ditch around a building with a pick-axe; nearly getting citizens arrested by a Community Support Officer (a fake cop, basically - with no real powers of arrest) for riding my bike along a coastal path that didn't have any signs stating that I wasn't allowed. At 7am. When said path was deserted (what the fuck was the jobsworth doing down there at that time anyway?!); being recognised by somebody watching a Navy recruiting video; meeting my girlfriend's parents (I was shitting myself, but it turned out to be a great day); and then, at the death of the month, having a bit of a fall out with the aforementioned lady in my life. Not a great end to May if I'm honest, as both that and the eviction episode occurred in the same week, but we live and learn don't we. Well, most of us do.

Lastly, yesterday I purchased a used copy of the much-hyped Modern Warfare 2 for my 360. Got it home and popped it into the drive to be confronted with the 'disc unreadable' message. Upon closer inspection, it appears that the disc is cracked in 3 places. Which means I've got to drag my ass back to the shop and get an exchange. Not impressed, CEX. The moral of the story is to check your game discs before you leave the shop, folks.

Modern Whorefare

So Modern Warfare 2 came out today. Hoo-fucking-ray! Anyone'd think the world had stopped on it's axis the way people are going on about it. What's the big deal? There was an item on the fecking news this morning about it, for God's sake. It's the sequel to a game that has you shooting generic middle-eastern terrorists (or 'rag heads,' as many of my colleagues refer to them) with a selection of generic weapons. In a selection of generic middle-eastern towns, cities, slums etc. In a word (actually two words, technically): it's GENERIC. I've not even played it and I'm BORED of it. Yawn.

Okay, the first one was entertaining in places - that level where you get to blow shit up with a helicopter mounted gun was quite good...however I have to admit to finding Gears of War 2 much more fun. Maybe, once I find myself with £50 to spare I'll wander mindlessly into GAME and buy a copy. But to be honest, I'll never have a 'spare' £50 so that'll never happen.

The guy who lives down the corridor from me has obviously been out and bought Modern Warfare 2 though, because as I sit here writing this crap, all I can hear echoing up the void between our rooms is a cacophony of simulated gunfire, floor-shaking explosions and Americans shouting macho shit. I'm pretty sure I also heard the ubiquitous "MEDIIIIIC!" at one point too. How depressingly predictable. Why this man plays computer games at over 20,000 decibels I will never know, although on the odd occasion that he does open the crypt-like door to his domain, I have glimpsed the 60+ inch projector screen that he plays them games on. When I saw that, I realised that 'moderation' is not a word in the cretin's vocabulary.

Today saw me liberate myself from the Prison of Daylight(TM), too. As I mentioned in my last post, I have taken up road-running and since the clocks went back my window for getting out and pounding pavement has been severely limited. That's because I was wary of running in the dark...but no more! I have bought a simple yet brilliant little device...which in reality is a flashing LED on a bit of elastic that can be placed around the arm so that motorists can see you in the dark. Look, I never said my life was exciting. I also bought some new Nike running trainers since my Saucony ones shrank after I put them in the washer and then tried to dry them out by placing them, quite innocently, on a radiator. Silly me, putting wet shit on a radiator, eh? Fucking twats could've put a label inside their hideously expensive trainers saying 'do not put on a moderately warm radiator in case these £80 trainers shrink.' That little escapade actually happened last week so between then and now I've been running in some old Reebok Classics. A word of advice: don't run in Reebok Classics. I now have a blister that goes three quarters of the way around the big toe on my right foot and am in constant agony whenever I walk. So there you go.

Bought a new phone on ebay too. Well, I say new but what I actually mean is used. Hopefully not by the kind of person who shoves cheese into every little nook and cranny of every electrical device they own. And hopefully, it'll arrive tomorrow. Hopefully. That's the thing with ebay - the waiting for the item to get posted. And then the waiting for the item to get delivered. It does my fucking head in waiting for shit to arrive, it really does - especially when the item is an XDA Mini S PDA phone thing (above) that looks about 500 times better than ANYTHING I've ever owned in my pathetic life before. It's got a touch screen, wi-fi, a FUCKING STYLUS!!!!!!! I'm so excited I could spunk in my kecks at any given moment. But where is it?! WHERE?! Please GOD let it arrive tomorrow...