A Love of Wrestling (and Everyone Else’s Hate) by Allison James

Fairly quick post, as I shouldn’t really be up at this time! Dratted insomnia.

As some people may know I’m a big fan of wrestling. I’ve bought the WWE games since the first SmackDown! game on PlayStation 1 (and every instalment since by THQ for PlayStation 1/2/3), and have since February 2009, the day after that year’s No Way Out PPV, followed and loved the television shows. I’ve also been watching rival TNA iMPACT! for over a year now, though its obsession with the older guys and the reduction of inclusion of guys like the Motor City Machineguns have begun to wane a bit.

It was also the Royal Rumble on Sunday night, my favourite show of the year (just over WrestleMania), which had, to my glee, upped the wrestler count from 30 to 40, giving me an extra 20 minutes or so of main event that I soak up like a happy sponge.

But it occurs to me that some people just don’t “get” wrestling. When people find out I love it, there’s probably a 40% chance I’ll be met with a “you do know it’s fake, right?”. I am not an idiot (in this sense, anyway). To be honest, I should start replying to that question with “when you watch a film, do you think it’s all real?”

Because that’s what wrestling is. It isn’t trying to look 100% real. Sure, it doesn’t advertise that it’s staged, but then look at any soap opera, film or general visual media and let me know if you find a “Warning: this is not actually happening”. What it should be viewed as is a number of ongoing and everchanging storylines, tied together with some fantastic and sometimes downright brave athletic displays.

That’s one of the big points. It may be staged, but it goddamn hurts. You jump off a 15ft high ladder and land on your stomach on what is essentially hardboard on a set of weak springs, and tell me it doesn’t hurt. Have yourself thrown straight through a metal table, or have a folding chair smack you square in the back, or heck, just have someone slap you round the face. Or, for the less PG organisations, how about digging a razor into your forehead to make yourself bleed? Doesn’t hurt a bit, right?

But it’s just a general perception of professional wrestling that gets me. There’s no explaining to some people the enjoyment from watching it – seeing trained, multi-year-experienced professionals perform complicated acrobatics, tell stories and form likable (or indeed dislikable) personae. If you’re one of those people, then please, go back to your movies.

You do know they’re just faking it, right?

My Thoughts on Logo Redesign by Allison James

Images in this post are used for critique.

As anyone with eyeballs will no doubt be aware, companies these days seem to love changing their logos - reinventing their brand or just making it look sleeker. Or outright worse. Anyone that's seen my Formspring page will know my main "one" has been Pepsi, whose new logo is... ugh. Just ugh. And while nowadays I've stopped noticing it, I still think it's terrible.

But as someone who quite likes graphic design (read - not art) and in particular typography, every time a familiar brand does this, I get thoughts about it. So I thought I'd share them.

new-google-logo

new-google-logo

Google (top - old logo, bottom - new logo) would probably receive a hell of a lot of grief if they ever properly altered their logo. It's just so familiar, even though it's just a plain font with some seemingly randomly chosen colours. Luckily, their recent update was just a polishing of it, brightening the colours, downscaling the bevel and removing the drop shadow. Very nicely done.

ps3logo

ps3logo

PlayStation 3 (left old, right new)'s new logo, stand-alone, is better in my opinion. Simpler, more identifiable (as it's just an evolution on the PS2 and PSP logos), and doesn't immediately make you think of any Smashing Pumpkins LPs or Tobey Maguire superhero movies. However, it was an evolution brought about by the new matte-black, slimline PlayStation 3. Although I've warmed to it now I own one and have managed to gawp at one in the flesh, I still think the shiny original looked nicer. And the worst change brought about by the new logo, to me, is the box art for PS3 games, which has changed from a sleek, faux-shiny side-bar to a topbar with a black-grey gradient. Bleh.

starbucks

starbucks

Starbucks just went simpler for their overhaul, shedding the green "Starbucks Coffee" and turning the black innards green. Can't say I like this change yet. The "central" circle of the new logo is completely offset and makes it look a tad odd (though this is also the case for the old logo, it's less apparent as it's not as in-your-face and it's out of the "main two circles"). Not the worst thing in the world though. Just waiting for them to shed the other outer circle now and just have a woman's face and some long hair as their logo!

thq

thq

THQ went simple and bevel-free. Both logos are a bit fugly, to be frank, but I'd grown warm to the overly slanty older one. If the new logo's H hadn't had its shoulder amputated I think I'd like it a lot more. At the moment, it looks like the T is a table, the H is a chair sitting by it, and the Q is Yivo from Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, waiting to ram its face into the neck of whoever dares to sit on the H.

gap

gap

Gap hired a very strange person to redesign their logo. There is no way of elaborating on that.Wait, there is. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

argos

argos

Argos did the subtle modernisation thing, and it works rather beautifully. Infact, this is one of the few logo redesigns I preferred over its predecessor from the moment it was unveiled. Cleaner and less pointy while retaining its simplicity and colour scheme. To be honest, though, I'd personally go one step further and kill the cheesy underline-slash-fake-smile that's sitting on a ton of other logos these days (see Kraft's abomination of a new logo and Amazon, which I guess can be let off as it serves the other clever purpose of pointing from A to Z, the letters of the alphabet the website can cater for)

itunes

itunes

iTunes went bleck. I can see the thought process - CDs, while not dead and probably for the foreseeable future won't be, aren't particularly popular these days. Particularly for those that use iTunes often - the people Apple would want to be steering towards their own online music store. So fair enough, that can go. But the musical note, in a generic blue circle, with a generic white outer shell? With generic gradient and gloss effects? It's not awful, it's just bland. To make matters worse, it looks like the logo's blue was taken from iTunes' interface, which is now almost colourless.

quicktime

quicktime

Quicktime / Quicktime X's overhaul fares better. I never got why a little segment was cut out of the Q in the old logo, and if Windows gets Quicktime X I'll never have to know. It's still a tad generic - shiny Q, with a shiny centre ball, and as a sister program to iTunes their logos bear next to no resemblance (not that they ever did), but all in all it looks superior.

wmp

wmp

Windows Media Player may as well get a mention while I'm at it. While iTunes ditched its CD references, WMP added them with their logo revamp (I believe a change that came with Vista-exclusive WMP 11), turning a very Simon-ish logo into a set of three CD cases and a big orange Play-button-wielding disc. My big problem with this is that it pretty much killed its identifiability. Windows things have the Windows colours on. That's just a bunch of clear bits of plastic that could quite happily be slapped onto WinAmp, the disgusting RealPlayer, you name it.

There are plenty of others worth noting, though I won't link to them (if you search on the internet for "logo redesigns", "logo revamps" or anything along those lines you'll find professional designers who have dissected the living daylights out of them).

KFC altered their colours more than anything, turning the red-beige-blue into more of a red-beige-brown. They look nigh on identical so it just seems to me like a waste of marketing money.

I've seen a new MasterCard logo circulating the Internet - if that thing takes over their current logo I think I'll have a bit of a cry.

Burger King and Walkers (US: Lays Potato Chips) have done revamps but nothing major over the years, which always look okay in exception for that hideous monstrosity Walkers had for a short while.

And of course, Pepsi. What the hell were you thinking, Pepsi?

Since I don't blog much, just thought I'd make a little addendum. Today, I spent £58 on sweets - enough to last a damn lifetime! I got me:

  • 1,200 Rainbow Dust tubes

  • 40 Rip & Tip Sherbet, little bags filled with sherbet of either raspberry or orange

  • A bag of those Pink Pig things that are nice until you've had about four; sickly thereafter

  • 500 flying saucers (the foamy UFO-shaped things filled with sherbet. I like sherbet.)

  • 50 foamy bananas and 50 foamy shrimp, essentially a pick 'n' mix delicacy

  • A kilogram of those E-number-packed letters that are kinda crunchy and sweet

  • 150 double lollies

If I was able to experience a sugar rush (I never have and doubt I ever will), this would be it!

Anyway, that's all from me. This took an hour to write that could have been on LittleBigPlanet 2 (which owns heartily, by the way). No more time to lose!

"Sandbox Mode" by Allison James

I've been playing Dead Rising 2 for around half an hour now. I always stick it in when I have a lust for creative, violent bloody mass deaths - baseball bats with nails through, fast slamming sledgehammer shots, or just throwing a chair at zombies' heads and watching them recoil angrily. But I currently can't do that. I have to wait until the in-game time hits between 10 and 11am so I can do a mission. If I don't do this mission, the game kicks me back to the Load Game menu. If I do anything else and lose track of time, I don't get to the mission in time - I have to start it by 11am in-game. One hour in-game is four minutes of real time (nowhere near enough to finish a sidequest or get from a further-away area of the mall to the trigger).

And you know what the worst bit of all is? The missions are frequently balls. One a while ago saw me riding a motorbike, chasing down and trying to jump on a train so I could fight my way across the carriages and to the game's main antagonist. It was executed awfully. The motorbike feels like a hoverbike - it floats around and isn't nice to ride. Enemies trying to bomb the bike look naff. Dodging the bombs is a matter of luck - there's no time to react, you're either hit or you're not (though a pipe bomb to the face is only worth one hit point of damage, apparently). The train is clearly in a loop, as the corpses of zombies you haphazardly kill are then passed again a minute later. And the carriage section is pathetic. At one point you have no choice but to walk into enemy fire for several seconds (which again does next to no damage) so you can somehow attack an enemy.

But while all this is happening it really makes me wonder why more people don't include a sandbox mode in their games. In some cases it's worse than others. Dead Rising 2 is a bad example - as far as I know there is no way, unlockable or otherwise, to just be able to go around and kill zombies. Whether it's a time limit, the game's constant need to push you in a direction you don't want to go for a mission you don't want to do, the killing of zombies is almost always limited to "en route" - when you have to walk from one destination to another. Grand Theft Auto is a lighter example, but still one nonetheless - you only have to do one or two introductory missions before you are actually free to wander, but then to unlock three quarters of the map and all the fun minigames, weapons, cars etc, you need to progress further through the story. This is hours of your time - unlocking the full map can take 10-20 hours, while actually finishing the game, getting rid of all the little mission blips and things, is more like 30-50.

You know what I'd like in GTA? A true sandbox mode. It doesn't have to be connected to the "main game" at all. I want something where I get the whole map instantly. I want a bunch of options that can do things like alter my health (normal health, infinite health, one hit and I'm dead, etc) and ammo (normal, infinite, normal but infinite clip, infinite clip and ammo). I'd love a load of modifiers resembling GTA: San Andreas' and Saints Row 2's cheat lists (if you own either game but haven't played with the cheats, look them up on the internet and go and play with them ASAP - they're amazing) - silly things like superpunch, crashing into other cars making them float away comically, having it rain pedestrians then having dead pedestrians immediately float up to the heavens. Useful/fun things like spawning any vehicle infront of you, or destroying them all, or turning them all bright pink, or turning them all into Smart cars. Stuff like that, for me and I'm sure countless others, would make the game incredibly more fun, while still keeping the normal game 100% intact.

Dead Rising 2 would benefit from modifiers I'm sure, but the lack of a mode in which you can just kill zombies is baffling to me. I can only imagine the meetings of the developers, in which nobody even suggested a freeform mode, or the one or two that did were scoffed at by the rest - a group of pretentious pricks deciding none of the game's fans knew what they wanted (I saw tons of requests for such a mode after the original Dead Rising was just as awkward to play).

The only way to have any kind of fun like this is to play on PC, but even then nothing official offers anything remotely similar to this. You have to rely on unofficial modifications to bring about sandbox modes (if you've ever played Gmod, aka "Garry's Mod", or seen videos of things made in it on YouTube, you'll know how remarkably fun it is).

You can pick any game with "sandbox" gameplay and immediately come up with ideas that could have been implemented was a "sandbox mode" included. A couple of other examples I can come up with spontaneously as I type this:

Burnout Paradise: "Invincible traffic checking" - in Revenge, if you rammed a car smaller than yours from behind, it would send them flying and your car would continue unhurt. Imagine how fun it'd be if you could play around, hitting ANY other vehicle, destroying it spectacularly but not throwing you into a multiple-second crash animation. Or what about a simple key press crashing YOU? When it's not part of a race, slow-motion detailed crashes can be fun to watch. You could also have sliders for damage levels, perhaps with a cheeky "Gran Turismo" mode in which no cars ever took any physical damage.

Skate 3: To some extent this actually does have a sandbox mode - there's a Free mode in which you can change the density of traffic and pedestrians (no pedestrians = gorgeous), and in any mode you can spawn skating equipment or mode existing equipment/other skatable items like benches and ramps. Could have the ability to spawn pedestrians/traffic wherever desired at will, play with your own physics to allow super-low gravity, slow motion etc (akin to the cheats/tweaks found in the likes of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and 3 - 3 also had a badly executed but fascinating nonetheless "First Person" mode).

All my opinion though. I'll still go nuts when the next Grand Theft Auto comes out. It's just that a sandbox mode as suggested above would make me go Marmite Cashews, not regular, bog-standard nuts.

Half A Grand Spend & Life Updates by Allison James

The "half a grand spend". Now, there's this little device that gets very mixed reactions - the iPad. I used to hate the very idea of the device - over expensive, under-made (lack of Flash support, any kind of memory expansion slot, and from people that are like I used to be, countless others. I just thought it was flat out daft. Then I tried one.

Of course, YoYo Games has recently released its first iPad game, "Maddening HD". For anyone unaware, its primary creator is me. The updated graphics were done by the resident artist Geoff, and of course all the iOS stuff was the work of Mike/Russell. But fundamentally, I made it. But that's off-track. As a result of the entry of the company I work for into development for devices including the iPad, there are a few around the office which are used for testing etc. When I used one, it really was very, very nice. Slick, functional (moreso than it's often credited for), and most strikingly (and possibly the least credited thing about it), bloody lovely to use.

So, checking the series of numbers comprising the money level in my bank account, taking into account the amount I need to keep for my accommodation and necessities and such forth, and realising I was both safe monetarily and particularly impulsive (in a way - I was going to get one shortly before the Christmas season), I went ahead and bought one. 32GB, Wifi only, and with a protective cover. Final price - £529. Bam! Yes, I still think they're overpriced (you should see the price of some of the accessories - the stand slash keyboard costs £55 - and the cover I got was £30), but they are nice and it's good to spend a lot on something I'll be using frequently for a long time, instead of accumulating a ton of crap for around the same price and having it just take up space.

Last iPad point, which is geeky and pleasing for me: I got it engraved with my name and my website URL! My theory is that if somebody steals it, it'll be easily identifiable to police/others as mine, and maybe the thief will visit my site and play some of my games :)

More todayness: was in until 11pm today (14 hour working day) working to get something as complete as possible. This included a lovely, gigantic pizza (Large Domino's Double Decadence Meateor, double mozzarella and double pepperoni), a large amount of which remains uneaten and will make up two or three future meals.

Anyways, life is lovely at the moment. I'm looking forward to Christmas as it'll mean I spend a few weeks at home catching up with friends and family - got a long list of stuff I want to share with my parents - links, presents, quite a few films and more. But yeah. I'll try to blog more often, but as that seems to be a curse, I'll just say this - I'll blog again next time I feel like it. Have a good time between now and then, and goodbye!

I Would Drive 500 Miles (Nearly) by Allison James

As many/all of you may well know, from last Monday I have been working for YoYo Games in Dundee. As less of you may know, this involved moving out of the East Anglian countryside village I've lived in all my life and taking a 450 mile journey to a room in the middle of the noisy city. As I've said before, it's a huge system shock. But here's a little bit of information on the journey - I'm on limited bandwidth so I can't upload the large number of photos I took during yet but I'll add them later.

I went to bed at 11pm on Saturday 10th with an odd, and unpleasant, feeling. I was laying in a room that, for sixteen years, had been my room. Bar a few vague memories, it was basically where I'd slept, every night excluding sleepovers/holidays/whatever, for as long as I remembered. But, in eight hours, it would effectively be gone from my life. I'm not ashamed to admit I didn't sleep very well/much that night. As my dad was looking to set off early, we left the house at 6am, leaving a sad mother, and, to my complete disdain, three cats that were nowhere to be seen. No goodbye hugs or anything.

After a short while of not doing much, and realising I'd left my phone in my red holdall (buried under all the "cargo") instead of in my to-hand satchel, with a loud, non-automatically-stopping alarm set to go off at 8am, I just thought "meh", took out my iPod, put on the Ochre playlist and fell kinda-asleep.

At 8:20, I woke up to realise we were in a layby - dad had to stretch his legs. I seized the opportunity to get my phone out - despite his not hearing it, it was blaring away. It's only past this point that I was able to take photos (my phone's my camera). A largely uneventful "middle leg" of the journey followed - a second leg-stretch stop, a playlist switch to Owl City, and a level created in Innoquous 4 (for future me's sake, the level I made is called "Navarone").

At this point I really wasn't feeling great. The mixture of the length of the journey (I'm not travel sick but I get really tetchy), and continued thoughts of how this was basically crossing that line where the latest stage in my life is over, made me nearly want to vomit. I drank some water and laid back, though never actually fell asleep again - though I did miss our crossing the England-Scotland border because of it.The shot of relief came from seeing the first road sign with "Perth" on it. Thanks to the golfing tournament, most inns were filled up so instead of getting one in Dundee, we went to the nearest town or whatever it is, Perth. Wasn't a big fan of the inn though. The room was nice, but the bar was really depressing. To my surprise there were dogs running about in it though (I have pictures of one of them, will upload when possible).

So, the Monday morning saw us heading to Dundee. Without much time to find what is now my room of residence, we headed straight to the University of Abertay. My dad came up too to see the office (which would've been hell to find if it had not been for Mike Dailly coming down to lead the way!), and I set up the computer at my station. At 10am, we left to view the room. I accepted it immediately, which I assumed I would, and I headed back to the uni to complete the day of work.

Upon returning, I realised I would be put into physical exercise jeopardy - all of my belongings (of which there's a LOT) had to move from the car to the room. That's seven flights of stairs, and repeated journeys both up and down them to move everything. I'll happily admit I'm big and unfit. So it was murder! It was a relief to get it done though, and an unorthodox way of meeting one of my flatmates (*pant* *pant* "hi..." *pant*).

And that's pretty much it. My dad slept on the floor that night, then left early Tuesday morning. As we both somewhat lack outside emotion, and as I was still asleep, this consisted of the word "bye".

Despite the aforementioned system shock that is beginning to fade but still is there, and the odd pang of sadness (which is nothing more than a pang. Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed or anything), I don't regret any of it in the slightest. The job itself is huge fun (getting paid to do something I've pretty much been doing for free for seven years? Yes, thanks!), I'm all set up in the room now (having today bought mobile broadband from the 0.04-miles-away Orange store, and a TV licence because I don't watch broadcasts, just play games on it, but whoever conjured up the TV licence concept is a bitch), and things just feel damn good. I'm in regular contact with my parents and friends, and the sheer amount of appreciation I've seen from the Game Maker universe regarding my position with the company is absolutely gratifying. If you're one of those that has commented positively on the Glog entry, Game Maker Blog entry or anywhere else, thank you.

Here's looking forward to life.

Why That Name? by Allison James

For this blog entry I'm going to be going through why I gave the names to games I've made. It's here instead of NALGames Blog as it's more a point of interest. It also means I have a way of remembering these things in the future.

Fight of the Height (2005)

Oldest game on the list, Fight of the Height was a game I conceptualised when I was six (I always wanted to be a game developer!). It was named so because the original idea was to have the game take place on a series of skyscrapers that you jumped over the roofs of, shooting at your opponent. It changed a little for the games themselves though I did keep that idea for one or two levels.

Gamanstake (2006)

Stuck for an original name for a generic maze game, and with the promise of gammon steaks for tea, I took "Gammon Stake" and played with the spelling.

Blokkeid (2006)

The precursor to Elemence got its name as the gimmick of the game involves using BLOCKS as AID to complete levels.

Elemence (2006-7)

I wanted to keep the Blokkeid name for the game that was Elemence, but since there were multiple game modes it was irrelevant. So instead I came up with "Elements", then tampered with it for originality. After the unreleased sequels named after their difficulties (Elemence Easy, Elemence Refined), Gold got its name as it became a portmanteau of all the previous, making it a kind of compilation game. Then AuX is because Au is the chemical symbol for Gold, with the traditional X for "woo, awzum!".r!!!dicule (2007)The third in the r!dicule series, it was named after I was trying to think of a name for a premise and came to the conclusion that trying to name it was ridiculous.

FKR (2007)

Stands for "Fantastic Kinetic Reflexes", however that is technically a backronym. When trying to work out a name, I just went "...F**ker!", and decided to alter it to familyfriendlydom. Nowadays though I only ever read it as "Eff Kay Arrrrrgh!"

Fustercluck (2007)

Fustercluck was named after the song playing in the background - simples. Only later did I find out what Fustercluck means, though!

Rockit (2008)

A rocket simulator, but with a reference to the Herbie Hancock track I was thoroughly into at the time.

Mingitilla (2008)

No idea.

Zyousbox (2008)

An altered spelling of "Juicebox" with the J sound softened.

Signal Failure (2008)

At the time I was addicted to GTAIV (for the first of three times, the third still currently ongoing) and one of my favourite tracks on it was Padded Cell - Signal Failure.

Ne Touchez Pas! (2008)

"Do Not Touch" just didn't have the same ring to it.

Innoquous (2008)

Another song-based one, though the game was based around it. I liked LCD Soundsystem's "Get Innocuous!" at the time. The game was also initially innocuous in that there were no direct obstacles. Changed the C to a Q because to be honest I thought it looked better - it's still pronounced "in-ock-you-us" though, not "in-ock-wuss".

EverScrollingHue (2008)

Initially "Enzyme", ESH made more sense named as such because the in-game hues were indeed ever-scrolling.

Node (2009)

My first release of 2009, and not a very good one at that, was named so simply because the graphics were inspired by "nodes and links".

Dreaming on E (2009)

Made partly through 2008, Dreaming on E was inspired by the phenomena of odd dreams while on drugs. Yes, the E indicates "ecstasy". No, I've never done E. Yes, I read about drug-fueled dreams while making DoE to base stuff off it.

MINDRAPE (2009)

I initially heard the term in an episode of "American Dad!" and loved it. Therefore I kept using it, and based a game on the idea.

Infidels (2009)

From the song "Infidels of the World Unite", an amazing track by one of my all-time favourite artists, Fischerspooner. Initially called Infidel as you played the infidel, it changed when I reversed the story and so there was more than one.

Head Candy (2009)

Another term similar to MINDRAPE, I liked the idea of "Head Candy" and had seen it elsewhere.

The Hilarity of Murder (2009)

Initially Lite Town Wars - made in GM7 Lite, set in a town, depicting a war. Changed when I added a gimmick to make it fit a Game Jolt competition - it just made sense and rolls off the tongue nicely.

It Only Takes a Second (2009)

Another one that rolls off the tongue, and a fairly smart-arse title given the game's premise (you have to finish each level with one second left on the timer).

RKF (2009)

FKR backwards. Once again, I came up with a backronym to make it mean something else.

madnessMADNESSmadness (2009)

Made up in Game Jolt's chatroom, I described this as "how somebody suffering from madness may describe what they were suffering from". The idea is that they might say "madness" three times in quick succession, shouting the second one. The game is depicting a guy that is suffering from madness - hence the odd circular world, the unexplained walls and things, and the confusing poetry.

This is a Game with a Stupid Graphical Gimmick (2009)

I just felt like being blunt!

La Rolloux (2009)

Originally "Wolley", the name of the guy in-game and "Yellow" backwards, changed to La Rolloux as a portmanteau of "Roll", and the artist I loved at the time, "La Roux". Coincidentally, the guy's quiff was in the game beforehand - it took someone else for me to realise how close it looked to the hairstyle of La Roux's Ellie Jackson.

1n23g4r (2010)

First release of 2010 was another smartass one - pronounced "integer", the game sees you counting moves up from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 steps a go. They're all integers too.

SohoPogoHo (2010)

A pogoing ho from Soho. Sorted.

Acid R[ai/eig]n (2010)

Two meanings of the same-sounding phrase. It contains acid rain, and the acid reigns.

Remaddening (2010)

The sequel to mMm, unlike previous sequels, took an entirely different name. Why? Well, mMm had a convoluted name anyway, I wanted to shorten it. So I went in the style of many film sequels, which are like "Generic Action Film: The Redestroying". Stupid stuff like that. It very nearly took a The at the start but I just preferred Remaddening on its own.

Confusion Readily Achieved... (2010)

Yeah, another kind of backronym. However, it was just steered towards it this time. It was initially something like "Confusion Achieved Through Perspective and Dimensions".

Infinite Sporadic (2010)

I always liked the phrase "Endless, sporadic" so I went for something similar.They're the most interesting ones I can recall, anyway. Hopefully this has been an interesting little insight into my mind. Will be sure to blog again ASAP.See y'all! (and that's from Dog's Life on PS2)

Laptop by Allison James

A month since my last post? Preposterous!Anyway, I've been meaning to post. Honest. I was initially going to do one chronicling (looks wrong?) my time volunteering at Redgrave Community Shop, as a couple of weeks ago I ended my nine month tenure there. But my computer crashed on that last day and by the time I had it back up (which took a while as it's over four years old and showing its age) I didn't really feel like it. There wasn't much to say anyway.

There have also been a number of other happenings since the last blog entry. I'll touch up on some now before the "main event".On the 15th May I celebrated my 19th birthday. I mainly got money (around £100 in total, with an extra £50 or so coming later or in cheque form meaning I couldn't get it very quickly) but also got a preorder of ModNation Racers and a few other things, including some old but lovely copies of such games as Far Cry Instincts on Xbox, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap on GameBoy Advance (win), and Call of Duty 1 on PC (also win).

After staying up until 4am to play these for extended time, I was woken up three hours later by my dad asking if I wanted to go to Banham Car Boot Sale. Bleary-eyed and wanting bed, but realising that a nice supply of money + Banham Car Boot Sale = jackpot, I accepted. There, along with a couple of old GameCube games, The Getaway: Black Monday and a couple other throwaway items, I found an Xbox 360. It was £60 with a functional wired controller, a usable but dodgy wireless one, a headset, an additional component cable (basically old HDMI) and a copy of "Gears of War". I wasn't sure if I wanted it though. What if it was faulty and was a RRoD-bricked machine? I couldn't test it. But, thinking about all the games I wanted for the thing but never could get, I risked it. It paid off.

I now have, along with Gears of War and a copy of the excellent Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City I also bought at Banham for £20, these games: Dead Rising (£8 - stunning game bar a few blasted flaws), WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2007 (£2.30 - mostly to help complete the set, I now have 2006-2010 unbroken), Saints Row (£5, not very good, but to get some back story as I have the multiformat Saints Row 2 already), Project Gotham Racing 3 (£2.30, not keen but it has the slick Geometry Wars and Retro Evolved demo which both win hard), and Fifa 07 (99p, not played. Got it because it was 99p!).

On other gaming notes, I got a copy of Amplitude on PS2. I've only been looking for a copy of this game for seven years (more than a third of my life) - when I held it in my hands it was gratifying, akin to Mario holding Luigi's balls.

So, five days ahead and I got ModNation Racers. It was disappointing. After a couple of days loving it, I hit a difficulty spike and spent the next four or five slugging through the last stages with frustration beating out fun. Then I discovered it was region locked online. This means that, not only could I not play anybody else I know that owns it, but it also means that because 99% of UK MNR owners seem to hate ranked matches, I can never find one. So it's just lost all appeal.

Lastly, here are the answers to the quiz in the last blog.

1. Kaitlyn.
2. SNES - I've never owned a NES, PlayStation was my second console and Megadrive was something I got in the PS2 era for retro laughs.
3. Yellow, and at the time it was entertainment perfection.
4. Wheelcage: Test & Win, though all four are levels I've published.
5. XIII - I own the other three on Xbox, though prior to having SSX On Tour on Xbox I did own it on PS2, and I have Metal Gear Solid 2 on PS2, though not the special "Substance" edition.
6. Bottom - I have no Young Ones, a quarter of the Fawlty Towers series, and the entire Blackadder collection on DVD.
7. Robert Rodriguez - did films such as Sin City, Planet Terror and From Dusk 'Til Dawn. Tarantino would be second, I doubt either of the others would be in the top ten.
8. Yellow, though in the past it's occasionally swapped with green.
9. Inflatable sheep. I have no idea if he was even aware what it was meant for.
10. Pair of pliers. It also has a keychain which is all too good at getting in the way of the goddamn pliers.

Quick breather!

11. Lopham. "Redgrave & Lopham Fen".
12. Lindstrom. La Roux inspired "La Rolloux", LCD Soundsystem did "Get Innocuous!" which was one of my addicted songs at the time of a particular gravity flipping game, and Padded Cell did "Signal Failure" which was, of course, a direct influence. Lindstrom did influence a game name, but that game got canned very early in so it doesn't count.
13. A Bug's Life. But I still like it, which is testament to how good Pixar are. Now don't screw up Toy Story 3, right?
14. Insert, because I hate that thing when you type and it autodeletes stuff infront of the cursor.
15. Crazy Taxi 2 on DC. I own Crazy Taxi on PS2 and CT3 on Xbox, and played the Dreamcast version of the original at a 1999 motorshow.
16. Goes Forth. The only series I don't like is the first.
17. Impaled it on a screwdriver, which in bloody retrospect was a bad idea!
18. The Matrix. The others are poor.
19. Jesus.
20. A woob woob woob Dr Zoidberg!

Okay, so now that's done, the laptop. I've needed one for quite a while, given possible future needs to move house and that the computer I use and have done since April 2006 is a family desktop that's horribly outdated and unreliable. So, today, I ordered one. Total cost of £603.50, though without the reductions it would've strayed into £810-odd. To save the effort, here are the specs.

Module Description Base Intel® Core™ i5-430M (2.26Ghz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 2.53 GHz, 3MB cache)
Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
Memory 4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
Keyboard Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Video Card 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5470 Graphics Card
Hard Drive 500GB (5400RPM) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Optical Devices DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD) with DVD Burn software
Wireless Networking Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
Cables 1 Meter Power Cord (3 Wire) - UK
Shipping Documents English Documentation
Gedis Bundle Reference N0655803
Standard Warranty 1 year Collect & Return Hardware Support included with your PC
Enhanced Service Packs 1 year of coverage included with your PC
PalmRest Silver chainlink palm rest – with Black Chainlink cover only
Order Information Studio 1558 Order - UK
Primary Battery Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Carrying Cases No Carrying Case.
Dell System Media Kit Studio 1558 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)
Camera 2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
Colour Choice Black chainlink
Accidental Damage Support No Accidental Damage Support
Online Backup DataSafe Online Backup 2GB 1 year
Theft Protection Solution Computrace LoJack for Laptops, 1yr license - included with your PC
Telephone Contact NO - Dell may NOT telephone me in relation to my order and related products and services
Labels Wireless Label CI5
LCD 15.6" High Definition (1366x768) WLED
DataSafe (Services Owned) Datasafe Local 2.0 Basic
Microsoft Application Software Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Word Starter, Excel Starter)
Protect your new PC McAfee® SecurityCenter 15 Month Subscription
Power Supply 90W AC Adaptor
Operating System Recovery Options OS Media MUI Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT) Resource DVD

That's about all there is to say. Oh, it doesn't mention - it's a Dell laptop. Should be here in about two weeks - if I can get round to it, I'll put up my thoughts on it when it arrives.Anyway, that's all for now. See y'all!

Facts, Disguised as a Quiz by Allison James

So, here's some obscure stuff about me. But that's just boring. So, here are some multiple choice questions about me. You're not likely to know many, but please feel free to guess at them. No prizes for winners. Answers in the next blog post!

1. Which of these names was considered for me when I was born?
a. Katrina, b. Kaitlyn, c. Kim, d. Katherine

2. What was the first game console I ever owned?
a. SNES, b. PlayStation, c. Megadrive (Genesis), d. NES

3. Which Pokémon game did I play first?
a. Red, b. Blue, c. Yellow, d. Stadium

4. What's the name of my first published LittleBigPlanet level?
a. Wheelcage (Test & Win), b. Woodworld, c. Vector Fortress, d. Slam

5. Which game do I own on both the Xbox and PlayStation 2?
a. XIII, b. SSX On Tour, c. Burnout 3: Takedown, d. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

6. For which British television series do I own all but one item of on VHS?
a. Blackadder, b. Fawlty Towers, c. Bottom, d. The Young Ones

7. Who is my all-time favourite film director?
a. Quentin Tarantino, b. Peter Jackson, c. James Cameron, d. Robert Rodriguez

8. What's my favourite colour?
a. Red, b. Yellow, c. Green, d. Blue

9. When on holiday with a friend, the friend attempted, but got refused due to age, to buy a what?
a. Copy of Viz, b. Inflatable sheep, c. Pack of tampons, d. Vibrator

10. My multitool consists of a torch, a knife, a saw, a bottle cap opener, two screwdrivers and what other function?
a. Corkscrew, b. Lighter, c. Pair of pliers, d. Pair of scissors

11. I enjoy walks around a Fen which is located partially in my village. Where is the other part located?
a. Lopham, b. Botesdale, c. Rickinghall, d. Hinderclay

12. Which of these musical acts have not inspired the name of one or more of my games in some way?
a. La Roux, b. LCD Soundsystem, c. Padded Cell, d. Lindstrom

13. Which film by Disney/Pixar do I LEAST like?
a. Finding Nemo, b. A Bug's Life, c. Toy Story 2, d. Cars

14. I pulled the Caps Lock key out of my keyboard, along with which other key?
a. Insert, b. Scroll Lock, c. Right Shift, d. Tab

15. Which of the following have I never played?
a. Crazy Taxi (DC), b. Crazy Taxi (PS2), c. Crazy Taxi 2 (DC), d. Crazy Taxi 3 (Xbox)

16. Which series of Blackadder is my favourite?
a. 1, b. II, c. The Third, d. Goes Forth

17. When given a free copy of Table Tennis on Xbox 360, what did I do with it?
a. Sold it, b. Gave it to an X360-owning friend, c. Kept it incase I ever get a 360, d. Impaled the disc on a screwdriver

18. Which film from the Matrix anthology is my favourite?
a. The Matrix, b. Reloaded, c. Revolutions, d. Animatrix

19. I once convinced several gullible friends that I had a fairly odd middle name. What was it?
a. Jesus, b. God, c. Fuck, d. Punisher

20. And an easy one to finish: Which character from a cartoon am I most likely to impersonate?
a. Homer Simpson, b. Peter Griffin, c. Roger Smith (AD! alien), d. Dr Zoidberg

Edgar Mueller: Pavement Art by Allison James

As suggested by a friend, today I'm going to write about one of my favourite artists, and certainly one of the least conventional around. Edgar Mueller (or Edgar Müller), whose art you may well have seen, paints his art onto pavements, in such a way that when viewed from a particular angle, they seem three-dimensional. It's usually known as "perspective pavement art" or a variant. Because of this, I find his works very intriguing. It's amazing that something, done right, can completely trick your mind.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SNYtd0Ayt0]

The other unconventional aspect to his work is that it's done with non-permanent paint. He will spend days on a stunning piece of artwork, then a single rainstorm will wash it all away into nothingness. Rain has, on at least one occasion, ruined a piece of work prior to its completion - he will now generally cover the art up with a tarpaulin during storms so it can at least be completed.

Mueller's website can be located here. To view pictures of his perspective pavement art, click here (this includes some of his works along with progressive pictures to give you an idea as to how he goes about his artwork), or search his name on Google Images. If you haven't seen it already, I would highly recommend it.

Politics: Why I Don't Vote (Updated 5th May 2011) by Allison James

There's a general election fast approaching here in England. As a result, voting fever seems to have swept the nation. But I don't vote, and it irritates me when people cannot understand that. So why don't I?

First and foremost, I really don't care about it. Seriously. I have faith in any of the three potential leaders to... well... lead. Everyone's saying Gordon Brown was an awful PM, but I really didn't distinguish him, Tony Blair, and that bloke before Blair that scarily resembled the IT assistant at my old high school.

I don't want to be caught up in arguments related to it. They're boring, stupid, and get you absolutely nowhere. You always know that whenever someone asks "Who're you voting for?", it's more likely than not that your reply will be greeted with an immediate, long, pointless argument about why your opinion is wrong and why you need to vote for [x] instead. As I've seen happen with friends, these arguments never persuade you. Ever. If anything, they make you MORE against the people they like because they all seem like such dicks about it!

If I'm pressured into voting, the people I voted for win, then they cock things up, I'll be getting blamed by friends that voted otherwise. Again, cannot be bothered.

Everyone just tries to stuff it down my throats. Not just talking about voting friends here. We get The Mirror, a newspaper that seems intent on putting down the Conservative party in any means possible (including a remarkably pathetic "Don't Get Conned", with the "o" of "Conned" replaced with David Cameron's face). And there are billboards all around the UK which just have cheesy, smirking MPs smiling for a photograph. How am I meant to make a decision of my own when everyone else is doing it for me, and not giving me anything with which to make a logical decision myself?

And lastly, something which has been touched on in the previous points, it just causes arguments. It's like religion - its primary purpose seems to be to divide people and have them fight each other. The main difference between religion and politics is that, unfortunately, politics can be proven to exist. Everything else is the same - a single authoritative figure that embellishes truths and seems to be great when (s)he probably isn't, a group of followers comprised of a balance between people that actually believe in what the higher up is saying, and people that are just brainless sheep or simply trying to fit in.

So sod politics. That voting slip will make a good bonfire starter for when I can incinerate more of my junk later today.

EDIT: A YEAR ON

There's a point I forgot to touch on when I wrote this last year. I've heard a lot of people mention that "if you don't vote, you can't complain". This too, to me, is bollocks. I assume the point behind this is "you can't complain about [party 1] if you didn't vote for [party 2]. But this isn't what I'm doing. Just because I can poke fun at [party 1] doesn't mean I think [party 2] would have been better, or even as good. For all I know, they could have been absolutely dire.I've nothing against other people voting, don't get me wrong. I just don't want any part of it.