Temple of Mick
The Man, The Myth, The Myxomatosis
Best of 2011 – Games
Jan 26th
I summed up video gaming in 2010 in one word, disappointment. For 2011 I’ll bump it up to two words, excellent and disappointing. There were a large number of releases I was looking forward to and thankfully the majority of them delivered, though not always as well as I was hoping. As always this list is a composite of things I’ve played in the year in question, not just what was released in the year, it probably doesn’t matter in the long run. As well as the Top 10 list itself I’ve also included an appendix of sorts where I give a line or two (and the first implementation of my new rating system, ooh the excitement) to all the game’s I’ve completed this year (and perhaps the ones I’ve played enough off to be comfortable making a judgement on). Also returning to education, in tandem with commuting, has eaten up a lot of prime game playing time, as such I’m a bit behind with the games I’ve played. I may get some of the backlog finished by the end of the month (currently December 6th). Continue reading…
[WIP] Solium Infernum – The Greatest Game – Turn 0 – Prelude to Naughtiness
Jan 25th
Well as anyone who is lucky enough to read my facebook status updates knows I became rather enamored with the idea of indulging in a multiplayer game of Solium Infernum after reading the excellent series of play diaries on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. With hope in hand I sought out willing partners among my friends, but all my friends are bastards and crushed my fragile dreams. “Oh I’m too busy to even say no Mick I’ll just leave you sitting alone in your dark room sobbing and waiting for some kind of response”, bunch of cunts, almost makes me feel glad that I’ve been slipping infected blood into their food for months. Anyhow, my righteous retribution aside, I finally managed to ensnare two of my siblings and thus the game was, as Holmes would say, afoot! I bet he said stuff like that because he was out of his tits on smack all the time.
More >
Busy doing nothing
Jan 18th
I have done nothing for the past month, no college work, no personal projects, no anything really. Just sitting around staring into space waiting for time to pass, ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. Hopefully I’ll manage to pull myself out of this lazily self destructive rut.
(Planned) October Viewing – Anime edition
Oct 6th
Even when I had nothing to do apart from some part time hours in Vodafone I never managed to get through the (admittedly unrealistic) thirty potential shows listed in these things. Now that I’m in college every day and in work all weekend I get the feeling I’ll be lucky to get one show watched a week, never mind the one a day thirty would demand. Of course I list thirty more because I find it a good line between “Watch only this” and “Watch whatever you want”, as such I’m going to stick with that number. I suppose I should write a bit about what I’ve watched in between the last one of these and the beginning of October. But I think that can wait for another time, something else that can wait for another time is switching out the AnimeNewsNetwork links used below for AniDB.net links. Continue reading…
The Best of 2010 – Anime
Oct 6th
Ok, so I totally fucking forgot about this, I’m posting it nearly a year late and even worse, I didnt even finish writing up my thoughts on each of the entrants. In the immortal words of Johnny Blaze, “What it is” Its odd. I feel like I’ve watched a lot more anime this year than I apparently have. I blame the summer months where a combination of depression and socialising savagely consumed time I could have spent keeping abreast of Japan’s animate cultural artifacts. I like to have a large selection to choose from for these kinds of article because it makes the obvious choices stand out more. When you have a smaller selection, the majority of which is fairly uniform in quality, it makes selection a pain in the arse. More >
Very brief thoughts on the upcoming Fall anime season
Aug 24th
Every day that goes by I regret more and more the unfortunate circumstances that have seen my return home. Reading about how awesome other peoples lives are going is not really helping. Really I should simply avoid social networking sites until my humour improves, as it would prevent me thinking terrible things that make me feel like a cunt. You’d think the free time would make up for it, but in reality I have rarely been so entirely unproductive. But while doing some file housekeeping (exciting!) I did a customary search to see what anime series I was waiting to watch have finished (no way I’m watching week to week like a peasant!). While doing so I came across a preview of the Fall season in the ever useful chart form. My thoughts on whats coming up can be seen below. Though likely it’ll be late Spring or early Summer before I get to watch any of these. Continue reading…
Let’s Read – 2000 AD Prog’s 0001 – 1740 – Prog 0002
Aug 23rd
Well moving house is continuing to eat my time in a totally unexpected way. I suppose deciding to re-decorate hasnt really helped speed things up. Especially as my tiles are sassing we with their supposed adhesive qualities. I read Prog’s 2-10 some time ago, which means I had to refresh myself a little when it came to writing this. Something I’ve run into is that its hard to read an entire issue, not because I dislike any particular story. But because its hard not to stick with the one strip and read ahead as opposed to reading a few pages and moving on to another story. To be honest, not sticking with the one strip until the end, especially as theyre all “complete”, is basically in direct opposition to how I’ve “trained” myself to consume all forms of media over the last few years. First world problems, eh? The other thing I didnt realise about “Let’s Read” is that it really slows things down when you just want to read the thing in question. So I think I might just “guarantee” a Let’s Read of 10 Progs a week but read on at my own pace in the inbetween. Continue reading…
Schedules of the idle poor
Jul 24th
I think that everyone who plays even a moderate amount of computer games has a backlog of games that they have yet to play or complete. Some of these will never be completed, they were rented for an evening or borrowed from a friend (or GOD FORBID, pirated) – they didn’t grab you and youre not going back. Other’s though are quality games that came out during a particular glut of such and didn’t get played or completed. Or perhaps you’re a fan of particular genre’s that tend to have massive playtimes (Strategy titles, RPG’s, etc.) and thus exacerbate the problem of an ever growing backlog. If you are reading this wondering what the fuck I’m talking about then you should a) rejoice in not being shouldered with a similar Sisyphean load and b) tip on (or read on, “whatevs” as the cool kids say). Continue reading…
Let’s Read – 2000 AD Prog’s 0001 – 1740 – Prog 0001
Jul 4th
So here we go, thirty four years of comics, nearly two thousand issues. Since I first come across it 2000 AD has been responsible for introducing me to some of my favourite fictional characters of all time. Of course as a kid my disposable income was rather constrained, and by constrained I mean largely non-existent. So I only got to read 2000 AD sporadically, the highlights being the monthly specials (collecting entire story arc’s from various strips) and the annuals. During my teen’s the issues that I stumbled across seemed very different from my earlier experiences, a lot of them stuffed with the mindless violence that epitomised the dreary “Iron Age” of comics. Continue reading…
End of the Metaverse campaign and role-playing in general
May 2nd
*Cross-posted from the forum* Well it looks like this has wrapped up. Still we got four or five enjoyable sessions out of it so it wasnt entirely wasted. I suppose we started at a poor time of year, after illness, false starts and holidays delayed the game we ended up too close to the end of the year and 1/4 of the player base leaving. Which sort of killed my interest, so I suppose its really my fault the game fell through. A pity I suppose. I did learn a few things though. Continue reading…
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