Brass Monkeys

Well, it's 20 degrees in Tijuana, the penguins are basking in the sun with a temperature of -1.1 at Bernado O'Higgins base on the Antarctic coast and it's a sultry -3.7 here as I scrape the ice off the cars ... brrrr!

The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft

If you are after something to chill the spine as the nights draw in, you may be interested to know that The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft as well as quite a few other stories are now available on line ...

Games, the universe and everything

I needed a game to play during the hours of daylight (such as they are) while I wait for Animal Crossing to arrive from Canada, so I loaded up Freelancer. It’s a space trading/combat/exploration sim and despite the title, it’s quite heavily plot driven. Just as you settle down for some money making activity (pirating space transports and orbital storage depots is my favourite), the next section of the plot kicks in. It’s quite a good plot though, with some spectacular set piece battles and a good mix of mission types including the very sensible cut and run ones where you end up fleeing from superior forces trying to reach a jump gate. Good fun, but I’m tempted to download a hack to put me in a neutral universe where everybody isn’t trying to kill me all the time.

The other game continues to be Call of Cthulhu, which is fabulous although bloody hard in places. The level I’ve just finished was set on a navy ship, overrun by marauding Deep Ones, lashed by supernatural waves (“Why am I looking at the moon? Ah, the boat is tipping up to nearly vertical”) and finally being battered by the absolutely humungous Dagon – quite the most stunning boss character I’ve ever seen in a game. For some reason though, I found myself singing “Dagon. Daa-aa-gon. Dagon come and me wanna go home” … :-)

 

Harry Potter and the Curate's Egg of Fire

 

Well, in the words of the famous curate, parts of it were excellent.

Here be spoilers – highlight below to read on …

The quidditch world cup, the dragon, the band playing at the Yule Ball, Barty Crouch Jr, Mad Eye Moody, Voldemort and the final denoument were all well crafted bits of cinema, but even excising a good third of the book still doesn’t make what plot there is make any sense whatsoever. To cut to the chase :

• How did Barty Jr keep up the act for an entire year? How much potion would he have needed if he was swigging it every couple of minutes?
• Why doesn’t Dumbledore see through the polyjuice potion at any point?
• If wizards under 17 are forbidden from competing in the tournament, why is Barty Crouch happy for Harry to take part given the risk to his life? Couldn’t Dumbledore just have forbidden him to take part and made Harry retire from each event before he got into danger?
• Would Dumbledore have let the children in the lake drown if they hadn’t been rescued in time?
• The whole tournament is an elaborate wheeze to get Harry to touch the cup, which assumes that he is going to win and he isn’t going to get killed at any point.
• If Harry needs to survive, why does Krum try to kill him in the maze?
• If all Voldemort needs is Harry’s blood, why doesn’t Barty just kidnap him or give him an old boot portkey or just stab him during a private lesson or something?
• It’s implied that nobody believes that Harry actually saw Voldemort – why don’t they just extract his memory using the pensieve thingy?

Oh well, at least the kids enjoyed it, although I think some of the tinies in the audience will be having nightmares tonight …

Here we go round the mulberry bush ...

Winter draws on ...

By jiminy, it was chilly this morning. I was very glad of my hat and gloves as I crunched through the frost in the moonlight, and even more glad of the climate control on my car which defrosted the windscreen in under a minute.

Last night was Alicia's parents evening at school, and it was a bit of an ordeal because the ex decided that she ought to show an interest and turned up as well. It was not enough that Alicia had got A grades in every subject - she had to find something to pick on and criticize. In this case it was a couple of pieces of Spanish homework that Alicia had handed in late through being disorganised and forgetting to put in her folder on the right days. Never mind that it had already been sorted out between Alicia, her teacher and her form tutor, it was as if Alicia was on the verge of failing her exams or something. Also, she seemed to think that Alicia shouldn't have been at the parents evening as if she was incapable of discussing her own education in an adult way. Grrrr.

Still, accentuate the positive. Alicia is doing fabulously well at school, and is really one of the star pupils so yaybo for her. I think a trip to see Harry Potter is on the cards this weekend as well as a bit of extra spending money for a new dvd or a book or something.

In other news, my lip is healing nicely - the swelling is starting to subside and there isn't any infection where the stitches are. It's still an interesting shade of purple, but the lump has definitely gone - hurrah!

Blue Sky Thinking

Uk Resistance have started a campaign to protest about the current fashion for violent gangsta style games and are calling for a return of more blue sky in games.

Personally, I can see a place for both - as you probably can gather I am a big fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, but my other all time favourite is Animal Crossing, the forthcoming DS version of which has me stupidly excited. From jacking cars and whacking punks in Los Santos, to harvesting fruit and designing t-shirts in a sleepy little town full of animals is not that big a step, surely? The release of Nintendogs, one of the fastest selling games ever, has shown that there is a huge market for non-violent, blue sky games, but the last time I went in Game it was tucked away on a shelf labeled 'Children's Games' ... as eny fule no, your typical 10 year old is much more likely to be playing a gangsta game than walking a virtual puppy or writing letters to imaginary animal friends.