Marco van Bastard (feat. Rita Ora)

In the Euro 88 group stage, England lost to the Netherlands 3-1. I don't remember too many details of the game. What I do remember is that the game kicked off around tea time, soon after I finished school. We had beef, gravy and vegetables for tea. I am certain that my mum had cooked the food well in advance and just reheated it because the gravy was lumpy and a bit jelly-like, which was always a give-away of such a culinary shortcut. Also the plate was the same temperature as the food from having been in the microwave at the same time.

My other memory from this game, which I don't know is true or not, is that the headline on the back of The Sun newspaper the next day was "Van Bastard". (Marco van Basten had scored all 3 goals for Holland in their victory.) I want to believe it's true, but I can find no evidence of it other than in my head. Which is good enough for me to tell people it's true.

Featuring Wiz Khalifa

Looking at the world around me, I fear that I'm the last man alive to have never done anything featuring Wiz Khalifa, Rita Ora or Pitbull.

How did I let his happen? Am I so far out of touch, out of the loop of modern pop culture?

I spoke to Wiz about it and he was horrified. He has agreed to do a guest rap just below.

Word on the street is bloggin' is the shit

'Bout hustlin' and talkin' shit

Bunch of pussy n*ggas gon' get clipped

Mark my man gon' kill this shit

Rita Ora will be appearing in my next post, looking sexy but not doing much else. I've had no contact with Pitbull. I'm sure he'd be up for something though if I asked him.

2015 Staycation

Today is the last day of my three week staycation. If I'm being honest, I've done very little during my break.

The highlight was perhaps seeing a John O'Shea lookalike standing outside of Argos. He was smoking an electronic cigarette. I don't think it was the real John O'Shea.

Other than that, I did a lot of sorting out, getting rid of stuff mainly, like clothes and my old PS3 disc games. I played on my new Xbox One quite a bit. Which was nice.

I went out for a meal and drinks with people from work. It was boring and the food was bad. I won't be doing it again. Though I'm getting made redundant soon so it's not something I really need to worry about.

I managed to watch one film on Netflix. Species III. It wasn't very good.

Overall then, not the most exciting holiday I've ever had. Prolly the worst. Oh yeah, I've been using the word prolly a lot lately instead of probably. That's something at least.

Switching Sides

I've not been on here for a while. Hello, if anyone ever reads this.

As everyone in the world knows, I'm a Nintendo man first-and-foremost when it comes to gaming. The problem with this is that Nintendo consoles tend not to get many of the big multiplatform games (GTA, Borderlands, Battlefield, Bioshock etc).

That is why I got a PS3 a few years ago, so I could play such games that weren't on the Wii or Wii U. I enjoyed my PS3, though recently, started to get pretty annoyed with it. The online is pretty crappy on PS3 (slow downloads, random disconnections from PSN even though my internet is fine), all multiplayer games get hacked so quickly you can't play them for long before the games are flooded with cheats (it took about a week on CoD: AW) and, probably most importantly, the PS3 controller became increasingly uncomfortable to use for me. I'd get hand cramps if I used it for more than about half an hour, partly I think down to the useless L2 and R2 trigger buttons meaning most games used the L1 and R1 instead. This means your hands are in a strange claw-like shape with the low analogue sticks and L1 and R1 buttons for many games.

So, about a month ago, I decided to switch sides and get an Xbox One. A controversial decision, given that the PS4 is vastly outselling the Xbox One by about 2:1, and is the more powerful machine with many games having better performance and graphics on it. But I really couldn't face having to use the crappy Playstation controller anymore (despite many people claiming the PS4's redesigned controller is better than the PS3's, which can't really be difficult in my book).

Maybe I'm just a sucker for the underdog (the situation was reversed when I got a PS3), or maybe I'm an idiot, I don't know. Anyway, I'll write more about the Xbox One in the future (I bet you can't wait).

Obviously, I could have not bought a console and got a life instead. Erm...

Next Blog>>

I posted before about Blogger's Next Blog>> feature. I revisited all the blogs linked before, but none of them have been updated.

Anyway, may as well try again.

Link 1: Katajone

The first blog today is a family blog. Guess what? They just had a baby! Congratulations! There's over 1,500 posts on this blog. You could probably stalk them pretty good after reading them all.

Link 2: Stay Puft

Second up is a music blog. I fancy myself a serious music fan but I haven't heard of hardly any of the acts mentioned. Not that that's a bad thing, it turns the blog into a journey of discovery. Sadly, it hasn't been updated since April 2011, just before the Coachella music festival. Hopefully, blog writer Drew wasn't caught up in some sort of orgy of music-based death and destruction there, rendering him unable to blog or something.

Link 3: Open Maps

If you are a fan of maps, then this is the blog for you. It not only has map news, but blogger Chris's thoughts on how mapping applies to various news events, like the US FAA's ruling that drones need to remain in sight of their owner.

Link 4: Framing Everything In Sight

This is a photography blog. Blogger SC, who lives in Malaysia, has taken some quite excellent pictures, mainly nature shots, and are worth checking out. The blog hasn't been updated since May 2011, I just pray that nature hasn't taken a horrible revenge on SC for him photographing it.

Link 5: Wright Family Newspaper

The Wright family's blog is the usual mix of updates, recipes etc. Like so many of these blogs, it hasn't been updated for about a year. Hopefully, the family weren't wiped out in a King Ralph-style massacre, leaving only an obscure, obnoxious cousin as head of the family.

Anna Kendrick And Peter Shilton

I had a dream recently that I was at a pub with my Dad and actress Anna Kendrick. My Dad had started to wear a wig (in the dream, not in real life).

Anna and I questioned my Dad as to why he had started to wear a wig.

As we did, former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton popped over to our table to tell us that he had had a hair transplant at the age of 23 (in the dream, not in real life) and it had given him the confidence to be a world class goalkeeper. To be fair, he had fabulous hair for a 65 year-old, all dark and curly, like a young Tom Jones. He said my Dad should consider doing it too.

I don't really know what any of this means. Maybe my Dad should get a hair transplant? Or maybe I should start hanging out with Anna Kendrick?

The result of this is that I went on Netflix and watched Rapture-Palooza, starring my new bff Anna K.

Guess Who's Back?

I've not been on here in a while. I've not been up to much, just playing Super Smash Bros for Wii U mainly.

In my absence, my blog has become even more popular. Looking at the stats, I've been getting over 5 hits a day! Sometimes over the magic 10 hits mark that all bloggers aspire to! Good times indeed.

Last time on here, I mentioned that my one YouTube video had got 21 hits. Well, guess what, it's up to 23 hits now! Though one of them was me looking at the page just now. Still counts.

My prediction for 2015 is that even more things in the world will be chargeable via USB cable. That is all.

Yootoob

I started my own YouTube channel. I've posted one video so far, a little over 2 months ago, of me winning an online race in Mario Kart 8, via the game's in-built race highlights editor.

I think you need to get millions of views, and to get adverts on your videos, to start making any money. My video has so far got 21 views, and has no adverts. If I can get 25,000 views a day, every day, for the next year or so, I should get into the kind of numbers that will start making me some serious money. Oh yeah.

Fingerless Gloves

I've never understood the appeal of fingerless gloves. They certainly don't look cool and they don't have any practical benefit over fingered gloves. The fingers are the parts of the hand that get cold the most.

As such, I take an instant dislike to anyone who wears them. Someone on my bus wears them. I dislike him. I've never spoken to him but he's crossed the fashion line and there's no going back. He looks like Sylar from 'Heroes' too which only makes him look more evil.

Lorde: "Pure Heroine"

Released: 2013

A girl who takes the same bus as me in the mornings looks a lot like Lorde. I think she does this on purpose to some degree as she has her hair the same, dresses in a similar style and tends to wear purple lipstick.

She's probably about the same age as Lorde too I would guess, at about 18. I don't know if Lorde is an inspirational figure to the young people or just this one. I'm not going to ask her (or speak to her at all) as she's half my age and that would be creepy. She does wear the same Doc Martens boots as me though, not that I'm suggesting that she's going to start copying my look next.

It's a pretty bold move to model your look on someone else. Everywhere she goes, people must say, "Ooh, you look a lot like Lorde." Intentional or not, it must get pretty annoying everyone mentioning/thinking it all the time.

Anyway, Lorde's album is pretty good, it has a strong first half, then sags a bit in the second half but picks up again right at the end.

Rating: 3.5/5

Drinks Are On Me!

I saw the world's most expensive bottle of Champagne once.

It was during a tour at the Piper-Heidsieck Champagne house in Reims. The tour involved riding a cart in some underground tunnels. I don't remember too much, mainly that we were told that the tunnels had been used by the French Resistance during WW2.

The big finish of the tour was a glimpse of the aforementioned bottle. It looked like a normal bottle of Champagne, but one covered in diamonds. It was then followed by pictures of celebrities drinking glasses of Champagne. The only one I remember is Jack Nicholson. This was 1995. I don't know if a more expensive bottle of Champagne has been produced since then.

Putting diamonds on things seemed like a bit of a trend in the 90s. Joe Bloggs (remember them?) produced the world's most expensive pair of jeans back then, which too, were just a normal pair of jeans, but covered in diamonds.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Platform: PS3

I wasn't going to get this game. The previous CoD game, Ghosts, was terrible, and revisiting the older CoD games (as I've done since I got a PS3) has been kind of annoying as they've all been hacked/modded and are flooded with cheats who ruin any kind of enjoyment of playing multiplayer on them.

But then Advanced Warfare came along and got good reviews, reviews which say things like it's refreshed the series, or is the best CoD since whatever, and I thought, why not get in there early before it gets hacked like all the other games, maybe I can get some enjoyment from it?

Set roughly 40 years in the future, AW features all sorts of futuristic enhancements, like special armour that lets you double jump (like in Destiny) and guns that have ammo readouts on them (like in Destiny) and guns that fire energy beams (like in Destiny). Most guns are the same though and don't seem any different from previous CoD games.

The campaign starts off woefully. The first 5 missions are terrible, really boring, and actually quite empty. The game picks up after that though, once the main story and antagonist are revealed. The middle third of the campaign is actually pretty decent and good fun. It's a bit hit-and-miss after that though, with the token death of one of the good guys (who just happens to be the one black character in the game) and a final mission kind of similar to the final mission in Modern Warfare 3.

Multiplayer is always the big draw for CoD games though, and I've played it quite a bit over the past week. Firstly, the maps are pretty decent. The bigger maps of Ghosts have been abandoned meaning you don't spend loads of time wandering about looking for enemies, and they seem a lot less formulaic than on the more recent games.

The exo suit's special abilities (double jumping etc) come more into play in multiplayer, but it's a double edged sword; while they add more verticality and play styles, what it adds most is that lots of players just get on the roofs and shoot down on everyone. I'm calling these people "roof campers", if no-one else has come up with this already, which they probably have. It means you spend your time looking up for enemies, or having to get on the roofs yourself to stop the other team from doing it. Then feeling bad about yourself for being a roof camper.

In addition to all of this, the game handles very similarly to Infinity Ward's recent CoD games (MW3 and Ghosts), which I don't see as a good thing. This means you basically kill someone as soon as you hit them (or get killed when they hit you), and there's very little recoil on many of the guns, especially the assault rifles, and quick-scoping on sniper rifles is rife. Also, there seems to be little penalty for using suppressors on guns as well, which is a personal gripe of mine from CoD games, though some effort has been made to offset this by giving you the option of adding some sort of microphone to your guns which show up suppressed fire (I forget its name). On the subject of guns, there's one assault rifle in particular that is by far the best gun in the game [BAL-27], and pretty much everyone uses it.

The biggest problem with multiplayer is the terrible lag. This could be put down to early teething problems I suppose, but for an established franchise like CoD, it's just not good enough. Pretty much every other game I've played has been affected by it, I would guess. The worst examples are when the game seemingly freezes for a second or two, then it unfreezes, often to find yourself having been killed in the meantime. The killcam also then shows you were indeed frozen as the opposition player kills you. What also happens is that you'll be in a shootout with someone, you get hitmarkers to show you've at least got a few hits on the opposition player before you die, but the killcam shows the other player killed you before you even raised your gun. Before you try to suggest this is my internet connection, I've played Destiny quite a bit online lately on PS3, and Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U and those games don't really seem to be affected by lag at all. Also, this seems to be affecting other PS3 players too...

Overall, Advanced Warfare is a fairly mediocre game, neither particularly good or bad. The futuristic setting and exo-skeleton armour doesn't really add anything to the mixed bag of a campaign, though its interesting ideas about private militia companies (helped by a charismatic Kevin Spacey) at least add something new. The multiplayer is only slightly better than in Ghosts (which isn't really saying much), mainly due to the exo suit abilities and better maps, but worse than in every other PS3-onwards CoD game, and the lag is unforgiveable. Meh.

Rating: 2.5/5

Destiny

Platform: PS3

I've not blogged much lately. Where have I been? Playing games mostly! For shame.

Destiny, the new game from Bungie, the makers of (most of) the Halo games, has been super-hyped ever since its announcement, whenever that was (I can't be bothered to check) and is set to be one of the biggest selling games of the year.

There's 4 ways to play Destiny: campaign, strike missions, raids and pvp multiplayer. The game is always online, so even when doing the story you need to be connected to Destiny's servers, which can be annoying if you get disconnected for no reason in the middle of a game. You start by choosing one of 3 classes (each with 2 sub-classes, 1 offensive, 1 defensive): Hunter, Titan, Warlock, though you get given no information on any differences between them before you choose. You get 3 save slots though, meaning you can have one of each, though by the time you level each class up, the difference is kind of minimal as you can make choices in each class giving you the exact same stats for each, and all weapons work with each class. You can level up to level 20 by yourself, though to get higher than that you need to get gear from playing multiplayer or buying special armour using credits earned from multiplayer or the strike missions or raids.

The campaign is a bit of an oddball experience. You can do it by yourself, or can team up with 2 other players to do the (by my calculation) 20 missions. These can be PSN friends or people you meet out in the game world and invite (or be invited by). I did it all by myself at first, though have since done some missions with some PSN friends. I didn't notice any real increase in difficulty when having 3 players doing a mission than when I did it myself, so it seems slightly pointless, though a nice touch nonetheless.

The story itself is a bit non-existent. You seem to be awaken (from death?) at the start of the game by a little floaty metal thing known as a "ghost", who the guides you through what you need to do, though it doesn't get involved and start killing baddies or anything. It seems most of Earth has been overrun with baddies and there's one last safe city left, which has a big round thing hovering over it called "The Traveller" which is here to protect us or something. You then go around Earth shooting baddies (there's no stealth, just out-and-out shooting and occasionally punching), then the Moon, then Venus, then Mars. This saves the Earth I think. Though some killjoy known only as "The Watcher" then tells you that the fight has only just begun or something. Isn't that always the way?

The nonsense that is the campaign is saved to some extent by how well the game handles. The controls are exceptional for a shooting game, and the addition of a rather fun double jumping (or jump then float) mechanic and special power (one for each sub-class) give it a bit of much needed variation.

The strike missions are one-off missions that take place in the same game world, designed for 3 players. These are more difficult then story missions, mainly in that the final boss has a ton of health and takes quite a bit of killing. These have matchmaking for the lower level missions (up to level 18), though the ones over level 20 do not, which is a bit puzzling. I've done all of the sub-level 20 strikes, they're a bit boring. They're easy all the way to the final boss, then they just get repetitive as you and your team-mates essentially just shoot loads of bullets at the same big monster.

The raid missions are designed for teams of 6, and are meant to take up to 10 hours to complete. There's no matchmaking for these, and they're all over level 20 only, so it's for you and PSN friends only! I haven't done any of them, I can't really be bothered to spend 10 hours of my time doing one mission for minimal rewards, and I've only got 2 PSN friends who've got Destiny, and they seem to have got bored with it pretty quickly as they've not played the game for a while that I've seen.

Like the campaign, the multiplayer (known as "Crucible" in the game) is a bit of a mixed bag. The weapons and armour from your campaign carry over (and vice versa), meaning you can try out your weapons in the campaign or free roam, though level advantages are disabled. In other words, a level 20 gun does no more damage than a level 5 gun, though in reality, the higher level guns tend to be better anyway (less recoil, better range etc) so you're better off playing the Crucible games when you're a higher level. Also, there's no advantage in having higher level armour.

The big downfall of the multiplayer is a lack of game modes. There's only 4 basic games (with an additional 5th at weekends), and of these 4, one is domination ("Control"), one is free-for-all, and two are team deathmatch (one is 6v6 and the other 3v3). I've never really been a fan of basic team deathmatches, I much prefer objective game modes, so only having one game mode to pique my interest isn't that exciting. The extra weekend game modes tend to be variants of the other 4 game modes and don't really add much.

Overall, Destiny is a bit of a let down. It has many things going for it: the excellent controls, smooth gameplay and more customisation than you normally get in shooters. It's lack of real variation (especially in pvp multiplayer) and nonsense story though means that it's not a game that will have a long life with me or much replayability.

Rating: 3/5

The £10 Music Challenge

Like all music lovers, I know more about music than everyone else. I am also a phenomenal shopper. That is why I dream of the day that someone asks me to recommend music for them to check out (I try to tell people what music they should be listening to but they're strangely resistant). What's better is I will recommend a bunch of classic albums for less than £10! Though they are all second hand from Amazon.

Pulp: "His 'n' Hers"

I've already written about my love of this album here, it is a must own for any fan of rock, indie or pop music. Just buy it already.

Price: £0.32 + £1.26 (postage) = £1.58 

Peaches: "Teaches of Peaches"

Electroclash! No, I'm not entirely sure what that is either, even after reading the description on Wikipedia. It seems like there's some new fashionable form of electronic music on a regular basis (EDM, Italo disco etc), often sounding not dissimilar to the previous cool thing. I know that this album is considered electroclash, and it's quite brilliant. If songs with titles like 'Fuck The Pain Away' and 'Lovertits' don't put you off, then check it out.

Price: £0.01 + £1.26 = £1.27

Subtotal: £2.85

Spinal Tap: "This Is Spinal Tap (OST)" 

Perhaps the funniest, and maybe greatest, movie ever made had an equally brilliant soundtrack album, made up with songs featured in the movie, though some of the songs vary slightly to the versions in the film itself. You should own the film on DVD or Blu-Ray anyway, so why not listen to classics such as 'Sex Farm' on your stereo or MP3 player whenever you want?

Price: £0.19 + £1.26 = £1.45

Subtotal: £4.30

Marvin Gaye: "What's Going On"

This timeless classic, which seems as relevant today as ever, should be a part of everyone's music collection, and for such a small price is a must-buy if you don't already own it.

Price: £0.97 + £1.26 = £2.23

Subtotal: £6.53

The Donnas: "Spend The Night"

I love The Donnas and their brash and youthful rock 'n' roll anthems, something few bands have managed to do well over the past 15 years or so. This is probably their best album, a seeming non-stop barrage of guitar riffs and sassy lyrics.

Price: £0.24 + £1.26 = £1.50

Subtotal: £8.03

William Shatner: "The Transformed Man"

This may well be the greatest album ever made. Or the worst. It's kind of hard to tell. Either way, it's the kind of thing everyone needs to experience at least once, a mix of spoken word poetry and pop songs, made in such an earnest way that just makes it sound even weirder.

Price: £0.01 + £1.26 = £1.27

Total: £9.30

There you go, for just £9.30 you can get 6 awesome albums. It was hard to choose just 6 as there's so many bargains available if you're willing to look around and buy CDs second hand. I went for Amazon over eBay as the postage costs are a lot less, and you can buy stuff outright rather than potentially having to wait for the auction to end (stuff on buy-it-now tends to cost more than on Amazon anyway). Try it out yourself! Or don't, I'm not that bothered really.

Snoop Dogg

Not a lot of people know this, but I am close personal friends with celebrity rapper Snoop Dogg. We coach a little league baseball team together. I say we coach the team together, but really, Snoop's the coach and I'm his assistant. Snoop owns his own clipboard and whistle, I own neither. That guarantees Snoop the head coach role over me. I'm hoping to get my own clipboard for Christmas, and maybe a whistle next birthday. By then though, Snoop will probably have his own polo shirt and baseball cap with the word "coach" on them, making him virtually unassailable as the main man.

For now, I'm happy being Snoop's assistant and enforcer. The bad cop to Snoop's good cop. If any kids need telling off, that's for me to do. Any opposition team's parents need abusing, that's me. Snoop motivates and sets tactics, I make sure everyone understands and follows.

I've learned many things during my time with Snoop. Like what "little league" is. And what "baseball" is. They're probably the main two things. I hope to learn more though. I've always fancied throwing down in some rap battles. Snoop could help me with that. And who knows, maybe one day I'll get to be head coach of my own team. My experience with Snoop will be invaluable.

It Was 18 Years Ago Today

Kids in the UK got their A-Level results yesterday (apart from Scotland maybe, I think they have a different school system); I got mine this day in 1996, a day before my 18th birthday.

The gang (John, Paul, George and Ringo) and I had previously arranged to go to school to get our results dressed in old suits, preferably 1970s-style in weird colours and with big collars. On the day, only John actually did it. He wasn't too pleased when we all turned up at his house wearing normal clothes and he looked like Jason King.

We went to school and got our results. We all got what we needed to get to the universities we had applied for, apart from Ringo, but he got the grades to get to his second/reserve choice. I got two As, a C and a D (30 UCAS points). I only needed 16 points. We saw some other friends too and everyone was pretty happy with their results as far as I can remember.

We then went to George's house for drinks. His parents were on holiday in France. Without him. We raided their drinks cabinet, but all there was was Tia Maria. We drank the bottle anyway. Feeling invigorated, we ventured on to everyone else's houses to tell our parents the results.

We then headed into town to continue the drinking at our usual haunts. We expected to see the rest of our school year out having a good time too, but we didn't see any of them for the rest of the day. I don't know what they were doing. Losers. One person we did see was one of the younger teachers (let's call her Miss Moneypenny) from our school, who had taught John, Paul and George. We ended up hanging out with her for a few hours. Miss Moneypenny bought us all drinks and shared her menthol cigarettes with us, though none of us normally smoked.

One of my uncles had recently taken over a pub and had started a cricket team, for which I played. The team had a match that day at 6pm (at Leek Hockey Club). So, at around 5.45pm, we said goodbye to Miss Moneypenny and left the pub. We had been there since about 1.30pm. It became apparent as we got outside that we were all pretty wasted, but isn't that always the way?

John decided to come with me to the match, Paul, George and Ringo all went home. John and I reached Leek Hockey Club late, a bit after 6pm. It turned out we only had nine players, which included me (very drunk) and my uncle, who had recently been in an accident and had his left arm in plaster. I asked my uncle if John could play to make up the numbers. I turned around to see if John was up for it but he was lying on the floor, either passed out or asleep. We just left him there.

Our team was batting, so I had a bit of time to sober up. Though, as it turned out, not much time, as we soon slumped to 15 for 7 wickets. I got the pads off the previously dismissed batsman (we only had two pairs) and made my way to the middle.

I'm more of a bowler than a batsman. My approach to batting is to defend anything straight and slog at anything wide. First ball I got was wide of off stump so I had a big heave at it. I sliced it a fair distance and we managed 2 runs. If I hadn't been drunk we could have easily got 3, maybe 4. Second ball up was much the same, though I got a weaker connection and we only managed to get 1 run. My uncle was now on strike, batting one handed. The next ball went through his feeble defences and knocked the stumps over. We were 18 all out. I top scored with 3 not out.

We decided not to have a mid-innings break and carried straight on with the match. I was sent to field on the boundary, which was a wire fence to keep animals out of the hockey club's cricket and hockey pitches. Almost immediately, I threw up, though I did manage to put my head over the wire fence as I did it, so as not to sully the outfield. The menthol cigarettes left a strong aftertaste, which covered the usual vomity taste but gave a different and just as bad sensation. The ball did get hit towards me a couple of times and I managed to field the ball OK. The other team only needed three overs to reach the target score. I think I threw up three times too.

The normal practise after matches was to head back to my uncle's pub for drinks and sandwiches, but I decided to go home. We woke John up. Someone gave us a lift back to my house in the trailer on the back of their car. John said he would be OK to walk home, so we said goodbye. I went to bed to sleep.

I was woken at about 9pm by George, who had come around with some cans of beer. I felt much better after my sleep, though I could still taste the menthol cigarettes. We had a couple of beers and talked. I don't remember what about, but it was a nice low-key end to a crazy day, which had been a memorable end to my adolescence.

Crazy Pete

Some people have a way of taking the magic out of things. Whether it's the way they describe them, moan about them or just reveal the secrets you didn't want or need to know, we've all known people like this.

Anyway, like all supercool people, I'm a big fan of French cinema and hold a special love for films starring Anna Karina, especially those by Jean-Luc Godard. One of those films is crime drama Pierrot le Fou, which Wikipedia helpfully translates into English as "Pierrot the madman" in case you weren't sure.

This isn't good enough for Australia though, where they've decided that the film should instead be called "Crazy Pete". I don't know who's responsible for this (distributors, studio etc), but really? Crazy Pete?

Next Blog>>

One of the features of Blogger is the link to a random blog, available via the "Next Blog>>" link at the top of the page. Sometimes it's fun to check it out to see what other people in the world are doing.

Link 1: Moon Chase! A Sailor Moon News Blog

The first blog today is about Japanese manga and anime series Sailor Moon. I've not read or seen any Sailor Moon but it seems pretty popular on Tumblr. News on here includes Sailor Moon appearing at an animation festival in London and pictures of Sailor Moon cosplay. Sadly, this blog's last post was in 2011 and has since moved to its own site at moon-chase.com.

Link 2: Titus The Dog

Clicking on the Next Blog>> link on Moon Chase! takes us to a blog named after the writer's dog. The most recent post, in November last year, is about the writer going on a walk with Titus and seeing some cows. Pictures of the cows are provided. The cow in the second picture down is looking at the camera as it is pissing. The eye contact weirds me out. Other posts mainly include details of days out in Dumfries and Galloway. Somehow, the writer(s) of this blog seem to have disappeared the Next Blog>> link. It means we'll have to start again back from my blog.

Link 1: Kelvin's Space

As the next blog is always random, you can start again from your own blog and get different results. This time the first blog is about a baby called Kelvin. He was born in 2008 and the blog started then; I guess it was meant to be a kind of scrapbook for him to see when he was older. Or maybe just grandstanding from the parents. Sadly, the last post was in 2010, just before Kelvin's second birthday. Hopefully he's OK and the blog wasn't ended because he died or something.

Link 2: FOOD By Andreas

Following on from baby Kelvin is a food blog. I'm guessing by someone called Andreas. The most recent post from two weeks ago is a delicious looking blueberry lemon coffee cake. Impressive work by Andreas. He should invite me over some time to try it. Looking through his blog he seems to know his stuff and the food looks great. The blog has been going for over five years now so there's plenty to catch up on.

As Andreas has also disappeared the Next Blog>> link on his site, I'm going to make that the last one today. Try it yourself and see what you get! Or don't, I'm not that bothered really.

PS3: Still To Play

Since I wrote the original list, I've started Borderlands, Dead Space 3 and South Park: The Stick of Truth. Borderlands seems like a slightly worse version of Borderlands 2 (the controls are a bit worse, and the Siren's special ability is not as good). Dead Space 3 seems pretty good, very similar to Resident Evil Revelations, which is no bad thing. South Park has started off just as much fun as I thought, though the combat system seems very simplistic, very similar to the Mario & Luigi RPG games, but even easier. Might get a bit annoying after a while. Ni no Kuni I will play after I finish South Park.

I've since got the game Fez as well on PS Plus, though I don't know when I'll get around to playing that or Limbo. I've barely started Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Wii U, and that will be the next platformer I play.

Far Cry 3 and Metro: Last Light I honestly don't know if I will ever play; a Metro Redux compilation is coming to PS4 and Xbox One, and Far Cry 4 is also coming soon to those consoles too. I might wait until I get a PS4 or Xbox One to pick them up then. Also XCOM: Enemy Unkown I only downloaded because it was on PS Plus, I'm not really that interested in it.

For the future there is Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, which hopefully will be more like the second one (which I'm sure it will be), Destiny, which is also coming to just about every other platform (except Wii U, d'oh!) so I don't know if I'll bother now, a new Assassin's Creed game which I'll probably get mainly for the multiplayer (the campaign sounds like it'll be a cross between the last two games, and I'm a bit sick of the boat sections, there was too many in the last game)... and not much else. The new Call of Duty looks like they've just copied some of the mechanics from the Crysis games, but I'll get it on Wii U if anything (though it's not been confirmed for Wii U... yet) and there'll probably be more Battlefield etc too but nothing to get too excited about. I think next year is when I upgrade, to find a second console to back up my Wii U.

PS3: Disappointments

GTA IV was one of the first PS3 games I bought, and also one of the first I got a bit bored of. Yes it's a great big, well-detailed city, and yes there's loads of missions and other stuff (like pool, darts, bowling, comedy clubs), but the game is missing a certain something. The characters are kind of bland and there's not that much variation in the missions; drive to location and shoot a bunch of people is pretty much it. And there is way too much driving around in the missions between action locations; and if you die, you have to do all that driving again. And the graphics are kind of hazy. Maybe previous GTA games were like this too,  but they seemed a lot more fun than this game. And GTA V was much better.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and (PS3 exclusive) Journey are two highly rated indie games, both of which I found a little bland. They're both quite hard to describe too, which doesn't help me out any here. Brothers has the interesting mechanic of controlling both the titular brothers at the same time (one for each control stick) and revolves around puzzle solving; the puzzles are pretty easy though. In Journey, you play a floaty figure in a cape travelling through a desert. I'm not really sure what it's about. No-one is.

Heavy Rain is another disappointing PS3 exclusive. It sells itself as "interactive drama" as choices you make and paths you take affect the rest of the game. The theory is about as interesting as the game gets though; it looks a bit weird (as games often do when they try for realism) and the controls are very awkward. It's also quite badly paced, with many of the segments being little more than plodding sections of wandering around doing not much. It's not terrible, just not very good. Mediocre probably sums it up best.

Crysis 3 I've already mentioned in the worst multiplayer list. It's a futuristic first person shooter, which gives you the power of invisibility and really high jumping via some suit or other of alien technology. The levels are slightly more open than most fps, and the invisibility offers more stealth options than most similar games. So far, so good. Sadly, the game handles quite weirdly when shooting (it feels a bit like Aliens: Colonial Marines), the levels are pretty boring and the final boss battle is very annoying.

Fallout 3 is a very highly rated open world rpg shooter (first person or third person, you get to choose!). I found it very boring, and not half as good as the excellent Borderlands 2. Maybe I'm just a bit sick of post-apocalyptic landscapes, but I found the world of the game quite tedious and uninteresting. I also didn't care for how it handled in first person mode (third person was slightly better though). Borderlands 2 had personality, a sense of humour and a fairly unique (cell shaded) art style on top of a similar premise to this. This game didn't really have anything of note. Fallout: New Vegas is pretty much the same, but with a slightly less boring landscape.

Payday 2 is another game I got "free" via the PS Plus subscription. It's a fps where the aim is to rob banks and stuff (and get a payday, yay!). I think it's designed to work best as a co-op game for four players. I did a few missions on my own with three AI players with me. It was pretty boring. I don't really see how it would be much better with three other human players. I might be wrong but I'm not gonna bother finding out.

Finally we get to Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. I've been playing PES games since the PS1 and was always a big fan of them; I've had pretty much every game in the series on some console or other since then. I had PES 2012 on the Wii but didn't like it much. This game was only slightly better, but still not that good. The passing mechanics have been improved from that game (they couldn't really get much worse), but the worst thing about the game is how slow it is. Gone are the days of quick, one-touch passing moves, this game plods along at a pedestrian pace. Maybe the pitches are too big (or bigger than they used to be?) I don't know, but the ball certainly doesn't ping around like it used to in the good ole days. And unlike in the PS1/PS2 days you don't get the option to speed up the game either (at least not that I could find) to compensate for this. I've also got PES 2014 (via PS plus) but haven't played it yet. Someone I know who had it said it was terrible and took it back to the shop after about two days.