I have recently finished and thoroughly enjoyed playing Red Dead Redemption. It’s a massive game with a fantastically written storyline, gorgeous graphics and lots of wild west style phrases that make you feel like your 12 and watching Bonanza on a Saturday morning (I think their next move should be to make a pirate game so I can get a similar feeling but replacing Bonanza with The Crimson Pirate). It is fair to say I loved this game enormously, but it also irritated me and I shall tell you why.

Within the game there are many tasks to complete, some are integral to the story line and have to be completed in order to progress, others are there to either enhance the storyline or increase your skill or your characters wealth. One of the none essential areas of the game is outfits, throughout the game you can gain new outfits to wear rather than the default one you start the game with. Each outfit, is split into items to be obtained in different ways. Some are gained by completing missions, others by finding them around the game and some are bought from specific vendors, it could be quite complicated but the developers saw fit to give you a check list in the menu which includes instructions on how to obtain each piece so you know where you are with it. “Well that all sounds very straightforward and well thought out” I hear you say, and you’d be right, except I found a glitch.

It seems to be that Rockstar games hate me, I don’t know what I’ve done to upset them but whatever it was they are relentlessly unforgiving. In Grand Theft Auto IV I was unable to complete the game, the final mission never presented itself to me, you receive a phone call giving you details of the final mission but alas this phone call never happened. Some glitch occurred meaning I was left to drive around aimlessly waiting for the call and it never happened. I felt robbed, and stupidly I hadn’t employed the alternating two save games technique that everybody knows you should. I drove around for a solid two hours hoping the call would come through and even tried again months later just in case but it never happened. In Red Dead the glitch is slightly less frustrating, I have obtained an outfit item from a vendor but it has not been checked off on the list meaning I can’t get the achievement for unlocking all outfits (and yes I have tried dropping the item and repurchasing it, alas it did not work). While this is in no way detrimental to my game experience unlike the GTA IV glitch it’s frustrated me because I did intend to get that achievement, being unable to achieve something through lack of skill is one thing but being unable to even try is more so, in this case I feel it is anyway.

It could be worse, it could in fact be a hell of a lot worse but it just seems a shame that the shine has been taken off of these two great games for me.

The following is based on a true story:

<Internal monologue> Ah my train is arriving at the station i shall stand up and walk to the doors to await the train coming to a full stop and the doors opening (my internal monologue is a lot posher and articulate than i really am). Oh dear i appear to be facing the doors that won’t open how foolish of me, i had better turn around. I can see people milling around outside the doors waiting to get on the train, but wait, they appear to be completely cutting off my exit, i and my fellow passengers will be unable to get off the train, we need to be able to do this for them to be able to get on. I’m sure they will realise their error and move once the doors open. No it appears they have not realised and they are now standing staring at me expecting me to exit the train even though they are completely blocking my path <internal monologue>

GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU IDIOTIC BABOON’S ARSES BEFORE I STAND ON YOU

I do hope it is temporary stupidity because to be that dim on a daily basis must hurt. On the subject of stupidity with doors remind me to make a post about lifts soon.

I know, I was as surprised as you but it’s true.

After my stressful day yesterday I just really felt like a beer so I nipped in at tesco’s on my way home from the hospital. I bought 2 bottles of beer and nothing else. While paying I took my keys out of my pocket, they are attached to a belt loop by a mini carabina so just dangled off my jeans. Attached to my keys is one of the tiny club cards, I presume the lady serving me saw it and asked “do you have a club card” i’d not even considered offering my card as I presumed points would not be available on alcohol. So I stated in a questioning way “you give points on alcohol” to which she replied “yes”. My next statement was also phrased in a questioning manner “isn’t that like rewarding alcoholism”? The cashiers response surprised me somewhat.

“yeah” she said “it’s not right is it”! But she didn’t stop there, “but you don’t get points from fags, lottery or baby milk”. Again a little perplexed I enquire further “baby milk”!!! “that’s right” she said “it’s not seen as a neccesity because mothers can breast feed”

So by this logic though Tesco view alcohol as a necessity! Now i dont know about you but out of the four items they don’t offer points on I would say the most likely to be considered a necessity would be baby milk, the others are all something that you can have an unhealthy addiction to, or so I thought anyway. Maybe I’m wrong.

Tesco’s advertising tag line is ‘every little helps’ it would appear that in addition to this, every tipple helps if the thing you want help with is club card points.

Well excuse me for a minute while I don my working class hat but as much as I am surprised by the Supreme Court ruling in favour of the banks I’m not surprised that the rich are left rich and the poor remain poor.

Yes i know that if your careful with your money you would never recieve bank charges in the first place but it’s not that black and White. I got caught in a revolving door of bank charges several years ago after losing my job. I was getting charged £175 a month which was tipping me back into an unauthorised overdraught therefore incurring further charges. Its all very well saying well you wouldn’t need to claim charges back if you’d been more careful but in situations like mine and I’m sure thousands of others it’s unavoidable.

The other side of things of course is that the banks are charging these illegally high charges (and regardless of the result they are illegal) because they figured they couldn’t be touched and nobody would call into question the actions of banks because they know best. Oh but wait, we are in a reccession! Who caused this reccession? No it couldn’t have been the banks could it, no they are the keepers of our ever increasingly capitalist society. Everything revolves around money and the banks look after that for us like wardens keeping us safe from the dragon of poverty and uncertainty… Don’t they????

Yesterday was our little girls 3rd birthday. A fabulous occasion which everybody enjoyed thoroughly especially her. Some family members came round for present unwrapping and party food etc. It was all going nicely until i had a brain wave. “hey” i thought to myself “I’m on the XBOX 360 preview program, why don’t i take advantage of that by putting Last.fm on for some background music”.

This idea it appears was only great in theory, it appears my previous experience of Last.fm was no indicator of all of it’s content. I had only previously listened to things like Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc but was aware that more family friendly music was available. I switched my XBOX on, moved through the menu’s to Last.fm and selected a station appropriate to our daughters musical taste being Lady GaGa. The musical offering was as you can imagine, Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Pussycat Dolls and weirdly Heidi Montag. Pop music basically. Last.fm on your XBOX displays a slide show of photo’s of the artist while their song is playing, it appears at this point it should perhaps change it’s name to Lust.fm. The ensuing photostream of pictures could have been likened to softcore porn which is something i normally would not have complained about (other than the god awful sight above), but seeing as the music was mainstream pop listened to mainly by young people and the XBOX does try to market itself as a family console i thought it was pretty inappropriate.

Scared I’m sounding like an old fuddy duddy right now but i don’t think anyone would knowingly put the above picture and many like it on the telly knowing that their 3 year old was in the room. I am certain as well that there are far more “family friendly” pics of these artists available for use.

Update: I sent a link to my blog to Last.fm through twitter about this, they responded saying it was an issue they were working with Microsoft on. They also sent me this link to a post made by Major Nelson on his blog. It refers to the new features like Last.fm etc not being available to under 18′s right away as they are working on parental control’s for these features, this is of course is great news especially in light of the things i was saying about family orientation.

It would appear though that my issue would be unresolvable. My 3 year old does not have her own XBOX LIVE account where i can set parental controls to protect her from adult materials for obvious reasons, she’s 3. Therefore as with any other adult themed materials for the XBOX it would be up to me to not access those materials in front of my daughter, and that’s fine. I would never play any games in front of her that involved blood and gore or sexual themes, but the issue is that i was trying to listen to music, music which as far as i am aware does not require pictures of the artist in scantily clad attire or in some cases completely nude with limbs obscuring breasts. So my only answer is to not use a service I’d like to take advantage of, shame really.

No i am not just being a bit narcissistic and up myself, i don’t think that I’m handsome (but thats another story my therapist gets to hear). Don’t you just hate it though when somebody who looks like their purpose on the planet is purely aesthetic and then it turns out they have a brain.

Coffee shop a couple days ago, guy behind the counter who made me think i was looking through a catalogue. I am comfortable enough with my own sexuality to say that this guy was really good looking, if i were gay i would have been drooling. Guys like that just make me feel uncomfortable for a start because they are either ridiculously confident because of their looks or feel they should be confident because of their looks so try to fake it. Yes these are incredibly broad sweeping generalizations that can’t possibly apply to everybody but that is the entire reason for this post.

Anyway where was i, oh right yeah, so this guy’s getting my coffee while smouldering gently to himself then asks me for the £2.20. While passing him the exact change i drop a penny which he stops on the counter looks at me with a wry smile and says “thats £2.19 please” quick as a flash. Not only was he good looking and had a sense of humour but the bastard could do Maths too.

Aren’t these people just making the rest of us feel inadequate. I pride myself on my easy going, friendly and hopefully humerous personality. If this git comes and does all that and has good looks to boot then what chance do the rest of us have.

I do love seeing overweight people running for a bus or train. Maybe that’s not very PC of me but quite frankly I don’t care, it’s funny.

They are at the train door now waiting for the button to light up, it’s lit and they are off. With an early lead it’s White shirts too tight, White shirts too tight has a couple of lengths on the pack but coming up strong from behind it’s spiffy wax jacket. Spiffy wax jacket of course breaking in a new pair of shoes so favours the soft ground and this race being on a train platform is definately firm. No sign of the favourite in the lead group, big things were expected from sunroof for a love machine but he seems to be struggling at the back. Coming towards the finish line and there is a late break from inappropriate dress, inpapropriate dress of course is the filly and appears to be going strong. The other runners seem somehow distracted by her impressive fore flanks.

Well I guess it all started when I tried to turn my alarm off but my alarm switching off arm (we’ve all got them) had been slept on funny and was as a result dead. I wouldn’t say that manual dexterity is something I excel in anyway making sliding the open bar on my iPhone almost impossible.

My bad fortune continued when I decide to have the famous and almost always I’ll fated ’5 minutes’ just to let my arm come back to life. 30 minutes later when Jen awoke me I was running late. I have to say the rest of the day was fairly good, placement related stuff all day busy, busy, busy.

However on finishing work I wandered up to Uni as I am brassic and my loans are being delayed for reasons far to dreary to go into sufficed to say it’s the Uni’s fault not mine. My lovely landlady from last year works in the very department I needed so I got an incredibly sympathetic ear with the unfortunate “I’m sorry there is nothing I can do” tagged onto it. An emergency loan was suggested however, huzzah we can buy groceries!!! However the cash office was closed for the day meaning I can pick up the money today.

I left Uni feeling alot better than I had. While waiting for a tram and talking to a friend on the phone I saw an ice cream van, I didn’t want ice cream, it was Eddie Izzards Eddie Iz Running ice cream van following him around the country on his epic bout of Marathons. I looked around for Eddie like a mere Cat in a revolving door but saw no sign of him. I even left the tram stop in search of him and walked the long way to the train station and nothing.

Yesterday from getting a bus at my house to getting off a bus at my house was as near as dammit 12 hours, I don’t fancy repeating that again today.

I posted a Twitter Poll a few days ago because i think (and as you can tell by the title of this post) Jen disagrees, that Lemon is not a neutral colour for babies to wear. Lemon in my opinion is a girly colour. Now I’m not saying that sex should dictate the style or colour of a person’s clothes but i don’t see how Lemon can be seen as not leaning to the girly side of things. Perhaps it’s just me…

…actually it’s not just me because pretty much half of the people who voted agreed with me. It was a very split decision however and far from conclusive which just means our baby will be rocking some Lemon sleep suits come December. It could be a hell of a lot worse i guess.

One of the most harrowing and scary periods of my life has finally come to an end. My iPhone is back, or should i say my new/ reconditioned iPhone has arrived.

I’m sure it’s not mine because mine had chips in the screen and I’m guessing it would be cheaper to give me a new one than replace my screen and repair it too. It’s been such a weird experience going back to buttons. It has made me realise how little i use my iPhone for regular phone activity. I use my iPhone a lot, a hell of a lot in fact, but i have barely used my phone over the past two weeks as there just didn’t seem to be much point. It’s quite scary how dependant i have become on my iPhone but quite frankly i don’t care and i’m glad it’s back.

The love affair continues