The Temple of Dysonism

And The Love Kick Starts Again

After taking 2 months out of employment, I recently started my new job at GAME in Camberley. If I’m brutally honest, before I started I was a little worried that I’d be locking myself in to another retail job with no chance of advancing, low pay, no excitement to work and a bleak future. I had reason to believe this based on my experiences at HMV, which I quit at the end of March because quite frankly the management was a shambles and amongst other things I was forced to work for free. As it turns out, I’m not the only one that has quit or voiced complaints for these very same reasons, but that’s besides the point.

Having worked at GAME for three weeks now I can safely say the worries I had prior to accepting the job have all been swept away. I’m finally enjoying the work I do, and I’m enjoying the people I work with. At HMV, I got on well with most of my colleagues, barring management for the most part. Now I get on well with the entire team - and the team aspect is one that I think has really struck me in my first few weeks. There really is a completely different atmosphere, and I finally feel like I’m working as part of a team as opposed to being forced to work on my own.

Ultimately.. I’m happy. And long may it last. Who knows; I’ve only been here for three weeks so far and been enjoying it but things may change. Give it a year or so and see if I’m still as rosy!

Elsewhere, my driving lessons come to their thrilling climax in only 11 days when I take my driving test. I’m not sure how I feel about it right now as in my past two lessons I’ve been making some stupid mistakes, generally in observation and bizarrely, moving off, which is something I had nailed down. I think it’s anticipation and nerves getting the better of me as I know I can do everything required of me to pass the test on the 12th. It’s just going to come down to how I can manage it on the day, and hopefully I’ll overcome my fears and smash it. The test that is; not the car.

Of course, I can’t write a blog entry right now without at least touching upon the heat we’ve had recently. The temperatures have been sky high the past two weeks or so and it’s been horrible trying to sleep or get to work without ending up all sweaty and murky. On the plus side, it’s most definitely shorts, t-shirt and barbecue weather, so bring it on. The weather also brings summer in nicely, which does of course mean that most of my friends are back from Uni for a few months (with the exception of the girls, sadly), which is fantastic. I look forward to easy meet-ups, some lazy days off of gaming and some banter. I really must sort these out. What else will I do with my three day weekends?

Speaking of gaming, we had E3 recently which is essentially the biggest week in a gamers’ calendar. All sorts of new technology has been announced, some look to take the Wii and turn it hardcore, some promises to remove the controller altogether and put you directly in the game, but there’s only been one thing on my mind as far as games are concerned lately, and that’s the next step in rhythm games, Rock Band 3.

As I’m sure you know, I have poured hundreds of pounds in to my rhythm games and thousands of hours of practice to match. I can’t quite explain the thrill I get from nailing a tough solo or hitting a really satisfying beat with the drums, however in recent months my joy has been dwindling more and more as I realised I’d peaked at the top of my ability with the plastic, 5 button guitar. I can beat almost all of the songs on Expert, where do you go from there? At that point I thought I was ready to pack my plastic instruments away, save for special occasions..and then Harmonix announce Rock Band 3 - and with it a real guitar. Yes indeedy, this game will teach you to play a real guitar, because you will be playing a real guitar. There is so much I could write about this, so much excitement I could pour out on to this page but it’d only make sense if you were in the same situation as me, I reckon.

I’ve tried to play the real guitar before but I just don’t get it. I can’t fathom remembering all the different chords and keys and the finger placement. It blows me away. But if the notes were scrolling down a screen, giving you instructions on where to place your fingers? Who knows. Anything is possible. Obviously I don’t have a clue how well it’ll work for me, but that’s not going to stop me from being damn excited to try it. I’ll report back in a few months, as Rock Band 3 is coming out this holiday season.

Oh.. and I’ll bring my QW3RTY [band mates] with me!

The Magic Kingdom (…Sort Of.)

Yesterday I sent a tweet to the European editor for Xbox LIVE on a whim.

Today I went to Disney Interactive studios in Hammersmith, London. I sat next to Iron Man, and opposite Mickey Mouse. After getting myself a visitors ID badge made that would be valid for only a couple of hours and looked more official than my student ID, I was lead upstairs to a room that was fully decorated with the Lion King in mind…except that it had 8 screens, 8 devkit Xbox 360’s, 8 gamepads, 8 extremely high quality pairs of headphones and a handful of people there to play an as of yet unreleased game, Split/Second.

For those not in the know, Split/Second is a racing game and your typical action movie rolled in to one and spat out in a very playable format. You drive your car very fast and with plenty of style around a race track - before proceeding to blow shit up. Be it other cars, barrels or other obscure obstacles, you will mess up the driver in front. Unless you save your energy for something really special - the chance to change the track layout in spectacular fashion. Usually this involves taking down a building, having it lay in the middle of the track, and there being a new section of course to drive on.

Basically, it’s good fun. We were there to give the multiplayer portion of the game which hasn’t been shown before in Europe, and despite me turning up with only an hour left to go I still had enough time to get in several races around a few tracks, all of which were exciting from start to finish, thoguh this was because I was able to stick with the pack for all of the races. Pulling off a successful powerplay and just snatching 3rd place at the finish line feels about as triumphant as finishing in first with no incidents. All the while, there were a few developers lurking around speaking to people who weren’t in the game at the time, or bringing us water in suitable Disney themed tumblers. Unfortunately I apparantly arrived just after a competition they ran to win a pair of the headphones we were using which is a real shame as they were kick ass (note to self: must find out what model they were..) and had to have been a pricey bit of kit.

Following this, we were treated to an early look at something special they’ve added to the game. I’m not allowed to say what it was just yet as they haven’t even announced it to the press and they asked us extra nicely, but it definitely showed promise. With polish it could be super impressive. After leaving the building and stashing the temporary ID card mentioned earlier (it has Mickey Mouse on it, can you blame me?) I got the tube home with someone I had met at the event, and had a rather good chat. One of the topics that came up was, strangely, my blog. I realised whilst talking that I’ve not done this thing justice recently and this is one attempt at rectifying that.

So that was my day, today. I did something different and it felt great. And if the experience wasn’t good enough, they’re sending the attendees promo copies of the game when it’s released at the end of May. I can’t help but think that no matter who I play it against I won’t be able to beat the feeling of playing it with other like-minded enthusiasts in the same room with the developers watching on. And I’d be willing to bet that they had a blast too.

Let’s give this old thing a try, shall we?

It really has been a while since I wrote a blog entry. A whole lot of time has passed, and a whole lot of events have occurred. Well… that’s not strictly true. I mean, a few key things have happened but there’s nothing really noteworthy.

I’m not entirely sure what inspired me to write a blog entry tonight. I’ve been sitting here on my computer idly browsing my usual websites when all of a sudden it came to me, for the first time in months - why not write? I mean, heck, writing was what kept me sane during my final months at University. I used this site to write down some of my innermost thoughts, and “sort my life out” as planned on my daily ‘To Do’ lists.

I never worked out why I stopped updating my corner of the internet. A couple of easy, reasonable excuses lie in both Twitter and Facebook, and how easy it is to notify everyone in an instant. Whether it be important or complete tosh, a tweet sent by text must take 20 seconds maximum, and it’s done. And that’s it. You’ve just kept people that care up to date on the sign you’ve just seen that made you laugh on the inside.

But realistically I know that I lost the passion I used to have when writing. I used to be in a situation where I was facing a very real dilemma in my life, to go back on one one of the biggest decisions I’ve made and bail, admit I made a mistake..which is something I can’t do easily. Right now however, I don’t face such issues. I have a job that comfortably takes me through the months, I have a somewhat active social life and heck - I even have a relatively smooth relationship for the first time. Where’s the problem? What exactly do I need to work out?

Whilst I’m on the subject of University, I figure I might as well touch on it now rather than later. I really want to close the book on this and not come back to it here, reason being that recently a few people have asked me whether or not I regret leaving. It’s a strange one, really - on one hand I miss the independence and freedom of being at University. But that’s really all I miss. On the other hand I’m free from the pressures of coursework deadlines and bills to pay and constant money issues. Truth be told, I don’t envy any of my friends at Uni right now. All I’ve heard is negativity as of late, as people struggle to reach deadlines, balance their social lives with the pressure of the work load, get homesick, and in some cases become increasingly depressed. Honestly, does that sound like something I want to deal with right now? So the simple answer to “do I regret leaving” is - no. But there will, of course, always be that little part of me that questions; “What if..”?

But enough about my past. Long term readers will be sick of reading about the issues I wrote about relentlessly for six months. You want original material! Fresh issues, brand spanking new thoughts and rants! And who can blame you?! Right now all I can think about is typing. I keep reading and rereading what I’ve written so far and I’ve not got a clue if it makes any sense, but then again that’s what I’ve always done here.

So let’s jump rather jarringly to something completely different. Or…shall we? Urk. I don’t know what’s just happened but I’ve totally lost my will to write. I was all set to go and furiously typing when all of a sudden I seemed to hit a brick wall. I can’t think what to put next. I’m fairly sure I never had this problem before - what’s changed? Did I just need to get that off of my chest or am I becoming tired? I’m not sure, but unfortunately I’m thinking I should end this entry here. I hope to write more frequently, but I’m not promising anything given my track record. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed my brief interlude. I hope to see you here soon.