Five Thumbs Down

Just for fun: The Random Album Cover

2012-01-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

3 simple steps with 3 simple links!

whatever the title of this random article is your artist's name

the third random image is your album's cover

the last few words of the last quote is your album's name

Here's one I prepared earlier.

Have a crack!

2012, Looking Ahead

2012-01-03T02:24:00.000-08:00

I've never liked the idea of New YearsResolutions.

To me, they're an excuse for people tofeel good about their vices for a short period of time, give themsome feigned power over their lack of willpower or otherwise. But inthe end you'll still be just as fat as you were December 31^st.

I'm not a skinny guy, and if I couldmake some deal with the devil to drop 50 kilos in a night, I wouldthink it over. But I'm not stupid. Promising yourself to lose weighton January 1^st doesn't give you any more power to do sothan if you did it on one of the other 364 days of the year. Ifyou're determined enough, and strong enough, then you'll get there inthe end.

I'm big, I know it. I eat healthyenough most of the time, but I eat massive proportions and skipbreakfasts constantly. And when I do rarely eat breakfast, it'susually something stupid like a packet of twisties. Waking up at5:30am will do that. Who eats when they're barely awake? But it's aproblem I know I should tackle, and I'll tackle it on my own terms,none of this New Years shit.

But this entry isn't about my girth,it's about setting goals. Now goals I like, goals give you somethingto aim at in your future. Resolutions? They're bullshit. But goals?Goals are worth having.

It just so happens that the New Yearisn't the worst time to refresh your list of goals, everyone is offwork and we've all seen too much family to care about, it gives youtime to have a look at where you are, and what you want to do. So Iwent over in my head what I'd like to achieve in the future (notnecessarily to be completed by Dec 31^st this year) and Icame up with what I'd like to think is an achievable list.

The ordering of my list is less abouttime goals, and more about priority revolving around money. Workgoals take priority over home goals. Why? Because I owe to banks andcompanies nearly what I make in a year. Money talks unfortunately.

Finish those games!

I've mentioned them before, in factthey're the focal point of the new direction my blog is taking. Thethree semi-work semi-personal Flash Game projects I've been workingon. I'm happy with the progress they made pre-Christmas, butdisappointed in the lack of work over the break. I always promisemyself and others I'll “get it done during my break”, but Iforget that, given my lack of free time during the work week, I havemovies, books, games to catch up on. But no matter, progress isprogress, and I'm determined to get these done, published, and outinto the world of rabid flash gaming fanboy mania. Have you read theKongregate forums? It's the Internets version of a dark alley in arundown city.

Write

I write when I can, and I write a lot.But my work never sees the light of day. I'm my own toughest critic,and I deem nearly everything I do to be utter trash. When I do manageto send some work out to fellow writers and colleagues, I getpositive feedback, but it never eventuates into anything.

That being said, I need to suck it upand just get a story out there, no matter how big or small. I amgoing to have a fully finished and polished work of literature outinto the open. I need to kick my children out of the nest.. becauseI'm a bird now it seems..

I am also going to strive to update myblog more often, and less technical. I noticed that the blogs where Italk about my experiences with programming are more well receivedthan the blog where I got into the finer points of programming. Whichmakes sense, 95% of my 5 readers aren't from programming backgrounds.So I'll write more about the emotion, less about the algebra.

Read more

Reading is brilliant, I need to do moreof it often. I have books everywhere, and I have no excuse not toread them. Books can transport you into a magical kingdom full ofElves (Tolkien) or Whores (Martin), or they can impart wisdom ontoyou across any subject matter. I just finished reading about theNuremberg Trials after WW2, and I want to punch a Nazi in the dick.That's the power of books!

Do one of the top three daily

2011 was a long tough year, and whatmade it worse was the lack of anything creative done on my end,causing me to slump further into a depression. When I'm not creating,I feel like I'm wasting my life. Sure that sounds a bit over the top,but it's true. There's a saying about fitness, “no matter howlittle you walk, you're lapping the people on the couch”. The samecan be said about anything. If you're doing something, no matter howsmall, you're still miles ahead of the braindead git watching Frasiermarathons on DVD for the 6^th time in a row. I love movieand games and tv and staring at the wall as much as the next person,but if I focus even a single hour a day on something creative formyself, then I'm making progress towards my goals.

Lose weight

Damn straight

I'm a chunky monkey, there's no denyingit. Sure I badmouthed the resolution of the same nature, but as a goal, it's a good thing. For the sake of my health, my wife's health, and anypotential children we're trying to have, I think it's important thatI get my arse outside and go for a stroll. And no more twisties forbreakfast....

- Tom

Tom's Dev Blog #3: Mobile Mania

2011-12-17T20:17:00.000-08:00

"Flash for mobile is dead" - Lazy Journalists.

About a month ago, Adobe announced they were ceasing development for Flash on mobile browsers, and many dimwitted bloggers who like to think of themselves as journos flooded the internet with poorly researched articles, ringing the death knells for Flash.

Let me dispel two myths.

1) If you blog from your mum's house in your underpants, you're not a journalist.
2) Flash for mobile browsers is dead.

Mobile BROWSERS. Not mobile DEVICES.

What's the difference? Immense. If you open Safari or Mercury or what have you on your mobile device and go to a site that uses flash (Newgrounds for example), you'll get an error. That's Flash not working on your mobile browser.

Using Flash, in combination with a little powerful framework called AIR, you have the ability to make an app. And how often do you use an app over your internet browser on a mobile? I'd wager a guess and say 9 times out of 10.

And that's where I have come in.

For the past month I've been working on my first Android and iOS app. It's an e-reader for a children's book series, that also includes a fun game, some factoids, and delightful voiceovers. Too lazy to read a book to your kids? Watch this space with less than 5 bucks in your hand, and I'll give you 24 self reading books in an app that will entertain your little ones for hours. For legal reasons (I assume), I'm not going to say much more on the app, as it hasn't been released yet. So just keep an eye open for updates.

The transition from Flash SWF programs to apps has been a bumpy ride, but since when has anything worth doing been easy? Any Flash dev has the ability to become an app developer. And that's where the big business is lately. But let me give you some pointers.

1) Optimisation and memory management.

This is the main key part for your development. You're making an application for a very limited device. People like to think they're carrying super computers in their pockets, but the truth of the matter is, they're still carrying something slightly better than a calculator (possible exaggeration). When making games and animations for browsers, your users are on chunky powerful computers, and you can afford to get messy with your code. Slow downs occur but they're barely noticeable. But on an app, if you're not disposing of assets properly, they build up. And you can see the results instantly.

You need to pull up those slack programming underderps and improve your technique. Check out this article on code optimization for a starting point.

2) Bitmaps over Vectors, and Blitting.

Vectors are great, they're smooth, easy to manipulate, but they can be memory hogs, as they're constantly being redrawn if you move them even the slightest. Bitmaps on the other hand, are static images, and flash knows this, so it doesn't bother redrawing, it just moves it as the flat image when you need to.

If you're using static images that barely do anything but move within the X,Y planes, with filters and blurs and shadows, do yourself a favour. Open photoshop, apply all those filters in there, save as a JPG (or PNG if you need transparency), and chuck it in your flash project. You'll see an instant jump in improvement. These iPhones and iPads don't need to constantly redraw something that just sits there.

Blitting is a technique I was introduced to a few weeks ago, and it's a great alternative. Especially for animation. Anyone familiar with sprite sheets will understand the concept in this article. But I recommend it for anyone. It can be a little complex, but it's a godsend for Flash apps. It stores the images into resident memory, so when you need them you don't have to create object, your object is waiting for you in the background to jump onto the stage.

Example of a sprite sheet (or object pool) generated through blitting.

Another trick is if you have large images (say a background), drop the size of it in half, and scale it up in code. It may lose some image quality, but it will free up some much needed memory.

Some minor tips:

- Stage Quality = Medium or Low, with code you can change it on the fly. So in events with a lot of animation, drop to Low. But Never never use High, you can barely see the difference between Medium and High anyway.

- Enable GPU mode over CPU for iOS apps. You'll get a nice big change in quality and frame rate.

- Compromise. If you're trying something new, test it on your mobile device as soon as possible. And if there's a memory hit, start making steps to bring it down to an acceptable speed. In this game I'm working on I had to sacrifice certain animations and place in static images instead. And I think I was the only person who actually noticed the change. Keep it simple and you'll come out of this with most of your hair intact.

Developing for mobile apps has been really fun, and really annoying at the same time, but it's a surefire way to give your programming skill a boost in the arm.

- Tom

Tom's Developer Blog #2: Captain Hindsight

2011-12-09T17:55:00.001-08:00

An unspoken rule of the business world is that, if a project has a deadline, 90% of the work will be done in the final 5% of the time allotted. It's the same as when you were in school, no-one ever did their homework the first night it was given. You always did it 6pm on a Sunday night, cursing yourself and promising not to do it again.

But if you were like me, you broke that promise.

"Why do something today that I can do tomorrow?", procrastination is a part of being human, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't procrastinate. Sure some people are better at handling it than others, but everyone does it. One of my goals with this fresh new outlook on my professional career is to procrastinate less, it's damn hard.. but in the end it should pay off.

I've been reskinning a client project, to make a iOS sidescroller game. The problem is, I didn't aim for it to be an iOS game in development. Which makes it a little hard with the translation, nothing some elbow grease won't fix though, I've become quite efficient at cleaning up code and converting it to be as much Object-Orientated as possible (I've picked up a tonne of tricks lately to really belting out classes and reusing as much as I can).

The simple "web to iOS" transition is fine. But my problem is that at the end of this project last year, I slacked off. And boy did I slack big time. Here's a snippet....

For those of you unfamiliar with the negative points in that screenshot, let me highlight them for you.

1) 1950 objects in the library, it's my own fault for bringing in an Illustrator file directly into Flash and not grouping objects together, and I had a bad habit of not updating the resources correctly. So when the artist (a talented man mind you) gave me some updated images, they went straight into "New Layer", instead of copying over "Existing Layer". I did a quick check, in a project that has ONE main character, I've copied him 15 times, instead of using the same one object. That's just upsetting.

2) Naming conventions. I SUCK at naming conventions. There is a movieclip in that library called "lolgeoff". It's a picture of a tree.

3) (Unseen), my code is a mess. Sure it works, but it's poorly documented, and most importantly, it's not all in classes. When coding in Flash for as long as I have, there was a transition from pure timeline code, to the more modern Object Orientated Class File System. This project used both. That's a goddamn nightmare when looking for a stray piece of code. I have to rummage through movieclips AND class files, some with clashing functions, and try to weed out what the absolute crap I was doing.

I'm a good programmer, but I have bad programming habits. Find me a developer who doesn't. By talking about it in an open forum I hope to air out my dirty coding laundry and use it to better myself. I know EXACTLY what I've done wrong and I'm taking steps to fix that problem in the future.

In hindsight we all know what we should have done, in order to better ourselves we need to stop relying on "should of" and instead focus on "will".

- Tom

Tom's Developer Blog #1: Getting into gear

2011-12-08T14:25:00.001-08:00

I have 3 games in development. And I've barely time for one. How did it end up like this? A combination of over thinking, under estimating, and a nice heaping of self doubt and procrastination.

Frighteningly accurate.

The first game began development nearly three years ago, I was new to my job and somewhat inexperienced at Actionscript. I ended up with a half-working game that had great artwork thanks to the artist. The project fell through and proceeded to hang over my head for years. But now with my recent work on iOS apps compiled through Adobe Air, I'm confident that, should I make this game from scratch in AS3, it will sell.

The second project is a year old in code, and two months old in art. It's what we call a "re-skinning", where we take an existing game and give it a new look with some tweaks. The problem is this game is to be a mobile app as well, but was built without that in mind. Buggy, laggy, and slow is the result. This project is the least fun of them at all, but probably the top priority. It's a big clean up job.

When in doubt, add some guns.

Lastly, I have my personal home project, a turn based, squad based, strategy game set in a Steampunk world during a great war between kingdoms. Inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force, Dragon Emblem and Tactics Ogre. This game is my baby, my dream game. But it's being dragged down by existing projects and looming deadlines.

The time has come to man up and tackle these projects head-on. This blog will help me get through it. Every person who reads this is now expecting three games from me, and I cannot let you down. It's out in the open now, and it's about time I did something about it.

I haven't decided how often I'll be updating this developer blog, but it should at least be weekly. Maybe a Friday night thing.

Stick with me, I'll try to make it as entertaining as possible. Follow this humble Flash dev as he tries to sort his game career out one step at a time.

Superman's Superprospects

2011-11-12T00:38:00.000-08:00

Arkham Asylum was a homerun that no-one saw coming.

Video games and comics have rarely mixed in the past, for two things that go so well hand in hand in our lives, combining them usually ended up in poor results. Comic based video games are just bad, terribly bad. Those of you who have played Superman 64, the generic Spiderman games, or Catwoman: The Movie: The Game will know what I'm talking about.

North London Studio Rocksteady took the beloved Batman character, in a time when his popularity was at its peak, and decided to do the opposite of what everyone expected. They decided to make a Batman game unrelated to any existing story out there.

If they were to phone it in they would have gone straight to a "Batman Begins / Dark Knight" game, featuring Christian Bale's voice and rigid grimacing. Or at a stretch, gone for a game based on an existing storyline. But they didn't. They took some existing arcs and merely referenced them, choosing to do a new story, a standalone game story. And what was the result? Sheer brilliance.

It was an engaging, gritty, fun as absolute crap game and it was the first time the player actually felt like Batman. Rocksteady perfected the transition from stealth to full blown combat that most games can never do. One minute you'd be sneaking up on a thug and taking him down silently, the next you're engaged in fisticuffs with 15 ruffians, leaping from one to the other, snapping limbs and throwing Batarangs everywhere. For the first time in video game history, you weren't just playing Batman, you WERE Batman.

Arkham Aslyum also opened up a new level of Gotham for newcomers, the majority of people outside the comic world would know a few villains, but Rocksteady said "fuck you, know em all", and provided a massive amount of easter eggs, character bios, and tributes. Walking past a jail cell then doing a double take as I saw pages strewn across the room, all with dates marked on them, I said to myself "holy shit.. calender man?" and BOOM, with the press of the scan button the game gave me Calender Man's backstory and even an awesome little sketch of him.

Rocksteady struck gold once more, and gave Batman some space to stretch his legs and go on the prowl. Walling off a section of Gotham, Arkham City put you in the famous city itself, albeit a little worse for wear... you felt like Batman on a rough night, traversing rooftops, beating on thugs, and foiling the plots of the more eccentric villains.

All good things must come to an end though, and while I feel Batman has one more mind blowing game in him from Rocksteady, I know they can't churn out the gold too many more times. Rocksteady know this too, and they've already looked towards other DC Superfriends just waiting for a good game to be made for them, and god damn they're overdue.

But the problem with another character is there's really only one other option for a DC superhero. And that's Superman.

DC really missed the boat when it came to superhero movies. Where Marvel's colourful critters leap from the page to the screen easily, DC banks a lot of old storylines, some that date back to the 40's into a relatively small roster. And trying to put 70 years of character evolution into a 90 minute movie results in poor misunderstood films. This means that the mainstream audience are only familiar with a few DC characters, limiting Rocksteady's choice for their next game.

The problem with Superman is he's just too fucking Super. Clark works great when he plays a small role, like in Batman: Hush, and The Dark Knight Returns. In fact I half expected him to make a cameo in Arkham City much like Robin's little bit. Since they took a lot of ideas from No Man's Land which had a brilliant single issue story with Superman, I was looking foward to a little back and forth with Bruce and Clark. But hell, that's what DLC is for right?

Superman is great in small doses, but as a main focal point he loses his impact. There's no slow burn with him, he can utterly decimate anything at the speed of light. Let me break it down into a few key points why a Superman Game just won't work.

1) Superdickery

Batman is, at the end of the day, an ordinary man. Sure he's at his mental and physical peak, but he's still flesh and bone and blood. A stray bullet would put an end to his entire crusade.

Fighting 15 thugs in Arkham City takes a little bit of practice, and you still get knocked about if it doesn't go your way. Put a guy with a gun into the mix, and you're in a potentially lethal situation there.

With Superman, there's no danger. The guy can pummel the strongest opponents into dust, and is impervious to bullets. Superman fighting thugs is unbelievable, he'd have to go up against aliens, or robots, or other super-men, and that's just silly.

And the stealth parts, why need stealth when he can fly at the speed of sound? He'd round up 6 armoured and armed thugs in a second. Where Batman has to sneak around and use every trick he knows to come out unscathed, Superman can literally dick around.

2) Lex Luthor is a douche.

President Chucklefuck

Batman's villains are Batshit crazy, they have no desire for world domination or the like. Most want to just make money, or kill for the sake of killing. They reflect the deteriorating city in which they live. A city so corrupt and depraved it's cannibalising itself.

All of Superman's villains are domination geared. All they want to do is take over or destroy the world because they're thick-browed knuckleheads. He has 3 slightly non-generic villains, Bizzaro, Brainiac, and Lex Luthor.

Bizzaro would be the only one which could work in a straight out combat boss fight, since he's essentially Superman's version of "Shadow Link" in the Zelda series. Brainiac would be his Riddler to Batman, but that's a hell of a stretch there already. I suppose he could send robots to try to fuck shit up, but fighting robots compared to thugs... it just seems... well.. a tad shit.

And his greatest nemesis, Lex.. what can he do? He's just a douchey businessman who outsmarts Clark constantly, all he could really do is send waves of baddies at him, and hire out some aliens to knock over a building.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't give two shits about Superman's villlains. Now Batman, with The Joker, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, The Riddler, Pengiun... all great unique baddies, and most of them entirely believable. (To an extent).

When your main villain is the President of the United States, maybe you're not that good a hero?

3) Arkham City tour, gliding: 10 minutes, flying: 10 seconds.

Why walk when you can dance?

Batman is limited to how fast he can get to places in Arkham City, in a pinch he can get from one far end to the other (around the big middle wall) in about 2 minutes, and I reckon a good 10 minutes would be needed to cover most of the skyline. But he's only going so fast. With his gliding and grappling Batman has to really put the effort in to get somewhere fast, making the Mr Zsasz missions nail-biting towards the end.

Superman moves as fast as a mousefart, in an area that's 3-4 square miles, he could just fly back and forth at leisure. To really give it a sense of distance for Metropolis, Rocksteady would have to increase the city size at least 10 times. And you know what that means? Generic shitty buildings.

Arkham City has around 50 buildings inside the walls, at a guess. Including a large church, the Museum/Icerberg Lounge, the subway, Wonder City, the GCPD Building, Steel Mill, Poison Ivy's living fortress, and some other memorable establishments. It has a very unique look to it, each building has character and really gives you the feel of a proper city. But if they had to stretch the size of Metropolis for Superman, they'd have to cut down on the uniqueness, and recycle in a lot of buildings.

And what's in Metropolis anyway? The Daily Planet and what? I haven't got a clue.

4) Gadgets Galore.

Batman channels his inner Pikachu

Batman is limited to exploring the city by the gadgets he has unlocked. Some gaps are just too big to traverse without the line launcher, and steam pipes block the way to other parts until you get the freeze grenades. A new Batman game could introduce more challenges that could be overcome by equipping Bruce with a new gadget.

Superman, again, can fly and is invulnerable. He can freeze things with his breath, and he can melt shit with his face. What kind of unlocks could we have for the Man of Steel?

The "Powerless" idea will always be thrown about, make Superman weak so he has to unlock/gain his powers back and access new areas. But honestly.. is that something we want? Do we want to play a Superman game and find out you can't fly for 80% of it? That's just phoning it in. And how many storylines has relied on Superman not being that Super? The entire freaking series of Smallville was about Superman slowly learning his moves. It's the most overused story arc in the DC universe.

5) If(!Superman){trace("Then Who?!");}

One of the few non-Bruce Timm images in this article

Video games, like any product, are all about profits. And if you want to profit from a game, you really need to appeal to a wide audience. DC has a massive problem with this. Since Batman and Superman are really their only two main stayers in the public eye. And if a Superman game just won't work with the Arkham engine, then who will it work with?

Let's check the roster.

Wonder Woman

PROS:

- Well known and liked.

- Appeals to female gamers, and since they're nearly matching male gamers in numbers and there are still so many male-dominated games, it'd be great to have a proper female kick-ass character to go alongside Lara Croft and less alongside Bloodrayne.. the boobie sex vampire..

- Has a few Batman-esque gadgets: The lasso and wrist thingos would work well.

CONS:

- Essentially a female Superman.

- Boring assortment of villains.

Green Lantern

PROS:

- Midly well known

- Gadget system would work with various willpower moves

- More believable fighting thugs, as Hal is still a mortal man at heart.

- Great backstory and villain pool

- Alternate Lanterns, including Black-O-Lantern

CONS:

- Movie was critically panned worldwide.

- Had no real location to match Arkham City, would have to settle for a generic city, or a few locations, or .. space

- Can fly, though not as fast as Superman (you would believe anyway... he DOES patrol the freaking galaxy with efficiency)

The Flash

PROS:

- Slow him down a little bit, and he'd still be a believable character in the combat section.

- Combat engine would work nicely with him, and could be real fun.

CONS:

- No gadget system, most moves would be speed based.

- Known well enough, but no memorable villains or location. Want to fight some baddies in Keystone? "What's Keystone?" I hear you ask.. exactly.

Green Arrow

PROS:

- Ollie is Bruce with a bow and arrow. He's a street level hero with no powers, just lots of money and skill.

- Gadgets up the wazoo. Green Arrow utilizes "trick arrows", opening up a great selection.

- Attacking thugs on rooftops is what he does best

- Existing storylines with Green Lantern, Black Canary, The Flash, and his own Robin-esque sidekicks. Green Arrow has a great collection of partners.

CONS:

- No real bad guys apart from "generic dictator" or "crime boss"

Aquaman:

CONS

- Aquaman

Finally, why not pass on the mantle? After playing through the challenge maps of Arkham Asylum, I'm imppressed with the move-set they gave Robin, with his own set of gadets and that awesome retractable staff he uses, why not? At the very least have him as a playable character along with Nightwing. The catwoman parts were fun if not a little short. I'd really like to see more of the boy wonder in the mix.

Rocksteady have spun gold twice now, and I have faith in their abilities. If they do make a Superman game, let it not be their undoing.

San Diego Comic Con: Willy Wonders

2011-07-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

It was brought to my attention that this blog was too male orientated.

Being a male myself, and since this blog is my personal blog. I'm prone to talk about stuff I like.

That stuff including, but not limited to:

- Boobs

- Video Games

- Boobs

But in an effort to appeal to those of you who don't have a penis, yet crave one, this is the post for you.

San Diego Comic Con: Penile Perfection!

Look at this fine specimen of a man, he doesn't look like a tool at all. Succulent wang!

Nipple man is ready to embrace your feelings and talk about emotions.

Not only is this guys body NOT gross, but it doesn't make me want to throw up either.

Your perfect gentleman, he might be able to manage more than a grunt.

But that's okay right? So long as he dicks you good?

Tasty tasty dick.

Gay Tintin.

Or should that just be "Tintin"...

Get it? I'm implying he's already gay.

Hur hur hurrrrr.

Undercover Penis anyone? You ladies can't resist a man who wears a tie yeah?

That's what they're for right?

This guy is reeking with so much male cock he actually came dressed as one.

I'd post more, but I don't want to.

San Diego Comic Con: The Best of the Boob.

2011-07-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

Normally I'd make a photo review, ripping apart the bad costumes. But since SDCC was so popular, nobody actually bothered to photograph the ugly people.

So here is a small collection of the best looking ladies in costume.

No witty remarks, no one liners.

Just photos to admire.

Enjoy.

Newcastle Markets, a tour through modern trash

2011-07-25T04:51:00.000-07:00

In the decaying ruins of West Newcastle lies a 4 storey building named generically "The Store", when it was first opened it served as a hub for markets, with a large grocery area at the bottom with food courts and.. tobacconists... It was the perfect place for the lower rungs of society to mingle and swap wares.

Then it shut down for about 10 years.

The floors are now open again for markets, and the wife wanted to check it out. I was skeptical, but grabbed my camera and decided to make a blog entry about it.

Remember that old Monty Python Movie "The Meaning of Life?", out of the main movies they made it was the worst. And despite being made in 1983 some software company thought they were on a winner when they decided to make a game out of it:

There were 4 boxes full of them. Even for a dollar I didn't bother grabbing it.

I don't know how many Star Trek books were made, but I counted 20 different titles.

There was even a Star Trek Voyager book there, I couldn't think of anything worse.

These books were on the "Girls 7-10" table.

I think the boy on this cover is meant to be an angry teen. But the windmill and Rick Astley haircut doesn't help his macho image.

"THAT'S NOT A PROP IN YOUR POCKET!"

The "Everything 1 dollar" area. Nothing but absolute shit.

Quality Merchandise

With a large variety of children's DVDs!

And utterly confusing products.

The entire place looked like a shanty town. In that blue tent was "authentic shiatzu massage", I glanced inside, and it was this fat asian man leaning on people.

Cherry Glow Lipstick Twilight.

EVERY market EVER has a fucking framed Indian poster.

This authentic framed Kiss poster will look great in any room in your house.

Again, EVERY market. There's a series of framed "semi naked medieval woman" drawing.

Explain to your family why you're single with our brilliant Shawn Michaels collage poster.

This poster got The Godfather and Scarface muddled up

Like white sweaty irishmen? Well WE HAVE THE POSTER FOR YOU!

"Scared as fuck" dog, 5 dollars

I used to live with a Sri Lankan girl in Newcastle, everything she owned look like this. Now I know where she shopped.

"Hello".. This carefully written note was placed above a statue of death holding an ashtray.

At the back of the fruit shop, the ruins of a lost dream. The markets only took up 40% of the building. Someone had an idea of a large sprawling bartertown.

This Asian man aggressively took 40 dollars worth of tomatoes. He filled GARBAGE BAGS with them. I grabbed 6 tomatoes and he gave me the stare of death.

Best part of the markets was right here, any spice you could think of, cheap as shit.

Weird ass teas too.

At least the markets knew what demographic would show up. Wrestling appeals to the lowest common denominator. And there were wrestling toys everywhere.

Zombie Pirates of the Caribbean? I get Orlando looks like that when he's banging Miranda Kerr.. I know I would

A perfect gift for the man with everything: ARTHRITIS

"Display only", these inflatable castles were right at the back of the building in a poorly lit area. I could have sworn I heard a van engine running....

Goth dolls for the modern child.

Dr Derp

"HUUUUR FANTASTIC FOOOR"

And finally, we came across a sticker stall, the man was creating a new one as we talked to the salewoman. It didn't come out properly, but in large fancy letters on that monitor are the words "CUNT BITCH"

You stay classy Newcastle!

Supanova 2011

2011-06-23T04:12:00.000-07:00

Last month was that time of year again. Where the socially inept and critically unwashed join forces to annoy the shit out of each other at Supanova. Where anime shitheads rub groins with

each other, and the independent comic creators wish we had a proper comic convention to avoid the anime groin rubbing.

I didn't go this year, due to family troubles, but I was fortunate enough to find a nice collection of images on the interweb, so let's credit them first:

My main source was from Spotlight Report .net (link), and a few others were from News.com.au.

I hope they don't have a beef with me using the photos. I do this for fun and don't make money out of it, so don't sue me. I have no money and few pairs of pants.

And thus we begin our journey...

EDIT: Images are a tad small to fit the column, click through for fullsize (common sense ahoy!)

Glomp (verb): To punch one in the back of the neck with full force.

“I AM THE NIGHT”, shame this guy is 5 foot 2.

Since when does Jackie Chan have purple hair?

His biggest riddle is in his pants.

Hipster Poison Ivy. I'd let her pull my weeds.

I don't know who that guy is next to Jackie Chan, but I hate him.

Fred's 5 year stint in prison was the Scooby Gang's biggest mystery to date.

Hex Steph from Good Game (Australian Gaming Programme), say what you will, she's rather gorgeous.

Cosplaying as the latest “children's icon given the goth treatment” character. Why won't Tim Burton read my script about Little Miss Muffet's Tuffet Orgy?

From left to right: Jackie Chan, Yes, No, Yes, No.

Last year's Emma Frost, this year's Babydoll. Next year's high paid escort

I haven't been this attracted to a blue chick since my wife was choking on that chicken bone.

Character: Irrelevant. Boobs: Always Relevant.

Cute supergirl with optional background Top Hat douche and greying stoner.

Wonder Dentistry, Sultry Ivy, and Superderp.

Jackie Chan

Like every other Marvel female, Black Cat is a cosplay option for women looking to have sweaty men stare at them from afar.

Tom Felton Fan Club

The girl on the left looks over some decorative rectal dildos, while the guy in the middle is clearly saying “SMELL THIS”

Bab's giving her endorsement.

Admiral Thunderthighs, Rage Sperm, The Fantastic Turd, and Cardboardio

Yu-Gi-Oh fanclub, entry forms are located in their van.

Captain Samoa and Tom Petty

After fielding questions like "What anime are you from?" and "Can you beat the ogre in level 4 without the shadow amulet?" JR went back to Dallas and shot himself.

The only thing he couldn't Transform into was a man with a job.

Sailor Pork

Jackie Chan

That's the 3^rd best “Caged man raped by Gorilla” costume I've ever seen.

Truly authentic Iron Man costume, right down to the alcohol dependency.

Right: Bayonetta, Left: Double 0 Downs

I don't know what Anime they're from, but I'm sure it involved tentacled penises.

Meth addict Harley, and pie faced shit grin Joker

A stormtrooper

BEST stormtrooper

String Bean and Pork Pie, The Shirtless Wonders

“At conventions I play Wolverine! Outside of conventions I'm unemployed.”

Eats whatever a spider won't....

Jackie Chan

ANGULAR BATMAN MAKES CRIMINALS FEAR HIS GEOMETRY

Green Power Ranger, before he found jesus and became a kickboxer.

Accurate summation of everyone who came to see Tom Felton. Women in their mid-30's who fudded themselves to a kid who was underage for 90% of the movies.

Excellent cosplayers from the latest “KAWII CATGIRL COMEDY ROMANCE ANIME”, every character is interchangeable.

Costume based on the horrid Catwoman movie, you take that off now.. then bounce around.... so we can make a catgirl comedy romance anime...

Right: Hurley from Lost. Left: The Honorable Julia Gillard PM

Tom Felton, 6 months before fading into utter obscurity for the rest of our lives.

We're so Japanese we shit Ramen.

Asuka from Neon Genesis, with what appears to be the slightest hint of penis...

Capcom, enough already.

2011-06-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Tomb Raider is getting a reboot. A long overdue fresh start to an aging series. It had some good games, some bad games, and a couple of shitty movies. And now it's starting from scratch.

This is a good thing.

A lot of people don't like remakes and reboots. But personally I think they're refreshing. Lara Croft was created in 1996, and reflected the time she came from. Action packed and top heavy, she boobed her way around caves in a decent 3D platformer. But games have come a long way since then, and the big boobed bouncing bimbo we all knew and loved had to be retired.

The new Lara has a more ample frame, with a new face to match, gone are the massive polygon lips that suited Angelina Jolie so well in the movie. The newer Lara is more believable, and looks to be a character we can relate to a bit better.

Another new reboot on the horizon is the entire DC universe. Yet again, another good thing. When Batman was no longer Batman after being Caveman Batman.. yeah... it's time to give Grant Morrison the arse and start fresh. Make Bruce Wayne Batman, and the only Batman. Dust off Booster Gold, give Guy Gardner something to do other than complain. DC both overjoyed and annoyed me with this reboot. The concept is great, but 11 fucking Batman titles? No thanks. Stop stretching your cast thin from the start.

So why capcom in the title of this post you say? Well... I think it's time for another reboot. A full "push the reset button" redo for a series as old as Tomb Raider, but so far in too deep of it's own shit it can't breathe.

Resident Evil.

I've loved Resident Evil ever since it began and scared the utter living shit out of me with I was 13. The story was simple yet great. A coroporation experimenting in biological warfare infects a number of people, turning them into mindless zombies. Add a few mutated animals and abominations and you've got a great start to an awesome series.

Then they just.. kept pushing the limits of absurdity.

As each sequel came out, they introduced new characters, new monsters, new storylines, new twists... and a lot more confusion.

They took the game I loved, and did what the Japanese are great at doing... they had dirty blurred tentacle sex with it.

countless sequels, spin offs, and movies later... the Resident Evil series is the video game equivalent of swiss cheese when it comes to storyline and plot. Resident Evil 4 is a perfect example. You control Leon in some town in Eastern Europe, with a cult of zombie non-zombies and manical midgets attacking you with scythes and cannons from a castle while you try to save the president's daughter and dick around with a Spanish man and an Asian superagent in a dress...

Now don't get me wrong, as a game Resident Evil was fun and entertaining. But as a Resident Evil game, the story drifted so far from the original plot that it took a big old shit on everything before it.

Is it that hard to link the games together with a solid story?

In 2002 Capcom made Resident Evil Remake for the Nintendo Gamecube. It was the original director's cut Resident Evil, with new areas, new puzzles, and a new supplemental storyline. And it was great. But they stopped there. Mind you this was before 4 and 5, the last two games that really gave the arse to the story. So I had no idea that a full blown Remake would be the best course of action, but now that's exactly what I think.

Now I don't mean they should remake all the existing games and alter the story. I think maybe they should cut out some fluff characters. Demote more to a minor role, and stick with a core cast. Jill, Leon, the Redfields, and Wesker. Everyone else needs to be either cut out completely, or made into strong supporting characters, not playable ones.

Who was that tattooed guy in Resident Evil Zero? And what the fuck happened to him after that? I don't know, nor care.

Capcom, reboot the series. Start from scratch, and whatever you did with Jill and the crystal in her tits... just... stop with the shit okay?

Rent-A-Fail

2011-05-27T05:52:00.000-07:00

During one of my recent spelunking trips into the depths of the internet, I came across a website for a midwest American costume shop.

Normal costume shops usually stick to stock photos of their merchandise, since they're trying to sell them to you, it makes perfect sense to show you how awesome the costume looks on an attractive person.

But no.

This website decided to forgo all that and show you exactly how they look on people as average as the day is long.

Here are some select costumes.

Sultan freckles

Moronicus, high legionary of basement bargins

Their name: "Arabian Shiek"

My name: "Lesbian Minister"

"Babe Ruth", one size fits several.

Trashbag warrior

The Dork Knight

I used to dream about this bear, every night, I'd wake up screaming.

Masturbating subway pervert

Okay now they're getting on the right track...

... oh wait... never mind.

Oh god here she is again, as a shoeless pimp.

They have 1 black male photo in the entire site. "Pimp 2". He doesn't even qualify as head pimp.

This woman keeps showing up, It's not making me want to purchase their wares..

"Pimping Ho", pants extra. Dignity invalid.

"Rapist"

Everyone's favourite costume. "Oversized black rental suit"

Fucking hell, this woman must own the place. "Shoeless pyjama gangster"

"Failed dance recital where your dad said he would come but didn't because he was too busy fucking his secretary"

"Diaper Bunny"

"El fuego homosexuales"

Captain Pork Stuffing sails the gravy seas.

"Caveman", this costume costs 35 DOLLARS A NIGHT TO RENT

I'd hit it, but only if she put the mask back on.

I would wreck that chick. Pigpen styles.

Looks like the meth junkies broke into the school again.

The best Robin Williams costume I've ever seen.

When I close my eyes, this is the only thing I see.

The costume isn't much, but that rubber puppet is amazing.

"Colonial Rapist"

"Colonial Rapee"

"The Calculus Cowboy"

"Old woman looking confused"

GOD DAMMIT SHE JUST WON'T STOP

"Semi-Galactic Hobo"

"Impending Lawsuit"

"Dickhead"

"Faces of Meth, part 3"

"Princess FiOH MY GOD ITS THAT FUCKING WOMAN AGAIN"

"Dementia"

Admiral Butthead

THIS, THIS IS THE TYPE OF PHOTO THEY SHOULD USE!

More of this please.

But no, instead of stock model photographs like a normal costume store, we're stuck with "Gut sucking Genie"

"Misshapen cock indian"

"Man in bath robe" 25 dollars.

You remember that scene in Silence of the Lambs? When Jodie Foster finds polaroids in a jewellry box of the larger woman undressing?

The last thing you see before you die.

HoHO!!! More of this!!!!!

... god dammit...

OH FUCK OFF!!!!!

"Neckless Manga Dwarf"

This costume sure looks great, but when you need to take a shit you'll wish you paid the extra 5 dollars to cover cleaning.

Scary as fuck Daniel Day Lewis rubber mask.

Spodermen

This.... actually isn't bad. I could enjoy a holodeck fantasy or two with this one.

And relive some holodeck nightmares with him..

Big Bird got hooked on painkillers after he forced Oscar into that trash compactor.

Oh I get it, the plug is his penis..... Brilliant.

Man licks shoe on train

2011-05-18T19:26:00.001-07:00

I know I see some weird shit on the trains along the Central Coast, but the New York Subway is a whole new level of odd.

30 Day video game challenge. Day 05 - Best Mega Drive (Genesis) game.

2011-05-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

Mega Drive was one of those consoles I missed. I opted for the far superior Super Nintendo.

...Well, when I say I opted for it I mean my parents bought it for me and my brothers one Christmas, and out of all my friends, only one had the Mega Drive. It wasn't a popular console in the border towns of Western Sydney.

I was born into a low-mid income family. My parents were at the start of their teaching careers and had 3 children pretty much straight away. We lived in a quiet suburb outside Penrith, which itself is on the extreme West end of the Sydney limits. It was a humble beginning, but as all RPG players know, true heroes come from such humble tutorial areas.

One thing my parents were great at given their lack of incoming cash was they were, and still are to this day, financial wizards. They saved every single cent they could, and when the time came one fateful christmas, they slurged.

That's right.

They bought us a Super Nintendo.

Having a Super Nintendo when your friends all had Sega Master Systems with a game library of 1, the built in Alex the Kid game, made me a god amongst them. I single handedly led the charge for Nintendo in my circle, and Nintendo's greatest rival was the Mega Drive, so all my hate went towards the console I had never played before and had no knowledge of.

Now I'm elaborating here of course, I had no say in what consoles my friends own, the fact no-one had a Mega Drive was purely a coincidence. But if I just wrote "I don't have a Mega Drive favourite" then it would be a pretty short entry now wouldn't it?

One kid I knew did have a Mega Drive. But he wasn't really a friend.

I went to his house once and once only, and I had a fun time, but I don't know why I went in the first place and why I never went again.

Laurie was the type of kid with hippy parents, so how they afforded the latest Sega console was beyond me. Their house smelled like pot and was full of bead curtain doors. And Laurie was the only 10 year old I knew with sideburns, he was a very laid back kid, probably in a constant state of second hand high.

He had two games on his Mega Drive that I remember, Altered Beast. And Toe Jam and Earl.

Out of the two I'd have to say I enjoyed Altered Beast the most because I had no idea how to play the other, I appeared to be stuck on some world map or insanely hard level so I stopped playing. I had since then played Toe Jam and Earl, one of those games that echoes the time it came from, it stood for everything that was bad in the 90's, I'm talking horrid neon colours and a "hip hop" influence.

But altered beast. Now that game had some balls. Transforming from skinny man, to buffman, to a FUCKING MONSTER. We must have played it for an hour straight before Laurie came up with a better idea.

I have no idea if the game we played ever had a name, but it involved the following:

- Several empty plastic bottles

- Water.

Laurie filled up a 2litre bottle each and we went out onto the street. He told me the aim of the game was to smash the bottles against the gutter until one of them broke. And that person who broke their bottle was the winner.

We spent 3 hours playing that game.

It was awesome.

So my favourite Mega Drive Game would be "smashing water bottles against the gutter"

Your tax dollars at work.

2011-05-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

I got off my train at Gosford station, my face buried in my laptop, trying to ignore the cold and get some work done before my next train came 20 minutes later.

I could hear a commotion across the platform, but paid no attention until I finished this block of code I was trying to get my head around. When I finally did look up, I was greeted with this sight.

2 teenagers had been detained by no less than 7 transit officers, who surrounded them in a circle with their arms crossed, looking stern. They waited until 2 regular police showed up to search them and their property.

I don't exactly know what the two boys had, but I could easily imagine it was something narcotic related.

But is this amount of officers standing here for the better part of an hour worth it? Four trains left Gosford station in that time, surely at least 2 of the transit cops could move onto them?

Seven. I'm not kidding. There are 4 in that photo with the 2 police. an extra 1 was standing at the elevator, and 2 others were doing what else they're good at. Buying food at the station takeaway.

I'm all for transit police detaining individuals, but this is wasted resources. I could understand 4 at most, but not 7.

Your tax dollars at work people!

How to steal like an artist.

2011-04-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

I read this article, and enjoyed it. So I'm passing it on to you, the viewer. (Click this link)

I've been offered a new Job

2011-04-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Yeah I haven't updated the 30 day video game challenge thing daily. I didn't intend to. But updates soon.

-------

I was rifling through my extensive inbox at work earlier today. Deleting anything marked URGENT, and forwarding any and all nudity to family members of people I don't like. When I came across an intriguing proposal.

I had been offered a new job.

Finally, an escape from my beloved awesome career! I had no intention of leaving but since some random nobody has offered me work then I must accept!!!

The email was fantastic, and a great source of lulz, here is the entire job offering, UNEDITED.

--------

Hi, Thomas Gatte# (Gatt#, derived from the German Guten%). Huge international seafoods company (SEAFOODS) is hire Australia-based financial managers

Job-related prerequisites will include:

- College diploma is your advantage (no obligation diploma) (Are you offering me work? Or college degrees?)

- 25 is the age you have already reached

- We looking for candidates who usually intent on what they do

- You are a person who is accustomed to meeting deadlines and working under a considerable pressure

- Ability to work with Word Excel programs

- Stable and free Internet (I have a dream, of Free and Stable internets)

You future functions to be performed will include:

- Handling transfers our firm clients (Firm in mood and bust)

- Registration of numbers to completed settlements on their administration

- Financial reporting to be made up in a credible manner (further submission) (CREDIBLE manner? You may as well have said "make shit up")

Things you get in exchange for you work:

- stable partnership in exchange for work and results you show

- fair salary (2150) (2150 is the year the check clears)

- 5 % of any transaction (which ended in success) (SUCCESS)

- Flexible schedule and time management are possibly

- We shall provide you with money necessary to cover the fees that banks are be charge for servicing

Hope to see your e-mails, Thomas Gatte#.

----------

I start tomorrow morning!

30 Day Video Game Challenge Day 04

2011-03-24T22:19:00.001-07:00

Favourite adventure game: Sam and Max Hit the Road

Sam and Max may not be the best adventure game I've played, but it's the first, and my favourite.

I was around 11years old when I first played this. My friend Damon got it for his birthday and played a bit of it. The rest of the kids continued the party but I stayed at the PC until I finished this game. Which was about 7 hours later.

It captivated me, the colourful characters, the humour, the bizarre locations. This was a game which I had never seen before. The adventure genre opened my eyes.

From there I looked into the genre more. And found a tonne of gems.

- Police/Space/Kings Quest

- Full Throttle

- Monkey Island

- Maniac Mansion

- Beneath a Steel Sky

- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

- Flight of the Amazon Queen

- Broken Sword

Adventure games had depth and story that other games simply lacked, these were adventures in every sense of the word. It's a very PC genre too, and as a kid not owning a PC I had to seek out friends who did, and play these games until their parents would boot me out of the house.

Considered a dying or even dead genre, with the rise of twitchy trigger happy console shooters flooding the markets, adventure games still hold more substance over a lot of the new shit the kids love. The adventure genre reminds me of a time when gaming was dignified.

Yep. Dignified.

30 Day Video Game Challenge Day 03

2011-03-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

Best Super Nintendo game.

Hands down, the greatest game on Super Nintendo to exist. I know a lot of people my age default to Chrono Trigger, but fuck that noise. Sure Chrono Trigger is a good game, but Secret of Mana trumps it.

For starters, it does away with the turn based combat we all know and love from every other Square(Soft/Enix) game made, everything is in real time, with pauses mid-fight to choose your next spell.

And not only are you fighting in real time, but you're controlling 3 characters at the same time, with a dynamic AI system that allows you to dictate how your characters fight, you don't need to worry about micromanaging their movements and actions. The 2 non controlled characters will attack or evade depending on what you've set them up as, and you control the larger actions. Mainly spells.

You have 3 characters, the fighter, the offensive spellcaster, and the defensive spellcaster. And that's all you need. The menu system allows for quick spellcasting and you can charge your weapons up to unleash devastating attacks.

But enough about that, play the game. It's an iTunes app now, and worth the 12 dollar price tag. (Seriously, you pay more to see a shitty movie, don't be cheap)

Here's a boss fight in action. None of that turn based crap here.

You know why I love this game? Because I had 2 brothers. And this game is one of the few that allows exactly 3 players. And my brothers and I really don't see eye to eye on anything.

But this.

This we enjoyed together.

30 Day Video Game Challenge Day 02

2011-03-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

Favourite Fight Game.

WCW / NWO Revenge

Let me lay it out for you, I don't like traditional fighting games, you can take your Street Fighters, Mortal Kombats, and Tekkens... and just shove them honestly.

When I play I traditional fighting game, the following happens.

- I learn to play a character

- I play someone who is really easy or really hard

- The fight is one sided

- Somebody gets bored

We have a copy of Dead or Alive 4 at work, and you know where it is? It's in the freezer. I'm not kidding. It's been there for about a month. It used to be on a shelf, then we started playing pranks on each other, sneaking it into someone else's bag on Friday so they're stuck with it on the weekend. Sitting there, mocking them.

So now it's in the freezer, don't believe me?

And no I didn't just put it there, that's where it lives now. The disc has ice on it, but surprisingly the instruction book is intact, I don't know what sort of plastic paper they use, but it's freezer resistant.

So back to WCW / NWO Revenge, why this game? Because when I was 15, this game was king. I would spend Saturday at my friends house playing this game constantly, the AI was good enough to provide a challenge, and the amount of game modes you could choose kept us entertained to no end, the grappling system that THQ created with WCW / NWO World Tour (the first game), was a perfect blend of easy to learn, difficult to master. With every move reversable with the tap of a specific button, no-one had the upper hand in any fight.

Sequels came in the later years, WWF No Mercy and WWF Wresltemania, which were brilliant, but this game was the one that will sit in my memory banks for life. Beating the shit out of Ming Chee is my favourite video game memory from high school.

30 Day Video Game Challenge Day 01

2011-03-21T15:31:00.001-07:00

Note to readers: I've been tumblring a lot lately, and it's distracting away from my actual blog, so I'm moving some of the larger posts over to here.

First game you finished.

Pitfall on the Atari 2600.

There's no ending, the time runs out and you make note of your score. Mind you, there was only 2-3 lives for your character and you had to survive 20 minutes, no easy feat. There were screens with crocodiles on them and you had to jump on their mouths when they were closed, but I was always too slow. My grandmother was the person who realised you could actually stand on the 3 pixels that comprise of their head, and live.

If you got a really high score you could take a photo of your TV and send it to Atari and they would send you a patch to sew onto your clothes.

My father had 2 jackets littered with Atari patches. It didn't occur to me how much of a hardcore gamer he was before I was born. My birth ruined his gaming life, will I become my father when my first child is born? Time will tell.

30 Day Video Game Challenge Day 01

2011-03-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

Note to readers: I've been tumblring a lot lately, and it's distracting away from my actual blog, so I'm moving some of the larger posts over to here.

First game you finished.

Pitfall on the Atari 2600.

If you got a really high score you could take a photo of your TV and send it to Atari and they would send you a patch to sew onto your clothes.

21/2/2011

2011-02-21T01:09:00.000-08:00

I have no inspiration.

I know what I want to do, and I know how to do it, but I don't have the drive.

No drive whatsoever.

Listening to Highlands: A Peephole History, part of Kevin Smith's SModcast network, I was listening to how Kevin indicates that his friend Walt is the catalyst for everything he has ever done. He is his source of drive and inspiration, and I realise that it's something that I might of had in the past, but don't have anymore.

I used to be around my friends house every saturday, where we watched wrestling, ate honey ham kettle chips, and made fun of another friend of ours (or several). We we're doing anything creative but fuck it was good for the soul. I felt like I could do anything no matter how big it was.

This guy was my inspiration, my engine, he was the warp drive to my enterprise. And without him I feel like a stoic hunk of metal floating in space surrounded by Romulans. I know it sounds rather homosexual, but god damn he's my friend mutherfuckers. And just sitting at his house doing absolutely fuck all gives me enough drive to do anything I can imagine.

We talk on a semi-daily basis now, but I can feel us drifting apart, there's only so much interaction you can have with someone online.

I'm going to remedy the situation and aim to visit at least once a month.

This blog entry isn't entertaining, or funny, but I need an outlet.

Faces of Gosford

2011-01-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

My recent acquisition of an iPod has brought in a new level of train fun, now I can take photographic evidence of the creatures I come across on the Central Coast in case the naysayers out there think I'm making it all up.

So here are two recent individuals I have come across in the last week on the train.

Guts McGee:

This charming man got off the train and proceeded to air out his midsection whilst having a smoke. It wasn't even a hot day. Some pigeons came over to see what the fuss was about and he lost his shit at them, flailing his arms and stomach around in an effort to scare away the wildlife.

Sleepy Sally:

The train pulled into Tuggerah station when this woman got on with a friend. The friend opened the door between the carriages and started to smoke while this one leant against the window and proceeded to fall asleep in a bent standing position.

She managed to keep this position up for 15 minutes, then staggered out at the next stop.

2011: The Year of the Locomotive

2011-01-03T16:16:00.000-08:00

On the CityRail network there are two types of trains: commuter and "miscellaneous". The latter being a combination of shift workers, backpackers, unwashed hobos, and the dreaded "unemployed single parent with four kids under ten".

Normally the commuter train is devoid of the irregular passengers, I see the same faces every day, they offer me a silent comfort, a sense of routine that I find warmth in. But the holiday season blurs the lines between the rightly segregated train types, commuter trains full of single parent families on day passes, backpackers gawking at the lack of bag storage areas, and old men who have completely given up on the concept of hygiene in decades.

I stepped on my first train of the year to find my regular seat occupied... By a pram. And my backup bench seat was playing hotel room to an unshaven black footed camper. I began my year in shaky territory, out of my comfort zone and thrown into the deep end.

A 6am train to a normal child under ten is stuff of myth and legend. So the children in my carriage are filled with wonderment and highly sugared cereal, one was even drinking coffee..... The slightest image of a tree set them off into a frenzy of questions to their father, who had turned his brain off years ago. I felt lucky I was on a limited stops train, as every station brought false hope to these youths that they were in Sydney, seven minutes after departure. And since we were traveling through bushland, the sight of a kangaroo set these kids off at a level of volume I thought unobtainable even by heavy metal bands with megaphones.

Four stops in and three men boarded with bicycles, which they took into the carriage and looked really confused that there was no designated bike parking. For starters, why the fuck are you taking a bike on the train? Bringing transport onto transport annoys the shit out of me, and secondly, this is a Sydney train, not a Melbourne one. I'm sure green friendly Victorian trains have bike racks and pot carriages, but you won't find that shit here. The triathletes opted to put their bikes across several seats, then talk loudly about how extreme their lives are. Nobody cares fellas, you're on the morning train, all we care about is catching the evening train in eight hours.

2011 got off neither on the right nor wrong foot, but the foot I expected it to. Now I'm standing in my second train with three English men talking about cricket and being sun burnt.

Number one with a bullet

2010-12-09T14:32:00.000-08:00

Today's train story is brought to you by Gosford station... just like every other damn train story I've ever written.

Typical afternoon trip from work to Gosford, we catch the relatively new trains, so everything is clean and the train noises are minimal. So as a common courtesy the commuters usually keep to themselves. This means that when someone raises their voice, or drops something, the entire carriage will look up at the person. As was the case this afternoon.

An older gentleman got on the train at Hornsby, with several bags and looking rather scruffy, it was clear he stopped caring about his looks many years ago. He sat towards the front of the carriage near me, so if I turned to the right I could see him and the 5 other people he sat with.

For 15 minutes he was just like every other passenger, he was quiet, kept to himself, and waited out the trip. Then he decided to talk.

To himself.

It started with some mumbling, but the mumbling quickly became louder and then he started to introduce hand movements. When he asked the girl next to him if he could.... smell her farts... people started to relocate. And I had trouble containing my laughter, he then boasted he was “pretty good at farts” and started scratching his groin with his hands down his pants. At least one would hope he was scratching, and not fondling.

He then thought it would be a good idea to start shaving his face, so he took out a razor and went for it, then he started flicking the razor around and throwing it in the air. So the rest of the people in that section moved, and a few in the section behind.

My breaking point lasted a bit longer. I didn't really mind his language, nor his grooming practices, but when he lifted his shirt up and started shaving his stomach, I made the decision that I had seen enough and moved down the stairs.

So what does he do? He fucking follows me now doesn't he?

Standing near the train doors he wanders to the left and right to look down or up the stairs at the other commuters, grinning like a madman and “scratching” himself, luckily he put the razor away, and replaced it with a medium sized radio. Which he turned on and started play AC/DC's “Back in Black”, he then put his radio on his shoulder like it was a boom-box and started strutting.

The guy must have been 80.

Strutting.

To AC/DC.

After shaving his stomach.

And asking to smell female farts.....

and cityrail thinks I'm the dangerous one....

It boggles my mind.

Step away from the vehicle.

2010-12-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

I catch the same train every morning to work, I board the same carriage from the same door, and if it's free I sit in the same seat. We early morning commuters have a routine, every day I see the same people in the same seats. Routine helps us prepare for the day.

This morning I was standing in the same spot as I always do, behind the yellow line as requested, when a staff member approached me.

Him: Excuse me mate?

Me: … Yeah?

Him: You're scaring the drivers.

Me: what?

Him: You stand here every day and the drivers have to slow down for you.

Me: Why?

Him: You can't stand here.

Me: Okay, but why?

Him: You're scaring the drivers...

Me: Yeah you said that, but what I'm failing to understand is what am I doing that scares them?

Him: You have to stand behind the line.

Me (Looking down): I'm standing behind it right now.

Him: Yeah but you need to stand behind it more.

Me: How far more?

Him: Just like... (demonstrates)

Me: So half a foot back? How's that going to unscare the drivers?

Him: They just think you're a danger, in case you fall you can die.

Me: Uhh... yeah.. I don't plan on falling in front of the train.

Him: People have before.

Me: That's true, but out of all the people who stand here waiting for the train, you single me out... why?

Him: The drivers have just asked you move back.

Me: since when?

Him: since you started doing it.

Me: And how long ago was that?

Him: They didn't give...

*At this point I cut him off*

Me: Because I know how long I've been at this same spot every day, I've been here for over 2years, and in that time I've seen you ignore people do all sorts of shit. You do realise you have a homeless guy living in your men's bathroom right?

Him: Yeah I...

Cut off again

Me: And you choose to come to me and tell me to move? Fuck your drivers man, if they're scared of me they need a new job. People may jump in front of trains, but they don't need to worry about me.

At that point I put my headphones on and turned the music up. The guy was flustered and I could tell he probably didn't even want to approach me, it seems word had come down to the train station that someone who drew the short straw had to try to ruin my day.

Fuck you cityrail, concentrate on getting your trains running on time, stop chastising full paying daily customers. Every single day I see someone standing in front of the line, and you don't chase them down do you?

Your whole rail system is a joke.

Bitter sweet

2010-09-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

Note: This entry rambles on a bit, you have been warned.

It's probably no secret to those who follow my twitter, but I suffer from episodes of extreme depression. It's been happening for years now and I've learned to live with it, as I know when I get caught in a slump I'm soon to be back on my feet within a few days. My work can suffer at times but I like to think I have a good work ethic and can bounce back and kick my projects in the arse with a burst of coding speed.

Sometimes I wish I was always on the constant high, or at the very least, feeling the norm when it came to my professional life, but I'd be a fool to think that, we all suffer low days and downright shitty weeks, that's life right there. It's a series of ups and downs and a chunky part of it is neither, everything always comes back to the status quo. And that's not just most people, that's everybody really. I walked past a homeless man on Sunday in Newcastle, it was about 7 in the morning and he was asleep. It was a cold day and the wind would chill a polar bear to his bones, but this homeless man, sleeping under a grimy old blanket, had a massive smile on his face.

For all I know the guy just had the best part of his life, but since he doesn't have what we deem necessary to have at least a sub-par life we assume his life is shit house. This guy was fucking beaming. At that point in time the man with nothing had more than me.

Like most men I don't address the problem of mental illness with anyone, I was 19 and living in my first house away from my parents, I was living with 4 girls which to me was fantastic news... in theory. But in reality it wasn't really that fun. I learned a lot about the opposite sex in those 4 months, and about the wonderful world of narcotics. I also discovered that being a full time student is absolute hell financially, I don't have the time for a real job but the fucking university charges me like I do. As I rack up the debt I'm hounding centrelink to start paying me student benefits. I had 1500 in savings which I thought was a gold mine, but by the end of the first month I was being threatened with eviction. Luckily centrelink pulled the thumb out of their arse and back-paid me.

There was also the issue of a certain woman out of the 4 I lived with, I don't really know what I did to set her off, but some time into my living there she was convinced I was some kind of perverted psycho. As hard as I think back to that time I really have no idea what set her off. And because she never wanted to straight out talk to me about it it remains unresolved to this day. But she had it out for me bad.

All this added stress upon my shoulders, and 3 months in I was ready to pack up and quit uni. I felt like shit and after a party I cut my hand up with a piece of glass I found in the yard. I don't know why I did it, but I had enough common sense to say to myself “Hey Tom, how's about you tell someone there may be a problem”. So as any young boy would, I went straight to my mother.

I can only imagine what went through her head when I came to her. Her first born son, a broken shell of a man with no-one else to turn to. She took me to a doctor and I spilled my heart out about everything.

His solution? One pill with food a day.

It was a perplexing moment in my life, being the first in the family to ever have any kind of mental troubles and really out of anyone I knew at the time, I couldn't get my head around the idea of medication fixing my blues. But I had nothing else to lose at that point. I began my dependency on chemical compounds to get me through my life.

I really can't remember much during that part in my life, what should had been a key chapter, the transition to independence from the parents, discovering my path in life... it was a blur of skipped classes and failed subjects at school, drinking alone at the Worker's Club at 2am because I was bored, sitting in my room watching daytime television, and occasional masturbation.

I'm honestly surprised my friend(s) are still that after those 2 years, I swear I don't remember what I did from 21-23, I held a job at a gaming cafe, and spent most of my non-working days there too, playing WoW or CounterStrike. I was happy with merely existing. Until one Saturday in September.

I organised a lunch date with a girl I went to school with, it went really well and when I dropped her off at her house I made a motion towards these dates being a recurring thing, and I was friend zoned, it felt like a bomb went off in my gut. I woke up the next morning on the floor of my apartment with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels on one side, and a fresh pile of vomit on the other. At that point I decided the meds weren't doing shit, and picked myself up, threw out the anti-depressants, and started looking for a job.

3 months later I met my wife and got a low paying job installing signs. But it was enough.

Ever since then though I've suffered from small bouts of depression, and I like to think it's my mind reminding me of what life used to be, and not to take anything for granted. When I'm feeling fine I push no boundaries, I cruise along and I'm happy with my situation, but in a slump I find I'm my most creative, I actively seek out a solution to my depression, be it taking a 1am drive through the streets of Newcastle looking at the drunken revellers piss their money away in the never ending of booze, drugs and violence, or taking more notice of the people around me, plotting my very own Ghost World style story with that bleak nothingness of middle America translated to Newcastle as a dying city collapsing upon itself and the people who inhabit it.

It's a bitter-sweet feeling, when I'm creative it pretty much means I feel like shit. But when I create it brings me back into a high. But a spanner has been thrown into my cogs. I've been forced onto the meds, when I say forced I mean my wife threatened to leave me. I may have forgot to mention that when I'm depressed I'm extremely introverted around the house. And she's tired of living with a closed book. Which really is more than understandable.

It brings to me a point where the meds are raising my mood back to the status quo, but it's leaving me empty as a creative person. I've lost my motivation, and I'm seeking to find it in any source I can.

This blog is just a little bit of insight into who I am, but more importantly, it's an experiment in fuelling my creative fires. I'm not an open person in any sense of the word, I constantly have a front up, a bumbling twittering fool throwing the occasional swear at something for the lulz. Perhaps if I cut myself open a little bit for all to see it'll lead to something majestic.

It's not like I have anything to lose. Right?

Jackass 3D: An intricate pre-release movie review

2010-09-14T23:06:00.003-07:00

It will be shit.

Captain America images leaked.

2010-09-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

Stunt double on motorbike.

Red Skull cronies on bikes.

Detail on the shield.

Fancy car of sorts.

PAX 2010 I hardly knew thee.

2010-09-08T04:32:00.000-07:00

Images taken from GamrFeed (why they're missing the second e I don't know, or care).

Spend all that time preparing your outfit, then don't bother standing up to pose. Good work retards.

Steroid-free Guile prepares to battle his next opponent: a light breeze.

This is what happens when you mix drugs with cartoon network.

Many yes, a thousand times yes.

Right: Cosplayer posing. Left: Captain Fabulous

IT TIME SNOO SNOO!!!

Papa Smurf, Dorkacus, and Booger boy

The girl on the left is so perky I think I got diabetes.

Commander Sweatpits!!

Disinterested androgynous Asian cosplayer will bore you to death.

Wild SNORLAX uses MOLEST.

This guy came dressed as failure.

"Bring me wenches or bring me death!"

"..... I choose death!"

Transgender slave cosplay + Enthusiastic moron photobomber.

I cast a +4 Petrification spell on my penis.

Mario must have the bluest balls in the Mushroom Kingdom.

"DERP FINEAL FANTASSIE!"

Ever since Half Life came out hipster college students think they can just don a white coat and be Gordon Freeman. Wankers the lot of them.

An alternative Dalek cosplay, but to me it looks like she's dressed as a kitchen, and therefore should be in herself. Paradox?

SUPER VIRGIN BROTHERS!

Fucking smashing, what's with the half-mo creeper behind him?

A surefire hit with the ladies is to cosplay as a 13 year old.

Rosie O'Donnell made an appearance.

Baron Majestic and the puzzling headwear.

This man is wearing a skirt. That is all.

Sammy chews it! YOU SHOULD TOO!

2010-09-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here at my grandmother's house watching “Home Cooked” or something to that effect, with the winner of the first season of masterchef as the host, my wife is yelling at the TV for some reason, apparently she hates this woman to death despite never watching an episode of MasterChef.

I'm pretty sus about this show. She's using too many 'Glad' products, which tells me they're the main sponsor. The entire show plays like an extended informercial for Glad with some recipes thrown in.

Everything on TV these days is about making as much money as possible. Product placement and sponsorship crap means that programs are less about what the content is and more about what products they pitch us in the ad break. The same thing has been happening in our video games too.

I remember playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the best game in the series (I haven't played Conviction yet), and in one cut scene I noticed there was a packet of Air Waves gum next to a radio. The packet was in a corner and I accepted it as subtle advertising. I mean, why wouldn't a person put their gum next to a radio? But later in the game Sam is boarding a helicopter on his next mission to kill a political figure in true Tom Clancy fashion when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of cool refreshing soothing Airwaves Gum! That minty tastes lasts for hours! BUY IT NOW YOU WANT AIRWAVES GUM SAM FISHER CHEWS IT

AND SAM FISHER KILLS PEOPLE

SAM FISHER WILL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T BUY AIRWAVES GUM

HE WILL FIND YOU

AND HE WILL RAPE YOU

AIR

WAVES

GUM

.. so he pops a minty capsule into his mouth and some guy in the copter shoots him a smile in recognition. The inclusion of the product in the cut scene is bad enough, but to have the main character directly interact with the product is inexcusable. But the clincher for me was that knowing smile the guy gave him. That split second smile made that entire sequence a full blown commercial. I half expected Sam to turn to him and say.

“Say there, would you care for some Airwaves gum?!”

“AIRWAVES GUM!! BLOW ME DOWN AND FUCK MY MOTHER! I FUCKING LOVE AIRWAVES GUM!”

Then both characters turn to the screen.

“Airwaves Gum, buy it and chew the FUCK OUT OF IT YOU MINDLESS CONSUMER WHORE”

Unfortunately Airwaves Gum isn't sold in Australia, so when I raced to the store with a wad of bills in one hand and my dick in the other I was disappointed....

.. and promptly arrested for indecent exposure.

Pre-order Your Next Disappointment Here.

2010-09-03T20:03:00.000-07:00

I have a bone to pick with the current state of video games. My internet BFF Remy made an excellent article about the current generation of consoles already but I'm after a different shade of red in their blood. I'm talking about the trend in video game marketing, specifically the use of exclusive offers and deals brought forward by the big chains in an effort to gain a foothold in the cut throat world of retail gaming.

I really couldn't tell you when it all began, though I'll venture a guess it was with the generation before this one. Xbox and Playstation 2 were dominating the market after Nintendo dropped the ball with their fantastic Gamecube which I will love to death but no-one else on the planet seems to agree with me. Strategy guides were no longer small books that covered many games at once, but were massive encyclopedias of information all about a single game. They had walkthroughs, cheats, behind the scenes information, stories, lists, stats... I could go on. They were a fantastic read and a great marketing tool, as when they were thrown in with the game as a package to the key demographic, usually that demographic would go to school / work the next day with the book in tow, and spread the word about the game through that form of covert advertising.

The retail chains began to sell “collectors editions” of games that came with this guide, and maybe a poster or two, then there were “game of the year editions” that added very little, maybe packaged some expansion packs with the game if it were a PC port onto Xbox (see: Morrowind). This was all well and good, as you didn't need the collectors or limited editions to enjoy the full gaming experience.

With this current generation however, things are starting to change. Collectors editions are serious business, gone are the days of a single game with a small bonus, you now have a game that comes with a behind the scenes dvd, a soundtrack, a poster, a book about some kind of crap, an action figure, night vision goggles, all in a custom box. And you HAVE to have it.

The only time I came close to buying a collectors pack was when Arkham Asylum came out with a Batarang, but when I ordered it the employee at my EB games store was kind enough to tell me the Batarang was a plastic piece of shit and looked nothing like the one in the catalog. He them pulled this hunk of plastic out from behind the desk to prove he was “no foolies”.

Again, you don't need all this shit to enjoy the full experience, they market the fuck out of it so you think you do, but in all honesty, you're never going to watch that behind the scenes DVD, and you'll play the soundtrack once in your car. So the industry stepped it up again.

Today it's quite common for games to include actual in-game items that are exclusive to certain retail chains, you don't need to buy the collectors pack any more, all you need to do is pre-order the game and you'll get your rare golden AK47 or alternative costume. Now I see this image and it scares me.

An extra hour of gameplay? The bonus quests are probably non-crucial, but the problem is where will it stop? When will it get to the point where you have to buy 2 copies of the game for all 3 systems from different retailers to enjoy the full gaming experience? They've done this before with additional features, like the Ada Wong level on the PS2 port of Resident Evil 4, and the Joker fight stages in the PS3 Arkham Asylum, these may be afterthoughts to grab attention, but when will we see the day where a large chunk of the story in a game is “Best Buy Exclusive”? It will be a sad day in the gaming world when the retailers decide on what content we're able to access. But the way things are going it's only a matter of time until you're shelling out 400 dollars for the Ultra-sex-mega-edition of Call of Duty XXIV with in-game naked stripper mode exclusive to EB Games, packaged inside a working combat shotgun dildo and optional happy ending massage by a trained masseuse when you pre-order the game.

It's supposed to be about the games, not the knickknacks they tack on them.

The internet vs Ms Quinn

2010-09-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

The new screens for the upcoming Batman game Arkham City have been out for a little over 24 hours, and the internet has once again reared it's ugly head from the depths. This time the beef with everyone is the new outfit for Harley Quinn.

The direction she has taken with her clothing has apparently struck a nerve with the hardcore Batman fans the world around, and they're demanding the blood of the character designers of this new game, and the hatred is split into two factions: people who want Harley back in her nurse outfit from the first game Arkham Asylum, and people who want Harley in her original classic costume from the cartoon and comics.

In Arkham Asylum Harley Quinn donned a rather sexually appealing nurses outfit with a skirt just long enough to cover her assets. That of course didn't stop the most dedicated of us using Batman's crouch and zoom abilities to try to sneak a quick peek at her underpants (or hopefully lack thereof) as she pranced back and forth behind an electric field taunting Batman towards the start of the game. She even briefly talked about her 'new uniform' in her first appearance.

When the game was released I don't remember anyone having an outcry of her nurse's outfit, despite it being a completely new look for her. They accepted this Harley as traditional Harley in a different costume, one themed towards the medical environment she was in. But this group of people can't comprehend now that she's moved into the city that a nurse's outfit doesn't really fit in any more. Maybe because briefly in the teaser trailer she still wore it and they've accepted it rigidly in their minds that a new costume is incomprehensible, or maybe they have a thing against the more industrial gothic look of her new gear. But watching the trailer and looking at the screens her new look fits in perfectly with the new surroundings and dark undertones of this game series.

Then there are the people who rabidly scream down the walls that Harley should be in her classic jester hat and one piece suit costume, with a giant mallet and oversized pistol to boot I'm sure... this won't work, as much as I like Harley's original look, it just does not fit in with the style of the game. Standing among tattooed heavies that look so grimy you can practically smell them, if she were to rock up all clean and colourful and slapstick she would be nothing but a novelty in the game. In the screenshot at the top of this article not only does she fit in, but she looks way more authoritative than usual, instead of a bumbling fool in love she has some power and influence behind her. Which I feel would be a nice progression for her.

And speaking of tattoos, many people have pointed out that Harley isn't the type to have tattoos, how would they know? What is their basis behind this argument? To me it sounds perfectly normal for an obsessed girl to tattoo the name and face of her object of affection onto their body. And hell, it might not even be a real tattoo. Did you think about that?

If people should be upset about anything it's Two Face. One of the better villains out there in the Batman universe, Harvey Dent's face wasn't the only thing that was scarred by the acid thrown at him in a courtroom (or elaborate trap set up by Heath Ledger), he became a man with no moral sense of right and wrong, leaving everything up to chance.

Note that when I say his face was scarred, that's it. Just his face. But in these new screenshots you can clearly see the entire left side of his body is a purple mess, which to me, isn't right. But in saying that, there's really nothing different about the character himself (I hope). I'm just nitpicking because I'm a huge Batman nerd. And that's exactly what these Harley Quinn people are doing. They're nitpicking.

The game is still a year off the release date, and we're yet to see any of the characters in action. A picture can say a thousand words, but judging the game on them alone is a waste of everyone's time.

Games, and where they need improvement.

2010-07-13T03:41:00.000-07:00

The video game industry is a fantastic and wondrous beast, but it does have its flaws. Bad voice acting, inane archaic functions, and people fucking with what should be a set template for controller schemes are just a few of the annoyances we put up with.

Sure there is a governing body that controls the rating system in terms of what game is suited for what age group, but there is no watchdog group that targets games for shitty practices that need to be stomped out. If said group existed, I would hope that they deal with the following issues in games we play today.

Instant Text Scrolling.

When a game has voice I'm more inclined to sit through a cut scene and listen to the conversations, so long as the voice acting is fine (see below). But if there is no voice and only text the last thing I want to do is read everything at the same pace as the voice. I'm quite sure that everyone in the world that can read, does so at a much faster rate than they talk. So why do games feel they have to drag out the text in a slow typing style animation? What the fuck is wrong with instant text? I would kill for instant text, with the option to press 'A' when I'm done reading.

Some games do this but they hardly do it right. And if the game has the ability to do instant text as well as slow scrolling text, the scrolling will ALWAYS be the default. I do not know a single person who will choose slow scrolling text over instant. It puts this sense of limitation on me from the get go and usually is the defining factor in when I choose to never play that game again. Here's a little scenario:

I'm lying in bed and I feel I want to play a few minutes of that game I've been enjoying before I go to sleep, I grab my DS, I turn it on, and sit through 2 minutes of scrolling text. I WILL turn that game off and probably have such a bad taste in my mouth every time I consider playing it I'll remember the feeling of frustration I had and will respond with a resounding "meh". And the game will sit in my DS for a month unplayed. By the time I go back to it I'll forget what part I'm up to and either restart, or won't bother.

Another thing that gets on my nerves are games that DO have instant text, but force you to wait a few seconds before skipping to the next part. Games like Phoenix Wright that have associated animations with the text and you always have to wait for the animation to be done. But the problem is that game uses the same 4 animations for each character CONSTANTLY. Every time I see that old judge shaking his head slowly I groan. Sure the time isn't long but it builds up, and slowly chips away at your patience until you explode in a fit of gamer rage. Oh look, Godot is drinking coffee for the 700th time today.. wait wait wait.. oh I see, he spit it out. AGAIN.

Voice Acting

Look, if you're going to shell out money for voice acting, hire someone who is at least capable of doing it without sounding like a 'text to speech' program. Is it that fucking hard? Games with shitty voice acting must not know they have shitty voice acting. They use long winded cut scenes that make me want to kill myself, and they almost always include a female character with a voice 2 octaves higher than a screeching cat. It's disgusting.

I went to school with a guy who ridiculed me for playing games that still used text instead of voice. To this day I still don't know why. Out of all the games I've played over the years the number of them with good voice acting pales in comparison to the bad. It seems like bad actors are a staple of the video gaming industry and it's one of the many things that put a halt to it being recognised as nothing more than "cheap entertainment" in the eyes of the fuckers who don't play them (I'm looking at you Roger Egbert, when you die I will not mourn).

I do look fondly back on games like Resident Evil when voice acting was a new novelty and laugh at how bad they were, but come on, that was over 10 years ago. We've improved graphics beyond our wildest dreams in that time yet we're still at the mercy of a 6 dollar per hour D-list celebrity? Fuck off.

But the voices aren't always at fault, which brings me to

Writing

Any story, in any medium, needs to be well written to grab the attention of the reader. But a lot of video games gloss over an engaging story by trying to distract us with the game play.

I'm going to say this now, Fighters don't need a story. The worst part about any fighter is the shitty cut scene when you start playing a character, and the shitty cut scene when you finish playing a character. You've made a game that has muscle toned men and women with massive breasts, fuck using a story, just have a cut scene of her jumping about. Dead or Alive nearly does this right with its female characters, but if you're going to make your girls look like that, who are you kidding? Throw them in a skimpy outfit and be done with it.

Fighters are fighters. You chose your character, then you go on your way. From that moment on you don't give a flying fuck if your fighter has a troubled past, or is the brother of another fighter. All you care about is using the right combination of cheap kick moves to corner your opponent and make him throw his controller into a wall.

This method can be put to use in any genre of game (well... NEARLY any genre). If your story is shit, don't use it. Why spend thousands of dollars hiring game writers when your game doesn't need it.

Example: Super Mario Brothers. Story: Save princess

That's it. One of the greatest and beloved games ever to exist, and the entirety of the story can be summed up in two words. Even the latest versions of game are essentially the same story. Except Super Mario Sunshine, which is probably why I never finished it.

And that's a fun game. A story is great if it itself is great, but shitty writing is unforgivable. Some games don't need a story. Don't try to force one where it isn't needed. I can't stress enough how bad stories in fighters are, nobody gives a fuck about the inner workings off their character. Chances are you only chose said character because you know a combination of moves that allow you to win against most people with as little skill as possible.

Cut Scenes

I want to skip cut scenes, and I want the option in a menu to go back to previously seen cut scenes. Some games have cut scenes that take up to 10 minutes, and most of the time you can't pause them at all. You can either skip them, or just have to let them play. So if I have to be called away from my console for some reason I'm fucked. I have to shut off the game and re-watch the entire cut scene again, because that will be the only time in that play through that I'll be able to.

It's not that fucking hard, all the game devs need to do is link the call function to a menu to grab a viewed cut scene, hell even a fast forward, pause and rewind function wouldn't be hard to code as most long cut scenes are pre-rendered anyway, a 2 second youtube clip of a dog on fire has more functionality than your 60 million dollar game. There's something wrong there.

And on the other hand, I play games a few times through, and the last thing I want is to have to sit through an unskippable cut scene that I can lip sync to because I've seen it so much.

I'm not asking for the world here, I'm asking for a little bit of control.

Saving and Pausing

I want to save everywhere, I don't expect to save in mid battle in an RPG, nor mid fight or mid race in fighting and racing games. But I do expect to be able to save everywhere else. Save points are an outdated function that need to be purged. This will benefit users immensely but will also be a point winner for the partners/children/parents of users. Instead of responding with "hang on I gotta find a save point", you can reply instead with a more suitable "yep, this race has about 3 more laps in it". 3 laps in a race tells the person you'll be between 2-6 minutes, but sometimes finding a save point, especially with a cut scene in between that you can't skip (see above), you could be waiting for up to 20 minutes. And that's going to piss people off.

Some games don't let you pause properly either, instead interpreting the press oflisten to the conversations, sal button to pause) as a "skip forward" button, making you miss a cut scene, or an important line of text.

The Start button should always pause the game no matter what, in fact, if every game had the START = PAUSE ability and within that pause screen was a save option, that would be one of the greatest improvements in the history of gaming.

Confusing controller scheme and lack of choice

Some people like inverted controls and camera, others don't. What I hate is coming across a game that doesn't give me a choice to switch from their default option. You want to know how hard it is to switch controller inversion in code? It's not. The code is already there for left and right, up and down, just fucking swap the functions to the opposite direction.

I also want to customize my controller scheme, gamers get used to a certain layout in game genres. R trigger = shoot/accelerate/strong punch. What we don't like is some new game from a narrow minded company who bring out a shooter where shoot is X/Green, and the R trigger makes the character duck or something. That will frustrate the fuck out of anybody. I don't know what goes through the minds of these people when they bring out these games.

Any developer that binds "Up" to "jump", needs to be castrated. Back in the NES days when you only had 2 buttons some games couldn't help but use Up for jump, but now controllers have so many buttons they're running out of ideas of what to assign them to. And people still make Up = Jump.

Artificially prolonging the game play

Although I'm not affected by this as much, I have a friend who hates it, so it's making the list.

You're playing a game that involves RPG elements. Be it an RPG itself, or a platformer with a levelling system. At some point in the game you're going to hit a wall. You'll be pitted against a boss that rips your head off and shits down your neck every time you blink at him. And the only way you can overcome him is to gain levels.

Not just a few levels either, you'll have to level up at least 10 times AND equip the best rarest gear you can find AND max out your skill points AND have every enchant/potion/aura at the ready AND have a "how to kill buttfuck insane boss" walk through printed out at your side. Now THAT is cheap.

Something is wrong in the mechanics of the game where you hit walls like these, they should really give you enough challenges that level you naturally before the final battle so when you do confront the big bad guy, you at least give him a run for his money. Sure you might need to tweak your skills and gear, but having to spend another 6 hours levelling up just to tackle him? It sucks the fun out of the game for people. The natural flow of the game is halted and you're forced to give yourself a training montage while you grind the night away.

What I'm asking for in all these issues is not much at all, but games companies continue to churn out shit that makes the industry cry.

We need regulation and consistency.

We won't get it.

Dreamworks, and why they're shit.

2010-07-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

I came across this amusing cartoon a year or so ago on the internet, outlining the differences between Pixar and Dreamworks. (click to view full size)

Today I saw the promo poster for the new movie by Dreamworks.

Dreamworks, you are an idiot.

ADDITIONAL: The dreamworks face has been brought to my attention again (thanks Evan!)

WHY?!@?!?!?!?!$!$?!$?

Soupanouver 2010

2010-06-23T04:36:00.001-07:00

Supanova has come and gone for another year. And after a 3 hour train ride with incredibly bad smelling "men" (I use the term lightly) who were also going, I was more than happy to meet up with the handsomely erotic Rhys from The Plastic Age and photograph the day away.

3 cute booth girls dancing to some new Wii game, this was the most crowded booth of the day.

I overheard the balding guy in this booth talking to the other. "YOU SAID THIS SPIDERMAN WAS IN MINT CONDITION, THIS HAS A MINOR TEAR AND UV WEAR, THIS ISN'T MINT CONDITION!"

Emma Frost, very yes.

This young lady appeared to come as wallpaper.

Slave Leia, also very yes.

Look familiar? Here's a photo I took last year:

Yep... I really don't know what to say.

This guy came as an emoticon.

The ginger in the glasses just realised what his life has become.

Mick Gavin, Plumber by day, Party Decoration by night.

This Daria cosplay took some creative adjustments.

I thought this guy was dressed as Tom Baker, turns out he was just a douche in a scarf.

I found this Yu-Gi-Oh cosplayer wanted me to follow him into the bathroom so I could see his trap card.

Hit Girl, established 1962

This is the worst Michael Jackson I've ever seen.

"DERP! I'M AN ASSASSIN!"

I don't know what this girl came as, but the guy behind her clearly came as a pervert.

Not only is The Flash the fastest runner in the world, he's also the fastest eater of cheesburgers

A proud warrior brandishing his +2 Mace of smiting, and +3 haircut of achey breaky heart.

Nothing says Supanova like a man with a black eye and an erection.

This dedicated man came as scenery.

Middle aged Spiderman poses while Alzheimers Ironman stares off into space.

Anime, as popular as ever.

Michael Winslow being interviewed by a moron.

This guy came dressed as 1998.

And finally....

THE HORROR.... THE HORROR.....

Stripping on a Train isn't normal. On meth it is.

2010-06-09T03:19:00.000-07:00

Fuck Ice

Ice, also known as Methamphetamine, is running through the lower rungs of Australia society like diarrhea through a tourist in Mexico. It fucks you up and makes you a total dickwad.

The last 45 minutes of my commute home was brought to you by the letter "I".

A man in his late 20's entered my carriage at Morriset, wearing a beanie, shirt and shorts, and carrying a brown paper bag. Before I could see him I could smell him, and before I could smell him I could hear him.

"fucking Scotland gun no GUN BOOOM BOOM FUCKING boom windshield gonna kill myself on your WINDshield with a GUN FUCKSHIT DOG CUNT"

instantly I took my watch off and put it in my bag with my Nintendo DS, I engaged "danger train" mode and sat forward, prepared for shit to go down.

For a few minutes he walked from carriage to carriage, swearing as he went, then he decided, out of all 8 fucking train carriages, to sit directly in front of me. Facing the other way (thank god).

Then he started singing this.

Including the guitar riffs. And in between verses he started speaking in a Scottish accent.

"fooking coonts DOG SHIT IN A SCHOONER GLASS ya FOOKing mick wank shit fuckfuckFUCKFUCKMUTHER CUNT FUCK SHITTING DOGS wheres A gun you arse KILLMYSELFKILLMYSELF and EXPLODE in the shitARSE FUCK"

Now before I go on, let me say that in the 45 minutes he was on the train he didn't stop talking once, he just kept going and going and going, singing, swearing, crying..

yes crying, in between the singing he started crying and took out a packet of Xanax from his brown paper bag and threw the pills among the carriage.

So then he started swearing that someone was throwing his Xanax around

"GET THAT SHIT AWAY FROM ME I DON'T NEED XANAX, won't touch that shit i need a fucking pill fucking meeeeeth fucks that shit XANAX FUCK, ICE MUTHERFCKERS!!!"

the other 7 people in the carriage have not moved a single muscle since he came in, they haven't even dared turn their heads. I at least had the advantage of being out of his field of vision so I could witness the show.

Then he started undressing.

The man started taking his clothes off in the middle of the train.

He turned to face me and I caught a glimpse of his face, the guy must have been in his 20's, but his face looked like he was 50, it was horrible, absolutely horrible.

Off comes the jacket.

off comes the shirt.

off comes the beanie.

Then he puts his hand in his brown paper bag, and retrieves a handful of I don't know what.

He begins to rub his body down with whatever is in his hand.

All while still singing and swearing about dog shit in beer glasses.

This guy was off his face, completely in a world of his own, I'm unsure if he even knew there were other people on the train. This is the closest I've come to a person on a drug trip, and I really really REALLY do not want to witness it again.

I need a drink.

It originally said 'Power Metal'

2010-06-04T04:45:00.000-07:00

New blog posts coming soon, until then, check out my daily webcomic over at http://dilbertte.blogspot.com/

Streams of Fury

2010-03-12T15:13:00.000-08:00

Once again I find myself at Gosford train station. And ONCE AGAIN there is another incident I have to report to my readers. This time it wasn't a physical altercation between two or more parties, and instead this only involved a single person, with a supporting class of the entire train station.

The other side of the station is the Sydney bound side, so there is always more people there waiting, and since there is usually only the same 5 people on my side I'm always looking at the other people, for curiosity sake, I like to spot funny looking people and relay my sightings to Rhys over at The Plastic Age for funtimes and many lulz. And another reason, which I'll admit, is that the Sydney bound train always has a few attractive girls waiting there, nothing wrong with a bit of eye candy to get me through my 3 hour commute. The downside is most attractive Gosford girls also dress like prostitutes and swear like sailors, but you have to take the good with the bad.

I had just finished my scan of the platform, about half of the people waiting for the train where Parramatta Eels supporters on their way into Sydney to watch the start of the Rugby League season for 2010. There were some skater kids trying to bust out some moves, and a few derros on the far left side, standing in a circle and having several cigarettes.

I was about to find a bench to sit on when I heard a weird noise, it was like a cough only much wetter, and what followed it was a series of yells and lots of people moving.

I walked closer to see what the commotion was about and saw everyone on the other platform walking quickly away from an old man sitting on a bench. he was hunched over coughing, then he sat up, and at that exact time a stream of vomit flew out his mouth and nostrils, like a garden sprinkler in a straight line.

The old man then finished vomiting.

FIVE MINUTES LATER.

I swear to god this old guy just kept vomiting, and vomiting, and vomiting, and vomiting. And not once did he move from his seated position. It was a stream of brown liquid flowing from his face, interrupted by heavy coughing and people asking if he was alright, he didn't respond to them at all, nor did he even acknowledge their existence. He was stuck in his own little world of vomit. It looked like something out of a zombie movie. An infected old man struggling as he died horribly by the virus before he arose once more as one of the living dead. But this wasn't the case.

Station staff tried to get his attention but couldn't get close to him, as every time someone walked near him another stream of vomit would fly out of his mouth, he'd then wipe his mouth and a large stream of saliva and mucus would hang between his lips and his arm, it reminded me of really hot cheese when you eat pizza, how it gets all stringy and sticks to the base.

When he finally finished vomiting, he sat there for a few minutes not bothering to explain it to the people around him, a staff member approached him with a bucket and forcibly moved him with a few pushes of her mop, as she needed to clean the area in front of him, which was a slipping hazard, not to mention it was beginning to smell.

He shuffled off to the next bench and pulled out a cigarette, which he began to smoke like it was his last.

I'm not a smoker, but is the taste of a cigarette really the first thing you want after a vomiting spree?

He was also dressed really poorly but had brand new shoes on. I can't help but assume he didn't pay for them, and maybe held off a cashier at the shoe store, armed with his ability to projectile vomit. I know I'd do what he said if he threatened to puke on me...

Additional!

As I was writing this I overheard the conversation between three teenage boys, the words were barely audible over the wet smacking noises that came from their mouths as they chewed gum of sorts. One of the boys was trying to remember the name of a TV show "The Chasers War on Everything" which used to air on ABC.

B1: Hey you remember that show?

B2: what show?

B1: it was a show with some guys in it, and it was their war against the world

B2: nah don't know it

B1: yeah man they were hitchhikers from Australia

B2: I dunno

B1: and it was on the ABC, the war on the worlds people

B2: nah man shutup I dunno

B1: yeah you do, they did that Obama bin laden (That's right, Obama Bin Laden) thing with the Olympics (G8 Summit actually)

B2: Oh yeah they were on the news, the chasing war

B1: nah man, the War of the Worlds

B2: that was a movie

B1: nah they didn't make a movie, it was 4 guys and they did stuff.

B2: I saw the movie, it had Tom Cruise in it and that chick who was a girl (.. chick who was a girl)

B1: Oh yeah that movie was shit ay.

B2: it was okay but yeah it was shit.

B1: But it's not the movie I mean, in this show they did stuff with John Howard

B2: Stuff with John Howard?

B1: yeah they called him a dickhead all the time.

B2: Hahaha! that show sounds awesome, when's it on?

B1: nah it stopped being on like last year.

B2: oh shit ay, true

B1: yeah, well it was a pretty funny show.

B2: what was it called again?

B1: The war of the worlds

B2: Nah man that was the movie

B1: maybe it had the same name?

B2: oh true, yeah we should see it on youtube.

B1: that's a mad site ay

B2: yeah heaps.

By this point in time I had completely forgotten why they were even talking about The Chaser's War on Everything, and they didn't even bother to remember, as one of them found a pen on the train and decided to play a game of "I'll draw something and you guess what it is". Trouble was they didn't have any paper so they used the back of the seat in front of them until they realised there were newspapers all over the place, and moved on to draw moustaches on the women.

One of their drawing contests went as follows, I listened to this one because one of the boys mentioned Batman, and anything Batman I'm all over. Freaking LOVE Batman.

B1: is it batman?

B2: nah it's not batman

B1: fuck off it's batman

B2: it's not fucking Batman

B1: then it's that robin

B2: nup

B1: can you give me a hint?

B2: it's a video game guy

B1: Batman's got a video game

B2: it's not fucking batman

B1: ay settle I'm just saying

B2: it's a monkey

B1: oh yeah, it's that guy from the game on the wii where you beat up the zelda dude and mario

B2: yeah what's his name

B1: it's like king kong but it's something else

B2: not getting it till you guess it.

B1: ummmm

B2: think of an animal

B1: yeah he's a monkey

B2: nah man another animal, like a horse

B1: .... cow kong.. nah...

B2: haha cow kong you fucking retard

B1: shutup i'm guessing out loud. Donkey Kong

B2: EEERRRRR took your time.

Not forgotten

2010-02-28T16:44:00.000-08:00

Well Dilbertte is proving to be quite the hit.

I haven't forgotten about Five Thumbs Down, and will update soon.

New Sub-Blog!

2010-02-17T18:10:00.000-08:00

Work has been intense and I haven't been able to write as much as I'd like to lately, but I've found an outlet that fits into my time schedule.

I've started a new blog to go alongside FiveThumbsDown.

It's basically me editing Dilbert strips to make them even more mundane.

Enjoy! http://dilbertte.blogspot.com/

Boganrail, the Revenge.

2010-02-08T01:59:00.000-08:00

Another day, another incident at Gosford train station.

I was sitting at the platform enjoying my now daily treat of redskins and milkos when the all stops train pulled into the station. The usual faces piled out in a quiet shuffle, happy that their mundane day was coming to a close. Then a ruckus was heard emerging from the train.

YOU FUCKING KIWI CUNT FUCKING CUNT I'LL FUCKING TAKE YOU NOW FUCKING CUNT.

The tirade of abuse was spewing forth like an unchecked oil fire was coming from a man of 40 to 50 years in age. Sporting traditional Australian attire of board shorts and thongs with a duffel bag, he stumbled from the train backwards, his free arm shooting out to regain balance. He turned on the balls of his feet and with the arm already extended formed a pointing gesture with his hand. He shot the menacing digit at another gentleman who had began to emerge from the train.

I use the term gentleman lightly, as the man would be no more than 2 years my senior. He was a well built lad rippling with muscles barely contained by his singlet top. Ink scattered all over his body in various tribal designs and patterns. He was of islander appearance, but which specific island I could not tell you. I do know however he lacked the build to be of the Samoan or Tongan persuasion.

The young man the force of the abuse and retorted accordingly

YOU TALKING BIG EH BRO WHY YOU RUNNING? COME FUCKEN HERE AND WE'LL SORT IT OUT ON THE PLATFORM YOU FUCKEN CUNT.

To which the older gent replied

FUCKING KIWI CUNT I'LL FUCKING TAKE YOU CUNT YOU FUCKING THINK YOU'RE FUCKING TOUGH CUNT I CAN TAKE 2 KIWIS MYSELF CUNTS YOU FUCKS.

The heated discussion was in full swing. I dared not move from my sitting position in close radius, lest my movements scare the local townsfolk. Instead I chose to complete my sudoku puzzle before my train arrived, listening in to their intense conversation so I could relay it to all six people who read my blog.

The younger man, who remained in the train, once again invited the elder to a rousing bout of fisticuffs.

FUCKING COME BACK IF YOU CAN TAKE ME CUNT, YOU WANT TO PUSH OVER AN OLD MAN CUNT I'LL FUCK YOU UP.

Aha! The motive behind the conversation had been revealed!

SEE YOU IN SYDNEY CUNT I'LL FUCKING SEE YOU IN SYD-GOSFORD FUCKING CUNT SHIT FUCK.

The older man grew weary of the battle and confusion had set in, he stumbled further away from the train and spun to find himself face to face with five security guards.

HE'S THE FUCKING ONE CUNT WHO FUCKING STARTED IT THE FUCK

His heightened adrenalin levels proved to be his folly, as the men in blue did not take kindly to his raised voice at such close range.

Meanwhile the tattooed lad conversed in a more quiet manner to the other guards, it was proven that the senior did indeed push over and even older man in an effort to leave the train post-haste. And the islander fellow rushed to defend the enfeebled gent's honour.

My train rolled in to the station silently amongst the background noise.

I took my leave from the ghastly scene and fell into a peaceful slumber, aided by the charming melodies, of those who fight foo.

Vampire turds that glisten in the sun

2010-01-15T01:41:00.000-08:00

Social Networking, it's a buzzword thrown around by a lot of websites in the last few years, the phrase means "connecting and communicating with others over the internets" and websites like MySpace and Facebook are the hubs people use to connect socially with others. although in reality the majority of people on the internet will limit their social networking to adding that cute girl/boy from high school as a friend then downloading all of their personal photos to use as a masturbatory aide.

MySpace and Facebook are the big generic two, but there are also plenty of websites that cater to a more specific audience, there are social networking sites for gamers, bloggers, homosexuals, christians, christian homosexuals, hairy men, lonely men who want asian girlfriends, and of course there is VampireFreaks.

VampireFreaks, according to Wikipedia, is an online community for the gothic/industrial subculture. But realistically VampireFreaks is the home of people who rebelled

against their parents in high school and forgot to grow the fuck up in later life. The males all list their hero as "The Crow", and the females would probably get their vagina on webcam if you sent them a single compliment about their hair. It's a hovel of stench, a tribute to failure. Every single member probably thinks they're a unique delicate flower but listen to all the same heavy metal industrial shit as the next member.

So in true FiveThumbsDown fashion, it's caption time!

Here's your base level generic VampireFreaks member. Pasty and pudgy with long hair, throwing the horns because they can't grasp the intricities of common decency. This person's account lists their gender as "N/A", and I'd have to agree with it.

DO: Take a photo for your VampireFreaks profile

DONT: Take a photo of your sex face for your VampireFreaks profile

Goth gangsta will fuck you up boooooiiiiiiiiiiiii

*ACTUAL PROFILE QUOTE*

---------------

DISLIKES

People who are not original

LIKES

Anime

Ninja Turtles

Cheese

------------

I see a conflict of interest here....

Check out this one... it's..... pretty nice actually. Let's check out her profile.

"21 yr old married mother of two"

Ah, nevermind, tainted meat.

This is the type of photo they show on the news with soundbytes from neighbours saying "I had no idea, he mostly kept to himself"

I don't know if this is supposed to be a photo of a girl, or evidence of bigfoot.

"I cast a level 6 wizard charm on your labia, it wasn't very effective...."

"Tee Hee, I'm such a vampire FREAAAAK!!!! Edward <3<3<3<3<3>

Another swamp monster sighting, why do people think boosting the contrast is going to make a good photo?

Middle American High School Female VampireFreak #4586779581235, Her parents don't understand her, her boyfriend doesn't love her, and she cuts herself while listening to The Cure. She'll drop out before the end of high school, pregnant to "Steve", her 29yr old ex boyfriend who is a major player over at 7-11.

Profile quote: "I like goth"

*crickets chirping*

"Hey ladiesssss, I'm a rippling mess of sinew and bad hair, I love the Crow so fucking much because he and I are the same, I'm a dark avenger in the night flexing my buttocks in the face of sailors."

Using strategic lighting and photoshop airbrushing his body says "roids" and his face says "pnuenomia".

"Me am Samet, are like lady vampire"

Sweet jesus, looks like she fell face first into Nickelodeon.

The Musical VampireFreak

They'll list four hundred bands as "close influences" and every single name will adhere to one of these rules:

- Have one or more of the words "hate/death/blood/kill/hell/cuddles"

- Be an obscure reference to a B Grade horror movies or a song by another band

- Have a name so abstract and wanky nobody bothers to understand the meaning

The musical VampireFreak will be one of the most saught after in the social networking circles, because as soon as you mention you can do anything music related, people will throw their genitals at you.

This member in particular has it all, the "geek chic" glasses, the indoor hoodie, and the backpack of mystery. This member is also particulary efficient as to get the maximum musical effect by posing with a bass guitar, unfortunately judging by the price tags in the background showing us that they're posing with a store owned guitar, this person probably has little to no musical talent. That'd be like myself posing in front of a movie theatre and listing my profession as "Matt Damon".

Nice look dude, you should have used some ofthat white paint on your teeth.

MOST

DEDICATED

GOTH

EVER

Boganrail, an Australian Institution

2010-01-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

The first week back at work after a break is always the longest. And to make matters worse the Cityrail free newspaper MX (url) is currently not being printed. My one salvation from boredom for half of my trip has been cut off. So I've been forced to find other ways to amuse myself.

This week I've been experimenting with the various trains that go my direction home, finding out which is the quickest, which is the most comfortable, and which is the least crowded. I caught one of the newer trains to Gosford this afternoon. Hardly anyone in there so I had plenty of room to stretch my legs. But on the downside I had to wait at Gosford for half an hour.

Now Gosford really isn't that bad of an area. It's th

e locals themselves that ruin it for you, and of course the majority of the locals are advocates of public transport by default. So I always run into the most colourful of characters, today was no exception.

To pass my 30 minutes away and fend off the guilt of downing an entire packet of chips in record time, I began walking up and down the platform, a good 100-200 metres. On my second loop I walked past a girl I paid no real attention to, she was a normal looking female around 16yrs old, Elmo shirt, dyed hair, and a scooter. Typical teenager in all senses of the word, or so I thought anyway.

When I was walking back from my second loop the girl was sitting at the far end looking directly across to the platform on the other side of the tracks. There were some youths sitting there, smoking and carrying on like adults, I paid no mind to them either, as I'm well past the stage where the site of a swearing smoking tween shocks me. And after all, this IS the Central Coast we're talking about here.

The girl and the kids were exchanging dialog, but from where I was walking I couldn't hear it. I assumed they were friends and started on my 3rd loop, walking faster this time, well aware that most of the other people on the platform were staring at me. I don't know why but apparently the sight of a fella walking is fucking interesting to them.

On my loop return the girl had since moved and was walking towards my direction. She seemed reasonably angry, and it was confirmed when she muttered to herself as I passed her.

"Fucken cunt skags, I'm gonna slash some fucken throats"

Now this did come as a shock to me, call me uppity but if children decided to throw insults at me from across a train line I'd either ignore them or smile and nod my head. But this girl decided that this was the point in their life that they were destined to die, and proceeded to make five phone calls to various people.

I stopped walking and stood around a corner, so I could listen without staring, and I'm glad I did.

Each phone conversation went along the lines of this:

"Yeah , what are ya doin? I need you to come here and beat up som fucken kids for me, I can't do it coz they're fucken too young but if you beat em I'll slash em ay? Fuckin cunt whores calling me a boy i'll fucken show em yeah. There three of the fuckers, fucking skinny cunts."

Around the time of the 4th phone call, the all-stops train from Sydney arrived and even more representatives of the Central Coast piled out, including three women in their mid-30's with more children than teeth.

As the women walked past, the original girl on the phone had just reached her "three skanky cunts" line, and all three of the women turned around and proceeded to pick a fight with the teenager.

"What'd you fucken call me? You red haired tranny, tranny cunt fuck"

The platform at the time was crowded with people getting on and off trains, and admist it all was the battle of the slums 2010. No fists were thrown, just a lot of slander and abuse.

Eventually the women left and the girl had moved on to the next platform to deal with her aggressors. I'm sure she has a bright future ahead of her as a "whore slasher" and I wish her well.

New content! Please provide Feedback.

2010-01-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

So here's my first piece of writing on my blog. I don't really have a title for it, so you'll have to do without one.

I also apologise for the indenting, there's a problem with the indenting of the dialog, which I'm sure happened when I copied this over from my Word document. I don't really have anywhere to host the PDF I exported, so this'll have to do, but if you have trouble reading it I can email the PDF on request.

Please comment below once you've read it, I'd love feedback.. ANY feedback :)

Cheers,

----------------------------------------------------------------

The man checked his watch, it was 6:07pm, just like it was twenty seconds before. He shifted in the car seat and rubbed his eyes, it had been nearly two hours now, parked across the road from

the house. He glanced in the rear view mirrors and then looked further down the road. Nothing. The man checked his watch again, 6:08pm. Clearing his throat the man reached for a water bottle. Feeling the cool water entering his body calmed him down slightly. He tightened the lid and placed it on the passenger seat. Then he saw the car.

Pulling into the driveway, Jason felt the relief of finally arriving home after another sweltering summer day, his company had moved offices 8 months prior and they were quickly finding out that the new building had an air conditioner system that can't handle even mildly warm temperatures. He ignored the car sitting outside his neighbours house and slowly drove into the garage, closing the door behind him.

Inside the car, the man looked over at Jason's house. He nervously glanced at himself in the mirror and rested back into his seat. He could feel the sensation in his gut, a mixture of nervousness and anticipation. Wiping the sweat from his brow he took another swig of dutch courage, some dark rum from a small flask. He opened the glovebox and pulled out a gun...

“Nothing..” Jason muttered to himself, as he looked through the fridge, dressed in casual clothes and recently showered, he was feeling much better. But the hunger pangs that bugged him the entire trip home would have to deal with a plain sandwich, 2 days away from payday and several years in debt, Jason had little choice when it came to food. He grabbed some cold chicken and a jar of chutney when a knock on the door distracted him from his afternoon snack.

He answered the door to find a much younger man than him, he couldn't have been more than 25, standing in his doorway. Dressed in jeans and a shirt, looking rather dishevelled and uncomfortable.

Yes?

The man's eyes darted slightly, he muttered something inaudible and nervously ran his hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and centered himself.

Mr Davis.. Jason Davis?

That's me, what do you need?

I was wondering if you had the time..

Jason cut the man off abruptly

Look, it's quarter to seven and I'm just about to sit down to dinner, I really don't have time to talk about religion I'm sorry.

He began to close the door but the man put his hand against it.

You misunderstand me Jason, I'm not a mormon.

Then why are you here? And I'd appreciate it if you didn't address me by my first name.

The man looked nervously at Jason's feet, took a breath, then slowly looked him in the eye.

I want to talk to you about George Morris.

The name sent a cold wave down Jason's spine, it always had. He hung his head and sighed as he opened the door.

Alright, come in.

-------------------

As the man waited in the lounge room Jason grabbed a beer from the fridge, he hadn't heard the name George Morris in years until a week ago, when he received a letter in the mail regarding his current status, deceased. He called out to the man in the lounge room.

So, are you another one of those newspaper writers?

I'm sorry?

You know, making another follow up article to what happened all those years ago? Or are you a family member or something?

Neither I'm afraid, I actually work in the prison where George was being held. He died two weeks ago.

I know, your people sent me a letter.

Oh.

So that's all you came to say to me? Seems a bit odd the government would send a... guard?

Yes, guard.

Right, seems odd they'd send someone like you to tell me about his execution in person when they already sent a letter.

I see what you mean, but I came on my own accord. There was more to it than George's death, Jason.

Mr Davis, please.

Sorry, Mr Davis, like I said. George wasn't a normal person, that's what I want to discuss with you.

Of course he wasn't fucking normal, he shot up a school, MY school, 20 years ago. Which mind you, would have been before you even went to school. How old are you? 24? 27? Who gives you the authority to talk to me about a person you hardly know?

Mr Davis, I know this all seems weird, but with George's death I'm the only person with this knowledge, George himself wanted to pass it on to you but found it difficult.

Jason stood up, gesturing angrily at the man.

Had it ever occurred to you that I didn't want to hear his bullshit excuses? I didn't want to hear them back then, and I don't want to hear them now.

Please, Mr Davis.

No, I don't want to hear it, I don't even know who you are, you're just some kid who appears to be fulfilling the dying wish of a murderer, surely you have better things to do with your time. What was so important that you had to come to my house and tell me? Was George sad and feeling guilty? So he fucking should, but he doesn't need to tell me about it. I lost someone close to me that day and no amount of sob stories will change my mind about him. And on another note, how did you get my address?

The man began to look nervous again, he tried to answer but Jason was already walking towards the door.

Take whatever 'news' you had tell it to someone who gives a shit, and don't come back or I'll call the police.

He swung the door open and turned to the man, his heart skipped a beat. The man had drawn a gun and had it pointed at his chest.

I'm sorry Jason, but I didn't see any other choice.

Without thinking, before the man could finish his sentence, Jason ran out the open door.

It was beginning to turn dark in his street, running out of the house, he began yelling at the top of his lungs. Calling for help. He ran in to the middle of the street and saw an approaching car, he saw the man running towards him, gun in hand. For some reason he wasn't shooting. But Jason was in no mood to ponder that fact as he waved down the car and tried to open the passenger door.

The woman in the car panicked at what looked like a madman trying to get into her car, and only got worse when she heard the word gun. She slammed her foot on the accelerator and drove off, clipping Jason on the side, sending him flailing to the ground. She lost control of her car and ploughed into a low brick wall. Jason landed hard on the road, knocking his head against the bitumen and fell into a state of unconsciousness.

The man looked around, people had begun to come out of their homes to see what the commotion was, he knew he needed to do something quick. He ran to Jason, The man shoved the gun down the back of his jeans and tried to lift Jason up. It felt like trying to lift an oversized bag of sand. He started to get anxious, and summoned all his strength, positioning the body over his shoulder.

I'm sorry Jay, but we need to move.

Lifting up the older man, He carried him to the parked car and placed Jason on the back seats. He saw that a small crowd was beginning to appear from the nearby houses, and there was no doubt that someone had called the police.

The man started the car and sped off, the police would soon be after him. He had very little time.

----------------------------------

Suffering from the worst headache imaginable, Jason woke up feeling groggy and disoriented, he was rocking back and forth and figured he was in a car, then it all rushed back to him. He tried to quickly sit up but the sharp pains of his leg forced him back down. He cried out in pain, which caused the car to swerve as he startled the man, driving. The faint dim of fading sirens could be heard in the distance. Jason was in pain, he couldn't move, and he was worn out emotionally, he had had enough.

What the fuck is so important to you that you kidnap me at gunpoint.

I had no other choice, you weren't listening to reason

What reason? Some teenage guard comes to my house to tell me the man who shot my girlfriend feels bad and found fucking Jesus before he died? I don't care you fucking cunt.

The man adjusted his rear view mirror so he could see Jason's face, any patience he had was lost.

Like it or not, by the end of the day you WILL hear what I have to say.

Fuck you

Jason laid back and a burst of rage built inside him, yelling out in pain he started punching the back of the man's chair

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!

He slumped back down exhausted. Tears began to swell in his eyes.

fuck you...

The car screeched to a halt and the man got out, he opened the door and looked in, gun drawn.

Please, get out of the car.

They were in an industrial area, amongst warehouses and abandoned offices, Jason hobbled along the ground, his leg and head searing with pain. He collapsed onto a crate and sat down, breathing heavily. The man picked up a smaller one and placed it in front of him, then sat down.

So this is it? You fucker, you're going to kill me in some dank sh...

The man fired the gun, cutting him off mid sentence. He lowered the gun from pointing to the ceiling and let his arm hang, resting on his knee.

I'm not going to kill you, I didn't even want to hurt you, but like I said, you left me no choice. We could still be at your house talking if you weren't so stubborn. But that's always been the problem with you Jay.

A wave of confusion came over Jason's face.

Who the fuck are you?

That's what I've been trying to tell you, ever since I came to your door.

What? You came to tell me George was dead.

No I didn't Jay... I wanted to talk to you about George

Jason dug his head into his hands, frustrated and tired, nothing made sense.

What do you mean? Why George?

Because Jason, I am George.

Jason looked up, he didn't understand what he had just heard.

What?

I am George Morris, well.. technically, I was, but I'm not now.

.. I don't understand, what the fuck do you want with me?! Who the fuck are you!?!

The man sighed, and got up, he began pacing around, trying to collect his thoughts.

Just think.. if only for a minute, that not everything is what it seems Jason. When George Morris died he had died alone in a room apart from a single guard, and when he took that last breath.. something happened.

Jason watched the man, and quietly reached around for something to use against him, the floor was littered with scrap metal and glass, he just needed a piece big enough. The man continued to talk.

I no longer became George, and became this body you see before you.... christ.. how can I explain it better...

I know what you're trying to say.

You do?

Yeah.. you're trying to say you're a fucking nutcase.

The man sighed again, then turned to Jason.

Look, I didn't want to do this the blatantly shocking way, I wanted to ease you into this, but look how great that fucking turned out... your name is Jason Davis, you're 43 years old and you have an older brother named Anthony, but everyone used to call him Fat Tony despite how skinny he was. Your brother Tony died in a car crash when you were 17, the same age you were when you started dating a girl. A girl you loved, and who loved you. Her name was Angela Goldstien. And she died on June 15th, 1989. Shot to death by...

.. George Morris....

Exactly. Jason, I have no easy way to tell you this.. but I'm over 300 years old.

What..??

Just bear with me.. I don't know what I am, all I know is when I die, I don't know if it's my soul or I'm just a parasite.. but when I die, I transfer to the closest living human body and take over their consciousness. I become them in all physical definitions.

Jason looked at the man, he thought he was dreaming, unable to comprehend what his person was telling him.

Over the last 300 or so years I've occupied 17 different bodies, against my will, against theirs. And every life I've taken has been ruined.

The sound of sirens was deafening, the police were in the area.

When I cross into a new host I retain only my memories and skills. None of theirs. In the early 50's I took control of a doctor who was operating on my then current host, an elderly woman. From what I learnt form his possessions he had just become a father.

I stole his life Jason, and I had no say in the matter. Every time it happens I do what I can to keep their life on track but I can't. I tried to play family with his wife but there isn't too much you can do when you don't know a single thing about the life you just acquired.

I lost his job, and the family was forced out of their home. In the end I had to leave the loving woman and their son, it tore them apart. It tore ME apart. It always does.

You have no idea of the pain and emotional suffering I go through and inflict on others.

This is the state police, we have the building surrounded, put down your weapons and come out with your hands up.

Jason saw a moment in the man's speech to get a word in edgewise

This is really hard to understand.. where do I fit in? Why me? What has Angela's murder by George go to do with this?

That's what I've wanted to say to you for years Jason. As the doctor I lived for another 20 years, drinking myself stupid, feeling self pity and wandering the streets. Then one day I got a wakeup call. I was killed in a drunken stupor, hit by a train as I stumbled onto the track. And then it happened again, the closest person was a 5yr old girl going to school with her father. The girls name was Angela, it was 1970.

Jason said nothing.

I repeat, drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.

Do you have any idea what it's like being a father and having doctors tell you that your daughter is suffering from so much shock and trauma from watching that drunk get tore apart by a train that she'll never remember anything up to that point? A part of you dies inside. I saw the pain of her father first hand, blaming himself for taking the train, so I did all I could do. And that was lie.

I pretended to be that girl, I was a 250 year old person trapped in the body of a 5 year old girl, and I accepted that. I became the perfect daughter for that man. It was the only point in my life where I actually felt happiness. And then I met you.

Jason released the grip on the metal bar he had found, he had it in his possession for a while now, but decided against using it, he was tired, battered, and in pain. But still managed to sit forward from up against the crates. His mind was racing and he felt delusional, no more than 90 minutes ago he was having a shower without a care in the world, and now he was sprawled out in an old warehouse, face to face with the girl he loved 20 years ago, in the form of a brown haired wiry looking man. He only managed a single, disjointed sentence

H.. how? How do I know that it's you?

The young man looked at him with a smile, Jason could see the pain in his eyes.

When I take control of a body, I'm also at the mercy of biology, so for the 4th time in my life, I went through puberty. I was a mess of raging hormones, and one hot summer afternoon I saw you, playing football with your friends. And something inside me just.... I don't know honestly.. but I remember our first conversation. You ran to get the ball that had landed near me, so I picked it up and handed to you. I managed a muffled “hi”, and you..

And I called you Jenny

Jason shook his head, and despite everything managed a faint smile, the man laughed.

That's right, you had me mistaken for Jenny Sutherland.

So all this time.. when I knew you.. you were other people?

That's right, and it was a terrible secret to keep, but I had gotten so used to being Angela, and I was so happy at home, and with you, that sometimes I forgot who I really was. And those days are my most cherished, a few small moments of freedom in a cursed life.

We can end this all now, just release your hostage and drop your weapons.

The man looked over Jasons body,

I really am sorry you had to find out this way. But I have been waiting 20 years for this day and couldn't wait a single moment more.

I thought you were going to shoot me, I panicked... I'm a fucking idiot.

Don't say that Jay, you couldn't have known.

Jason smiled, but then a question came to mind.

So.. why George?

The man sighed

Well you know that day all too well I'm guessing, George came to school and just started shooting up the place, he already hit Will and Gary by the time we knew what was going on. I remember you and I were studying for the chemistry final when I acted. In my life time I have seen too much bloodshed, too much suffering, I did the only thing I could. I saw him taking aim at the younger students and just..

You threw yourself in front of the gun.. you sacrificed yourself for those kids

I didn't do it for them Jason, I did it for you. Who knows how many he would have shot that day. I took the full brunt of his gun.. and then it happened. Like it always does.

Jason's eyes widened...

no....

The man looked down and nodded.

Yes Jason, I became George, it was the only way I knew how to stop him.

But the trial.. he kept... you kept asking to see me, to apologise. I refused.

And who can blame you? For all you know George killed the girl you loved. Why should you give him the time of day?

Angela, I'm sorry.

The man smiled and knelt in front of Jason

Just remember, although she's physically gone, a part of her will always be in me, and will love you.

Angela...

The man reached his hand out, and from all sides the police burst into the room, an orchestra of yelling filled the room, all with the common message. The man became startled and turned around, blinded by a flashlight he raised his arm to shield his eyes on instinct. Jason screamed out for the police to stop and tried to stand himself up but his leg gave out and he stumbled forward. Five shots rang out in the night. Then silence.

The man woke up in a hospital bed days later, he had suffered some moderate bullet wounds. It took him a minute to remember what happened.

When he did he quickly sat up and looked around. He couldn't see Jason anywhere. He fell out of bed, pushing past the pain and walking to the nurses office in the centre of the ward.

You shouldn't be out of bed sir, you need to heal

Please, I just want to know if you admitted a Jason Davis into the hospital.

The nurse looked at him confused, and got out of her seat.

Sir, please. You need to rest, let's get you back into bed.

No dammit!

But it was no use, he had lost a lot of blood and was still feeling weak. The nurse took his weight on her shoulder and walked him back to the bed. That's when he saw it. The name on his bed chart.

No....

He pushed the nurse away and looked around, he saw the bathrooms and hobbled in. Falling to the ground.

Using the sink he lifted himself up and in front of the mirror. His eyes were closed, he prayed the worst hadn't happened and slowly opened them.

… ….. no.....

The man fell to the floor again. What he had seen in the mirror wasn't a young prison guard with brown hair. But instead when he looked in the mirror he saw the man he loved so long ago looking back, but the girl he used to be was long dead. And all memories that man had of her were now gone. In the following lifetimes the entity that was the girl, the murderer, the doctor and the guard would have, it would refuse to ever fall in love again. And forever chase the embrace of death.

Updating whether I like it or not.

2009-11-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

So, I like to write.

And not in the angryman ranting sense you see me produce day after day in the twitterverse and the occasional blog, I mean I actually like to write stories, short tales and comics and whatnot.

The problem is, nobody knows this except 2 people, myself, and my hetero life mate Rhys over at The Plastic Age.

I've been writing stories for nearly 7 years now, but I'm my own worst critic, I'll start on a really great idea, then convince myself the writing is shit and put it on a shelf, and start again. Recently I've seen how much excellent work Rhys has done with his website and his latest opus "Riverside" and I couldn't' help but feel a little bit let down by my own insecurities.

I need to get my writing out there in the public, so everyone can pick at it and take large e-dumps on my work. I know it sounds bad, but it will help me improve

So that's my pledge, to publish more of my short stories and comic ideas, and I'd love all the feedback, no matter how insulting it is.

I'll try to post something writing related here once a week, which is a tough goal for me, since I can never come to a decision about what to eat for breakfast most days. Today I had cereal and chips. On that note, don't vote for the Smiths Buttered Popcorn flavour.

EDIT: clearly I don't post anything weekly, but I am posting my writing when it's done. I'll try to think of something to put in here on a more regular basis though.. so people don't think I'm dead or something.

Open Letter to the Man on the Train

2009-10-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

Firstly, fuck you.

I've been catching the train to work for a year now, and I can count the number of incidents I've had on the train on one hand.

- Old grump tried to pick a fight with me, eventually sat down.

- 2 druggies attack some guy who couldn't speak english, I sort it out.

There they are, a year of train travel and two incidents that fizzled out relatively quickly.

And now it's the last day of work before my 2 week break and some jittery drugged up cunt and/or career criminal hard man decides to make it a bad day. And that person is you.

I saw you when I got on the train at my stop, sitting at the end of the carriage on the three person bench, I thought nothing of it besides that is where I usually sit. But whatever, people are always sitting in my usual seat, my name isn't on it. So I find a seat further into the carriage.

Now we're approaching the last stop before mine, and the train is packed, I know that the next stop has at least an extra 15 people and the seat i'm in is woefully small given my height and weight, so I decide to sit on the far end of your bench, I think nothing of it, as it is a prime position for anyone who wants a little bit of space.

Countless people have sat in that space when I was in the position you were in, and I haven't said a word, it's polite to allow people to sit where they choose, considering the train is packed and the stop is metres away, I take my place on the bench.

This is where you strike up some friendly conversation with me, do you remember? You asked if the next stop was mine, and I said no, my stop is 20 minutes away. I then ask about your stop, continuing the pleasant banter that two people enjoy on the train sometimes.

But instead of answering my question you reply with a statement. Do you remember what you said my friend? I'm sure you don't, as you were wiry and on edge, no doubt some narcotic was coursing through your veins, or you were "jonesing" for a fix after the long train ride.

"I'm sitting here" you told me, which baffled me for two reasons, 1) I knew that already, and 2) you couldn't be more than 5 foot 4, and the bench is built for 3 people, so with a puzzled look in my eye I asked ".. the whole seat?".

That is when you must have mistook my "the whole seat?" with "I fucked your mother in the arse and then shot her through the brain and took a shit on your dog" because you flew into a tirade at me, a man twice your weight with a full foot over you too.

"FUCK OFF THE FUCKING SEAT, I'M SITTING ON THE FUCKING SEAT", I can only imagine what the other passengers were feeling, especially the seniors tour group that were so happily enjoying conversation with each other in the carriage.

Now I'm not one to fight, although I'm a large aggressive looking fellow I deplore violence, and I saw no benefit in fighting someone like you over a thing as trivial as a train seat, so I moved.

But sir, you really need to take a look at yourself in the mirror one day, and while you look deep into your own eyes I want you to do me a favour. Just a small favour really, but I'd appreciate it if you helped me out on this one.

I want you to take a knife, any knife will do, and insert it, with force, into your neck.

Thank you.