Reflecting on 2018

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Adam Randall

I’m writing this within the first few hours of 2019 and as I look back on the year behind, I am pleased to see that I am in a better place than I was at this point last year. With this in mind, I have to consider this year, overall, a good one.

I came into 2018 with no money and with only a part time job in a call center as a source of income. This would be fine, of course, if I had a solid personal life to back it up, but at the time I didn’t really have many friends around to see on a regular basis. A couple of my closest friends had even moved away to far off countries.

To be honest, I was getting a bit disillusioned. I was finding it very hard to find copywriting or digital marketing-based work and I was weary of making new friends, because I didn’t want to invest emotionally in people who I knew I’d end up separated from sooner or later. I thought it best to just keep to myself, make enough money to live from the call centre and not expect any more from life.

Thankfully, thoughout the year, I ended up making quite a large number of new friends – more than I normally meet within a year. I felt that I had become quite a bit more cynical and, for me, it was obvious that I was not engaging with people in as much of a positive way as I had been before. So what was comforting for me, was that I still found that new people I met would compliment me for being positive and upbeat – what really motivated me to make more effort to be friendly and positive again, was when a new friend confided in me that they were having a hard time and needed more positivity in their life. It served as a call to action and made me feel that my positivity had a purpose. Meanwhile, I’ve also regained contact with some friends I was worried I was drifting away from, which is something I’m very glad about.

Career-wise, I now work for WDC (Whale and Dolphin Conservation) as the Digital Fundraising Officer. Though my role is only secure until April, it is a job I like very much and I hope that I will be able to remain there beyond the fixed term contract I am currently on. I’ve also been tweaking and editing the first draft of a novel I wrote – who knows if anything good will come of that.

There are a lot of things I hoped to have achieved by now, but have not and a lot of areas for improvement in my life – but for this post, I wanted to write about the positives because 2018 was ultimately a good year for me.

(I wrote something like this about 2015 and 2017 too. I should make this a tradition…)

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How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss

Posted on December 24, 2018 by Adam Randall

I’m a big Christmas fan and I really love all of the classic stories associated with the season, such as Earl Hamner’s The Homecoming and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but there’d always been on conspicuous gap in my Christmas appreciation: the Grinch.

Now, like many of you, I was already familiar with the general story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! which is that of a negative person who steals people’s Christmas presents to stop them from being able to enjoy Christmas, but what I didn’t know was that there’s a fair bit of depth to it all.

What the Grinch hates about Christmas is the fact that it’s all so loud and people are all so over the top about it. It annoys him and he just wants to sit quietly in his cave. The fact is, he doesn’t truly understand what Christmas is. To him, it is simply a day for over indulgence and I can understand why he would take issue with it.

But when the Grinch realises that the thing that’s important to people is being together and they’re not really bothered about all of the trappings, he changes his perspective. He sees the good in humanity (or in the Whos of Whoville, which are the creatures in this story) and he wants to be a part of it. When he gets that its about love and not excessive consumption, it elicits some change in him.

It’s a simple story, but I think it’s quite a beautiful one. The Grinch lives by himself and is, presumably, very lonely. He doesn’t understand people and there reasons for doing things, simply because he does not understand them. Sure, stealing everybody’s Christmas presents is a bad thing to do, but when people hate, they do so only out of ignorance and it’s definitely true of the Grinch. Loneliness always brings out the worst in people, but when he gets a chance to be a part of community again, he cannot resist.

All I knew of the Grinch was that he was a villainous character who stole presents from people. I thought it might be a fun little Christmas romp – and it was, but the additional layer of significant meaning was greatly appreciated. And, of course, it’s all wrapped up in the beautiful bow that is Dr. Seuss’s usual lyrical writing style. If you’ve not read it, I strongly recommend it!

Rating: 8.5/10

Buy it here.

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Devil World games:

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Adam Randall

1984: Devil World
2006: Tetris DS ¹
2008: Super Smash Bros. Brawl ²
2014: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS ³

Connected Series:

Footnotes:

  1. Characters from the series appear in the game’s Standard Mode.
  2. The Devil appears as a non-playable character.
  3. The Devil appears as a non-playable character.
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Christmas Card Appreciation

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Adam Randall

One unhappy trend that I notice as I get older, is that fewer and fewer people seem to be writing Christmas cards these days – or at least, that’s the case among the circles of people that I interact with. What’s a shame is that as this decline has been happening, I, personally, have found myself drawn to them more and more. I have a quality street tin of cards that friends have given me and I’ll look over them from time to time. I’m especially fond of the ones where people go out of their way to write a short paragraph.

In terms of what people can give me at Christmas time, there’s a clear hierarchy in my mind. Number one, of course, is their time. I’ll never appreciate anything more than a person taking the time to see me for a dinner or a lunch. Number two, then, is Christmas cards, because though I may not see a person, it is nice for them to share their emotions in some way. Third is presents – which can also be very nice, but which rarely provide the same level of emotional satisfaction as cards or time.

Of course, I don’t want to imply that Christmas is all about what other people can give you. The focus should always be on what you can give other people at this time of year – and do you know what my favourite thing to give is? Well, it’s time, of course, but I also get a great deal of satisfaction from writing my Christmas cards. When else do you get the opportunity to lavish your friends with affection without seeming needy? Not often! It’s nice that love and sentimentality are encouraged at at least one time in the year.

This year, I am particularly happy that two people have told me that my cards brought tears to their eyes – and it wasn’t because I was insulting them! I think it would be very hard to evoke that response with a simple gift. To me, this is when it’s important to let people know they are valued. As I write the many cards (and letters) that I send out each Christmas, I always look forward to the happy reactions of the people who will receive them. Nothing makes me feel as good as making people feel good – which is actually very selfish.

So, basically, the point of that unstructured selection of paragraphs is that I love Christmas cards and I wish more people loved them as much as me.

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Devil World

Posted on December 19, 2018 by Adam Randall

When you hear that there was a game called Devil World which was never allowed to be released in the US, your mind probably starts thinking of all kinds of Creepy Pasta-esque scenarios. Surely, it must be some kind of dark and twisted game, made all the creepier by 8-bit graphics and music. A real skeleton in Nintendo’s closet.

However, if you’re keen to try something like that, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Really, it’s just a light-hearted game with more than a few similarities to Pac-Man, just with a little bit of religious imagery thrown in. It’s a bit odd, really.

You play as Tamagon, a small green creature (who some say was a proto-Yoshi) who must travel through a maze eating dots, while avoiding several goofy looking demons which patrol the area. As an extra layer of challenge, you can only eat the dots if you’re holding a crucifix – of which several are scattered around the maze. They also give you the power to shoot fire, but they disappear after you’ve been holding them for a while.

While you’re doing all this, you’ve got the Devil at the top of the screen. Only a part of the maze is visible at all times and you can’t move outside of what you can see. The Devil forces the screen to move in different directions, which can end up forcing you to get trapped between walls – killing you.

It’s a simple game which is fairly fun, but nothing special or even that interesting. I don’t really know why Tamagon is avoiding the Devil and his demons while eating random dots, but perhaps if there’s a good enough story in there it might make things a little more interesting. But I don’t think there is. As things are, it’s a just okay NES game.

Rating: 6.1/10

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Top Icons of Christmas

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Adam Randall

I love Christmas. In fact, I am pretty obsessed with it. When December comes along, I enjoy watching a large number of Christmassy films and even reading Christmassy books when I can. Though, for some people, it’s viewed as a celebration of greed, I like to look at it as a celebration of love and generosity – and I love stories which celebrate these virtues! So here’s quick look at some of the characters who I feel are the best Christmas Icons.

Jesus Christ
Full disclosure: I am not religious at all and I don’t even know if he existed in reality, but I have to tell you, I love Jesus and Christmas is his birthday. He even gets to have his name in the day, kind of. Now, I don’t agree with everything he said, but I don’t think anybody better embodies the ideals of love and generosity than Jesus himself.

 

 

John-Boy Walton
You’re most probably thinking to yourself ‘Why has the Walton maniac added John-Boy to a Christmas list when he has nothing to do with Christmas? Is this another stupid joke? Why doesn’t he realise that nobody’s laughing?’ and to that I say – John-Boy made his debut in The Homecoming which was a direct-to-television Christmas movie. His passion for life, creativity and his open-minded approach to helping others means that he most perfectly embodies the ideals we should all strive for at this time of year.

Ebenezer Scrooge
I love me a good redemption story – you’ve got classics like Jean Valjean and Koro-sensei, but Ebenezer Scrooge is the best one with a Christmas angle to him. Deep in my heart, I like to imagine that a lot of the world’s nasty and greedy people would transform if they underwent the Scrooge treatment. ‘Scrooge’ is so often used as an insult for people who hate Christmas, but I think that it’s actually a compliment, because Scrooge is a man who realised his worldview was wrong and then dedicated his life to helping others.

You know, I was going to do four of these, but then I found that I was really torn between who the fourth slot should go to and the first three all felt like absolute shoe-ins. I decided that that’s a good indication that I should just stick to the three. Do you like these three characters? And who do you think are the three biggest icons of Christmas?

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Dessert Dilemma

Posted on December 14, 2018 by Adam Randall

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a couple of weddings. This is the reason that there were some missed blog posts around that time. Going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I actually quite liked both of them.

At the first of the two, other than the groom, I didn’t know anybody else. Thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult to ‘click’ with the people I had been seated near. I spent most of my time chatting friendlily with them.

“I’m looking forward to the dessert,” I said to the woman next to me. “I love sticky toffee pudding.”

“How do you know that you’re getting the sticky toffee pudding and not the pear crumble?” she asked. “I was never given the chance to choose.”

This was when the tension of the evening presented itself – I hadn’t realised that there were two dessert options and had been thinking about the sticky toffee pudding for a while, but now I realised that it was not guaranteed. Thankfully, the idea of the pear crumble was also pretty appealing to me, so I would be happy either way, even with the sticky toffee pudding.

“I’m going to be unhappy if I can’t have the sticky toffee pudding,” she said. “I hope that you’ll swap with me if you get one and I don’t.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said.

Eventually, the desserts started coming out. I started to try and identify some kind of pattern which might give me some clue as to how they were distributed. It was noticeable to me that sticky toffee puddings were the vast majority – in fact, for a long time I didn’t see any pear crumbles.

But then I noticed the pattern. Pear crumbles were coming to the guests I knew were vegetarian (we vegetarians have a telepathic link, that’s how I knew who was) and sticky toffee puddings were coming to everyone else. It made sense, because it was a dessert that was also vegan friendly (and they were getting it too), while the sticky toffee pudding would not accommodate vegans. This was a little bit sad, because I would have preferred the sticky toffee, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. The woman next to me was not vegetarian, so she would be happy.

Eventually both a sticky toffee pudding and a pear crumble were headed our way. I accepted my fate. Pear crumble would be my dessert… but then things took a very interesting twist. I got the sticky toffee pudding and the woman next to me got the pear crumble. Almost certainly a mistake on the part of the waitress.

I smiled quietly to myself.

“I am so disappointed,” said the woman next to me, moderately loudly.

“I’m so sorry,” said the waitress, turning back around. “Did I bring you the wrong one? I can bring you a sticky toffee pudding.”

“No, don’t worry,” said the woman next to me. “It honestly doesn’t matter much. I was exaggerating. I’ll have this. It’s fine.”

“It’s okay,” affirmed the waitress. “I’ll bring you a sticky toffee pudding.”

“I feel bad,” said the woman to the table, “I don’t mean to be difficult.”

“It’s okay,” said someone else. “Honestly, I’d prefer a pair crumble, so let’s swap.”

And now this story draws to its very satisfying close. Of course, since the waitress had still gone to collect another sticky toffee, one was still brought out. But now, everyone had their fill of desserts. So what was to be done? Why, the surplus sticky toffee pudding was given to me and I got to enjoy two delicious desserts – what a nice turn of events for me.

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Ethics by Aristotle (translated by J. A. K. Thomson)

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Adam Randall

Aristotle was the student of Plato, who was the student of Socrates and I feel that the knowledge and wisdom had really refined itself by the time it got to Aristotle. By all means, they all have a lot of beliefs which seem kind of strange to me and are likely to seem strange to any twenty-first century person – but I feel as though Aristotle’s are the most level headed and there was a lot of interesting stuff in this book.

The core principle of Aristotle’s ethics is that to do the right thing, one must find the “Golden Mean.” What this means, is that a person’s temperament (or response to any given situation) can become a vice either due to an excess of certain qualities, or a deficiency. So, for example, one person might flee from danger in cowardice, another might fling themselves foolhardily into danger and the Golden Mean response will be to remain calm and reduce the threat to yourself and others. Or a person might be really selfish and never do anything for anyone, while another will be selfless to the point of self-destruction – but the Golden Mean would be to be selfless, but to be aware of your limits in the process.

Most of the book is spent illustrating how the Golden Mean applies to many different cases and while it can be interesting at times, I did also think that some of it was a bit… obvious. But perhaps that’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. Perhaps these concepts would have seemed more mind blowing over two thousand years ago. Some of his points I didn’t quite like either; for example, he claims that someone doesn’t have full responsibility for actions committed under the influence of lust, as they aren’t thinking clearly. Whether intended or not, this makes him sound like a bit of a rape apologist. Though it’s understandable considering the time, Aristotle’s ethics and his way of talking about self-harm and self-love really fail to take a person’s mental health into consideration in any way that is properly reflective of how mental health actually works.

The fact that this was written two thousand years ago does show throughout – sometimes in very interesting ways. He refers to ‘the gods’ many times without even the shadow of a doubt about their existence and he’ll make references to contemporaries to make points and, according to the foot notes, the identity of some of the people he refers to has been long forgotten – which I find fascinating. Their only legacy in the modern world is a passing reference in a work by somebody else. It’s also nice to see his polite rebuttal of Plato – his arguments against the Form of the Good were agreeable, as he argues ethics need to adapt based on circumstances, rather than being absolute.

The biggest flaw is the fact that this is very dry. I found that if I read for more than five or ten minutes, it all stopped making sense to me. Perhaps that says more about me than the book. Thankfully, it’s divided into several easy to digest little sections (about a page or so in length) and I ended up reading one of these a day. I don’t know if I can recommend this book to the general reader, but if you’re passionate about the ancient Greeks or moral philosophy, then you may enjoy it.

Rating: 6.7/10

Buy it here.

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Jodie Whittaker’s Brilliant Thirteenth Doctor

Posted on December 10, 2018 by Adam Randall

Yesterday, Jodie Whittaker’s first series in Doctor Who came to an end. Some people love her, some people hate her (just like every other Doctor) and as a rabid fan of the entire Doctor Who universe, I thought I’d take a few minutes to share my perspective.

To put it simply, I fall into the group of people that love her. As a concept, I never had an issue with the Doctor regenerating into a female body. It makes the character more interesting, knowing that their sex can change during regeneration and I like that it confirms my reading of the character as one who is genderless. Having said that, when they first announced that the Thirteenth Doctor would be female, I did have some concerns; mainly, that it would be handled and written really badly. After all, they did once write a female Doctor for a one-off alternate universe audio adventure and she gave up adventuring and became an alcoholic Sainsbury’s employee… so it can be done badly.

Thankfully, my concerns were completely ungrounded. The Doctor regenerated into a woman without skipping a beat. I was worried that they were going to make a huge deal about it and then have stupid jokes “oh, what are these things on my chest!?” but instead, she takes it in her stride – as a member of a sex-changing race would do. Her gender was only really an issue in an historical episode where she wasn’t taken seriously at all, causing her much frustrating and creating an interesting new dynamic.

I was also worried because I really, really liked Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. For a long time, the Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor was my favourite, but the Twelfth managed to dethrone him. What I enjoyed about him was that he was a slightly darker Doctor (at least at first) who grew to realise that he shouldn’t doubt himself and that it was okay for him to express his emotions. He had a really great character arc and I hope that he’ll be remembered as one of the greats. Coming after that, I thought any Doctor might be a disappointment.

Thankfully, I was not disappointed in the slightest. The Twelfth Doctor, especially towards the end, had a lot of unhappiness in him. He spoke a lot about how had kept losing people and even how he wanted his life to end. It made for some really engaging and emotional viewing – but the Thirteenth Doctor is almost the opposite of that. She’s possibly the most upbeat and optimistic of the Doctors. Not only did this make for a refreshing change (and how many main characters, in all modern media, struggle with a lot of inner emotional conflict?) but I think that it works well in the greater, overall narrative of Doctor Who. The Twelfth Doctor nearly chose to end his life, rather than to regenerate, so as a survival instinct, he regenerated into a person who a happier perspective on the world.

The criticism that I see aimed at this series most often, is that Doctor Who is too “politically correct” now. In general, I think this term is tossed around far too often, but I will admit there are times where it applies. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird was recently removed from a school curriculum for containing offensive, racial language. In my mind, “political correctness” is the desire to censor things in order to appease people across the political spectrum – often at the expense of ignoring that certain issues and historical facts exist. And let’s be honest, if To Kill a Mockingbird were written today, some people would accuse it of being ‘too PC.’

So, I would absolutely not say that this criticism applies to this series of Doctor Who. They tackle social issues that exist within today’s world and highlight several socially significant historical events too. It’s thought provoking and much better than when they would completely ignore these issues in previous historical episodes (which, I would argue, is much more ‘politically correct.’) There was a greater sense of seriousness and integrity throughout all of the episodes and that is something I have been craving for some time now.

I’ll admit that one of her three companions, Yaz, is a little bit underdeveloped, but she’s still likeable and I expect that we’ll get to know her over the next series. The relationship between the other two, Ryan and Graham, was fantastic and I really enjoyed their presence on board the TARDIS. They’re very different to the companions we’ve had before. And it’s not just them – everything is different and it works really well. In order to survive as long as it has, Doctor Who needs to keep changing like this.

So I hope this era of the show lasts a long time, because I am very happy. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

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Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color)

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Adam Randall

I’ve played many different Donkey Kong Country games throughout the years and I’ve played many different versions of those games. Sadly, I feel as though this is, by far, the worst Donkey Kong Country experience of them all – and I include the Donkey Kong Land games in that. Ultimately, it is a remake of the original Donkey Kong Country and so it retains some of its qualities, meaning it’s not all bad. I’d recommend you read my original review first, then I’ll cover the changes in this version here. In the name of positivity, let’s start with its strengths:

Good differences:

  • Though, as a Game Boy Colour game, it is graphically and audible inferior to the SNES original in a technical sense, for me it was nice to see the whole game reimagined through the lens of the GBC limitations.
  • There’s a brand new level in the final world called Necky Nutmare. I will never not be happy with new Donkey Kong Country levels.
  • A new mini-game called Funky’s Fishing is included. In it, you ride on Enguarde as you try to catch fish out of the ocean. There’s a timer that goes down constantly, but each new catch gets more time added on, so you can keep going as much as possible. Weirdly, DK was given his voice from Donkey Kong 64 for this and so says “cool” (but in a horribly, horribly distorted way) all the time.
  • There are also a selection of Coconut Gun themed levels, which have you shooting targets to achieve certain tasks. These are probably the best new thing in this version of the game. My favourite was kind of like a remake of Manhole, but with Donkey Kong characters. Sadly, I got stuck with these as one of them was not colour blind-friendly.
  • The game automatically saves all the time now, instead of needing to visit Candy Kong to do so. Visiting her now gives you a little bonus game instead – most of which are fine, but highly inconsequential.

Bad differences:

  • Donkey and Diddy don’t appear on-screen at the same time anymore, so it can be harder to remember if you still have them both or not.
  • Opening an Animal Crate now transforms you into that Animal Buddy. If you get hit, they disappear and you turn back into a Kong with no way to get them back.
  • Now, the biggest the biggest problem: the controls are bad. It might just be because I have so much experience of playing the original iterations, but the timing of everything felt off. I ended up dying again and again because of this. The jumping physics have changed and are inferior – often when I felt I should have bounced off an enemy’s head, I landed right in front of it, got hit and died. Other issues stem from not being able to see so far ahead of you anymore. I often got stuck for a long time on levels I knew I could normally win easily. It’s almost impressive that they managed to take one of my all-time favourite games and make it a chore to play.

So, while the Donkey Kong Country charm is still in there (just about) this game’s flaws heavily outweigh it.

Rating: 5.7/10

Buy it here.

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