Word Man

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Adam Randall
This character, Word Man, is just a little something I put together back in 2012. I had a creative writing submission coming up and I submitted this as a ‘poem’  (along with other things) since he is made up entirely of letters and characters. I wasn’t sure if it would go down well, but, nicely, it did! Since then I’ve been thinking about what I can actually use Word Man for, but I’ve had no ideas. For now, at least, this blog post will be enough for him… plus, the fact that he was part of a submission that I got a very high grade on makes me very happy.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Is University Worth It?

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Adam Randall
I’ve heard it said from quite a few places that university is “not worth” the debt that comes with it. On the one hand, I do agree that there shouldn’t be any cost associated with education, but on the other hand, the debt that I have doesn’t bother me at all. Not only has pretty much all the work I got after leaving been a direct result of my Creative Writing degree (a degree which is often called worthless), I’ve learnt a lot more about the writing industry and learned ways to bring up the quality of my personal projects. These are all invaluable skills for my career, but beyond that, the personal experiences themselves were priceless. The relationships I developed there were all very meaningful and helped me to develop as a person and the gain a stronger understanding of life in general. So, yes, the answer for me is that university is absolutely worth it… Although, different people will have different paths.

(Don’t miss my final post for SmartDatingUK!)

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Bus Expectations

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Adam Randall
I was riding on the bus the other day, when I overheard a rather interesting conversation which affirmed a belief I’ve had regarding bus expectations for a while. It was two school girls talking to each other as I sat on a chair nearby.
    “You know the other day, I was feeling so bad,” said one of them.
    “Oh no, what was the matter?” said the other.
    “Well, I think it was the heat, but basically I was really close to fainting,” she said.
    “Aww, I’m really sorry.”
    “Yeah, and then this old woman got on the bus and said I had to get up so she could sit down!”
    I was shocked and apparently it was quite evident that I was quite engrossed in the story, as she looked at me for a second and finished the story in a more theatrical way.
    “And I tried to explain, but she wouldn’t let me and made me get up anyway!”
    By this point, I was quite shocked. A shocking ending to an intense story! I suppose the unspoken rule that old people are more deserving a seat is something which needs not to be taken so ridgidly. Age is not an easy indicator of a person’s health and it’s something that should always be kept in mind.
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America’s Legalisation of Same Sex Marriages

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Adam Randall
I was quite pleased to hear about the news of America’s legalisation of same sex marriages across all states, so I decided I’d make a blog post about it. I say ‘same sex marriages’ rather than ‘gay marriage’ because the latter of those two terms kind of suggests that there’s some difference between it and ‘normal’ marriage, when I don’t see that there is any at all.
    I read somebody post online that they were not religious, nor were they homophobic, but they were against this law because it was ‘changing religion’ and that that was wrong. They seemed to be of the opinion that marriage was a concept which stemmed from Christianity and that, by accepting same sex couples, the concept was being unfaithful to its origins. But this is such a silly objection; back in the past marriage was pretty much nothing else but a way of ‘owning’ women, which, other than sharing a name, is completely different to our modern understanding of marriage anyway. Furthermore, the idea of marriage is not ‘owned’ by Christianity and it shows a rather narrow-minded view of history and psychology to believe that it is. Even secluded tribes have had their own concepts of marriage and it’s just a thing that humans seem to naturally do no matter where they originate, so it’s rather a weak claim to say that Christianity ‘owns’ it or that they have any right to stop two consenting adults from doing what will make them happy.
    I feel I should also point out that I’m not really very fond of the idea of marriage; it seems like an unnecessary hangover from history which is likely to make people stay together even if that’s not what’s best for them. Nonetheless, marriage is what some people want and if that’s going to make people happy, it should be available to everyone. This is a happy day, but the sad thing is that the law does not reflect the attitudes of everyone; non-heterosexual people will still face stigma, be portrayed as stereotypes, and even be the victim of violent crimes (because of their sexuality) for some time to come, which is very sad. But marriage is one small victory, and it has been a wonderful addition to the day.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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StreetPass Quest

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Adam Randall

StreetPass Quest is one of the free games which is built into all 3DS consoles. Being free, it’s not a huge game, but actually it’s still pretty fun, and as I’m sure you can tell from the title, it makes good use of the StreetPass function.

The game has a fantasy setting and your Mii is the king or queen of an unnamed realm. Everything seems to be going fine for him or her, but then they get kidnapped! You need the help of passing Miis to get you rescued, and the only way to collect these passing Miis is to literally walk by them on the street and collect the Miis via the StreetPass feature.

Miis all have different abilities based on the colour of their clothes and the more times you pass the same Mii, the stronger it gets (until it reaches its cap) and you use these Miis to progress through several different areas until you face the final boss and rescue the king or queen.

There’s a very basic RPG gameplay style and you have to decide between having the Miis attack physically or with magic. There are different strategies to attacking the different kinds of enemies, so you have to make sure you’re attacking in the right way. The king or queen will give you hints about the best ways to fight the enemies as you go along. The problem I found was that you are occasionally waiting for quite a while because you need a Mii with a certain kind of magic and you can end up stuck in the same place for ages because you don’t happen to walk past a person whose Mii has that magic. The final boss is pretty cool though.

As a nice little bonus, occasionally when you defeat all of the monsters in a room you are rewarded with a treasure chest which will contain a hat for your Mii. These hats are sometimes even references to Nintendo franchises, such as Mario’s cap and a hat which makes it look like Kirby is sitting on your head. You get to show off these hats to people you StreetPass too, as your Mii will be wearing whichever one you set when they fight for the king or queen in somebody else’s game.

On the whole, it’s nice but it’s small. After I’d been through it a few times, I didn’t really have any incentive to do so again. There’s an achievement system which some people might enjoy, but I didn’t care about it that much. For a game that’s built into the system, it’s pretty good, but compared to other, more substantial games, it isn’t that great. I certainly appreciate that it was there, however!

Rating: 6.5/10

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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At Last, Employment Again!

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Adam Randall
You may remember a blog post I wrote a few months ago (entitled “Employment at Last”) where I wrote about how happy I was to have finally found full time employment after leaving university… Well, a couple of months later I lost that job because the company I was working for hadn’t been making many sales. That was pretty sad, especially as I was starting to become attached to my colleagues.
But, it seems, it all turned out for the best as I have now found myself with another, even better job! I work for a company called Roman Cart Ltd. and my job is to update the blog of their Sellr product as many times as I can a day. Today was my first real day of doing that and I have to say that it was one of the most fun and productive days I have had in a long time. All of the posts I write are about eCommerce websites and while that might not sound terribly exciting, I enjoy writing about it very much. I guess I just enjoy writing so much that I can take a great deal of pleasure in writing about any subject.
I won’t be posting links to all of my Sellr posts here (or on my Facebook page) since there’ll just be so many of them, but the link is there if you want to check yourself. I hope I’ll be able to stay in this position for as long as possible!
(Don’t miss my latest article for SmartDatingUK!)
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Writing for SmartDatingUK

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Adam Randall
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I’ve been writing for SmartDatingUK for a few months under a year now and, while I was initially quite unsure that I would be able to write so regularly about dating and relationships, at this point I am well into the swing of it and having a good time! The creative freedom it affords me allows me even to include references to my own works while keeping them accessible to all.
    The characters above are: Morris Iphraim Dobson, Graham the Ghost, Dirk the Jerk, Bernard Adams Dobson and Steve Gunner and if you click on each name you’ll see how I fit them in. I like doing it because, even though the articles are likely to only ever be read once by anyone, it still feels good to put a full effort in and give every piece my own unique touch.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Volumes 1 – 3 by Kazuki Takahashi

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Adam Randall

PictureI’m sure most of you probably know of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise in some form or another. Maybe you’ve heard of the popular trading card game, one of the anime series or one of the many video games. But it was the manga that started it all and, I have to say, a very good manga it is too.

The story follows a young boy named Yugi. He’s a sweet high school kid who’s fond of doing puzzles. He’s not a very popular boy and is regularly bullied at school. He does have one friend though, a girl named Anzu and she and Yugi are probably my two favourite characters as they’re both very nice and reasonable. They make another friend fairly early on, Jonouchi, but he’s quite foolhardy and I didn’t warm to him quite as much.

Yugi’s grandfather works in a shop which sells old puzzles, and one of the things he has there is the ancient Millennium Puzzle. The Millennium Puzzle has gone unsolved for centuries, but when Yugi tries his hand at it he’s able to complete it and completing it has some mysterious consequences; Yugi, in times of danger, adopts a new personality ‘Dark Yugi’ who initiates dark and twisted games with those who would harm him or his friends.

What I quite like about these first three volumes is the way that the tone changes very often; one moment there’ll be a chapter about the characters all playing a virtual pet game, the next they’ll be caught up in a deadly serious armed robbery. In a way, I suppose that’s a good way to show that these people are just kids after all and while horrible things may happen to them, they also maintain their childhood perspective on the world.

When Yugi is under the influence of the Millennium Puzzle, I was often shocked by his actions. The things he does to people are often fates worse than death, but sometimes they are just death and the fact that the victims are often teenagers makes it all very unsettling (despite how mean some of them may be.)

I suppose I’ve not spoken that much about what actually happens in this collection, but it’s quite hard to talk about the big plot details without spoiling them. Nonetheless, I very much enjoyed reading this; it was my first taste of Yu-Gi-Oh! and it’s certainly left me hungry for more.

Rating: 9/10

Buy it here.

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Keep the Fox Hunting Ban

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Adam Randall
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As a child I used to create a lot of anthropomorphic fox characters, so I wanted to use four of them for an anti-fox hunting image. Of course, even if I’d never created those characters I’d still stand staunchly against fox hunting. I’ve heard two arguments for it; the first is that it is a form of pest control, which is nonsense since foxes are bred to be hunted, and the second is that it is a character building exercise… Surely there are many ways to build one’s character which do not involve the violent deaths of innocent creatures? So I sincerely hope that the ban on will not be repealed, although, sadly, I expect it probably will be. Here is a link to a petition and here’s a link to the site mentioned in the image.

(Don’t miss my latest article for Rice Digital!)

(Don’t miss my latest post for SmartDatingUK!)

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Mario vs. Donkey Kong

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Adam Randall

PictureAfter Rare, who had been in charge of the Donkey Kong series for the better part of a decade, was purchased by Microsoft, it’s pretty clear that Nintendo wasn’t really sure what to do with the franchise. There were several rather experimental games, but then there was also Mario vs. Donkey Kong which was rather similar to the Game Boy game Donkey Kong.

What disappoints me is that this game has Donkey Kong adopt a more villainous role, which makes it feel like Nintendo were completely disregarding everything Rare did with the series. In the early Donkey Kong games, Donkey Kong was usually a villain (or, at best, morally ambiguous) while his son, Donkey Kong Jr., was portrayed more positively. When Rare took over, they reinvented Donkey Kong as a hero and explained that he was Donkey Kong Jr. all grown up (while Donkey Kong Sr. had aged and withered to become Cranky Kong) and then had their version of Donkey Kong go on to play the hero in several games… So to have him suddenly acting like the original Donkey Kong all of a sudden seems like a weird story development, as well as being a little disrespectful to Rare’s work.

The story in general is pretty weak for this game: Mario has a new range of toys out called Mini-Marios and, for some unexplained reason (possibly hypnotism) Donkey Kong becomes completely obsessed with them, breaks into a factory and steals a whole bunch of them. Mario then sets out to get them back. I know Nintendo games aren’t known for their great stories, but since when does Mario own a toy-making business and why does Donkey Kong care about them? At least the Mini-Marios are very cute.

So, let’s get to the most important thing: the gameplay! As I mentioned above, it’s quite similar to the Game Boy game Donkey Kong; levels have Donkey Kong running off and going through a door which he locks behind him, so you have to find a key and then bring it to the door to get through (which always requires a degree of puzzle solving). The problem is that it is so like the Game Boy game, that it just comes across as a poor imitation to me. The Game Boy game had unique levels, whereas this one uses generic locations you’d find in any Mario game and while some are quite fun, many are bland. The one unique thing this game does is give you levels where you have to guide Mini-Marios through obstacles and then put them in a box for safety. This sounds like a fun idea, but the problem is that the Mini-Marios just follow you mindlessly, get in your way, react too slowly and often seem to be killed because of their own lack of intelligence, rather than down to anything you control.

On the whole, while I have been quite negative in this review, I wouldn’t say this is a bad game. It’s just very ‘middle of the road’: not terrible, but not in any way exciting. If you were thinking of trying this, but also haven’t tried the Game Boy game Donkey Kong I’d definitely go for that over this.

Rating: 6/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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