Converting the Stubborn

Just a quick one today.

Last night I had 5 mates round for one of the regular xBox nights we have. Traditionally we have always played Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), but this time around I have decided to move my alliance to FIFA 10, something that was scowled upon by the traditionalists. After a week of persuasion I eventually managed to get a small group of sceptics to come round and give it a try. The format was familiar, arrive with a few beers, order in a chippy tea and play the tournament – cost to enter is one pound and no ‘top’ teams are allowed. Out of the hat I picked Boca Juniors, the worst team in the draw, but as I had played the game before this would help to even things out. After setting up the controllers to the alternative format so that we had a level playing field we got in some practice.

The result of the evening was that we all filled our faces, everyone loved the new puppy and I gained 60% acceptance, just two more people to keep the pressure on, if they all have a copy by xmas then the rest of the group will have to follow suit so they can play online … the mission continues.

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias

Once again Frontier, the team behind the LostWinds series, have pulled off a masterpiece.

Over recent weeks I have been gaming quite a lot, mainly playing FIFA 10 online through the xBox 360, but last week I stumbled across an article about the imminent release of LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, the second part in the story of young Toku and Enril the Wind Spirit’s adventure. This sparked me in to wanting to go back and complete the original game, something I had failed to do because I got stuck at about 70% of the way through and never returned to finish. So on Friday night whilst in the pub, giving the better half my complete attention of course, I decided to start my failed adventure again, the following evening. This particular Saturday night was scheduled to be gaming night because the better half had arranged a works night out and my new goal was to complete LostWinds.

After dropping her off at the pub to meet her friends I dashed home, grabbed my snacks and drinks and settled down to begin my adventure anew. Despite the fact I had encountered most of the jaw dropping moments the game has to offer before, I was still blown away the effortless interaction between the two characters and the charming puzzles set in the most amazingly stylised scenery. The charm of this game is that it is so simple  and yet so fulfilling in terms of story, visuals and a sense of achievement. One particular moment mesmerised me as I played, this was of course the final ‘boss’ encounter. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but the thought that has gone in to it was outstanding and yet the solution is so simple and almost ‘routine’ after hours of game play, however it wasn’t without its difficulties. The reward for the completion of this puzzle wasn’t only the fact that you complete the game, but you also save someone from evil and gain a new friend. I completed the game in just shy of 4 hours and felt truly enlightened for having done so. Admittedly I did turn to a guide to avoid getting stuck where I had before, but this only served to mess things up further because the directions it contained where wrong, so my lesson has been learnt.

Fresh from the original adventure and still with that warm cuddly feeling in my chest I downloaded the sequel. 20 minutes later I was at the introduction screen and the magical music that features throughout the games was playing … then suddenly the dreaded iPhone ring-tone began to play … I had my orders to go pick the better half up and she was in a slightly less than lady like state. Disappointedly I prised the remote from my hand a powered down the Wii, I was soooooo close!!!

It wasn’t until Monday evening that I finally got to sit down and play Winter of the Melodias. I turned off my phone, turned on the Wii and at last made it past the opening screen. As the game starts you are greeted by a familiar scene – Toku is asleep in a stupid place and fall to the ground with a bump. His guardian, Deo, is there and shortly after arrives the renowned adventurer Notéa to break the bad news and the foundation to your next adventure. I wont ruin the plot beause learning it is an integral parts of the games experience, but its nothing to unfamiliar. Person close to you in trouble, go to dangerous place and save them. This begins the best introduction to a game I have ever experienced, its begins by your new friend Magmok, ancient Guardian of Mistralis, taking you to the place you need to be, as thanks for saving him in the final encounter of the previous game. As you proceed up the mountainous terrain Magmok climbs with you and helps you in areas where you cannot get through unaided. As you ascend the basic controls are introduced for those who are unfamiliar with the first game. By the time you reach the top your are familiar with the basics and ready for an adventure.

I have only played a further half an hour in to the game before I had to go back to the real world, but needless to say I can already see massive improvement to the game, yet it still feels the same and offers the same amazing experience. A clever touch I really enjoyed is that when you begin you are not dressed for the environment, meaning that you have to stay close to beacons in order to keep warm, this adds a new dimension and pressure to the early stages and really makes you think. The increased variety of enemies is also very clever, after encouraging you to use them in clearing an obstacle or to defeat other enemies , an example of this is when you reach a thorny blockade, you can use the enemies that are ‘on-fire’ to destroy the thorns before using vortex to make a snow ball and dousing them out. These clever touches add depth and this is what make Winter of the Melodias so much more rewarding than the original – not to mention the map which actually helps you make sense of what you are achieving.

I genuinely recommend to anyone looking for a good adventure game to give this a try, its only £7 and worth every penny in my opinion. You can’t help but be charmed and feel a sense of achievement.

Update (15/10/2009): I’ve just finished the game after an intense 4 hours. So I thought I’d post a tip for those struggling with the final fight (spoiler alert)… that purple blob he throws at you is the only thing you can hurt him with.

Is FIFA as addictive as Heroin?

Well, so far I’m only one sentence in to this post and it’s taken me four days to get this far, so you work it out …

I Think My Girlfriend Would Kill Me!

Once again Spike has delivered the dinner time laughs with a video entitle “How To Wake Your Girlfriend Up“. Now I know that any blokes reading this are expecting a video with that title to have some form of nakedness, but despite the poor victim being fully clothed, its well worth a watch!

This guy is one of the luckiest men I know because not only is his girlfriend good lucking, but she can take a joke. Enjoy the show:

Matthews Street Festival: Dancing in the Rain

The last 12 months have seen me doing a lot of things that I previously haven’t had the time or money to do, not to mention the ear ache I would have got from the ex-girlfriend. Now though, me and Lisa are happily exploring everything that is put before us. This weekend we got invited to meet friends at the Matthews Street Festival, which was a first for both of us. The added bonus of the weekend was that my nephew, Ian, was over from Rome and showing his friends Marco, Angus and Enzo around the city.

We set off about dinner-time and got in to town for about 13:30, only to realise that we’d missed Pink Floyd – I was not impressed because I’d got myself all excited about that one. Disappointed, we set off in search of our friends, after some dashing around town and listening to the Beatles tribute band, we eventually met up with Ian and the lads to have a beer. The hangovers on display where outstanding, especially Angus’, who I think was actually asleep, standing up, with his eyes open! After a few drinks we set off to the Lambanana Stage to meet some of Lisa’s friends, but finding them in the massive crowd that was matching the Motown set was difficult, to say the least. We eventually met up once the crowds dispersed and made our introductions. This resulted in some slobbering and flirting, but it was all cut short because the lads wanted to watch the Guns ‘n’ Roses tribute, so we headed off with them and agreed to meet up with her friends later.

The crowd around the Tunnel Stage was big and we had to resort to being quite far back, but we still had good enough views. Some of the singing/screaming was a little suspect, but I didn’t expect anything else, Axl Rose is a difficult act to follow. However, when the classics like “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” came on the crowd lit up at the atmosphere was superb. Shortly in to their performance the rain began to drizzle down on us, but the band missed the chance of a comical moment and didn’t play “November Rain”, much to my disappointment. Me and Lisa left just before the end of the set and headed back to the Lambanana Stage to catch the second half of the Motown set, the lads headed off to watch the football.

On the way I grabbed some paella from a bloke who sounded more polish than Spanish, but I didn’t care because I was starving and it tasted superb! We ate on the move as we wiggled our way through the crowds, but once we got about 50ft from the stage we could go no further, not because the crowds were too packed in, but because everyone was dancing around in groups and I didn’t intend on getting caught in someone’s circle and made to dance like a clown as punishment. As each superb act played the rain slowly began to get heavier, but when the Jackson 5 tribute band came on I think one of the sound engineers must have wired things up wrong, because as each new song started the rain got significantly heavier, to the point that we were drenched form head-to-toe and stood in a deep puddle by the time the third song had finished. Despite this, no one seemed to care, so we all simply carried on dancing away, spilling beer and getting poked in the eye by those clever enough to bring an umbrella! When I looked at my plastic, watery pint of beer I realised it was filling up quicker than I was drinking it, something was not right here!

As The Supreme’s came on to do their final set we had a moment of magic … Lisa got a text from her friends saying they where about 10 feet in front of us and had umbrella’s … we dash like crazy though the crowds and found them stood on a raised area, with great views and a way out of the rain, perfect! We enjoyed the rest of the set and then headed down to Café Sports England. We met up with the lads and settled down to watch the Roma vs Juventus game and have some food. I enjoyed playing devils advocate between Marco, a Roma fan, and Enzo, a Juventus fan and especially when I saw the look of disappointment on Marco’s face as the third Juventus goal hit the back of the net – he was not a happy man! The meal was superb and the price was so cheap I thought I’d robbed them, so I will definitely be going there again.

After the football the lads wanted to head up to another bar on Bowlers Street who had a live band on, but as Lisa and myself were soaking wet and had an hours journey home, so we said we’d join them for one before getting the train home – what a disaster this turned out to be! We got soaked on or way there, so after a REALLY quick drink we sloped off to the train station, only to be told that the trains had been cancelled!!! This left us with two options … an expensive taxi or a guess as to which bus to jump on. We decided to chance the buses, but when we arrived at the bus station it was closed off and the temporary stops outside Lime Street Station where heaving, but I still wasn’t going to get a taxi. I decided to play my joker card … I rang my dad, thankfully he didn’t mind and agreed to meet us a mile or so outside of the town centre,. Luckily the rain had stopped by now and we were able to dive in to the local Subway to use the toilet.

It was a long, wet and fantastic day. I can’t wait for next year!

Am I Becoming Nosey?

I’m having images of Michael Paine peeping through the curtains as I write this, haha!

For a few months now I’ve been feeling the need to get my head back in to the books, both academically and as a means of chilling out in my spare time. I usually play football, relax with my lady in front of the tv or play computer games in my spare time, but with the latter usually being before bed, it takes me ages to get to sleep, so I thought books would break this cycle.

I decided that I needed to get a copy of David Attenborough’s Autobiography – Life on Air, because he is possible the most accomplished man alive today and he has dedicated his life to two of my major interests, technology and nature. I dived on to Amazon, as you do, and found his book. Just as I was reading about some of the finer details, to wet my appetite, I spotted the link to an audiobook! This was something I have never considered before, but given that having the great man himself read it out me would mean less stress on my already over-worked eyes and the fact that I own an iPhone, it could be something that works for me. To follow this brain wave up I looked on iTunes, but it wasn’t there … huh?!?!

This was seriously disappointing, so I decided to look at what other autobiographies where available. I found 4 that where of interest to me; Race to the Pole by James Cracknel and Ben Fogle, Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes, Pole to Pole by Michael Palin and Business Stripped Bare by Richard Branson. I was highly tempted to get all four of there immediately, but as I never rush in to things I thought I should play it cool and just trial one to begin with.  I listened to snippets of each and decided that I needed to have Race to the Pole first because with the exception of Top Gear, its the best program on TV at the moment, so this was to be my the one to pop my cherry!

I have listened to tasters of the others and decided that I couldn’t cope with Ranulph Fiennes monotone style of reading, despite his amazing adventures and deep personality, so I have ordered this in the old fashioned paper format, so I’ll be needing to spend some time lying in the sun and learning more about the greatest adventurer of our times. The other two are ready to be bought as soon as I’ve finished Race to the Pole.

I’m hoping this leads to a greater amount of reading and learning, but for now I’m just happy to be having a fantastic story told to me from the men who made it come true.

In answer to the original question… Yes I am, but only if your story is one of great risk, adventure and success, despite massive odds.

A Day of Culture

Yesterday was absolutely fantastic! Shortly after blogging about my drunken antics the day before, I picked up the better half, her brother and his son, who has just turned one, so he’s amazingly cute and has women’s hearts melting for miles around. We headed to the Botanic Gardens in Southport and let the little tinker practice his walking skills whilst we all had a nice picnic. As you can see from the pictures, it was an absolutely gorgeous day so we treated him to an ice cream, most of which ended up on us three!

After a few hours walking around the gardens, messing about in the playground and filling our faces we decided to go meet up with some friends of mine at one of their houses. The plan of action for the afternoon was to go to the jazz festival in the town centre and pass the afternoon away why the kids chase every pigeon in sight. If you look at the pictures you can see just how busy (and pigeon free) the square was after a few hours. This is definitely something I intend on doing again over the summer, I didn’t realise these arts events where so popular, but that’s because I’ve been raised with all the culture of a modern day box house and it’s something I want to change through going to more local ’shows’ and travelling off the beaten track when the opportunity presents itself.

As with most events I seem to attend, alcohol was present, in this case it was “The Pimms Stand”, which proved rather popular definitely helped us to enjoy the beautiful sunshine, good music and good company.

This was definitely a day to remember and I hope we get plenty more this summer. The full photo set is on my Flickr Account as usual.

Nickelback: Live at the MEN Arena in Manchester

As the title clearly gives away, I went to watch Nickelback last night at the MEN Arena in Manchester. My girlfriend bought me the tickets as a birthday present, knowing that I really like their music, but because I don’t go to many concerts or live events I’m not ashamed to admit I was a little nervous, not least because I thought we would like out of place amonst a massive crowd of rock fans wearing all black clothes and crazy T-shirts that would ouly be out done by the mental hair styles they would have on display.

As the day went on I did get quite excited and was really surprised when I arrived to see a totally mixed group ranging from heavy rockers to average joe’s and even a load of girls who were dressed in a way that would have seemed more at home at a Maria Carey or Take That concert. What did worry me though was the amount of kids! I don’t mean 14 year olds who are starting to grow up, I mean primary school kids. Surely the parents must have known what a gang of lads, playing heavy rock music, on a stage, whilst no doubt being high on something and spurred on by thousands of fans was going to result in at least a few choice words… needless to say, they didn’t disappoint, quite a bit of swearing, but with a lot of humour to back it up. My and the girlfriend enjoyed it, but I think a few parents were blushing at the end, haha.

Overall the concert was a massive surprise to me, I knew they had musical talent, but I was blown away by how good the show was! The interaction with the crowd was excellent and really funny, the pyrotechnics and lighting/video show was outstanding and the T-Shirt cannons topped it all off nicely. I would definitely recommend going to see them if your a fan of their music.

The whole set of poorly taken photos can be found here.

Fantastic start to a weekend I’ve been looking forward to for months. We’re setting off on a weekend away in Wales with the whole family now, cant wait!

2009 So Far … 1st Jan to 1st May

Seeing as I’ve lost everything on the site I thought it was a good idea to make an article that covered everything that has happened so far this year, so here goes:

2009 began with Me, Lisa and her friends taking a drunken walk back from a fantastic New Years Eve party at Shaw Hill Hotel, Whittle-le-Woods Near Chorley. This seems to have set the tone for the fantastic year ahead. Because so much has happened I’m going to do a month by month break-down, Enjoy!

January

The year started with Geoff and Mygenet’s wedding, which was all planned at the last minute. Geoff being close family and us having grown up together, I knew I was going to heavily involved, what I didn’t expect was to be asked to usher 4 days before the wedding, and then with 3 days to go I was asked to step in as Best Man due to Geoff’s uncle have an arse of a boss who wouldn’t allow him to take the day off work … on a Saturday! Despite the chaos everything went really well and pictures are available on either of their Facebook accounts.

After the wedding the next two weeks, as it is every year, was filled with birthdays. One of these was a mate of mine and as his wife was out playing we organised a Pro-Evo night for the lads. Lots of Beer, Plenty of Chilli’s and a bit of gambling ensued!

At the end of the month it was Lisa’s birthday, so being the super boyfriend that I am I sent her off to Geneva to see a good friend of hers and spend 4 days getting blind drunk. Upon her return I was in the good books and was forced to endure several weeks of no nagging, drinking with the lads, playing on my xBox and getting spoilt rotten by my lady … terrible times! hehe

February

Everyone know what happens in February, and despite the fact that I hate it, I knew that Lisa was looking forward to it, so Valentines day was in need of planning. Being as how I was in the good books though, Lisa decided that she would take me out! This did feel some what emasculating, but she spared me from wearing the dress, matching shoes and hand bag, so I realised that I could let her be dominant for the day, in exchange for an all expenses paid visit to a fantastic Japanese restaurant in Liverpool and more Tiger Beer than is required to drown a … Tiger?

Next came another batch of close family birthday’s! Towards the end of the month an unusual night out was arranged with a few friends. The venue was the local town hall and the event was a ‘mystery meal’. This didn’t mean we’d get fed something random, it meant that all the staff involved in ’serving’ us where part of a larger play that taking place before us. The plot was of course a murder mystery and the acting was superb. After the police arrived the scene changed as we, as witnesses became involved in the interrogation of the cast, with the ultimate goal of guessing who the murder was. We all had a great night and its an experience I recommend everyone should try, especially if the entrance fee’s go to a good cause.

At the end of the month my car’s MOT, Tax and Service was due, so saving was required, but I did have one night out for a friends 30th. Everyone was there and it was a chance to introduce Lisa to another group of friends who I don’t see very often now we’ve finished playing football. The night was superb and was capped off nicely by the birthday boy being sick down someone’s back after pinching some shots that were meant for other people. Quality :-)

March

Early March was spent sorting my car and attempting to get back in to a routine at the gym, which I failed miserably to do. Other than that, nothing much seemed to happen.

In mid-March it was Mygenet’s birthday, so her and Geoff to decided to throw a small a party that doubled up as a house warming. Everyone had a good time filling their faces and getting to catch up on events since the wedding.

At the end of March myself and Lisa thought it would be nice for the parents to meet, seeing as they only lived a few hundred meters from each other. We had noticed that a life soul singer was on a very nice pub that wasn’t far from where we live, so we booked it. The night was fantastic, the music was great, the food was fantastic (despite a few slip up’s) and the parents got along fine. The night was duly topped off by the taxi having to pull over to let Lisa throw up all over the grass verge right in front of my parents … classy, lol.

April

April is always a crazy month in my life, but this year I decided to do something I’d been putting off for years … I booked to go to Ladies Day at Aintree Races. We both got dolled up and along with out friends had a fantastic day drinking champagne, being merry, losing our money and eating some of the best fish & chips i’ve ever come across. Cant wait till next year :-)

Next up was the usual round of birthdays that take place, including my own, at last. I got lots of nice presents from those close to me and had a good booze up with my mates at the local.

At the end of the month was something I’ve been looking forward too for months … Andy’s Stag-do in Calella, Spain! We were due to be picked up at 04:30 on Friday morning, so being the punch of alky’s that we are, we arranged to meet in the pub at 22:00 on Thursday! The land lady kept the boozer open for us until we got picked up, and so the mayhem began. We had four fantastic days enjoying a free bar, free food and funny nights out. The highlight of the weekend was the stag getting involved in a dance-off with the locals whilst wearing a beautiful red dress with black poker-dots, matching bag and a lovely elephant cock-piece! Coming a close second was Scott’s ability to fall asleep in the most stupid places and wake up covered in permanent marker! Third goes to the bar on the beach where we all chilled out with a pint of Amstel whilst listening to Bob Marley tunes, good times!

So as you can see, it’s been a busy few months. But that’s everything up to date … job done!