Category: Going Bells

Avatar V-Game “Review” – Wizards of Waverly Place

Do you often plan to do things and then sort of half do them and come back to them later, in their unfinished state, and wonder why you didn’t bother to finish them in the first place?

Such is the case for me and my review of ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’, another Nintendo DS game that my brother and nieces decided to inflict upon me. I must have originally done my thirty minutes of playing in July because I took some photos at the time. I was clearly gearing up for a post with the details and then nothing; I didn’t write anything else other than some hastily scribbled notes on a random bit of paper from my work bag.

For the uninitiated, ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ is an American sitcom shown on the Disney Channel about a teenage wizard who undertakes training to be some kind of better wizard alongside her two brothers. It features one now famous person (Selena Gomez who, at the time in my subconscious, I referred to as “that rapping chipmunk”) and lots of people I’ve never heard of. The premise sounds a lot like ‘Sabrina: the Teenage Witch’ but with a family of magic people instead. It ran from 2007 to 2012 but according to Wikipedia will be coming back again soon in a sort of semi-sequel of sorts. Keep an eye out for that everyone.

I am sure that whatever kids were watching this at the time loved every second and begged and pleaded to their parents to buy the tie-in video game so they could continue the, I don’t know, wizarding. It’s the successful formula of young people acting like adults mixed with comedy that Disney has been churning out for the last few decades that will make anyone over the age of 21 throw up in their hands but works because children will watch anything.

Enough of that. Back to me, consider me! The notes that I wrote are as follows:

  • Picking up coins – why?
  • Let’s head to the lair?
  • Sandwiches
  • Keep skipping dialogue
  • Floating sarnies – catch game
  • Bottle on a podium
  • Smaller than me
  • Make a *can’t make out what this is, could be cake* – end

As you can see, I was my usual in-depth and very thorough self, going through the majority of the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the gameplay, graphics, history of development and everything else. Ahem. This is why you should never start a job unless you intend to finish it. I get that now.

I am at the point where I don’t have time, not even a mere thirty minutes, to go back to understand this nonsense. I must therefore move forward and count this sham as my attempt at a game review.

After re-reading the notes, I do remember a mini game where you had to assemble sandwiches to serve to customer. When a magic spell goes awry, you have to try and wrangle the sandwiches back into a bag, or a hat, or a bin. It was a fairly average video game, much like the previous one I did, with nothing too bad and it seemed to fit with the property. Not that I’ve ever seen ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ or know anything about it. If you were to ask me in passing, I would tell you it’s about a teenage girl who goes around collecting coins to stash in her lair so that she can afford to make sandwiches and sell them. Surely some kind of philosopher’s stone would eradicate the need for some of this but whadda I know?

Apparently Selena Gomez has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion and is the most followed woman on Instagram. Not bad for a rapping chipmunk.

Avatar “You can’t mack it, old timer”

This is what we used to say prior to attempting a jump in the video game ‘Driver’. You’d be flooring the accelerator, trying to make your car somehow leap over a truck the length of a swimming pool or some other ridiculous feat. The other person sat with you, because it was a communal thing, would look at what you were attempting and read the line. We were both 17 or 18 so it was funny because neither of us were old. Hilarious.

I have done a lot of ill-advised things. The list could probably run into twenty plus items, however I did a similar post covering this ground before, so we won’t go through that again. What I am trying to set up is the problematic approach when you decided to do too many things at the same time because that is always ill-advised.

I have moved into my new job but the induction and proper training doesn’t begin until the first week of September. I am also due to purchase a house shortly, meaning next month will be spent moving our possessions into the new house, researching carpets and paint colours, getting a new garage door installed, painting the downstairs and assembling the furniture etc. I know neither of you two have bought a house before but these are the kinds of jobs you will expect to complete.

A few days into joining my new team, getting to know everyone and watching how it functions, someone asked me if I had any interest in running and I said that I did. Indeed, it is the only “sport” (if you can call it that) that I seem to be good at and don’t mind doing twice a week. This then led to an invitation to joining the team charity event happening in September and, wanting to make a good first impression, I accepted. It was then that I realised that I had misinterpreted what was expected of me.

The blurb said that you had to run 100 miles over the course of September. I took this to mean that the 100 miles was split between however many people there were on the team, therefore the reason for asking me to join was to make more money for the charity and ease the burden on the other people doing the running. What it actually said though is that every participant has to run 100 miles. There is no sharing. That’s 100 miles over 30 days amounting to roughly 3.3 miles a day per person.

As a running potato, I have at best managed 2.5 miles with two days rest in-between and then another 2.5 miles. I now have a week in order to get better at running to somehow achieve this magnificent feat. What I want from you though is your cold, hard cash to help ease my September because I’m going to be busy every day and my sorry ass needs all the help it can get.

Ian’s Giving Page (cancerresearchuk.org)

I’ve already had several very generous donations so there’s no backing out, this is definitely happening. Time to chug my chutney and get out on the streets in my shorts and sweaty t-shirt.

Avatar Good deed o’clock

What’s a modern day hero to you? Is it someone who saves your life after getting your tie caught in a printing press or is it the person who hands you your sandwich and wishes you a good day? What even classes as a good deed anymore when the tiniest thing can be misconstrued or misunderstood?

It’s a good job that I’m such a good egg, ready to put all of you to shame with the sheer wealth the SHEER PLETHORA of good deeds that I’ve knocked up this month. My days have been brimming with altruism that I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I’ll have to cut them down to, I don’t know, a list of three, the three main ones, so that you don’t all die of embarrassment.

Don’t tell me that I never do anything for you.

  1. Package save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon-o I chanced upon a package in the street-o. The delivery truck-o must have dropped it-o when they were doing something else. I took it back home and checked where the address-o was and, thankfully, it wasn’t too far away-o. Later on that day-o, I posted it through the person’s letterbox so that they safely received their goods.
  2. Pigeon save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon (again?), we turned the corner and I went to put the doggo’s poo bag in the bin. What I wasn’t expecting was a pigeon to be staring back at me from inside the bin. It looked a big manky and had green stuff smeared on its wing, as if someone had thrown a drink and showered the poor thing. I ran back to the flat, picked up a few items and then carefully (hands wrapped in empty poo bags) scooped it up and placed it on the floor. After a drink of water, it looked a lot better. I was reluctant to give it food in case this was some kind of pigeon grift and a thousand pigeons all flocked towards me as soon as I brought out a bag of breadcrumbs.
  3. Spoon save – I gave a friend at work a plastic spoon so they could eat their breakfast.

Personally, I think the last one is the most important because if you don’t have the right implement, how are you going to eat your oats? Think about it.

Avatar V-Game Review – Imagine Girl Band

Can you? Can you imagine a girl band? I bet you can’t. I bet, when you try, all you have is a blank space and the feeling of hopelessness when your favourite steak knife (?) is out of stock and you have to settle for second best.

The ‘imagine’ games were a series of shovelware nonsense pushed out by Ubisoft to capitalise on the casual gaming market that was en vogue during the Nintendo Wii and DS era. Don’t fancy your kids shooting soldiers in ‘Call of Duty’ or smashing deities in the face in ‘God of War’? Get them into some harmless touch screen fun on a Nintendo. They covered a lot of bland topics and you can regularly find them taking up space in charity shops and lining the walls of CEX because parents and grandparents bought them in droves and now nobody wants them.

You start by choosing your name and what instrument you want to play. I went with Fluke, cos I’m cool, and bass guitar, because everyone knows that’s the coolest. You also get to choose one of three genres of music to specialise in so I opted for funk. After some perfunctory story about being in a band and looking for a new member, you start practising. When I say “practising” though I mean engaging in a basic version of any rhythm game from the past 20 years. My band is called The Oppress because funk music is very music about sticking it to “the man” and how much he’s holding us all back. Fluke and the Oppress. Yeah.

The song plays in the background and coloured buttons move across the top of the screen. When the button reaches the circle at the end, you tap the corresponding button with your stylus. The closer it is to being perfectly in the circle, the higher the score you get is. You can choose to practise with the rest of your band mates at home or you can perform… in the library?

This, to me, had “bar in the aquarium” vibes. Do music and reading go together? I get distracted when trying to do both but each to their own, I suppose. I was practising the whopping three songs our band had in the library and getting fairly good scores, however the game wasn’t moving forward so I took the girls to the mall instead.

You can buy instruments, new items of clothing and accessories at the mall like a real mall. As my character is a teenager and we hadn’t done any gigs yet I didn’t have a lot of money so I bought a new top and trousers to complement the funk style the band was going for. Still nothing. I went home to speak to what I thought was my brother but was actually my boyfriend who I never see because I’m either at school or with the girls trying to kick out the jams. Still nothing. With very little options, I went back to the library and performed each song until my score was off the charts.

Success! By smashing the songs, I opened up a brand new place to visit on the map; the park. I also earned some decent cash from performing at the library so I headed back to the mall to buy another bass guitar. I needed my instrument to match my new outfit, of course. It was then that my thirty minutes were up and I decided to stop.

It’s not an inherently bad game albeit one that’s so bland you wouldn’t be able to pick it out in a line-up some six months after last seeing it. If you aim for the lowest common denominator then you’re guaranteed to refrain from offending anyone. It blows my mind that someone will have paid full price for this once.

*5 out of 10 funk trousers*

Avatar Newsboost – no end in sight

Devastating news for Chris Crimz aka Chris Marshall solo fans as artist claims he is still no closer to finishing his epic trilogy of songs.

Crimz rose to fame with the now stone cold classic ‘Wasting your life!” which was written prior to but only saw a formal release through the Papples debut album of the same name. He then cemented the popular but not quite as good, ‘That’s your life!’ which despite constant demands from the fans is still waiting for a formal release. Tapes of the demo have been trading hands for astronomical amounts of money on Ebay, sometimes reaching up to ten whole English pounds. There was a recent bidding war between two diehard fans, Polin Clodbrook and Rolio Chaffinch, for a very rare tape which, if the rumours are to be true, claimed to be a duet between Crimz and Kelly Clarkson during their short-lived romance at the tail end of 2009.

Newsboost reached out to Mr Marshall for an exclusive interview and eventually, once he stopped repeatedly slamming the door into my foot, we were granted one.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” said Crimz, partially through a crack in the door between his dining room and kitchen, “I seem to remember I once attempted a third part but it wasn’t very successful. The lesson is that you can’t rush genius.”

When asked what the composition was like and what kind of arrangement it was (joyous possibly or further leaning into the sad melody of the second part), Mr. Marshall changed the subject to a future release in 2024. “I’ll be putting out another greatest hits album shortly. I want the fans to know that I am listening and that I do care. It’ll be jam-packed with exclusive b-sides, live tracks and the odd Pet Shop Boys remix. Guaranteed to put a smile on their faces. The CD edition will come in a gold coloured cardboard sleeve with a commemorative booklet. A premium product.”

That sounds like something we can all enjoy. At least if the epic closer of his musical journey isn’t coming any time soon then we’ll all have a piece of the pie to chew on. You really can’t rush genius.

Avatar Ian’s new book (new)

Yes, the moment you have all been waiting for is finally here. I know that I have asked a lot recently but the fact that you’ve all waited patiently means so much to me as a writer and a human being / doing.

Despite what some people have been spreading rumours about on here, as we and all the diehard fans know, ‘Three Shits to the Wind: The Secret Bathroom Attendant Within Me (M-Me)’ was a so-called spin-off book written by my old personal assistant and is not an official book in my ongoing series of self-help books. A hack can come in various different forms and there is nothing more hacky than passing yourself off as a competent author whilst releasing third-rate knock-off nonsense. Why settle for a mouse on toast when you could have the real thing right here, prime rib in your eyes? Disgusting behaviour.

The real deal. El trato real. La vraie affaire.

The name of my new book about to be released within the next week is ‘We: The New You’. Let me explain.

I have received letters from so many fans asking me to write a self-help book for those who have led multiple lives and may have multiple personalities within themselves. They can’t possibly use the assistance from my other multi award-winning volumes so it was only right that they have their time in the sun. Naturally I know that this will not be useful to everyone but as with my other New York Times’ best-selling books, even if you think you can’t learn anything new there’s bound to be something in there that will help you lead a better life. I guarantee it*

As well as that, ‘we’ can be applied to so many things: the royal ‘we’, ‘we’ as in couples, ‘we’ as in dogs and their owners, ‘we’ are in people living together etc. There are so many applications that it’s now my biggest book yet, literally; over one thousand pages of pure gold and at a low, low price of only £24.99 for the hardback and (coming in November) £17.99 for the paperback you can’t possibly go wrong. I’m not giving you this advice, I’m giving it to you for a reasonable price. I want you all to believe in yourselves and work through your problems in a safe and healthy environment, an environment full of hope and love and credenzas and little bowls filled with grapes and waterloo pumpkins.

*not guaranteed.

Avatar Woodwork

I think this confirms that my transition to middle age is now complete. A few weeks ago I cleared out the garage, which had become a bit of a dumping ground, and decided it was time to finally put the space to better use. Every time there’s been a bit of DIY on the go, you see, I’ve ended up sawing and sanding and painting things on the garage floor. This is bad for my back, the floor and the end result.

My purchase of a small folding workmate bench a year ago has helped with this, but only so much. So I built myself a workbench, using bits of wood I’d pulled out of the loft when I boarded it out and some cupboard doors that were meant for the new kitchen but which had a paint defect.

I had expected it to be wobbly and uneven and possibly even end up rocking backwards and forwards if you touched it, but to my enormous surprise it is both level and extremely sturdy.

So this is just to say that I built a piece of very solid furniture from scratch, it was the highlight of my week, and I am now a middle aged man. Thank you.