Is that a thing?

I really wish it wasn't!

All of a sudden, everywhere I go I keep hearing the trying-too-hard-to-be-droll phrase, "is that even a thing?" or "apparently that's a thing now". In grown-up, human-talk it equates to, "I didn't know that existed" or "is that real?".

I Googled it and learnt that this irritating meme's earliest outing is thought to date back to a 2001 episode of the American sitcom, 'That '70s Show'. In which case, why has it taken so long for this Valley Girl argot to cross the pond and infect our UK shores? Where's it been hiding all this time, and can it be shipped back on the next boat please?

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You have received a secure message

One of the most efficient and logical ways of getting a message through to someone has to be to send them a quick email. Now that we've all mastered the art of sending and receiving email, where do we go from here? Tell you what, let's make it ridiculously long-winded and complicated so as to cause maximum frustration for the recipient. Why the hell not?

The worst offender in my opinion has to be National Savings and Investments, a government-run organisation already notorious for their bureaucratic bungling. These are the people responsible for administrating the management of Premium Bonds, which in the UK is a kind of safe lottery where you enter a monthly prize draw without ever risking the loss of your stake money.

If you choose to do this online you'll be notified of any prizes you've won by email, only they won't simply tell you, "congratulations you're a millionaire". Of course not, that would be too easy; instead they'll send you a message to inform you that you've received a secure message you can read by logging into the Premium Bonds web site and checking your Premium Bonds inbox. Whenever this happens I sense the announcement should be ushered in with a fanfare of trumpets to mark this magnanimous occasion... and each time I'm disappointed.

Just a quick matter of entering an easy to remember username and password then? Not a chance! You first need to know your eleven character long NS&I ID number (not your 'holder's number', that's something different again), which can be found on a paper document you received in the post however many years ago you first started investing in Premium Bonds. Then you need to find the randomly generated password they chose for you when you signed up (and can no longer remember), and select certain characters included in it from a drop down box rather than just typing it into a text field.

If you forget any of these details, don't worry, you can download a form, print it out, complete it and snail mail it to NS&I, and they'll send this information to you, also by snail mail (because phone or email isn't secure)... no doubt using an address you vacated five years ago despite filling in your current one on the form. What about the terrorists hiding under your bed? They could pounce on the letter and steal your life savings, identity and soul before you've even wiped the sebum out of your eyes. Didn't think of that one did you NS&I?

If the web site doesn't then time-out, insisting you start again from the beginning, you can then navigate to your Top Secret, Super-Special Premium Bonds Inbox. Yes, the one you only use for receiving Premium Bonds related correspondence with roughly the same frequency as we witness a solar eclipse on each Friday the 13th during a leap year.

You persevere with this rigmarole merely because there's the faintest prospect that you might have won a cash prize, only to realise that when you've jumped through all these hoops, they're actually getting in touch to tell you that line 63 of page 717 of their Terms and Conditions tome has been updated. The chances are an i has been crossed or a t dotted somewhere, though obviously nothing has changed that actually makes a difference to anyone's life, other than the fact you're now older and have less time left to enjoy on this planet.

Are there any worse examples? Feel free to share them below.

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GamesMaster the Database

Can you imagine what sort of sad individual would take the time to catalogue every single review, preview, Consoletation Zone plea, news item, feature, and contestant that constituted each of GamesMaster's 126 episodes, spanning 7 series and 6 years? To transcribe every game played, every game platform, every winner and loser and proud Golden GamesMaster Joystick recipient? Surely they'd be locked up for even contemplating it?

You've watched the TV show, you've read the magazine and got the t-shirt. Now tinker with the database! Mark my words, GMDb will be more huge-er-er-er than IMDb... albeit on a much, much smaller scale and quite a bit less Hollywoody.
What's so nifty about having all this data in a searchable and filterable format is that you can produce fascinating (pretty too!) tables of figures showing the number of joysticks won by celebrities and non-celebrities, the number won by series, and the overall total.

The same goes for game platforms. Come on, you must at some point have wondered how many Amiga games were featured in GamesMaster challenges throughout its run, and desperately craved to have that information at your fingertips and broken down series by series? Haven't you dreamed of a time when you'd be able to see at a glimpse the popularity of platforms through the evolutionary gaming epoch that was the 90s? Their emergence, and eventual demise? No? Just me then. Can you tell I work in finance?

I'd appreciate it if you could have a play with it, make sure everything works, and report any inaccuracies so I can fix them. I'm also open to suggestions for improvement.

I've already uploaded a church-load of screen grabs, but wasn't planning on capturing every single moment for posterity. If you would like to suggest any others you think should be included, I can arrange that.

N.B. This entry featured in the news section of RetroGamingRoundUp's 80th podcast show. Thanks for the plug guys. :)

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'Monkids'

Did anyone catch 'My Child Is a Monkey' on channel 4 last night? It revolved around people who, for various reasons, choose to keep capuchin monkeys as 'life companions' and treat them like human babies; playing dress-up, teaching them to eat at the table and getting them to wear nappies (I'm not saying 'diapers', doh!).

Said reasons, I imagine, fall into one of the following categories:-

- Human babies grow up, whereas monkeys can be treated like babies throughout their 40 year lifespan, giving these abusers a purpose in life.

- Nut-jobs tend to have their kids taken into care by the state, while monkeys' well-being appears to be less closely monitored.

- Human babies reared by these people would grow up maladjusted and kill the parents in their sleep.

- You can't pull out human babies' teeth or neuter them to make them more placid and manageable without getting thrown in jail.

Who'd have guessed taking an animal that would naturally have a whole forest for a backyard and wedging it into a cage the size of a cupboard might cause behavioural problems and transform cute, fluffy monkey babies into delinquent hoodlums with a penchant for transplanting people's faces? I know, it's a shocking discovery.

What's also bad for them as it turns out is to feed them a human diet loaded with carbs because this can induce diabetes. This was helpfully pointed out to one monkey-mummy by a vet who advised that unless she switched her baby's diet to one composed mostly of fruit and veg, it wouldn't survive. So what does she do? Gives the monkey spaghetti for tea and sets off to church to ask god to save her child.

God wasn't available for comment at the time of filming, but I'm sure he'll do his best.

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Just a man and his will to deprive...

...you of 50 of your hard earned dollars, and your sanity if you're not careful. Not even Adriaaaaaaaaaan could save you from this dog's dinner of a game.

In an old Angry Video Game Nerd YouTube review/rant, James covers the Sega Master system boxing game, Rocky. When the left and right d-pad buttons fail to move the Italian Stallion left and right in the ring he consults the game's manual for some sagely advice. It 'elucidates' as follows:-

"To move your player around the ring does not really require any specific buttons for execution. It requires the right situation because your player will be prohibited from moving unless you satisfy these conditions.

If you're on the offence and attacking freely, your player will move according to the direction of your blows and can be guided to the left/right or forward/backward with your D-button.

If you are on the defence, your player will not move in the direction you want until you can guard yourself effectively (Button 1). And then, you must start dealing blows to be in control of your footwork as mentioned above."

I may be a tad late to the party given that James has just celebrated his ten year anniversary, but wow!, that's staggeringly shoddy even for a game of this vintage. I think - in programmer Engrish - that equates to, 'Everything happens randomly. Whatever you do isn't going to achieve much so you may as well mash the buttons as fast as you can and see what happens'.

It kind of reminds me a lot of the Amiga game Dragon's Lair where the game doesn't amount to much more than an interactive cartoon. At least that, however, had the saving grace of it all looking very pretty, and the animation was groundbreaking for the time.

I'm actually quite surprised the programmers responsible for this game's control method didn't encourage you to grit your teeth, squint up your eyes tightly, clasp your hands together and invoke the "Eye of the Tiger" to defeat your opponent. That would have been just as effective... and more fun!

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Where we're going we don't need DeLoreans

Sitting on a deck chair in my parents’ garden at the weekend, a cat leisurely idled past with its snooty nose in the air, and with a jolt it dawned on me that this is the same cat that has lived next door for the last twenty five years or so.

The same cat that beckoned me over to it when I was nine years old with its you-can’t-walk-by-without-stroking-me, butter-wouldn’t-melt, wouldn’t hurt-a-fly eyes… and then proceeded to lash out with its extended, razor-sharp claws when I succumbed.

Aside from no longer being a kitten and having somehow much wiser, knowing eyes, it hadn’t changed an iota; identical black and white stripes in the same proportions and patterns, and the same self-righteous demeanour.

Twenty five years of life experience flashed before me in that instant. In particular I couldn’t help dwelling on all the relatives, friends and pet dogs I’d lost in that time, and yet here was this bullet-proof furball still going about the crucial business of terrorising starlings and generally swaggering around like it owned the world.

Had I fallen into a worm hole and travelled back in time?, or was the moggy taking a giant leap for cat-kind into the future from my childhood? You could answer, “Shut the hell up you idiot. Cats live a long time, deal with it”, and many would, but I can’t shake the bizarre sensation of unreality and foreboding.

So that was my weekend. Perhaps the question I should be asking is, when did I become Karl Pilkington?

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Yodel, couriers from hell!

The courier business isn't the most complicated, high-faluting of professions to be in. The way it works is, customers wrap up a parcel, slap an address on it, and the courier collects it from point A and drops it off at point B. I don't think you even need a PhD to qualify to be one these days. All of which is why my latest 'delivery' fiasco with Yodel is so staggering.

I made the arrangements through Parcels 2 Go and instructed the courier that as I would be out at the time of collection I'd appreciate it if they could take the parcel from my 'safe place' i.e. the cupboard in my porch. "No problem" they lied, and gave me the usual spiel about it being my funeral if anything should go awry.

The following day I find a card pushed through my letterbox to say, "we're sorry we were unable to collect your parcel today because you were out when we called". Really? What are the chances? Didn't we have that conversation less than 12 hours prior to the allotted pick up slot? In any case, the driver must have been standing inches away from the cupboard at the time, and unless I'm the first person to ever have arranged for a parcel to be collected while they are at work, you'd think it would have occurred to them to check the nine foot by three foot, hinged, handled monstrosity resembling an opening storage device next to them.

I got in touch with both Yodel and Parcels 2 Go to find out what was going on. Yodel totally ignored me, and Parcels 2 Go apologised and offered to re-arrange the collection for the following day. Another 24 hours go by and the parcel remains in my cupboard, though this time no-one bothered to show up to at least pretend to do their job competently, and Parcels 2 Go can't give me an explanation as to why Yodel can't get their heads around the whole pick-up-drop-off conundrum because they hadn't recorded any attempt - failed or otherwise - to collect my parcel!

I'm now told that another courier will be assigned the taxing challenge of collecting the parcel, but this won't take place for another three days because they don't do weekend collections.

In the meantime I'm having to apologise and re-apologise profusely to my eBay customer who only bought my goods on the proviso that I end the auction early and deliver immediately.

After this episode I'm beginning to look at Forrest Gump in a whole new light; next to this bunch of retards he looks like the love child of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein.

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Update: Well Monday rolled around and the parcel spent another day in the cupboard. This time City Link paid me a visit and they didn't bother to collect it either. Apparently whether or not an unattended parcel is collected is entirely at the discretion of the driver... despite Parcels 2 Go telling me in writing that this wasn't a problem at all as long as I was prepared to take the risk. I've now cancelled the purchase and refunded the buyer, and seriously need to consider making an appointment with my doctor to get a prescription for blood pressure pills!!!

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Could sharing be the best Tweetment?

I'm still trying to get my throbbing noggin around this curious article. According to Dr Alexandre DaSilva of the University of Michigan, 21,741 tweets can be found on Twitter describing the experience of suffering a migraine, many of which were made by people actually in the throes of an attack.

How faces appear to someone suffering a migraine aura attack before they lose the plot.

What strikes me as odd is that these people's first instinct is to share their pain on Twitter when mine is to close my eyes in a dark room and rock back and to wishing I was dead. Even more baffling is how they can string a coherent sentence together, or actually find the right letters on their keyboards or touch-screen phones with an ice-pick sticking out of their temples.

Last time I had to send a text message in the midst of a migraine aura episode, it took me an hour and a half to bash out two sentences, and even then, what the person I was supposed to be meeting received was utter gibberish. They couldn't decide if I was drunk, joking or 'stroking' (you know, as in having a seizure). All of which leaves me wondering if what these people are truly experiencing is a bit of a headache and a chronic case of hyperbolic attention seeking.

So now we know that x percent of migraineurs describe their condition as "OMG, the most worstest, major head %$£* of all time", and 44% of Twitterers report a change in mood (no, really?), how much further along are we in understanding the disorder or knowing how to treat it?

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I Will Follow You To Poundsaver's Bargain Bin

I haven't usually got much time for the really pedantic movie nitpickers, and can readily suspend my disbelief to incorporate into celluloid fiction the credibility of zombies, aliens, the supernatural and even talking fish, but this is where I draw the line.

'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' is one of those movies peddled as a horror, though that in practice would be more likely to bore you into an early grave rather than curdle your blood. It stars Mischa Barton as Sophia who has recently lost her parents within the space of six months of one another, and as a result has become jaded and cynical, particularly where love and the existence of a greater purpose or afterlife are concerned.

One day she meets Adam (or his name could be Atom I suppose; you never can tell with these American movies) who helps her change all this and re-engage with the world. To cut a dull story short, she spends the night in his apartment, which just so happens to be haunted, and in the middle of the night Adam vanishes, presumably abducted by ghoulies of some sort.

Distraught, Sophia, to bolster the search party, drafts in Astrid (Adam's flat mate) and Sam (Sophia's flat mate), and he brings his girlfriend, Penny, along for the ride. Whilst fleeing from shadows and things that go thud in the night in Curtainland on the 21st floor (which has been cordoned off because it's a tad too infested with spooks waiting to move between worlds), Penny falls through rotten floorboards and is knocked unconscious.

Fear not wide-eyed viewers, Sam has a plan. He jumps through the gaping hole to gauge the damage, and quickly ascertains that the best course of action is to hoist his comatose girlfriend - who has likely endured spinal injuries - onto his shoulder and schlep her back through the splintered floorboards above. Clearly he was pulling a sickie when St. John Ambulance visited to offer first aid at work training.

He shouts up to Sophia and Astrid to throw down some drapes Rapunzel style and haul the two of them to safety. Sam grabs one end of it in one hand and clutches Penny with the other while the two beauty queen feather-weights heave on the other end. Don't worry, it'll all work out because Sam "has a good foot-hold". On what exactly, thin air? In the next scene, Sam - complete with probable-corpse - emerges from the cavity as casually as a traveller standing on an airport escalator twiddling his thumbs and humming, "Is This the Way to Amarillo?".

Before I had chance to pick up the shattered fragments of Make-Believe-Land, our ever-dependable hero, Sam, decides that after risking permanently paralysing his girlfriend he should leave her alone in a corridor while he gets help!

You'd imagine this train wreck couldn't get any clunkier. You'd be wrong.

Sophia has a brainwave; to save Adam she must temporarily kill herself. This she reasoned would allow her to connect with his spirit (he is assumed to be separated from his corporeal embodiment at this point), locate and revive him and then shake off the whole being dead thing herself with a spot of CPR. Luckily Sophia has watched Flatliners so knows that her brain can safely be starved of oxygen for three minutes, but if she's not resuscitated before precisely six minutes are up, she's a goner.

As trite as it sounds, sometimes there's just no better way of saying, "that's two hours of my life I'll never get back" than "that's two hours of my life I'll never get back".

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Copy that floppy; it's armless

Imagine taking the guts of the hulking Amiga 500 and smushing them into something the size of an external floppy drive case, and it would look a lot like this retro revival prototype set to hit a crowdfunding portal near you soon.

The Armiga is a cunning fusion of old and new technology which aims to recreate the misty-eyed experience of playing classic Amiga games on real hardware via original floppy disks.

It's no coincidence that the design is reminiscent of the Amiga 500 case with its parallel heat vents and convex, bold, upper-case typeface appellation. Beneath the elegant surface lies a 'new-old stock' floppy drive, custom controller and ARM CPU mounted on a Raspberry Pi sisterboard featuring contemporary USB and HDMI connections.

Complimenting this impressive array of hardware is the software-based Amiga emulator solution, UAE4All. United these will allow you to boot games from your gloriously antiquated, grungy, chewed-up old floppy disks, store the ADF dumps onto an SD card, or run downloaded floppy images from a pen drive or memory card. With no capacity restraints you can swap disks to your heart's content... without swapping disks, unless, of course, rekindling that particular torture pushes your nostalgia buttons!

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