Wonderland

Alice's Weird Day

I had a last-minute booking to help out with some games talks down at BBC Plymouth: little was I realising that Plymouth is bladdy miles away, and the first train out of London at 6am was a 4.5 hour trip, so my 10am start was looking flaky. Quick google and I'm introduced to SouthWest Air (who knew?), who fly from London to Plymouth. This is a strange concept, England being the size of a postage stamp n' all.

I bought a rubbish flying-magazine: Grazia. Posh-ish ladies' weekly with a slant on fashion. It had that skeletal bint with the plastic boobs on the front, and the voyeurism was too strong to resist. Meanwhile, see this week's charity giveaway - what's that nestled in with the designer sunglasses and the 400 quid bag?

Why, a Ninty micro! Fashion accessory du jour, apparently!

Daytime, I demo'd the 360, along with Windows Media Center: significance of consoles, sociable media, etc. There was an AIBO, too, and a purple robotic Barney, but moving on swiftly...

AIBO fell in love with my HMV bag: turns out the pink in the HMV logo is identical to the pink that AIBO responds to. Couldn't get him off it!

Red shoes were of no interest. Nor his pink ball.

Just the bag.

Maybe he knows what's in it. Yup, Gatwick's HMV had two 360s in stock (shock!!), so I bought one. Sod Amazon and their mid-March delivery on a November pre-order.

Whew. AND I got Dead or Alive 4! Didn't even realise it was out yet. Very tired, very pleased.

Nn!

Neon PSP

Whuuuhhh.

MY EYES! IT BURNS!

Yes, you too can void your warranty and p1mp your PSP ride with neon by reading the Llammas' How-To right here. The good news is, this is done using LEDs, so you could have it in pink. What? Not a good idea?

Haematite dice

Haematite dice. This guy has a fistful:

I sort of want them. Magic beans.

WoW Machinima contest

Bugger. I missed this one: Blizzard and X-Fire have teamed up to offer cash prizes for some WoW machinima. And guess what - there's going to be a prize for BEST PUN. Oh yes. That, my friends, is scraping the barrel, and we love it.

Best Pun! Too good. Feb 6th is the deadline, and they pushed the deadline out so it's likely there aren't enough entries .. ? Get going!

Probably not that stained?!

Compare and contrast: this Slashdot thread, attached to a moderately amusing D&D mockumentary, in which nerds complain that girls get constantly showered with gifts; and this UK:R post pointing to an eBay auction in which you can buy a leather coat worn by gamer girl Emily Booth.

Not a great day for girl power. Do people really play female characters because they think they'll get free stuff?

Latchkey Project - Letter arrives

Latchkey Project - Letter arrives 
Originally uploaded by Crys.

I had all but forgotten that I'd signed up for The Latchkey Project, until yesterday, when this envelope dropped through my door, protected by a UPS envelope.

I've just had a lovely time opening it and sifting through the contents. What a delight! A hand-addressed and stamped envelope, containing a Key on a string, a Clue with a hand-written note addition, a Note with a hand-written outline and some further clues, an Instructions card and a Label, from which my pretty little key was dangling.

Where to start? My key was found jammed inside the coin return of an old Laffing Sal machine. Maybe there..

Photoset on Flickr.

Take one IP: should you or should you not turn it into a MMOG?

MMORPG.com has a nice debate going on the subject, and I find myself siding with Dana, the Yes-You-Should guy: his responses are well thought through and insightful:

It is the responsibility of developers to pick IPs that has fans as excited about the worlds as the individual stories; which is to say appropriate worlds for development. Perpetual Entertainment’s choice of Star Trek has that potential. That franchise has existed and been popular in a number of incarnations. The only common thread is the universe in which the shows are set. Thus, I believe fans of the series will have no problem with the fact that they cannot be Captain Kirk.

Jon makes a number of points about how any deviations from the original story or world is an inevitable disappointment to the fans who live and breathe that world; he has a point, but this is surely unavoidable. It falls into the same category as the person who doesn't want to see Lord Of The Rings so as not to spoil the mental picture they have in their head from reading the book...?

Dodge That Anvil

John sends in word of Dodge That Anvil, a 3D platformer built entirely in Flash Shockwave. Check out the cel-shading thing that looks like cel-shading!* Give it a few more years and we'll be seeing Windwaker in flash, I don't doubt.

Pretty.

(Thanks John!)

*UPDATE: see the comments. I get my arse kicked about not checking my technical facts, and rightly so. :o)

Inflatable Space Invaders chair

Ren's threatening to buy us this for Christmas (phonecam snap so no link).

I don't have a swimming pool to put it in, otherwise I'd be SO wanting one of these. It's the drinks-holders. I can't resist 'em.

Guerolito Giveaway winner

I blindfolded a willing victim and got him to point at the screen while I randomly hit SORT BY NAME or SORT BY DATE or SORT BY SUBJECT and.. we have a winner!

Congrats, Kelly! One Guerolito UMD is yours.

Not only that, but turns out Kelly wrote a poem in her entry email, and because it's so fab, I'm going to repro it here:

roses are red
oranges are orange
easy contests are rad
... fuck, nothing rhymes with orange.

.

A most deserving winner, I'm sure you'd agree. Nice one, Kelly :o)