Traffic Blues, Pictures and More

Day 493
Hey there, its Thursday night - for me anyway.

Today started off as a bit of a mixed bag.. I turned the Mac on first thing because I wanted to share my blog again this morning as I tend to only share it once a night which isn't exactly readily available. A lot of people I know who read tend to do it next day so.. A fresh link is always handy. I also had a quick browse on Steam to see if there were any new games I fancied that were on offer. Turns out there was so that is nice. It is called Nights of Pen and Paper: +1 Edition. I used to have the game on my phone and it was ported over to the Mac and I thought why not? It was on sale with 66% off so I only paid just under £4 for it. I posted about it before when I did have it on my phone, must have been a while ago now. Just went back to look at the page to get the link found below.. Turns out it is now 75% off so it is even cheaper. Sods law eh?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/231740/

After that, had breakfast and stuff.. Dressed.. In my car and off to work as standard. I got to a round about which usually would mean that I would be parked up at work in about five minutes. Not today. Ten times longer! The traffic was just at a complete stand still, then you have impatient van drivers cutting across from slip rounds on roundabouts cutting you off.. People changing lane last minute which makes all the people in the right line have to wait longer! I had no idea what was going on. Got into Maidstone and one of their digital signs said "delays" which I physically clapped at. Like we didn't notice. I got to work on time as I am on the late shift so I had plenty of time.. But apparently it was because there was a fire alarm at building and they closed a road.
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/traffic_chaos_in_maidstone_after_building_fire_1_3835543

So what is my picture of the day I hear you say? Well, I didn't have something to take a picture of but I have decided to give you a sneak peak at something. I picked up a pen and the blank drawing pad that I bought before and have started drawing something. I have mentioned the anime Full Metal Alchemist before and how I wanted to draw Alphonse who is a big suit of armour - well here is the start of him. The drawing itself is quite simple but the shading will be interesting as this really helps to shape the curves of the armour and bits. I will put the finished thing up on here at some point obviously. I would put it on my slideshow at the send but I can't for the life of me get back into the account!

Heres the link to the source I am using:
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140311104051/fma/fr/images/6/6b/AlphonseElricAnime.jpg

We got my Dad a custom number plate for his birthday. Sort of. Turns out we just paid for the paperwork and he then had to go and spend more on getting the physical plates. Cheeky if you ask me!

Of course, I have been playing more Isaac. I got a crazy overpowered run with Judas. Obviously, he starts with the highest base damage but then I ended up stacking a load of damage including Magic Mushroom and the Lucky Scab. I also got spectral and piercing shots, turned into Guppy so I was fully mobile.. I also chose to take the Mirror for the boomerang tears which made me have this awesome free flowing mine field around me at all times. Here is a screen shot showing the flies which now are completely free to follow from room to room..

I still have no idea what the Goats Head does. All it says is "He accepts your offering" and by he I can only assume they mean the devil as that is a pretty common offering in the olden days. I am amazed at how smooth this game runs, because it clearly has more contact than the original but it is like a dream. Smooth and fast.

So I am pretty sure a lot of English people who read will have heard about the poppies at the Tower of London on the news etc. I am not too sure about other readers across the globe. For those of you who don't know, they have made over 800,000 poppies which are now being slowly placed one by one outside the Tower of London. The final one is due to be placed on Tuesday for remembered day, but by the sounds of it would be due to come down nearly straight away. There is now an online petition to keep them there for longer because people from all over the country and also internationally to see them. The Guardian have an interesting map which would show how much land would be covered by the poppies if they included all deaths, not just those of the British and colonial soldiers. It is amazing to look at but when you think about what it really means; quite depressing. Especially when you look at this and know that we live the way we are today thanks to all those people who fought for us.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/06/-sp-what-would-the-tower-of-london-poppy-exhibition-look-like-if-it-included-global-not-just-uk-war-dead

Well thanks for reading. I think I am going to play some more Isaac, then maybe jump into the new game and get the ball rolling. I am so happy that the Steam achievements work on this Isaac, I never had anything to show for the hours I put into the other one! Blog you later chaps and chapesses!

Stars, Isaac and Gammon

Day 492

Well, you could say that is a bit of a mish mash of a title.

I will start with the gammon, as that is the thing that happened first. It was Amy's Dad's birthday today and they planned to go for a meal at the Harvester near where I work so they told me to tag along once I was finished. As I am on the late shift today which means I finish at 17:30, they were already there but ordered for me so I basically got there, sat down for 10 minutes and I have a gammon steak plopped in front of me. Whenever I go to somewhere like a harvester, I have gammon with pineapple because you don't seem to be able to buy steaks like that in shops. If you can - tell me please. They usually - I assume - use a piece of tinned pineapple. Today, it was a slice out of a fresh one, which was odd. You had to cut the skin off of it.. And then you don't get as much to have a bit with each mouth full.. Which was a shame. I had a chocolate orange match maker sundae. Ice cream all the way!

After that, me and Amy popped to Tescos which is where my picture of the day comes in. The Fault in our Stars has come out on DVD and Amy got the triple play, so the Bluray, DVD and digital download version. The only Bluray player she has access to is at home which is barely used but none the less, I'm sure we'll use it at some point. I remember going to watch the film, I probably posted about it but I was one of only two guys in the cinema. I know it is probably seen as a 'girly' film but it is really good. The story is told very well and it nearly made me cry. I won't lie. If you get a chance to watch I would recommend it but be prepared because it also touches on some very sensitive notes which might hit home for some people.

There was also a display of the new Call of Duty and.. At the moment it is not peaking my interest. I didn't get the previous one at all, and people have told me that it plays like Titanfall which is a good game but CoD should be separate. Maybe in the future when I have some spare money and fancy some multiplayer.

I've been thinking about getting some sort of headset for gaming, I used to have a Turtlebeach which was good at the time. I got so used to hearing the sounds of footsteps in games that now I can tell which direction people are coming from without them. It's a bit surreal. I have been looking at these:

http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/gaming-audio/razer-kraken-71-chroma

Which as you can see from the page are apparently the most comfortable ones ever. The exchange rate makes them about £50 but I can use them for gaming on the Xbox and on the Mac.. And I can make use of the mic to record my voice for when I get a chance to upload some stuff. I am still trying to work out the rendering problem I am currently having but I am sure something will sort it. The internet is a place of many answers.

So.. Some of you may have seen this #alexfromtarget thing on Twitter. My opinion of the situation is that I am not too bothered. I do agree with a lot of people saying that it is not really fair that he has become infamous just because people think he is attractive. He ended up on TV, with a huge amount of followers.. There are many people on the internet that spend time and effort trying to get noticed even if it is just in a small way. This poor teenager has had it thrown at him and from the interview I saw on Ellen's show - he isn't all that comfortable with it. Although he did get a free iPad.. To 'keep up' with his new followers..

Watch this:

http://www.ellentube.com/media/Cat+vs.+Toaster/1_ejrbfvx7

Because cats.

Here's a quick snap of my states. I will admit that I am dying more than I would like to. I wasn't ever 'good' at the first one but it seems to be getting easier? If that is the right word?

I am still enjoying Rebirth, I am playing it a lot. I am still having the problem of not being able to use the mouse to navigate the settings, even with a wireless one plugged in. I was hoping that it would recognise it separately but clearly this is not the case. I'll pop in here some more items which I have found so far which I am really enjoying.

The first of which has got to be Monstro's Lung. It makes you shoot like Monstro so basically a shot gun shell of tears. The run in which I got that I also got piercing shot and stacks of damage upgrades which really let it shine through. It just tore through groups of enemies and then in that crazy boss room at the end it made it a piece of cake! 

I think it is called.. Bob's Brain? It is a little green brain that follows you around and acts very much like Little Chub but instead of chomping its way around; the brain flies off and explodes on contact. This then cools for about 10-15 seconds and is ready to go again. If you are far enough away from the enemies then it is pretty good but I have often been caught in the backfire.

I have also noticed a lot more items which give luck bonuses which I like because it was just the Lucky Foot before and from pills. I got one called the Lucky Scab from a boss room which gives you an extra heart container and also a boost to luck. Magnetic tears is cool because you can manipulate consumables on the ground!

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Day 491
So. I have been waiting for today for a while. Some of you may know that one of my favourite games of all time is The Binding of Isaac. Today, the sequel came out which is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and my God - it was worth the wait. I have only done about.. 5 runs? I've loved every second of it. I did die on three of them but oh well. You are bound to die sometime.

The only problems at the moment, as to be expected with any game at release, I have come across two bugs. The first is that if you go into the options menu and change the game to full screen is then constantly switches from one to the other and you can't stop it. I ended up clearing by closing the screen of the Mac, reopening it and that seemed to stop it. Another is that at the moment it does not seem to recognise a touchpad as being a mouse.. I went into the items list to look through some of the new ones to see if I could work out what they actually did but because this isn't recognised - you can have a look at any. You can see the tiny icon but that is about it.

The first Mom fight I won I got carried it is safe to say. I managed to get all 3 Guppy items in one deal with the devil so from there.. Easy.

The run I completed before typing this post I used one of the new characters Azazel who is just so powerful. From what I can tell. Azazel is like Blue Baby in the sense of you start with negative HP. On the other hand, you do start out with the capability of flying and like.. I short beamed brimstone? Best I can describe it? As you can see form the screen shot below - it looks badass. It also emits light to the surroundings as well which is a nice touch.

Hopefully this picture will also give you an idea of the sort of graphics style which they have moved into. The previous game was amazing in itself but this new style suits it even better, personally anyway. The music has been redone also which once again - brilliant. I like how this game has the exact same story and gameplay but doesn't fail to be huge amounts of fun already.

I am going to discuss some new features which I have come across at the moment, I am trying to stay offline so I can actually work some things out for myself.

There appears to be 'dark' spirit hearts? They act exactly the same as normal spirit hearts apart from when they are damaged to a full heart, they damage all enemies in the room sort of like a fail safe. Azazel starts off with three of these apposed to three spirit hearts.

Where previously there used to be maximum of five flies that could follow you between rooms - no longer exists. When I had the Guppy run, it allowed me to take at least 15 between rooms. I didn't really stop to count because I just wanted to throw all of my flies at someone.

There is this absolutely ridiculous new room which I found after fighting Moms Heart for the first time.. See below..

As you can see, there is a choice of four items. I didn't know at the time that you would only get to take one so otherwise I would have gone for the wafer. I tool the top left item which is some sort of immortal helper, pretty sure he dishes out constant soul hearts when taking damage or something.. I don't really know at the moment. But once you take the item, you have to fight about 20 bosses, two at a time! Luckily by this point I had managed to stack to max health - as you can no longer have health off the screen. I had also stacked loads of damage upgrades which allowed me to tank most hits and destroy everything. Towards the end I couldn't tell enemy from floor because it was covered in blood and bits. I don't know if there are any special requirements to unlock this room but I think it should only be attempted if you are feeling ballsy and have a strong run. When you beat the room, you get a dice which allows you to reroll enemies. Enemies! Doesn't work on bosses from what I can tell but.. Wow.

I don't really know what is going on with shops any more.. There is a donations machine which I can only assume upgrades the shop? Maybe? Currently, there has always been a battery in the for five cents but I have never been able to pic it up. I have also noticed that some other enemies drop these batteries but once again they can't be picked up.. Then again.. Thinking about it.. I did get a new trinket called Broken Remote so maybe they'll fix it.

I will definitely want to film some of this. I love, love, love the fact you can have three saves! That way I can just jump on and play or if I want to record a series I can use another save. Keeps in consistent on YouTube!

I am now going to go and play as Eden who I just unlocked.. She seemed to be the harder character to unlock so I am guessing she will assist in unlocked some awesome stuff. I will let you know. Sorry about this post, I know it won't be to everyones taste who reads but. I just had so much to talk about as you can see! And I must be happy with it because I typed all this out in just 15 minutes.. Blog you later.

Memory Lane

Day 490
Good evening people of the internet.

I took a stroll down memory lane today, now I am back to Blogging on the Mac.. I actually look at my Google+ account. Where I was sharing from my phone, it wasn't sharing automatically on there so.. The posts on there have a massive gap from around the end of 2013 to recently. And it was strange. I looked back at my old posts and my writing style has changed.. My life has really. New job and new experiences. It is very enjoyable though to look back and see the things I used to. Came across one about my aspirations which was to write a book. I feel ashamed to say I still haven't really come any closer to that. It is still a wisp of smoke I am trying to catch. I guess I should get on that.. Actually try again.

But this glimpse back also reminds me of one of the reasons I started doing this. So I can look back, I can look at the pictures and words and remember things so much easier. I honestly don't have the best memory so for me, its like a big trigger book. These things set of my brain; I would recommend it. Who knows, you might just end up enjoying it!

Tangent.

So, hottest Halloween ever recorded? And now today, it's back to what we expect. I hate the feeling of walking out of your house into the cold.. And then as soon as you sit in the car, the shirt lays flat on your back and is ice cold. And you don't really have a choice but to lean into it to warm it up otherwise you'll be very uncomfortable driving. My car doesn't have climate control and all that jazz so the heater is either on or off. On for too long - moving sauna. Got in the car this evening, nearly covered in frost! Here we go again.

So this section here will be todays daily picture. I will pop it in here because everything after will be stuff about games. Not to everyones taste so this way people can stop here. Or you can read on. Its all good.

I have posted a couple of pictures of my Dad's loom creations on here before, they go down very well with everyone because they are elastic artwork at the end of the day. I always got asked at work - when is he going to make a loom tie? And I always answered I don't know because it would take a lot of elastic bands. Well. It happened. The picture you see is of my colleague rather nicely modelling the tie, we all agreed that under his collar it actually looked pretty good. The colours are the way they are because he used up all the ones he generally doesn't use. As he generally makes animals and stuff, the multicoloured ones just sit there waiting, as with the purple ones. Some of you may recognise him as I have popped a picture of him on here before. He is always up for some publicity.

Right now, well, after this I am going to watch the new episode of The Walking Dead. Another reason why Baxter makes it on here because he is the only other person I know who is watching this series and is up to date! I watch it and then have no one to talk to without giving away huge spoilers!

Recently, I have been watching a lot of a YouTuber called FightinCowboy (FiGhTiNCoWBoY) as he has been uploading a lot of gameplay of Lords of the Fallen. I really wanted to get my hands on this game and then I found it was only on the next gen consoles so. The reviews have said it is a game that has taken its inspiration from Dark Souls which is quite easily my favourite gaming franchise. The gameplay of this new game has really caught my attention, the art style is excellent. It is dark and creepy and massive. The combat is very reminiscent of Dark Souls in that right from the get go, it is no walk in the park. The armour and weapons all allows for different play styles, replay-ability and also has NG+ for that extra challenge level. If I ever upgrade to next gen which I assume I will at some point, I will definitely be getting angry with this game. You're supposed to.

This here is a screen shot of actual gameplay from what I can tell. You are the character on the left, in this instance it looks like the build is a light armour, agility build which is comprised of fast attacks and high mobility, obviously loosing the heavy hitting and defensive side. The enemy on the right may be on of the larger generic enemies or one of the lords, which are like the bosses of the Dark Souls series. Some of them look even harder than Dark Souls as the majority are pattern based which always have some sort of opening for attack. They are relentless in this, you have to be able to take a hit and trade of and heal. I chose this picture as I though it showed off the environment of the game nicely as well.

I am quite excited for tomorrow. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is released. I have prepaid as you got 33% off being an owner of the first game, I've just preloaded it onto the Mac ready for when it goes live. I am actually so excited because it is on of the only PC games I've purchased and wanted to play. This one is only going to get better.

I thought I would quickly mention this news article as well:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29876839
I heard this on the way home from work today, and I was quite surprised because it is an interview from the lead developer of CoD which was obviously released today. It is discussing the online aggression towards women in the gaming industry and I thought it was really smart of him to give his opinion on the release day. As he is notorious for not generally doing interviews.. Actually doing one on possibly on of the biggest game releases of the year will help to bring this type of news in to the spotlight.

Thanks for reading guys. Blog you tomorrow - I used to close with that a lot..

A Sunday Evening

Day 488 & 489
So the usual daily post has arrived again. Hurrah hurrah, this one'll cover today and yesterday.

Both pictures are actually from today so I will sort of just give you a little outline of the past couple of days. Friday was obviously Halloween, the total this year for us was up in the fifties which was pretty impressive. Ended up breaking into a tin of chocolates that was supposed to be for Christmas because there was not enough Haribo to go around!

Yesterday was spent being quite relaxed, popping to some shops when and where it is needed. Watched Strictly Come Dancing with my mum and dad, I enjoy it more than I should.. Not that it is a bad program by any means. Plus it was very enjoyable as it was Halloween week and the acts were themed. Scott Mills for example, danced to the Adam's family. It was not the best to be fair and it turned out to be his last which is a shame. I guess that means he has no excuse to be tired on the radio.

The worst thing that happened yesterday - I discovered that my left headlight bulb had gone. Usually this would not be a problem for most cars but mine is an absolute pain. You literally cannot see what you are doing, you just pop your arm under the bonnet and guess what you are doing. We took out the old bulb.. We then accidentally pulled out the diffuser. The bit that makes the light bounce around the headlight to make the right beam appear. I think. Probably wrong. And that only clips in a certain way, we ended up having four people try for about two hours in the rain.. Before we managed to get it to slot in and work. I ended up taking this picture on my phone upside down to actually get an idea of what was going on!

And I don't know about you but.. That just looks like a load of nothing to me. Well, it looks like car but that once again doesn't really help.

Had a rather lovely Spaghetti Bolognese for tea. We like to add in a load of extra bits, so today we had spring onions, peppers, mushrooms and pancetta which all went together rather well.

I decided to watch World War Z again this evening, I really like this film just the way everything is put together.

I always find the contrast between zombie films interesting, for example, in WWZ it is a pathogen and the infected move quickly and run and chase. Where as in programmes such as The Walking Dead, everyone is infected and you will turn no matter how you die. And once you do.. You're a bit slow on the uptake. I remember reading a while ago that scientists decided that if zombies ever came about and were like the ones in this film.. We probably wouldn't survive. Other way around, we would be fine. Not that I don't agree, I just don't understand which scientists got paid to work this out.

Just had a quick Google session.. According to this CNN news article, the Pentagon have a contingency plan if there ever was an outbreak. Apparently it is a common scenario that is used for training purposes just because the idea of it is so unreasonable.

Right now? I am watching Fullmetal Alchemist as I was told there was a lot more of it on Netlfix! I am also playing this logic cube game where you have to match the colours together which sounds a lot more simple than it actually is.. Been stuck on level 13 for a long time.. Try it here:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/AlexMatveev/3d-logic-2-stronghold-of-sage

I am finding it so much better to do this on the Mac. I could get used to this. I never realised that I was always sharing the mobile site.

Some Changes.. And Borderlands

Hello hello hello. Yes, I know what some of you may be thinking - this post hasn't got the day number against it. That's right. I am feeling somewhat guilty about my blog, I always wanted it to be a hobby but sometimes I just pop up a picture and move along. Sometimes that is all I can manage if it has been an uneventful day or I am knackered. But I would like to continue the daily pictures and then upload in between - like this one - about other stuff and bits and bobs.

Something else you may have noticed is the new format that has appeared. I have switched the template to a dynamic view which has some ready formatted HTML stuff for animations and more interesting layouts. By animations I mean.. If you get to the bottom of a post.. You'll see the Twitter and Facebook icons expand and show a count. The different layouts are listed along the top, I like the classic one myself as it is simple. You can freely switch between them all at your hearts content if there is another that you prefer. The other bits and bobs are now shown in the black bar on the right hand side of the screen. Pop your mouse over them and they will expand.

I am also planning to get more into YouTube, see if I can find the time and confidence to voice record as well as play. I think I will start out with post commentating as I am assuming that is easier to get into. Guess being the operative word. I just need to work out how to get things to render better on the Mac as at the moment.. I am using iMovie 9 as in 10, for some reason, they thought it would be a great idea to remove the feature which allowed you to 'snip' clips to break them up. Unless there has been an update since then, you basically have to work with the raw footage and hope you didn't leave massive interludes on the ends!

By the way, I did upload a video a while ago to test the quality of the capture card. It was a simple video, just me having a legendary engram decoded on Destiny. Here it is if you haven't seen it. Let me know what you think and stuff. Yeah.


I think I will need to learn some HTML. I had to input this video using HTML embedding because I use a different email account for blogger.. And for YouTube. So when I go to insert the video, you can either search it using a less than optimised YouTube search - where I have a small unknown channel it is impossible to add the video. Or, you can use the tab labelled my videos - obviously there are none. As they are on another channel. I guess I will YouTube HTML guides.

So, I wanted to talk about Borderlands: The Pre Sequel as I have been playing that as of late. So far, I cannot find any problems with it. I am doing my first play through with Claptrap because why not? When you try to start the game as him.. They keep asking you if you are sure. You have to say yes a total for 4 times I think it was before they'll let you start the game which I enjoyed very much. His skill trees are very interesting, I only really noticed the importance of picking these when playing through the second game as they can completely change how the character plays.

Not that you can see what the skills are.. But Claptrap has a lot of give and take in his skill tree. The first and third give a lot of bonuses which come at a penalty. The second has a lot of skills which are focused on giving bonuses to yourself and team mates. I don't play online too much so it doesn't hold too much interest with myself. I am currently working through the third skill tree, this gives things called fragstacks which give you bonuses such as more damage with one weapon class which gives a damage reduction to others.. Encourages diversity. The shield fragstack is crazy, your shield literally cannot deplete while its active. It causes the recharge rate to sky rocket! The best part about Claptrap is his ability called vaulthunter.exe which basically allows him to mimic other characters and also some special ones. I have just unlocked One Shot Wonder I think. Unloads the entire clip in one bullet for huge damage! And also you get a cowboy hat. By the way - you can find interactive skill trees for all the characters on the Borderlands website which is awesome - which you can find here.

In terms of a gameplay, they have added in a couple of extra bits as they always do. The biggest addition for me is the zero gravity in general because.. It is literally everywhere. I must say, I went from playing Borderlands to Destiny and it made the character feel so heavy on Destiny because you are now so floaty. The addition of the zero gravity also brings along the new equipment in the Oz kit which gives you oxygen - which makes no different to Claptrap as he cant suffocate. It also gives you the slam ability which by the looks of it later in the game with the better kit can do some crazy things.

The setting of the game being on the moon is so atmospheric, because it gives you so many different gameplay features other than the zero gravity. For example, you can smash an enemies helmet which then causes them to choke over time until the helmet is restored. As you can see from the picture above, also taken from the games website, you get the constant aurora borealis or Northern Lights. It makes a rather nice backdrop to blow stuff up.

I am also very fond of the new laser type weapons and ice elemental. The game being a sequel to the first and obviously.. Pre sequel to the second; they have cleverly worked in side missions which explained why they were not in Borderlands 2. Mainly because Mr Torgue hates them as they don't go bang. I think they held off adding the ice type weaponry until this game because of the mechanic regarding dropping frozen enemies and they smash. The Oz kit allow enemies to float around so naturally, if you freeze them they will fall. And smash or take a large amount of damage. There wouldn't have been as much opportunity to show off this mechanic in the second game.

Over all, I would highly recommend this game. It is heaps of fun, always has plenty of replay value thanks to the four characters. If you're anything like me - you want to hunt all the legendaries and signature weapons. That for me added hours upon hours of farming in Borderlands 2.

Thanks for reading, please leave me a comment if you so fancy.

Halloween

Day 486 & 487

So I tried to upload this last night but it wouldn't take the pictures for whatever reason. So I am doing it this morning.

So we quite like making Halloween decorations and bits and bobs. Amy made these Halloween cake pops. It's crumbled up fairy cakes mixed with vanilla frosting so it all sticks together. The outside is chocolate melts which are these American sweets which come in all different colours. Mixing yellow and red does not make orange just so you know.. We found out. The details are painted on using black gel food colouring. They taste nice and look pretty cool.

And obviously the classic Halloween decoration is a pumpkin. Amy got a free left over one from school and we also got two extra. I carved the one with a flame in the background and Amy did the other two with the faces. It went a lot better than last year because we knew what we were expecting when we out our hands in the pumpkins.. Still yucky. We sat with the window open and we heard a lot of people complimenting them. High fives all around.

And that's my dad with a fire lighter.