Salka

Okay, here's what I don't get though. Why do you continue to smoke? After a while, do you just stop spluttering and choking every time you inhale? Or what?

You're not even gonna believe this. It's just amazing. But sometimes, if you concentrate very hard, you can actually erase things you didn't mean to say on the internet before you post stuff, OR EVEN AFTER YOU POST STUFF! I won't say exactly how, but here's a hint: Backspace!

I have never had a problem quitting things or anything, and I think that runs in my family because a lot of people in my family have just stopped doing things in the past. My Mom and a lot of my aunts just stopped smoking one day. So I can never understand people that say they tried to give up smoking. I mean, especially in Ireland, where a) the cost of a packet of cigarettes is like E6.50 ($7?) it's illegal to smoke in public places (indoors) and c) the weather is always too bad to smoke outside in comfort So that, with the added health risks and the sheer yuckiness of smoking... how do people do it? It makes furniture and clothes smell icky, too. How can you accidentally 'slip' back in to smoking after you give up? Myself and a group of friends decided to stop drinking coke one day, and instead buy water. I managed it fine, and so did one other guy, but the rest all 'broke down' and bought coke. Coke isn't even addictive. WTF?

That sounds incredible! In defence of the wonderful, imaginative and evocative art style of Luna, I showed a sample of it to a couple of people. Some said, 'Jesus Christ', while others just remained speechless. Kingzjester was the only person that said, "Pfft, that's AWFUL."

SUPER CRAZY AND EVIL!!!

What's a rolly? Now I can make twice as much fun at people who smoke, because it doesn't even feel/taste nice.

Deadworm, take a cigarette and smoke it, if just for the experience. It's awful. It's really, really awful. Christ, is it awful. You can't even IMAGINE how awful it is until you try it. Guhhhhh. And I mean, I have never liked smoking, but I used to find the smell of cigarette smoke sweet and soothing because my parents used to smoke. Man, it tastes like a mouthful of coal dust. DJALKDGadg.a

And to think that I was really looking forward to Chris' and Marek's ideas. Well, there's still Chris.

You know what I think would be cool? Like, imagine this totally weird, fantasy world where the light of the Moon can turn people insane, right? And there used to be two Moons in the sky but apparently a group of thieving, good-for-nothing gypsies stole the other and hid it somewhere, because that's the kind of shit Gypsies do. And in this world, there are Atronomers, except THIS kind of Astronomy is exciting because they get to explore the highest mountains and the deepest caverns and the most dangerous corners of the Planet in search of clues as to why the Light of the Moon drives people insane. And the main character is an astronomer, and she gets to do cool and exciting things, and it'd be awesome. Oh, and there are these mines, and they are suspicious looking, because they're very high security and nobody knows what they're mining down there. But they get Gypsy Kids to mine them, because they're just the right size to climb down all those mineshafts (and nobody cares about Gypsy Kids). And if they're too young to mine, like if they're Baby Gypsies, they hang them in cages on the beams across the Mines, and use them to detect Methane in the air. Because Baby Gypsies have really delicate lungs and are sensitive to Methane and stuff. So if there's a bunch of dead babies hanging in cages on the ceiling, you know to get out of there pretty snappy. Oh, and the Protagonist is a Gypsy, but for some reason she was brought up in the settled world. Man, I ALREADY want to play this game!!! I wish it was for real!!!

I remember when Vel told me Luna was going to suck because it wasn't going to be Point and Click... Anyway, no offence to anybody, but the Dudebrough blog is kind of lame and tedious. However, the Telltale guys seem super enthusiastic. Maybe they will turn out something mind-blowing. In other news, there's a blister on my baby toe, and it hurts. I am considering draining it because otherwise the pressure might cause it to burst while I'm walking, and then I'll have a wet sock, and that would be gross. But I am afraid of needles and afraid to stick a needle in to my toe. Hmm. Hmmmmm. HMMMMMM.

I got Sands of Time. So far it's pretty neat. It's making me think, you know... man, Phones and Games could work together in perfect harmony. When you're bored, it's just a case of logging on and downloading the latest game. Every game I've downloaded since the first one seems to arrive within three or four minutes. The cost of connecting to the internet has been about 10c, I can browse a wide selection of games online, read brief descriptions of them (I wish 02 active had screenshots though) and then download one for $4. The cost of the call and the game are both taken on my mobile phone bill (or from your Credit if you use a Credit Phone), and then you have the game. Awesome! As well as that, a Cell Phone is something you always have with you. Or at least in Ireland and England it is... over here you get a Cell Phone when you're about 12, and you never go without one after that. And come on; those games can't cost much to produce. They don't even need packaging. And they're fun. Man, I'm imagining a Psychonauts game on my phone right now.

I love studying Physical Regions. Such as Mountains.

Man, I'm stuck on the first level of Rayman 3. Is there something I'm missing? I can't seem to hover to the first friggin' platform...

My phone IS a Motorola V3... 02 ACTIVE only have a crappy selection of games, though

You'd be surprised...

Yeah, me too.

The Xbox retaliated swiftly with a sawn off shotgun, the Gamecube took it like a girl and started crying.

I made a show of my own. I took a gamecube, a PS2, and an XBOX into the garden and fired at each one from ten yards with a .22 calibre rifle loaded with poison-tipped bullets. The only one I couldn't hit was the PS2, because it was one of the slim ones, and it was standing on it's side and therefore had a smaller target area.

No, that was just Full Throttle.

Usually when I'm angry, or worried about something, I try to turn it in to a funny thread. Man, I'm just trying to think of funny things to say right now. And I can't, so I'll just start with some slapstick humour. That's always a good substitute for real humour. Man, maybe I should just keep writing slapstick humour and I'll never have a thread fall flat on it's face again! Let's try that right now! I was shopping in The Bookshop today, and it was getting late, but I was getting some school provisions, when I fell over and landed on my ass in front of everybody, for absolutely no good reason. I just miscalculated the distance between my foot and the ground, and stepped too hard, and leg buckled under me and I fell. And everybody looked at me. Some people pretended not to, and children just stared blatantly. Bastards. Like kids can talk; they're always falling over. Anyway, while I was poring over different thicknesses of paper in the art section, I vaguely heard somebody saying "fuck off!" at which point I automatically spun around, smacked my head off a book display and yelped, "stop talking to your Mom like that, Oscar!" while screwing my eyes shut in an attempt to stop the excrutiating pain to my forehead. "He's just being a difficult teenager," I added, as my vision blacked out like a broken TV. I grasped around blindly for my Mom's shoulder. "Just ignore him," I continued. My vision returned and I humbly let go of the complete stranger I'd just grabbed, and then turn to my Mom. Only Mom was walking down the stairs, and called back up, "I'm going back to the car. Don't forget the pictures." I gave Oscar a reproachful look, but he didn't notice because he'd just given himself a million slapstick-style papercuts on 300gsm Paper, and was dancing around howling and holding his wrists. About five minutes later, after having bought everything I needed, I made my way across town to the Tesco Carpark where I knew Mom had parked the car. Of course, I walked face first into the door and made this comical kind of 'oof' sound as my nose cracked off the glass. And then, as I was walking outside, a bucket just fell out of the sky and landed on my head and got stuck, and I danced around hilariously for about two minutes trying to get it off and yelling things like, "I'll get you! I'll get you for this, you pesky kid!" But, after that, I was on my way to the Carpark. Oh, by the way, I should mention at this point that the pictures she was talking about us carrying? Yeah. Them. What she meant to say was, "an entire SACK full of HEAVY PICTURE FRAMES". Nothing ever goes like it's supposed to for me. Some point, I think it was right after we walked past the Nightclubs, that a group of guys started following us closely. The road to the Carpark in Tesco is narrow and there are no houses or anything... the land around it is being built on but for now there's just a wide expanse of nothing, and the road has a fifteen foot wooden construction wall on either side. Anyway, partly for the slapstick humour element and partly because I'm dumb and like to take narrow, unlit roads when I'm being followed, I of course took the road. I was also aware my Mom was waiting for us in the car, so yeah, I took the shortcut. Anyhoo, the guys started walking either side of me, as guys very often do. I'd like you to reread the sentence highlighted in bold because it makes me look so cool and popular. You'd think I'd be a little cooler about guys walking either side of me, in fact, because I'm so used to guys walking either side of me. But these guys smelled, and they didn't seem as friendly as most guys I know walking side-by-side with me, so I grabbed Oscar's arm and started leading him away. And then some asshole grabbed my school sweater, so I turned around and pushed him in the chest, like girls do when you offend their honour. Or was I supposed to slap him in the face? I forget. Well, I did that whole "what's yo problem, yo asshole momma yo yo, yo?" thing that rappers do, sort of, and look really cool and imposing when they're doing it, only I did it all wrong and looked like a chicken having a heart attack. And then there was this sort of silence, where they glanced awkwardly at each other, and I used this moment of confusion I had totally created on purpose to grab Oscar and LEG IT to Tesco, where there were people and lights, and phones. They started cursing after us, but I'm not sure if they followed us because I was too busy screaming and also, I couldn't turn my neck as I was lying on it funny this morning and now it hurts. "Mom'll save us!" I declared, as we burst through the entrance to the car park. I forgot that those barrier things to stop the cars were down, and I ran straight into one of them, and that's not even something I made up for slapstick humour. THEN I REALLY felt dumb. But we didn't stop running. We ran around the entire carpark, twice (it's not very big). And then we stopped outside the door to Tesco and looked confused. "Mom'll save us!" I repeated, and waited for about three seconds for Mom to appear in her shiny, silver, superhero car, with wings. "This is full of shit," Oscar muttered, "I didn't come out here to be screwed over by a bunch of bastards from St Pauls. If I see those bastards again, I'll break their faces open on my kneecaps. EEK, HERE THEY COME," he screamed shrilly, pointing furiously. They were in fact loitering around the end of the carpark. They hadn't seen us, but we ran inside anyway, and stood gasping for breath in store lobby area (man, I know it's not called a lobby area, okay? I just don't know what else it might be called). I hadn't got my cel phone on me, so I dashed over to the public phone. "Mom'll save us!" I said, a little less enthusiastically, as I dialled her number. Twice. And then a third time. And then a bunch more times, but her phone seemed to be turned off. Finally, we sank against the wall in dispair, and then quickly stood back up again as the manager walked past. "I'm going to pee myself!" Oscar thought, probably. For twenty minutes, we cowered, shivering and scared, in Tesco. We didn't want to go outside. I only had 50c left, because each time you try to phone somebody, even if it fails the machine eats your money. It was dark outside. Tesco stays open because it's a big supermarket, but most of the stores in town were closed. The bank was closed. I didn't have my bank card on me for an ATM, I had no money left, and I didn't have my cel phone. I didn't know anybody living within walking distance of where I was. I had no way of getting anywhere. Reluctant to give up my last fifty cent on the THIEVING phone, I tried once more to ring my Mom. To my delight, she picked up. "Hello? Mom?! Where are you?!" "I'm three quarters of the way home. I'll have to phone you back, I'm driving." "NO! I'm on a payphone! WAIT!... Uh... you're half way home?" I should mention at this point I live 15 miles from town. "Yeah," she replied happily. There was a long, uncomfortable silence, where I waited for her to say something like, "JUST JOKING!!! HAHA, YOU'RE DUMB! I'm just behind you!" or "YOU'VE BEEN FRAMED! This is just a TV show and you've just been filmed being an IDIOT!!!", but for about twenty seconds nobody said anything like that, so I just stammered, "Uh... really?" "Yeah." She said. "Do... do you know that I have no money? And no ATM card? And... and no phone to call anybody? And this is the last of my money? And it's dark? And cold? And I want to go home?" "Well, you'd better find some way of getting home then," she replied. "Oh, hang on, dodgy road coming up. I'll call you later." So in the end I ran out of money, my Mom never came in and picked us up because she was annoyed with Oscar, although I'd done nothing wrong, and the guys that were following us came in, murdered us all and we died. And then we froze to death, and died again. So all in all we died twice, and Mom didn't even care. And she never even apologized. She has a really crap sense of humour. Crap and dumb, just like payphones and groups of guys that walk too close. That was a great story. Here's another story; I was sitting in the cloakroom today, and I was biting an apple, when this one girl, sitting among her group of friends, said, "YOU KNOW WHEN YOU'RE GIVING SOMEBODY A BLOWJOB, RIGHT?!?" and I bit the apple too hard, and also bit my tongue, and then started choking, but I was too busy laughing to try and remove the apple segment from my windpipe. And then she kept on and on talking to her friends, who were all like, "Hmm, yeah, uh huh, totally," and she was all, "AND I'M ALL LIKE, GACK!! GACK!!! BECAUSE IT'S HALFWAY DOWN MY NECK, LIKE," and this other girl is all like, "When they put their hands on my head to push me down on them, I'm just like 'fuck off or suck your OWN dick!'" And while we rolled around the other end of the room in silent, painful laughter, clutching our sides with tears streaming down our faces, somebody else fainted. She's 17 and apparently, her parents never told her about the birds and the bees. She had to spend the rest of the day First Aid, just lying down with a wet towel on her head, because somebody said 'blowjob', and now she's gone to hospital. It's freakin' hilarious. I hope she doesn't die.

That game annoys me even to fucking look at it.

Oh, there's probably a scientific explanation for it.

Back in the olde days, Adventure Games were great. But other genres seemed to evolve and Adventure Games got left behind. Today, adventure games are pretty much the same as they ever were, except for the graphics. After playing a game like San Andreas (I don't even like this game) or say, Crimson Skies (xbox) even, playing an adventure game in comparison to pretty much any new release game is a stilted and frustrating experience. Coming straight off the involving, adrenaline-filled, exciting experience of Half-Life 2 and on to Syberia or The Longest Journey... man, walking Kate Archer through fifteen screens of beautifully rendered snow-backgrounds just is not cool, and is not exciting. I don't care how good the story may have been, because I can read a book with a good story any time I want. Books don't even have pixel-hunting puzzles. As well as this, very few non-LucasArts adventure games that I've played seem to have gotten the formula quite right. I've found myself infuriated many times with ridiculous puzzles and inane solutions. But my real problem with the genre as a whole is that it refuses to move on and become something better, and I partly blame the die-hard Adventure Fans. The amount of times I've heard people say, "Grim would be so much better, if only it had a point-and-click interface!" It seems like if the Adventure Genre branches off from the original approved formula of 1990, it's no longer an Adventure Game. Or it is, but it would have been so much better if it had a Point and Click interface and a blocky GUI! I mean, as for point and click interfaces... I think it is far more natural and involving to control a game using either a keyboard or, preferably, a joystick. What annoys me most about Adventure Games is that I continue to defend them and they continue to let me down and make an ass of me in front of my friends. Motherfuckers!!! No, he's being perfectly serious.

Yeah, but that's one review. I've read more that fit Duncan's description than I have like the PC Gamer one, unfortunately. I hated Syberia too. It was boring, dull... nothing innovative about it, nothing new or surprising. Man, it made me hate adventure games, and pretty much everything else in the world too.

Oh man, ha ha ha, that would be hilarious. That would be so good. I'd love to set off Gay Bombs all along the Bible Belt of the US. I'm laughing so hard just thinking about it that I'm crying. That would be awesome.