John Walker's Electronic House

Occasionally I am A Man.

Brian was late today due to a combination of being up all night working, and being up all day working too, and a broken stylus for my magical drawing tablet. It’s been a bit dodgy for a while now, and while too busy/lazy to investigate what was wrong, I had at least discovered that if I didn’t screw the top to the bottom completely tightly, it was functional. Today, even that didn’t seem to help. So it was time for a proper investigation.

Clearly the contact between the magical pixiewires inside and the battery was incomplete, but only when fully joined together. This seemed counter-intuitive, until like the scientific genius I truly am, I realised that the thread onto which the top half screws was being pulled up from its base upon closure. FASCINATING! My first attempt at a repair did not succeed – surprising in light of its simple cunning. I decided I would hold it in place with Sellotape. But I couldn’t find any. The only appropriately gluey material about was a box of sticky white labels I never remember I have when I Sellotape white paper over old addresses on packages I’m sending to people when I’m too cheap to buy a new padded envelope (all the time). Which would suggest I do have tape somewhere. Sadly torn strips of white sticker are shockingly not adequate affixative for holding a metal thread to a metal pen. I know. More drastic and scientific methods were required.

How about pushing the battery from the other end? The other contact was unreachably buried in the top of the hollow pen, but what if a small amount of metal were to exist between the contact and the battery? Could this be the Macgyver moment I was waiting for? All I needed was some metal that would fit in. After pondering the conductivity of tin foil, but deciding that if it should be obvious that it wouldn’t work, I really shouldn’t try it so I would never have to admit to having done so, I then noticed the metallic band on a nearby thin paintbrush. Sorry Mr Paintbrush – your life is given for the greater good.

To the kitchen, then, where all wood and metalwork is destined to take place. Using an old, un-used kitchen knife (read: one of Jonty’s), I sawed a small chunk of the metal-encased wooden cylindar from its moorings. Ka-ping! Success. Dropped it into the inside of the pen, screwed it up as much as I could, and ta-da! Brian! I overwhelm myself sometimes.

It reminded me of my favourite moment of manly improvisation, when I lived in Stoke on Trent, during a half-hearted and half-finished attempt at university there. We lived in an area that had frequent break-ins. In fact, our garage was broken into so regularly that we stopped attempting to lock it, and instead used it to store items we wanted rid of, but were too lazy to take to the tip. The next morning they be magically gone.

However, this meant we were somewhat concerned about the sanctity of our sacred grounds, and the fact that the chubb lock on our back door appeared to be glued on. In the 1970s. We called the landlord over, the ironically named Dave Goodfellow, to have this sorted. He snorted at our assertion that glue was not the ideal means of having it hold the baddies out, took a screwdriver, and removed the rust-worn screws that were propping the thing up. More sliding out than unscrewing, he took his catch and held it up to us. “Look at that!” he commanded. “Never been removed, that, ever.” The peculiarity of such a claim appeared lost on him, as he pushed them back into their holes and left the house.

So it was left to us. Us three men. Men of the world. Men with literally no tools other than a hammer. Most things we fixed in our collapsing home with a hammer, but on this occasion we could see now way for it to help. We purchased a new Yale lock, removed the previous one by, and I swear this is true, pulling it off the door. And then, in a series of improvisations that still fill me with pride to this very day, we affixed the Yale lock, cutting the metallic block to size and all, using only a bread knife and a pair of scissors.

We were beautiful.

Cauldron, let’s go. Come on. Let’s take it outside. I challenge you, the developers of Gene Troopers, to a fight. Name the time and place, I’ll be there. That’s the only way we’re going to settle this.

The majority of my time playing this game was spent face down on the sofa, having crawled there from my beanbag in aimless rage, thumping the carpet and furniture along my way. At one point, I bit my arm. I BIT MY ARM.

A lovely way to start the week, with one of the most consistently absymal games I’ve ever witnessed.

#33 Valentine’s Day is now a day on which people in relationships buy gifts for their single friends.

There’s a special kind of madness that’s caused by developing for the DS. 2004’s Project Rub (or as it was far better titled around the world, Feel The Magic: Project XX/XY, and in Japan, I Would Die For You) took the Sonic Team away from their increasingly tiresome hedgehog, and instead focused on the very involved business or winning a girl’s heart. And rabbits. And robot bulls. And vomiting goldfish.

And now we have Rub Rabbits (or as it’s far better titled in Japan, Where Do Babies Come From?), which also appears to be about winning a girl’s heart. And rabbits. And robot crabs. And riding cows.

Pleasingly mad.

A favourite moment in DC, that perfectly demonstrates the division of language between the US and the UK (no one say that hoary old cliche).

Wanting to fill some time before my journey home, I decided to visit the stores on the other side of the road from the hotel. I asked the lady at the desk,

“Is there a safe way to cross the road?”

She replied,

“No, but there’s a giant next door.”

Which was something to think about.

I rounded the corner, and then laughed out loud. I realised her side of the conversation:

“Is there a Safeway across the road?”

“No, but there’s a Giant next door.”

A fine long weekend was spent in DC, with some work at the start, followed by a weekend spent in the excellent company of a Charity Larrison & Son (Ltd).

It was all a beautiful coincidence, as staying the weekend lowered the cost of the flights for the dev team flying me over, and Charity happened to be in town at the same time. So adventures were had.

This involved visiting DC’s central bit, replete with the Capitol Building (which looked odd, not blowing up) and Washington Monument (which must some day be used for stabbing a giant monster through the heart) dividing a strip of free museums. The buildings were remarkable, all columns and domes, no less impressive the further out you walked. The booby-prize of Most Boring Building goes to the FBI, who live in a horrid concrete block.

Brilliantly, I managed to forget my camera both days, so you’ll have to use your imaginations for what this looked like. I was incredibly handsome, so make sure to factor that in.

We visited the Spy Museum and the Museum of Natural History. The former has an blue and pink elevator, and the latter has lots of dinosaur bones, and both were well worth a look. I had an excellent ten year old guide for the Natural History, who knew where all the coolest bits were.

Of course it was necessary to have a look at the White House, which is a remarkably modest building in comparison with its surroundings. It’s still a huge mansion, but proportionally it’s a weeny outhouse to the city’s architecture. Thankfully Charity remembered her camera, as she’s not quite as spectacularly stupid as me, but was far more interested in the tree next to it.

Then the second day we went to the zoo in the pouring rain. A free zoo is a remarkable thing. You just walk in off the pavement, and then, well, you’re in the zoo. It feels like your cheating somehow. Clearly February is not a peak time for their expectation of tourism, and much was under construction, including the famed Asia Trail and its panda inhabitants. But despite this, a fair amount of animals were around for staring at, and again Charity remembered her camera.

The elephant waved at Charity, and now they are best friends.

Losing the bet, it turned out the giraffe was taller than Justin.

My mum’s favourite animal in the whole world, the Capabara, or Gigantus Guineapigus.

And finally, in a moment that can only be rivalled by those times you see Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera characters in the same cartoon, here is a page of Charity and John’s ART colliding. Which a special guest appearance by Brian.

Huge thank yous to Charity and Justin for a really lovely weekend. Few better people to find that “WE’RE LOST!” with.

Brian is back properly tomorrow.

There are conventions in media we become perfectly used to, despite their having no place in reality. If we watch a movie, and someone is given CPR in the street, on the beach or dangling on a rope from a hot air balloon, we know they’ll come back to life. Nevermind that CPR merely sustains things until proper medical equipment arrives – we know, and accept, that with a couple of compressions and a few puffs in the mouth, they’ll be up and about and back to shooting zombies in a couple of minutes.

I was thinking about how weird it is that in every RPG, strangers come up to your character in the street and ask you to do their personal chores. So I decided to find out what would happen if I did that to people. And the Escapist were willing to publish it.

Here’s why casinos are so great: Every time you hear some outlandish conspiratorial theory about one business or another, it’s invariably so much nonsense, but with casinos, there’s a fair chance it’s true.

Here’s why Sega Casino is not great: It’s not a casino.

The journey to Americaland is often a fraught one. Airports are filled with horrific queues, customs is terrifying, and sometimes a crazy lady will steal your bread.

It didn’t begin well. Getting on the Heathrow Express, 30 minutes late due to the train from Bath having to stop randomly all the way along because of “Mmmff mmfff mff smmfff ffmsff ffsmm,” apparently, it was then announced that no trains at all were running to Heathrow due to a suspect package. After getting halfway through the long line for a taxi, a man came out and told us all that it was running again. Walking back, the tannoy informed us, “All trains to Heathrow are suspended.” Everyone did a special walking-in-two-directions dance, until eventually magical pixies flew us there. Late, despite having allowed an unrealistic amount of time for being early, I assumed it would be crapsticks all the way. Until the lovely check-in lady, to whom I did not complain even a tiny bit, decided I deserved a ‘fasttrack’ sticker allowing me to walk past the enormous queue at check-in. Thus affording me time to buy all the various items I had resigned to living without, and arriving in time to drink half a coffee before getting on board… to a half empty plane.

A row behind where I was sat, the middle section of four seats was completely free. My plan was made. My stuff was ready. We only had to take off. Interminably we waited on the runway, painfully slowly we climbed, and then finally, finally, the fasten seatbelt light went off and I leapt gazelle like. It was perfect. No one in front, no one behind, so no one to crush me, and no one to crush with tilting chairs, and four glorious seats to myself. Sleep was possible. And welcome after the 2 hours of it the night before. Then in customs, no vast line in an un-air-conditioned chamber. Then most remarkable: rather than the usual grilling about why I would DARE to enter their precious country, the questions went like this:

How long are you here for?
What is the main purpose of your visit?
What business are you in?
When do you think the PS3 will be out?

A peculiar conversation ensued as the armed man asked me what I thought of the 360 launch titles.

However, all this good was undone when learning that Jimmy Carr presents TV programmes here as well.

Oh happy day.

A beautiful little soundbite emerges to play each and every time I read one of these legions of tards pronounce, “Reviews should be objective. Just because one person likes it, doesn’t mean it’s good.”