The Abominable Weekly Update!

Happy Easter to all, and to all a good night. That's it. No post this time and definitely not a post about a little of this and a little of that. Definitely not what you would call a Weekly Update. So go away. Bye. Off you go. Why aren't you going? No, don't click the link! Don't do it! Your eyes are not ready for the horrors that await behind that link.

So you decided not to listen to me. Good for you, you independent soul. Too clever to take good advice from strangers, ey? Well, we'll just see if you survive the horror that is;

Fancy title, right? I made it especially for this post. Commitment to blogging and whatnot.

First up. Bastion, an action role-playing video game released by independent developer Supergiant Games back in August 2011. Like I've said before I'm way behind on my gaming but Bastion has always been a game that peaked my interest. So with The Humble Weekly Sale selling it for just $1 I couldn't resist / had no excuse any more. I decided to beat the average — still just a measly $2.65 anyway — as well because I really wanted the brilliantly awesome soundtrack.

Although I haven't played through the entire game yet, I have logged about 4 hours into it and unlocked 4 out of 24 achievements which should be enough to warrant some kind of opinion about the game. The soundtrack is — as I already mentioned — pretty awesome and Logan Cunningham's gravely and sexy narration is just plain awesome. We're talking Kevin Conroy's Batman level of awesomeness here just so you know. And I hope to hear Logan in more places than just Bastion as Rucks and Supergiant Games' upcoming Transistor that sees — hears? — him play a sword. Yes, he is really voicing a sword and what I've seen of it so far it seems interesting. I might have not pick it up at some point. But back to Bastion, what else can be said about it? I love the art style. The game play gets a bit repetitive and feels like mindless button mashing at times despite getting new weapons with suitable frequency.

All in all, I'm very happy to have bought it but at the same time having already spent about 4 hours playing it I don't have a deep desire to go back to it to play more. Which is a bit of a shame because it's a beautiful looking game with kickasseomness narration but I feel it falls a bit short in game play. The way which it tells its story is also better than the story it tells. If I gave out scores it would get 3 black tonics out of 5 but I won't because I don't give out scores… any more. Unless it's another Simpson's gamebecause those are terrible.

I've also played Deux Ex: Human Revolution and Fallout: New Vegas quite recently but I thought I would write more in-depth about both of those games in a post of their own.

Next up, Ale. I'm used to drinking Lagers because that's the more prevalent beer in Finland, as it is in many countries nowadays. I've been trying to get into ale since we moved here. Not for any particular reason other than my own personal curiosity. My assumption was that surely most people in England drink ale but that is clearly not the case. The sales numbers speak for themselves with ale only accounting for 6.1% of total sales whilst lagers have a whopping 74.3%. But ale has been rising in the past few years and I'd like to think that I've contributed to the increasing sales completely ignoring the obvious part about only having lived in England for less than a year. But despite my slow progress in the ale drinking I will persevere because I think that in the same way I love coffee I could maybe like — or even love — ale. So far I really like a plain old regular Newcastle Brown Ale but last weekend I tried a Fursty Ferret. A bit too floral for my taste but not bad. Don't ask me what my taste is yet though because I don't know. But I plan on finding it out.

Next on the agenda we have front-end development as yesterday I attended Front-end London, an event hosted by Made by Many that's dedicated to all aspects of front-end development. As this was my first “thingy” I was super nervous and excited to be attending it. I thought it was going to a conference but as arrived I was delighted to find out that it was more a casual meet-up, which suited me better anyway because huge gatherings makes me nervous. Something I'm probably going to have to get over if I'm going to try speaking at one of these things. Yeah, I got to talking with one of the speakers about getting into speaking about front-end development myself. Time will tell how that pans out. Other than that what's not to like about this awesome event, free pizza and beers for everyone, listening to talks by Josh Emerson, Phil Nash and Paul Robert Lloyd, followed by a visit to the local pub. It was truly inspiring and fun to get to meet and talk to like-minded people. Sadly I had to leave earlier than I would have wanted to, to catch the train back home. An awesome event though — kudos to Made by Many — and definitely not my last. So awesome so, that I only have one picture from the whole evening… of when I'm already leaving which I'm not going to show because it's just a picture of a street and not even a good picture of a good street or anything like that.

Lastly. Aside for having a train to catch, I also wanted to catch the next to last train of the day so I could join my wife's childhood friend Nina who had spoken at the Talking Bodies conference in Chester earlier and was now heading down to stay with us over the weekend. I figured she might appreciate my — albeit drunk — company from London onwards and also she was bringing us a Fucktonne — but actually 1kg and 250 grams — of assorted Salty Liquorice. I'm eating them right now and they're delicious. Warning: May have a laxative effect.

Are you still alive? Good, that means you survived "The Abominable Weekly Update!" hopefully unscathed but more than likely not. For having survived it though you deserve a price and that price is… drum roll please… this years — Quick! Pretend it's a thing I do — Easter Postcard.