Seasons and preferences, they aren’t always black and white

Pokémon Black and White (2011)

There’s some things you simply cannot admit in public, particularly when it comes to your personal preferences. People tell you to open up and be opinionated, but they don’t mean that, really. When I start going on about bra sizes, for example, nobody wants to know.

I don’t know what it could be, but my voting habits tend to get a room fuming as well, something about me being a bootlicker or somesuch. But the one that really gets me the stink-eye is when I say that, actually, winter might just be my favourite season.

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If only panda bears could do it on command

Star Fox Command (2007)

When I was over in Munich, which by a very happy coincidence and completely unbeknownst to us was at the same time as the Oktoberfest, we eventually peeled ourselves away from the dancing tables and found ourselves in a busy park. Not busy with people, but rather there was a WWF display.

It wasn’t HHH versus Stone Cold under the trees, more’s the pity. No, this was the World Wide Fund for Nature, and they were hosting a display of hundreds of little plastic panda bears, which represented the amount of pandas left on earth.

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A pearl of wisdom for you – pressure makes diamonds, but leisure time is platinum

Pokémon Diamond, Pearl & Platinum (2007 / 2009)

I like to think of myself as a pretty patient man, willing to accept cock-ups, malaise and the problems that one generally encounters in life. After all, I don’t tend to care too deeply about anything. I’m perfectly happy to be just sat there, as lazy as a snail, watching Countdown all day. And my primary motivation in work, and anything in life really, is not money, or fame – I just want to avoid any hassle.

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All aboard the Zelda train! Next stop: the anorak masonry

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009)

I want to bring you, Henry Hill style, into a murky underworld. Don’t worry though, you won’t be an accomplice in anything, nobody’s getting whacked here. Still, there’s plenty of wiseguys having to look over their shoulder all the time, because they’re only minutes away from getting embroiled in it all. Welcome to the dark and seedy world of model trains.

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A Nintendo demo cartridge? No way, it’s gotta be cursed

Metroid Prime Hunters (2006)

Demos, don’t talk to me about demos. A live demo of something might be the worst thing of all to give to people, yes, even ahead of gonorrhoea. I have found myself in the unenviable position of having to give live demonstrations of how a particular piece of software was meant to work. When you’re in that position, old Murphy can’t get his arse in gear fast enough to track you down and invoke his law, to make it all go wrong for you.

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Marth steps out of the shadows and into another remake

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (2008)

Hollywood’s gotten itself into a creative funk again, and but for the presence of a hundred thousand Marvel and Disney films, made with the express purpose of giving these two creators more disposable cash than any piddly old first world country, there isn’t much to see in the cinema.

Well, that’s not fully true: there are a bunch of remakes for you to “treat” your eyes to. I even hear rumblings that they want to redo The Breakfast Club. Simply impossible – how do you catch lightning in a bottle twice? The kids would be on their phones all day, secretly capturing videos of each other to post publicly in humiliating fashion for the victims, and that would be that. God, I’m glad the phones weren’t smart when I was in school.

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My body speaks the language of Love Love

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (2008)

When you’re a young man desperate for a shag, you’ll try anything. You would probably never have guessed it, but I had no idea how women work, and I still don’t. How could I? I had no sister growing up. I shunned girls at a young age for fear of cooties, or becoming a sissy. I only went to all boy schools, another fine idea from the Catholic Church.

They brought us boys and girls together to interact in college, but by then it was far too late. I had no chat, no patter at all. Toilet humour I had bunches of, but that never got me very far – and with a few dozen drinks onboard I really did just sound like a clogged U-bend.

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How Burkey longs to be a skinny flat white

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations (2008)

Try as I might, I’m never going to be accepted into the inner circles of polite company, and I think I’ve finally found the reason why: I’m not a coffee drinker. You mustn’t get me wrong, I actually do enjoy the taste of the stuff. I’ll even do you the favour of eating a coffee-flavoured chocolate sweet every now and again. It’s just the coffee culture that I can’t get on board with.

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The property market is a Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild World

Animal Crossing: Wild World (2006)

Almost every bet or prediction I’ve ever made in my life has turned out to be a turkey, you know, which is why I don’t go to betting shops, I don’t play the lotto, and I certainly don’t eat Rowntrees Randoms. To wit, I’ve been predicting, or perhaps more accurately praying, for a drop in house prices for, oh, almost ten years. But oh no, every force in the housing market is out to get old Burkey, so up those houses go.

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Whip your arse into shape before you’re over das hill

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All (2007)

You know you’re finished, over the hill, donezo and that it’s not gonna happen for you when new sports stars start coming through who are younger than you. I’m now older than the vast majority of the F1 grid, for example, and even if wash-ups like Alonso and Raikkonen push the average up, it’s still mind-boggling that they let a 16-year-old Max Verstappen drive an F1 car.

At that age I couldn’t even operate a shopping trolley safely, and if you put me in a car I’d have simply screamed and hoped out, GTA style. That’s yet another nutty thing about the United States, isn’t it? How they’ll let 16-year-olds behind the wheel? No drinking until you’re 21 though, and even the slightest hint of marijuana and you’re in prison for life, peeing blood for the foreseeable.

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