So yeah, I bought a job load of ebay-ed GBA games to play on my DS Lite the other week and I have them all now. Just look at my collection, anyone would think I was some games nut, seriously, I’m as casual as casual gamers get. But yeah, my main reason for going mad on the the second hand GBA front was to catch up on some Zelda action. Those 2 GBA carts at the topmost of the pic are Zelda 1 “The legend of Zelda” and Zelda 2 “The adventure of Link”. These 2 games were originally on the NES… Nintendo’s first ever console (or the famicom in japan), it was an 8-bit machine, not great compared to today’s standards, and these 2 GBA games are direct ports, nothing has been tarted up. But ya know, I grew up with a ZX Spectrum, I knew crap graphics. So I knew what to expect, but I also thought that 8-bit graphics weren’t any reflection on the game-play and fun to be had. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Both Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 are incredibly frustrating, fiendishly hard with very little payoff. Also, I kinda figured that playing the very very early zelda games would shed some extra light onto the whole Zelda saga, and maybe uncover some lesser known secrets I wouldn’t know from playing the more modern incarnations. Sadly, it also turns out that the NES was too underpowered to have much of a story-line with these games. In fact, the first zelda has sod all dialogue at all. So sod that, anyone want a couple of free zelda “NES Classics” games?

Zelda 3 “Link to the Past” was originally release on the SNES (Super NES, or Super Famicom, or that one that had a shitty looking bolbus case in america but had a nice slimmer and more colourful case everywhere else for some reason, as if they figured american’s would only buy it if it also had a fat arse) and the difference between that and the 2 NES games is incredibly stark. I now can’t believe what a jump in technology it was. It must be particularly stark with this Zelda game because the artistic design was a triumph. It looks beautiful because the use of colours and the bitmaps are faultless. And so is the gameplay, I had forgotten what games are like when they get your adrenaline pumping, because I haven’t played a game that manages it in so freaking long. When you reach a boss at the end of a dungeon in Zelda 3 you perspire and shake with desire to throat the bastard, and when you finally manage it you can hardly walk straight with a buzz. I haven’t played Animal Crossing for 2 days, Gabi is going to be so mad at me.

Just so that you hate NeoOffice more than you already do it sometimes, upon loading it opens a browser window with their homepage. Thanks, I’m sure all your users really appreciate that. Well, the jokes on them, because when it opened last, you’ll see from this screenshot that one of the Google Adsense Adverts had quite an unpleasant word to say about your mother.

Hey Ruffian, I forgot I had a blog! How awesome. That’s Gabi in the pic, my girlfriend in Animal Crossing. She calls me Super T because I’m Super. Geddit? She’s feeling a lot better now, did I tell you that?
Me hyperbolic
Them: whats that mean
Me: its a kind of kitchen that tilts sideways
Them: surley not, what would the point be
Me: so you don’t have to bend over so much

I think that might be why people don’t IM me very often. Ah, sod it, I’m too tired to write.

Scatter Cushion Affair again today. Strange Capitalisation there, S.C.A. What could it mean?

VIRGIN MOBILE DIGITAL TV (or VMDT) Our Telewest STB gave up the ghost the other day, a faint duvet covered mass floated up into the nether. So, today came the cable guy and it wasn’t Jim Carry, thankfully. The box had to be replaced, but he replaced it with the exact same model, bastard, it really is a crummy piece of crap that thing, slow as molasses, whatever molasses is. The strange thing is though, the guy rang on the doorbell again some 15 minutes later my first thought being that yet another telewest employee had misplaced something because a year or so ago a telewest engineer lost his test modem and came to our house panting desperate that it might have been left here. lol. But no, he said that he had just done a test and my cable modem’s signal was too strong. Wha? The mind boogles, how did he test that from outside? Well, I haven’t had any stability issues with my internet access at all for god knows how long, but I let him do it anyway, he attached some kind of extra screw on thing to the CAT5 screw on thing. But now i’m wondering, have I just been bugged? Have MI5 requested that I be spied upon? Eek, its so Veronica Mars.

ETCO AT MY BASTARD FRIEND Has anyone figured out how to add MT 3.3.1 style Tags to entries from within ecto yet?

WORDunimPRESSed I’m going to change my website for the new season… sometime. I want to take longer over it this time, unlike what I usually do which is suddenly think to myself, “Hey! I fancy changing my website” and then spending less than a day on it, including both the illustrator nonsense and the coding up. I do have some dandy (that’s a hint) ideas for it already. Anyway, one of the things I was going to do as well was to migrate from Movable Type to Wordpress because that seems to be the IN thing these days. But after reading Dave2’s experience I’m not sure there’s any point. Ah well.

MANTS! Gabi is ill She’s been ill for about 4 days now, I’ve given her some medicine each day and at first she seems better, but then the next day she’s fallen back ill again. It’s so sad. She’s my girlfriend in Animal Crossing and I love her to bits. It’s eating me up to see her suffer like this.

Gabi, on my animal crossing game has given me a nickname, she’s now calling me “Super T”, I think we’re in love, and she’s still reminding me a lot of Monica, well except, Gabi keeps running around catching butterflies and I suspect Moni would frown upon that. I’ve also had my house extended but I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it’s going to be like, I asked for a pink roof.

I finished New Mario this morning, easiest end of game boss ever lol! Weird thing is, you can complete it whilst not having found 2 out of the 8 of the worlds. But I’ve now managed to unlock them both, which was probably harder than completing it. Shit, I have so been playing that thing way too much haven’t I? My DS lite is so awesome

There’s still the bizarre talk from many directions of a possible Apple + Nintendo tie up. It’s so wishful thinking! Company wise I expect they would clash massively, they both are too much the jealously guarding secret types. Nintendo have always been extremely closed and very much like to be the loners, sitting in a corner playing with themselves, um. Some podcast suggested what could happen though is maybe Apple license some early nintendo games for inclusion in a future iPod. I dunno how early we’re talking, maybe as far back as NES. But that would still be super duper.