Category: entertainment

I love board games

I love board games and often forget this with all the streams, video games, and books I have access to. One of the joys of having a family is that on occasion the board games cupboard gets opened and you remember what it is like to immerse yourself in the tactile world of board games with not a screen in sight.

I like the classics like Cluedo, Monopoly, and even the mechanical ones of the 1980s such as Don’t Upset Me, or Stay Alive. Both are rare to find these days, and the more popular ones have been remade as cheaper plastic replicas that don’t hold up to the slightest knock. Newer games such as Labyrinth, Enchanted Forest, and even the LOL Dolls game (don’t knock it untily you’ve played it). There’s even dedicated board game shops, if you can find them, with the popular Catalan and games you’ve never heard of and variations of Monopoly and Labyrinth.

Board games bring people together more than a stream or video game can. It can bring out your competitive side and there’s something about the feel of quality game pieces, tiles, cards, and the artwork involved. As a rule I try to buy one new board game every Christmas for the family. I do a lot of research, make my purchase, wrap it up and label it.

We’ve had some really obscure ones over the years and some that have become our new favourites. With each passing year our collection grows offering a wider selection on game night.

Do you play board games?

This is not the game you are looking for, but I am

What is with this obsession with Stormtroopers? They are in my feeds so much these days. People collecting the Kenner figurines, Lego figurines, cosplay at conventions. Stormtroopers seem to be everywhere I look! Or maybe it’d because I’m playing Star Wars Outlaws a lot and I’m having to deal with the ‘Imps’ as the game refers to the Imperial Stormtroopers.

Such a good game and I’d not even a huge Star Wars fan. In fact my Star Wars obsessed friends are not fans of the game. Maybe I like it because the controls and mechanics feel like other games I have enjoyed, like Days Gone, Uncharted, Horizon, and Tomb Raider. You control Kay Vass in the third person, traverse terrain like Lara Croft or Aloy, upgrade your speeder like Deacon St.John, and get to explore an open world completing missions in whatever order you want. Plus there are loads of games within the game. You can play Sabbac in various bars dotted around the game, or play arcade machines, or take part in speeder races, or spaceship battles. All add to the fun of the gameplay for me, but for some reason, not my Star Wars friends.

Political music in minutes

You can now create professional sounding music in minutes thanks to AI.

You can write a country song for your girlfriend on your anniversary with careful written lyrics with meaning only to the both of you. And it can sound like a professional singer and band recorded it. All from the comfort of your own home, and laptop.

A new trend is political music. Music with a political message or bias complete with propaganda lyrics designed to resonate with your target audience. Available in all musical genres and styles. Rock, metal, jazz, classical, pop, you name it, whatever you want. Type in your message and the AI will create the track for you faster than you can make a cup of coffee. Fine-tune it and release. Voila! Your political message or viewpoint is injected into the music streams of your choice ready for the masses to consume.

OSINT on old TV shows

I found myself carrying out OSINT on old TV shows. I didn’t realise I was doing it at first. I was watching an old episode of one of my favourite shows and I wanted to know where it was filmed. IMDB and a quick Google returned no information.

I started freeze-framing one scene, advancing frames looking at the geography, buildings, and business names, phone numbers, anything. I was geolocating the scene. It took me minutes. I had it.

Google street view confirmed it. Some minor changes to the buildings and layout but definitely the right location. I had the location, obtained out of mere curiosity and some OSINT skills. Information that the show’s wiki and even IMDB did not have.

There is data in these old TV shows if you know how to extract it.

Instagram is full of tease pron

Instagram is full of tease pron. It’s one opinion. I can see where it came from after hearing it for the first time. There appear to be a lot of female users on there that use it to offer taster content in the hope that you will follow through to their paid links on Patreon, Only Fans, or such premium sites.

The posts push the boundaries of what is allowed on Insta. Simulated acts, revealing outfits, teasing questions. Nothing too graphic, but close. Some maybe too close resulting in account bans. The need for multiple backup accounts just in case you cross a line.

Memes are used to try to encourage more likes. Plus cosplay, roleplay, gaming, and product use. Anything to get more followers in the hopes that followers convert to paid subscribers. Masters of tease.

With hard content requiring full-on identification verification, accessing soft content via Insta is becoming more popular. Just use your imagination.

Characters left hanging

I hate it when you have invested a lot of time in a TV show, following the complex plot and all the characters and then the show ends, leaving you hanging. Not knowing what happened next. How did the character’s lives pan out? There’s no more episodes, no more insight, just a hard, abrupt, end. As if you were a voyeur observing a life and then your window closed and there is no more for you. The character’s life continued without you knowing what happened next.

Some finish off their characters’ stories with leaked scripts post cancellation, or the stories continue in other media such as books or comics. Most end though, never to continue. Fan fiction satiates some, others, like me, are left with nothing. An investment with no end.

Kingpin

I have old game discs lying around. I even have a few floppies, albeit they are rarely used thanks to emulators, and my last floppy drive having developed the click of death. I keep only the games that I enjoy, and continue to do so. Ones with a journey, a campaign, a linear storyline with entertaining gameplay.

Games with titles such as Kingpin, Cadaver, Max Payne, Half Life, and the more recent The Last of Us, and Uncharted. All offering virtual escapism for hours on end. With well trodden familiar territory. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve completed Kingpin. Yet despite the aging graphics, it still entertains me. Occasionally It’ll replay Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, and other 90s FPS titles, but Kingpin remains my favourite.

I’ve played mods and have my favourites, especially for Max Payne. New Dawn leads by far. I know the levels inside-out. Some games I’ve played so many times that I’ve gone way beyond a hundred percent completion, beyond easter eggs, and testing boundaries, to testing how the games handle the unexpected. Most stand the test of time. My hats off to their QAs.

I’ve dipped back into point and click revisiting Monkey Island, the Amazon Queen, Enchantia, and Kyrandia. Said hi to Simon, Larry, Sam and Max. Dropped in on top-down with the early GTA and very early Commando. And I’ve emulated the Valhalla Classics. Yet I keep coming back to my well-worn Kingpin disc. I’ve replayed this at least once every decade, if not more. Maybe every half-decade. I keep coming back to it. The forgotten classic.

What games have stood the test of time with you? 

Keep looking forward

I keep looking forward. At the latest games, movies, books. Avoiding retro games, old movies, old books. Only the latest.

What I’ve played, watched, and read, serves as a reference, a reminder, a history of consumption. Keep looking forward to what is coming out next and when. Adding each of interest to my to get list.

Just consuming like a digital animal, always hungry for something new, the next juicy piece of entertainment. Never repeating, re-playing, re-watching, re-reading. Time is precious so only the new.

Keep looking forward.

Virtual wandering

There are so many video games with open worlds. I find myself on occasion going for a virtual wander. No aim in mind. No side mission. No challenge, or Easter eggs to hunt. Just aimless virtual wandering. Driving my car, riding my bike or horse, sailing a boat, or on virtual foot. Just exploring the virtual world with no destination in mind. A kind of digital mindfulness. Bathing in the Unreal forests, swimming with the AI fish. Relaxed, calm, aimless.

Just virtual wandering.

Being a picky completionist

I’m being a picky completionist. I don’t complete everything. I used to. But I soon found that life can get in the way, and it’s way shorter than you think.

Nowadays I complete what I enjoy. The rest can stay unfinished. I may return to it at a later date to pick at it, to play with it a little, to savour it for a moment. But essentially if I’m not fully enjoying it I’ll leave it unfinished.

And I’m ok with that.

If I am fully enjoying something then I’ll complete it. Depending on how much I’m enjoying it, and my level of willpower at the time, I’ll devour it, or ration myself. It will depend on the quantity I know is available. This applies to books, TV shows and movies, video games, and music.

I tend to be a picky completionist.