Time taken: 30 days
Posts discovered: 31/30!
Rank: A+

That’s what the level end screen would look like if the last month was a game. It seems I even found a secret extra post in there somewhere! I guess this should really be my ‘stood at the end of the assault course, looking back at the trail of destruction’ shot, maybe with a bit of a blood red sunset?

I’ve thought about giving NaNoWriMo a go for a few years now, but never got any further than thinking of ideas. I thought this was going to be a breeze in comparison, after all, I could just write about what happened that day for a month and voila, done! But it doesn’t pan out like that. I found myself wanting to write something at least vaguely interesting each day, something with a bit of substance, and that’s where it becomes tricky. When I look back at the previous thirty posts, there are some which I wish I could go back and re-do. In theory there’s nothing to stop me going back and editing them, but that would be cheating. The main problem I found was making sure I had enough time each day, not thinking of content.

Keeping a regularly updated blog is an investment of time and effort, a bit of a labour of love really. Ideas for content will come, but making sure you’ve got the time set aside each day to sit down and write something is more difficult. I suppose it would be easier if I were writing a ‘themed’ blog, something like the technology blogs, or photography, or something covering a hobby or interest in depth. Mine however seems to have become a bit more eclectic. When I first started writing my thoughts down, it was very much in a diary style, but as the years(!) have gone on it’s become much more of a commentary too, a first-person commentary on me. Odd.

There’s a few positives I can take from having completed NaBloPoMo, such as how cathartic it can be. The big one that I take with me though is realising that even when I sit down and create a new post with no idea of what I’m about to write about, I can do it, and once I start the lexical diarrhoea just flows (apologies for that graphic turn of phrase). It’s helped me start writing review material again, and it’s also made me think that perhaps NaNoWriMo might not be beyond the realms of imagination. It would take a bit of planning (not my strongest point), and I think I’d need the 30-day constraint to do it as following through with things I start has always been another bugbear for me. I’m just intrigued to see what I could come up with though!

Out of curiosity I just ran a summary of my posting for this month, and not including this post itself, I am up over 10,000 words. The aim of NaNoWriMo is a 50,000 word novel. It suddenly takes on a new light of possibility.

To anyone who’s put up with, enjoyed, despised, found humour in, or endured unrelenting mediocrity over the last month of posting – thanks for reading! And a special thanks to BBM for pointing me in this direction in the first place, and providing me with subject matter on more than one occasion, it was an experience eh?. And yes, the ‘inspired’ post is coming soon, I’ve not forgotten!

Winter’s pretty much already with us if the temperature and weather down here are anything to go by at the moment, and as much as I love to be able to go to the beach when it’s sunny and bright for the rest of the year, winter brings its own comforts. There’s nothing nicer than being inside in the warm, wearing the kind of comfortable clothes that make you look like a sack of potatoes.

I first got that feeling of ‘Ahhh, the year’s winding down’ the other evening. Sat on the sofa with a hot drink, feet up and watching a film. Nothing, in my opinion, comes close to topping that level of cosiness and satisfaction. Well, maybe adding a nice winter fruit crumble with some fresh custard, but not before my grading! It must’ve been good, as I fell asleep and missed the end of the film!

Another favourite thing to do is take up position in a big comfy chair, have a fire going and read something – ordinarily some cheesy adventure or mystery – with a nice glass of whisky or something similar to hand. Stodgy food is another winter must too, a good stew, or a slow-cooked chilli maybe. If it’s teeming with rain and looking like the end of the world outside, this all adds to the effect and makes you even more glad to be there in the warmth.

I’d love to have some proper snow at Christmas. We haven’t had a decent amount of snow for years and years now. It’s even more difficult to get any down here due to being surrounded by coastlines. As much as it gets cold it’s also often the most temperate part of the country, so anything that does fall doesn’t tend to stick. I really want to see what the pup makes of snow too, although I suspect he might not be all that impressed when it clumps up on his abundance of fur.

I can’t wait to get the lights and decorations up now, but I think it’s going to be a week or two before that happens yet. I have my eye on some nice new lights for this year, once payday hits I may go and treat myself the house. Plus there’s the fun of picking a tree to look forward to . Expect lots of pictures once it happens.

As it was recently Mrs AdamR’s birthday, we wanted to do something different to celebrate rather than our usual meal out or something like that. A plan was struck for a murder mystery party, because a) it’d be a bit different for us, b) it’s an excuse for our friends to get dressed up and c) I love mysteries! Luckily we’d been given a kit a couple of years ago as a present and never used it, so roles were chosen, invitations sent and a lavish spread of 80′s style foods prepared (the theme for the murder was at an office 80′s style disco).

Everyone really got into character, some of the costumes were brilliant! The cast assembled, introducing….

Goldie Bullet (Murf got in on the action too)

Phil Cash

Donna Nees

Ruth Lesley

Jack Don

Wanda Round

and me, your host, Hank Xerox

Sadly our 8th, who was to play Roger Hard, was ill and couldn’t make it, so my other half had to play a split personality character of both his and hers.

Firstly, if you’ve never played one of these before, do it! It was a riot from start to finish, and was packed with innuendo. There was barely a minute for the whole evening when someone wasn’t in stitches. The murder was logical once explained, but the odd drink or two which people had had by the time the culprit was revealed meant that some of the accusations were a little off-base. I won’t go into the details here in case you decide to try this actual kit, but there are certainly plenty of twists and unexpected reveals during the game. All you need for a great evening is the game, some friends who aren’t afraid to laugh at themselves, themed food and plenty of booze! We’ll certainly be doing more of these in future, and I’d recommend it without hesitation if you and your friends are getting a bit tired of the same old, same old when it comes to socials.

We actually played one of the Murder A La Carte games, specifically Murder In The Office. It’s definitely worth a go, I can’t wait for the next one now .

It’s my better half’s birthday tomorrow, and as part of the festivities we’ve organised a murder mystery party with our friends. This is my first time having a go at one of these, and I’m really looking forward to it, especially as it’s based in an 80′s disco! I bought the pre-requisite album this lunchtime so there’s a good chance I’ll spend more time singing to the tracks than trying to solve any murder, but we’ll see.

I’m actually a big fan of murder mysteries of all descriptions – a couple of my favourite films are from the genre (especially Clue). I’m not sure what it is I like so much, maybe it’s the attempting to work it out, maybe it’s just the romantic atmosphere it conjures up in my head. Romantic’s probably the wrong word, but you get the idea.

In fact now I think about it, it doesn’t even have to be a murder, just something with clues which need figuring out. It gets me all ‘sleuthy’ even now just thinking about it. One of my favourite sub-genres is the Locked Room Mystery. You know the sort of thing; a man’s found dead in a vault which has no exits and was welded shut and all that was found was a banana and a note with ’53′ written on it, and you have to deduce how it was done. It gets my brain going. John Dickson Carr is the master of the locked room mystery, I highly recommend The Hollow Man, it’s incredibly well thought out and I defy anyone to work it out before the end!

As anyone who’s endured my old postings here, or had to have a conversation with me will tell you, I have a bit of a hobby in video games. Those who know me better would probably choke on whatever they were eating to hear me call it a bit of a hobby, and in all honesty they’d be right.

Ever since receiving a Sinclair Spectrum 48K (yes, yes, the rubber keyed beast) for Christmas when I was but a wee nipper, I’ve been completely captivated. I shudder to think what percentage of my life has been wasted invested in my hobby, but I think if my life were represented by a pie chart, the games-playing-time slice would be the size of the piece of cake you secretly want to take, but daren’t for fear of looking like a fat piggy. As the years have gone by I’ve worked my way through system after system, computer after computer, always playing games and pretty much always enjoying it.

I noticed over the last couple of generations of hardware though that something had changed. I guess some people would call it growing up, growing out of my childhood games, but in truth I think it was me looking at games in a more analytical light. I first noticed myself doing it with Super Mario Kart, I was watching the karts whizzing around the track and thinking "They aren’t moving at all, it’s just moving the floor around". It annoyed the heck out of me because I loved that game! It grew from there really, instead of just enjoying a game for what it is, I was looking too deeply into it.

One of the things I notice from looking back at old copies of magazines like Crash and Sinclair User (via the magic of the internet and sites like WorldOfSpectrum) is the advertising and the way games are treated, and I think that’s what’s changed. Nowadays for the vast majority of games, the person playing has had a lot of the work done for them, in the sense that the game is depicting everything as realistically as it can for the most part. There’s very little imagination needed, whereas back then you had to take what was written on the box and the adverts and build it in your mind. I miss that to an extent.

Nowadays though I’m making an effort to enjoy them more. I know that sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, or a contradiction in terms – making an effort to relax and enjoy something??? But to me that means closing my reviewer’s eyes, and opening the eyes I had as a kid. Super Mario Galaxy (cue shameless plug to my latest review) has restored my faith in developers’ ability to make a genuine fun game again, something which is so sadly lacking now. Those who can make good games tend to focus on realism, franchise tie-ins or making things ‘gritty’. Nintendo are showing with this current generation of consoles and handhelds that fun is still the king, and it always will be.

Make me grin or laugh while I’m playing, and I’m sold. That’s the bottom line.