Who You Gonna Call?

I’ve been reading up about the possibility of a Ghostbusters game on the Xbox 360 next year, apparently it’ll have all the original cast members of the film voicing their characters and lending their likenesses to the game.

There is footage of what appears to be the game, but confusion about whether it’s from development or not.

But that’s besides the point - I ended up on Wikipedia reminiscing about the movies and the cartoon, The Real Ghostbusters, that used to be a saturday morning staple of my younger years.

I remember the cartoon being a little bit more scary than your average children’s telly, and I vaugely remember being absolutely terrified after watching a certain episode back from when I was 4 or 5.

Now, thanks to YouTube, I’ve managed to locate the episode in all its glory! I sat and watched it, and while it doesn’t scare me anymore (honest!), I can kinda tell why it did so in the first place.

Children’s telly is far too tame nowadays, and its no great surprise that even the repeats of this cartoon aren’t shown anymore!

TwoThousandAndEight

Another year comes to a close. It’s been an interesting year, that’s for sure.

Never would I ever have thought that I could have lost seven stone. When I started losing weight last January, I thought I’d lose a stone or two, but seven? No way!

Forest threw away their chance of promotion last season, and - despite being second - look like they may do the same this season too.

Iain has buggered off to China, I’ve got myself into horrendous debt (!), I’ve been on strike throughout the summer and moved out and moved back within one month!

And as for the New Years celebration? I’m off to my mate Alex’s house in Bridgford on NYE. It promises to be a messy one, which is a welcome change from last year!

Christmas Time (Is Here Again)

Christmas Day is over, yet it still lingers with me!

I’ve not been the same since my gastroenteritis in May, or rather my ability to eat a lot of food hasn’t been. So eating a lot of Christmas dinner probably wasn’t the best idea, consequently I ended up with stomach pains throughout last night. No matter, Christmas itself was pleasant enough.

I have a decent set of presents, some much-needed new clothes, alcohol (four ‘world lager’ bottles and a miniature JD), a stylophone (!) and other assorted gifts. I had intended to sleep in yesterday, as the lure of Christmas morning has long since diminished, but with my brother still in China - and wanting to speak to us at 8 in the morning - my hopes of a lie-in were dashed.

He told us how, while Christmas is celebrated in a way over there, it is similar to Valentines Day. It is recognised, but is still a normal day. He said there were Christmas trees around, and much celebrating by the Europeans and Americans over there, but the Chinese just treated it as a Tuesday like any other.

I’d hate that! It was bad enough for me on Monday, having to work on Christmas Eve. It was an afternoon shift instead of an evening one, but it was obvious that everyone in the Mail Centre didn’t want to be there. There was no real work to do, only sorting of mail and packets that had been sent too late. I’d have liked the manager to show a little festive spirit and give us the day off, but no such luck - not even being allowed to leave early!

I had a few drinks in Radcliffe on Christmas Eve night, but Radcliffe at Christmas is not pleasant. For one, the pubs are jam packed and secondly, they are filled with people you went to school with and don’t really want to keep in touch with. You become engaged in conversation with people you don’t care about. It just makes you long for your real friends.

I say all that, but the people I went out with on Christmas Eve - all schoolfriends - are people who I’d not really kept in touch with in the past five years or so, and seeing them in the past year has made me think I should socialise with them more often. There are people I know who do the same things they have done since school, yet there are these guys who seemed to have grown up a bit.

That should be my new years resolution, to socialise with them more!

Sony PSP - Slim & Lite

I bought a new toy on Friday.

I had £150 to spend, so after much thought on what I could waste, sorry SPEND it on, I bought a PSP. I’ve been keen on one of these for some time, but had previously satisfied my handheld gaming needs with a DS. The DS still gets some use now and again, but as the PSP’s price falls, it became more and more of an attractive option to buy it.

Argos had a deal where you got the PSP (now in a Slim & Lite version), an ‘essentials’ kit and a game. The only game I really fancied from the limited range was The Simpsons Game, so having got the three items I only paid £150 for the lot. Bargain!

The PSP is much smaller than I thought it’d be - bearing in mind I already knew it’d be a more compact version - and I’m quite impressed in how shiny and fancy it looks. My DS is showing its age (it’s an original one), but the PSP Slim & Lite looks every inch the fancy modern gadget.

I haven’t got a big memory card, my old Sony Ericsson K750i had a 256MB card with it - more than enough to save games - so I’ve stuck that in the PSP and will get round to buying a 4gb sometime next year. I can see myself using it for more than just games, but at the moment I’m happy with it as it is.

I braved the crowds in Nottingham today to pick up three more games. Burnout Dominator from Forbidden Planet was only £11 new, so I didn’t think twice about buying it. Argos also had a deal on 2 games for £25. The two I bought were Tekken & Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.

All three are great. It was a novelty playing Tekken while waiting at the bus stop on my way home from work! When I got my DS two years ago, I didn’t have a job to take it to, so now I have a job and a PSP - I didn’t think twice. Nothing beats wasting time like having a quick go on a video game!

The PSP seems like an out of favour console. And to be honest, that is what drew me to it. The DS and the Wii are hands down the must-have consoles of this year, the fact that they sell out quick and are always on sale for inflated prices is proof enough of that, but the PSP is available everywhere, in abundance, and can usually be found cheap and in a good deal. The games are also quite cheap too, so I’m happy that I’ve bought into this console platform. There is also the possibility of running homebrew on it, something I’ll look into one day. For now though, I’ll stick to the legal stuff and just enjoy the games I have.

To finish, Forest beat Port Vale today to go to the top of the table. It means that as I am tucking into Christmas dinner in a few days, I’ll have an extra present knowing that Forest have reached the summit at a crucial time of the year - with last years failure still fresh in the mind!

Eye Have Something To Tell You

I’ve been hounded by Boots this year for my twice-yearly eye test. I last had new glasses about five years ago, and I last had my eyes tested in 2005, so I knew full well that I needed them checked.

My glasses have become largely ineffective of late, as I’ve been getting headaches quite frequently. Plus the glasses really needed to be changed - five year old specs are really no use to anyone.

Boots confirmed what I’d already known, my eyesight had indeed got worse. The headaches were a result of the glasses not working anymore, seems that my eyes are now doing the opposite of what they were when my old glasses were prescribed to me! The optician then went on to talk more about my eyes in terms I didn’t really understand, but the main point he was getting across was that I need to wear my glasses more or less all the time.

If not getting a headache all the time means I have to wear my specs, then I don’t care. It’s not like I’m embarrassed to be seen in them or anything, and anyone who knows me will certainly have to get used to seeing me in them!

I was also happy to find out that there is a sale on in Specsavers. A 25% off sale to be exact! It meant that the £75 glasses that I had chosen only came to £56 - plus they were also available to pick up an hour after I had bought them. Makes a change from the few days to a week that you used to have to wait for new specs.

I finished off any remaining Christmas shopping today. Probably just as well, as Nottingham is entering the crazed ‘last-minute’ phase that it’ll go through from now until Monday. I took advantage of the German Christmas Market too, and had a Bratwurst sausage, given to me in a ridiculously sized bun which was so stupidly small that they needn’t had bothered. Still tasted fucking ace though.

Royal Mail gave us a lump sum the other week after all the strike business earlier in the year, it amounted to about £200. I spent nearly £60 on the glasses, and have earmarked the rest of the cash for another (needless!) purchase, a PSP.

I’ve been after one for a year or two, but found that other things have got in the way. Now, with the lump sum, i’ll give myself an early Christmas present and buy one on Friday. It’ll pass the time on the countless bus journeys I get through in the week, I’m getting tired of the MP3’s I have on my phone.

The excellent thing about getting a PSP, something you aren’t finding with any console, is the abundance of them in every shop. The Wii and the DS are scarce, even the 360 isn’t available everywhere, but no such problems with the PSP. Plus it’s fucking cheap too. I’ve seen a deal at Argos where you can get the console, game and ‘essentials kit’ for only £150. Bargain! Plus, Gamestation offer a 2 for £20 deal on pre-owned games.

It’ll keep me quiet over the festive period.