So there I was, getting on the 8:45 train to Bournemouth, you know the one with “Bournemouth” written on the side. When the Lord of the Fuck Ups approached me…stumbling around the station with two enormous bags. He proceeded to ask me in a diginified and stately manner,

“Mate, does this one go to Bournemuff?”

To which I wittyly replied

“Yeah”

To which he retorted

“You sure this goes to Bournemuff?”

I repeated myself

“Yeah”

After the cut and thrust of reasoned debate we got on the train and he sat on the seat in front of me. Now ever since waking up, my single focus was getting on that train so I could fall asleep again. I realised this was going to be impossible when my nostrils caught a whiff of the Lord’s cologne, a smattering of Lynx with the overwhelming aroma of stale beer. It swiftly became clear that the Lord was smashed…at 9 in the morning. I hasten to add this was confirmed when he opened another can of lager.

As the train rolls merrily forward, I think I’m out of the woods, but when the train leaves Brockenhurst station I realise I’m in the New Forest both metaphorically and literally when he requires my counsel once again.

“Mate, how long till we get to Bournemuff?”

Quick as a flash I came back with

“15 minutes”

I get the obligatory confirmation

“You sure it’s 15 minutes?”

I confirm

“Yeah”

Now bare in mind it’s 9am when the next line is uttered

“Better be, I’ve gotta be in court and arf nine”

It was at this time that it all fell into place. But before I summarise how much of a fuck up this chap was, I must divulge the final piece of dialogue between myself and the Lord.

I thought I was home free when he quizzes my vast life experience, why else would he hire me as his personal assistant.

“Mate, are these clothes smart enough for court?”

I replied

“I don’t know, I’ve never been”

He was taken aback and asked

“You’ve never been to court?”

Now with my brief but enjoyable time with the Lord I assumed going to court was not an unfamiliar experience for him. But I found it amusing that he either had been to court before and had forgotten the required attire, or the even more amusing idea that he’s never been to court before and doesn’t know and is annoyed with me for having never been to court before and not knowing…As it happens he quite clearly wasn’t dressed for court….

So lets wrap this up. Here we have a man, drunk and still drinking, getting on a train at 8:45 to go to court…in a different county…at 9:30, wearing a denim shirt, jeans, trainers and a black tie which looked like a 5 year old tied it. This my friends was the Lord of Fuck Ups.

It’s official. I am now one of the technorati. I bought one of those Apple deelys and it’s groovy I must say. In fact I’m using it right now, on a train! It’s everything you’ve come to expect from Apple, smooth, sleek, sexy with the underlying of feeling of “my bat, my ball” we’ve come to expect from our beloved technological empires.

As a piece of equipment for doing everything it’s supposed to do, it’s great, colour me satisfied. All the bells and whistles that can keep a shallow person like me entertained for hours. BUT…it’s outright refusal to work outside it’s strictly defined happy place and it’s staunch opposition to play with the other kids on my desktop has troubled me somewhat. If you try to connect it to another instance of iTunes other than the one it’s synced with it complains and the at feint whiff of anything other than iTunes sends it into a full blown hissy fit of screaming, tears and error messages. I’ve had to factory restore it 3 times as it runs home to mummy (iTunes) to have it’s tummy rubbed. My iPhone is a spoiled only child, the type that eat their smaller siblings.

Now my protestations here are rather more theatrical than my actual opinion, it’s not my iPhones fault it’s parents are over protective twats who probably eat organic food to look sophisticated. It just seems these limitations are put in place to keep you in the Apple district. What more do they want? I just paid for the fucking thing, would be nice to be able to use it how I wanna use it.

It being Apple as well makes it worse. They give off this impression of the progressive, web 2.0 embracing hipster bohemians whilst seemingly embracing the “my way or the highway buddy!” approach by Bill of Gates and his army of bespectacled toadies. The whole scene is tainted by hypocrisy…and that makes me a sad panda.

My hippy objections aside, it really is nifty gizmoid. I just wish Apple were actually as cool with it as they wanna look like they are.

Almost 2 weeks have passed since I vowed to play all the old Scumm games I loved…and guess what….

I’ve completed 2!!!

First up was Flight of the Amazon Queen, a game about Joe King, pilot for hire and his adventures in the amazon jungle.

I was eager to play FOTAQ because it was one of the only SCUMM games I played that I never completed. This eagerness coupled with a foggy memory lead me it seems to build this up to be something better than it is.

The voiceovers are bordering on diabolical, initially funny due to their crapness but after a while, it just gets annoying. They talk really slowly so any joke in the game falls flat on it’s arse. That and the ending is well….shit.

It did have one golden moment, right at the beginning of the game when a gorilla blocks your path. After attempting banana based negotiations you open a dialogue with regards to the Gorilla’s home, Africa, and in particular that they’re in South America. Having realised this, the gorilla buggers off!

Now for something a lot better. Beneath a Steel Sky.

This game is a fucking cracker, brilliant intro, great voiceovers, awesome jokes, fantastic story, beautifully animated. I’d forgotton pretty much everything about it, but loved it to death. It was such a refreshing change from FOTAQ, it had depth, soul and humour.

The games concerns a castaway called Robert Foster who is forcibly taken from his adoptive family in the gap, a village in the middle of nowhere, back to the city he was born in. On the journey back the transport he is aboard crashes and you are left to figure out why you’ve been brought back.

I could go on for a while about the great characters, the quality puzzles, brilliant jokes and awesome story, but I’d rather you played it and enjoyed this for yourself, you can get the game free at Scummvm.org, please play it.

Golden moments? So many, but I think my favourite has to be dog acrobatics (also make sure you check out Robert’s jumper).

Next on the list is Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis….time to get that darwinian nightmare out of my way.

It’s new years day and this means one thing. Well maybe two, a hangover (which I don’t have :D) but more importantly watching films on BBC 1. This year the culprit was Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp. It’s the semi true story of J.M Barrie, the writer of Peter Pan, and his relationship with a fatherless family which provided the inspiration for the story of the boy who never grew up.

Now, this movie is your standard blub movie about believing in your imagination etc, in which these boys provide Barrie with the ideas for Pan. One of the children is called Peter (go figure) and is thought to be main influence for the character of Peter, funny that. The movie portrays him as a strong willful little scamp with a heart of gold, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll change your life. You should get an idea of what I mean by watching this…

So have you a particularly vivid whimsical image in your mind of our young Peter? Good, let me bring in the wrecking crew then. Let me quote for you the latter half of the wiki entry for one Peter Llewelyn Davies…

“Davies was part of the generation of young men who participated in World War I. He was a Signal Officer in France and spent his fair share of time in the trenches; at one point he was hospitalized with impetigo. He ultimately won the Military Cross, but was scarred by his wartime experience.

In 1917, while still in the military, Davies met and began to court Vera Willoughby, which was one of the first in a series of events that would estrange him from Barrie, who still served as his financial guardian. Willoughby was married and a good deal older than Peter, which scandalized Barrie and caused a rift between the two.

Around this time, Davies suffered a series of family tragedies, beginning with the death of his brother George, who was killed at 21 in the trenches during World War I. His brother Michael drowned under suspicious circumstances at the age of 20 while at Oxford. Michael’s best friend Rupert Buxton drowned with him, causing some to speculate that they may have been lovers in a suicide pact.

Davies went on to be a publisher, and had mixed feelings about having his name associated with what he called “that terrible masterpiece”. But perhaps the worst insult was being cut out of Barrie’s will — instead of going to the surviving brothers, upon his death in 1937 Barrie’s fortune went to his secretary, Cynthia Asquith. (In 1929, Barrie gave the copyright to Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London). Some have speculated that this drove Llewelyn Davies to drink — he eventually became an alcoholic.

On April 5, 1960, after lingering at the bar of the Royal Court Hotel, 63-year-old Davies walked to nearby Sloane Square and committed suicide by throwing himself under a train as it was pulling into the station. A coroner’s jury ruled he had killed himself “while the balance of his mind was disturbed”. At the time of his suicide, he had been editing family papers and letters, assembling them into a document he called the Morgue. He had more or less reached the documents having to do with his brother Michael’s possible suicide. Another factor possibly contributing to his suicide was the knowledge that his wife and all three of his sons had inherited Huntington’s disease.”

Now we shouldn’t laugh at this. But come on, Peter Pan’s brother dies in a gay suicide pact and in later years the booze hound throws himself in front of a train. It might be dark of me to find this funny. But I do, but a only a little bit.

The full wiki entry on this cheery soul can be found here

Boredom at work has brought about some of the best time wasting this country has ever known, but today my friends my good friend NUNBERRY and I have breached the higher eschelons of taking companies money for nothing. As is always the way with these things, it starts with a rap about having poo on your face. I present the PokemonBattleRap (more poetry battle really, but still).

N

got **** all on my face
When’d this fecalamity take place?
shudda stuck wit “Yo’ Wish Is Granted”
I wouldn’t smell, I’d still be safe

But no, I had to be couragous
skippin’ nineteen ****ing pages
except that bit where The_amp killed people
with his intimate mass-ages

I suppose I should add – y’all’s rhymes is whack
and uh…. your mommas suck **** for crack?
Ah **** this, I’m going back to the Pokemon thread
I’m done pretending that I’m black.
Turtwig ‘92, beeeeeyatch!

J

Turtwig? jeeze boy shut the fudge up.
Dat thing don’t got **** on my Piplup.

N

Ha!
yo’ Piplup may like to *front* tough
but weekends, he calls himself the Jigglypuff.
you see him dancin’ tables for a quarter
for 50 cent, he’ll do things I don’t think he oughtta
(at least not with males, that **** is scary!
or with non-breedable legendaries)

J

Piplup’s my first, a decoy as such
but this next pokemon might scare you a touch
he’s big and he’s fat and he’s cool to the max
prepare to get served, i choose you snorlax.

N

I’m gonna give that fat ****
a rude awakening
cause this second choice
will set the ground a-shakening
then he’ll bury yo’ ass in tonnes’a debris and rock
cause his name is geodude and you can suck his granite ****.

J

lets take a look at the choices thus far
it is obvious that yours are clearly sub par
geodude and turtwig…afraid of evolution?
no, not for me, torch him typholsion!

N

Man, you trying to make me laugh my self to death?
He’s an angry rodent with bad breath!
Feraligatr, put them flames out then rip his heart out of his chest.
I cudda sworn you said “evolution”
not “evil vole with mouth polution”

J

Oh you’re so mean, with the big bad croc
But here’s a pokemon that some may mock
She’s big and she’s pink and she sounds like a wuss
Go on Chancey, beat that sour puss (sorry)
This may seem like an ill favoured choice
And before you proclaim that with your thick irish voice
You’ll never beat chancey take it from me
This is because she has 4 jillion HP.

N

I got a cure for all that health
One most leave dust-gath’rin’ on the shelf
My buck-toothed first-gen friend Rattatta
‘ll squash you’re Chancey like a Tomat-ta (ouch)
Hit him hard? Hell, he’ll bounce back :
Endure ! Endeavour! Quick Attack!
Not so smart now, eh MixMaster?
Ever seen a bitch lie down faster?

J

Nostalgia I see, I can dig that
I gotta choice that’ll bum that crap rat
The first choice of Ash, the little ball of fluff
But I’m afraid that pikachu is not powerful enough
But when he evolves, you won’t know what to do
Get ready robut. Kick his ass Raichu!

N

With all them lightning bolts you hurl
Methinks your confidence’s ill-founded
Ain’t you played diamond yet? or Pearl?
Don’t you know Gastrodon is grounded?
Raichu’ll wish he never faced it
You got one pokeball left – don’t waste it.

J

Ive been saving the best for my final stroke.
And because your such a nice bloke.
I’m gonna pick an unbalanced pokemon that none can beat.
I don’t really care if you call me a cheat.
This psychic monster entombed for 20 years or more
Only accessible when you beat the elite four.
As he approaches he predicts the end for you.
bye my friend, destroy him Mewtwo.

But wait, what the hell is going on?
Oh **** now I know what I’ve done!
No no no this isn’t good at all
It seems I chose the wrong ball
It’s about now I should say oh ****
Because I just summoned ****ing Psyduck.

N

Well that ain’t no kinda fight and you ain’t no kinda trainer
shudda stuck to the less demanding thrills of “Pokemon Ranger”
I’m kinda feeling sorry that your little friend’s in danger
but I’ve chosen my last pokemon – I ain’t about to change her

So you better take cover, you best prepare to retreat back
Have a change of shorts on standby ‘case you current ones you crap
she’s only level 19 now, her evolved powers she might lack
but Magikarp, go show this prick your mother****ing Splash attack.

J

Nun my dear friend, we’ve laid down our cards
and it would seem that we both are retards
with these two battling we could be here all year
might I suggest we leave them to it and go for a beer
and so ladies, gentlemen and general OT gang
this fight didn’t really end with a bang
I think we have shown, through excessive babble
There’s nothing more stupid than a ****ing rap battle.

And so ends another chapter of “How To Waste Time”. Till next time :)