Command & Conquer

I bought a battered old copy of C&C Red Alert The Unofficial Field Manual by Roger Wong at the weekend for 10p. I love the C&C games, I have them all except the most recent Generals. C&C Gold is my favourite at the moment but I haven't played Red Alert too much, I think that is because I haven't got very far with C&C Gold, its so difficult. I hope the field manual will help. C&C Universe I have never played the games online, I expect that's a whole different side of the games to explore. I have my games set up on an olf family PC, my Windows XP machine isn't compatible with C&C Gold.

Conflict: Desert Storm 2

Wow, I love this game. I've spent a few hours with it at level Easy and love it - although I find Easy actually quite hard. I especially like the Besieged chapter, which I just completed last night - getting a few bonus points for Stealth Killings. Besieged was quite realistic, having to provide fire support for soldiers trying to reach extraction choppers vulnerable as they waited to lift off. I tried different tactics, including sending my men out into the open to try and blast tanks but the successful tactic was staying on the rooftop and blasting the artillery from there with anti-tank missiles.

Spider-Man V Resident Evil

I played 2 old PS1 games last night. I really enjoyed playing Spider-Man but got really frustrated with Resident Evil. RE is difficult to play, the static camera angles and difficult movement and firing system make it hard to master. The zombies are too deadly. Needless to say, I'm not progressing very fast with it.

BB6 Finally Over

Well Anthony won. How crap is that? This year there have been some awful people in the house. Lesley counts as the worst for me, personally. If you cast asides personalities, which you can't of course do in real life, I think the women this year have been better looking than previous years. I like boobs and there have been plenty of those.

Hard Lessons

I was thinking today about how I often have thoughts imagining what would happen if I was so stupid and actually did stuff like:

• touch a high voltage mains wire
• put a hand between two large moving cogs
• deliberately try to touch another car moving fast on a two-way road

And lots of other crazy but relatively small and easy things to do that can get you killed, just to see if it would kill you or not. It's a bizarre world but I bet there are like hundreds of deaths each year due to these kinds of thoughts - it must be similar instincts to the Jack-Ass style of prank except just more extreme.

Then it led me to thinking, what about the people who have actually done something stupid like these things and gotten away, probably with serious life-changing consequences. Hard Lessons - it would make an interesting website with video messages of mangled people saying "Don't do what I did, I lost a leg" etc..

Meat The Mobus

The rain hit the window and the winders squeaked noisely, irritating the driver. He was stressed about all the raw meat in the back of the cab. He could hear it sliding about as he skidded around, cornering hard with his foot hitting the gas as hard as he dared. The digital clock on his cab's dashboard clicked over another minute. At least it was late and the traffic had died down hours ago. He just had to be careful of cops. He concentrated on driving and watching the road as never before, sweat poured off his creased brow and he could feel it drip cold from his armpits onto his sides inside his shirt. The sweat would make him look like a liar. That would count against his story he realised. Another minute clicked over on the clock. For the next three minutes his mind worked overtime as he worked out roughly how much time he had to complete the task. He had about seven minutes.
Over the intersection clear. Good. That saved time. Perhaps he could make it afterall. The next four minutes seemed to the driver to be longer than they actually were, which was a relief -- he made good time.
He parked and jumped out. Quickly, he opened the rear door and reached in for the meat. He pulled it out and bolted up the front lawn towards his porch door. Yanking the transparent porch door open he reached for the handle of the front door. It moved easily and he was in.

The Mobus had grown to fill the whole of the hallway. It seemed to consist solely of a large dribbling mouth surrounded by green jelly of varying shades . The driver was disgusted by it. He was ashamed that it had grown in his house. He tossed the meat deep into the mouth, still in the bags. The Mobus was taken by surprise a little but recovered quickly and began chewing it with relish. He hated this part and turned away, remembering he had left the cab door open he went outside to secure it.

He walked down to the road and pushed the door shut. He moved to the front and locked the door. He turned back to the house. Three people were waiting for him.

"We hear you have a Mobus" said one of them. He tensed and froze. He could hear peripheral noises as he watched the three infront, it sounded like others had moved in around the cab and were closing on him.

"It's not my fault -- it's out of control, man!" he cried, the sweat ran off him. It felt like a bucketful of sweat was dripping from his head. He had to try and explain, anything to avoid the beating.

"You've let your house go to shit. The Mobus moved in, attracted by your filth. It's got a grip on you, you've been sweating for it -- we can all see that. What was it this time? Meat? Yeah, I bet it wanted meat -- they all do -- at first" the voice was low and angry. "You've been feeding it man, haven't you?" it barked.

The driver thought it sounded like the voice of a cop but he knew it was no good reasoning with the mob, even if there was a cop amongst them. He broke down, fell to his knees shaking. "What can I do? Tell me what can I do! I want it out but I don't know how" he sobbed. The last he heard was the sound of evil laughter.

****

He woke feeling cold. He was naked. Except, he was wearing a golf glove on his right hand. "What the F***?" were his first words. His mind couldn't work out his displacement. He was inside a small wooden garden shed. It smelled of wood and weather protector paint. He sat on a wooden chair but wasn't restrained. On his lap was a folded piece of note paper. He opened it and read.

"It was necessary to purge the Mobus using a homemade flush. Your house is rid of it. You must live in the shed for four days until all trace of the toxic flushing agent has gone. You'll find cheese taped under your seat and a banana cellotaped to your shin. Use this for nourishment. Stay in your shed - you must not make contact with neighbours. You may return to normality after the four days".

****

When the four days had passed, he stepped out of the shed shielding his eyes from the daylight. He couldn't get into the house. Hippies had moved in and changed the locks. They waved and laughed at him from the kitchen window. When he got angry and shouted at them, the biggest male hippy came out and chased him around the garden with a plank of wood. The driver slipped and fell. Now the hippy had a clear shot he smacked the plank down hard on the driver's naked buttocks. The driver let out a roar of pain and scampered away crying.

As the hippy returned to the house he laughed and said to his girlfriend "Did you see that guy? What was his problem?".

Stories

I used to write stories to make myself laugh, I haven't done anything like that for a while. I have been thinking about posting them on the web -- but really, I doubt they'd work very well and I've moved on. So instead of typing them in, I thought I'd do something different and write some new ones as blog posts. Let me know if you like them ;-)

How To Play

I wonder if other gamers have this difficulty? I have so many games, I don't get around to playing them all in much depth. Some I do, but even those I like to leave to return again (and re-learn the moves etc.). So, this post is really me wondering whether I should just stick to finishing one game right through to the end before moving onto the next? (This could take a long time and wouldn't stop me buying games but may lead to a load of unplayed games - that is kinda the situation now).

Derek Must Go

Despite Eugene being a huge disappointment, I hope its Derek who gets the chop tonight from the BB house.

Mobile Phone Unlocking

My wife won a new mobile in a competition. Its a snazzy 3G phone - reviews were moderate, its not the best on the market but it is one of the smallest 3G devices in Europe. It came with a SIM card for another service provider, I rang them about exchanging the SIM for my own provider out of my old mobile. (I had bought my wife a new mobile only last week, so she was willing to let me have this one). The company wanted £150 pounds to unlock the phone. What a rip off! Surely, this is anti-consumerism and profiteering? Isn't this wrong and why aren't organisations representing consumers shouting to get this situation changed? I should have the choice whose SIM I put in the phone - obviously the phone and account type of the company have to be compatible (they are in my case), so the only thing stopping me using my nice new phone is the stupid phone provider. Things like this DRIVE ME NUTS!

Kinga

Good to see that another female has made it into the house. After these pool antics, I wonder if Makosi is feeling a touch of deja vu? I remember a pool session with Makosi, Orlaith and Anthony a few weeks ago.
Is it really Day 67 today? I'm glad there's only two weeks left.