Alba

Alba nam beanntan ard

I see Scotland of the high mountains

Nan acraichean lom

And the empty acres

Thairis air na lochan mointich

Flying low across the moorland lochs

Nan coilltean 's nan gleann

The forests and the glens

Ach 'se sealladh leointe is gann

But it's a wounding and a hollow sight

Tha an seo aig ceann thall an linn

Here as we reach the end of the century

Talamh alainn nan daoine

The beautiful soil of the people

Fhathast an lamhan duine no dithis

Still in the hands of the few

Cuibhlean stolda mu dheas

I see the wheels of industry at a standstill

Na fasaichean a tuath

And the northern lands wasted

An taigh-mor falamh an Dun-Eideann

And the empty house in Edinburgh

Gun chumhachd gun ghuth

Without authority or voice

Runrig - 'Alba' (1987)

The 'empty house without authority or voice', is the Scottish government, these days it has authority and a voice, it just wasn't the way back when this song was written.

I doubt that Rory and Calum MacDonald could've ever imagined at the time that tomorrow Scotland will be having a vote on if it should be a independent country, changing the UK forever.

Tomorrow is History, this is possibly one of the biggest things to happen to the UK in our own lifetimes, what will the UK be without Scotland?

I personally do not want this to happen, we're the United Kingdom, we're United, if Scotland goes independent then we're not exactly the United Kingdom anymore, the thought of Scotland breaking away is a saddening thought, I hope that I don't have to cope with it as a reality.

It won't happen overnight but if they say Yes, then the scope and lands of the UK will change forever, perhaps paving the way for the disassembly of the UK.

It's not my vote, it's theirs, I just hope that whichever they pick it's what they truly want.

Here's to tomorrow, lets hope the beautiful lands of Alba stay with the UK.

The Wolf Among Us

I'm a fan of great story driven games and perhaps none do it better than TellTale Games, best known these days for the sublime The Walking Dead series of games, I'm going through season 1 of it as I type this, they've also done the charming Tales Of Monkey Island, the fun if flawed 'Back To The Future' game and my personal fave, today's topic, The Wolf Among Us

Whilst the game is rated Mature, this trailer is perfectly fine for all.

The game is set before a series of comic books called 'Fables' by Bill Willingham, basically it features the citizens of 'Fabletown', characters from fairy tales and such whom were exiled from their homelands and have to set home in New York, a powerful magic spell protects them from discovery by normal humans 'Mundies' as they call them, most citizens have to use a spell called 'Glamour' to retain a human guise as they try to live their lives, Sheriff Bigby Wolf, a reformed Big Bad Wolf, tries to maintain order in their community, even though most still fear him for his actions in the past.

I got into this game from a trailer and a brief description of the story, I was immediately fascinated by the world and the characters therein, originally released as 5 separate episodes to form a entire game, I was hooked after Episode One.

I've never read Fables and this game thankfully doesn't need prior knowledge to get into the story or the characters as it's all set before the events in Fables and without giving away any spoilers, this story is amazingly good, it's funny, witty and sometimes absolutely brutal, it can leave you speechless and having to face some very hard choices.

The stroke of genius that Telltale games does is that your choices have consequences and what you do, and when you do it, matters, this game has multiple endings, characters treat you differently depending on what you have done, some may help you, others my shun you this gives you much more attachment to the character of Bigby Wolf and to the story as it feels like you have a impact on what happens.

It is currently available on PC/iOS/PS3/360 as a digital download, later this year it will be released as a retail disc copy for the previously mentioned devices as well as XboxOne/PS4/PSVita, whilst I own it on PC I am getting it as a disc for PS4 and I cannot wait to go through again and see where my choices take me.

The graphics are really good, they take from the comics and still images look like they are taken from the comic itself, the voice acting is top notch, Adam Harrington as Bigby Wolf is a fantastic piece of casting and the supporting cast roles all work out fantastically, the game is violent in some places really brutally so, Fables as a majority are quite hard to kill so it can get quite gruesome at times, there is also a little bit of nudity in some scenes but it's never really the focus of the scene, and Bigby Wolf smokes, a lot, now this can be a real distraction in a age of non smoking, for good reason, the reason WHY he smokes isn't explained in game but I found out later, as the Big Bad Wolf he has heightened senses, smell in particular, the hustle and bustle of New York City would drive him crazy so he smokes to dull out these senses to keep himself fairly sane, it's a dog's life for Bigby, though that doesn't stop him being the Big Bad Wolf again if you make him a little too angry at you...

The game plays out as a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style game, you have fairly little interaction other than choosing dialogue and more than a few fight scenes, this is a very dialogue heavy game, but the story is very much worth it all, even if your actual actions as a player are fairly limited.

The game does suffer from what I call the 'TellTale Engine' problem, as in it's issues which are seen in other similar games from the makers, characters actions can be a little jerky and sometimes making decisions can lead to a noticeable pause before things continue as well as problematic lip sync and sound cues, but most of these have been patched out in later releases and I'm confident the retail disc versions as well will be problem free.

So it's a heavy recommendation from me, if you want a adult game with a strong story and cast, get The Wolf Among Us on the device of your choosing.

Lets hope they make a Season 2, Come on TellTale Games, Please!!!

"It's Sometimes Better Than The Show!"

As anyone who has known me for any length of time would know, I still have a deep love for the cartoons I watched when I was younger, now 'rose tinted glasses' aside, I will admit that most of these shows have not aged well.

I recently watched the first 6 or so episodes of 'Around The World With Willy Fog', one cartoon which I remember fairly well, it really hasn't held up over the years, the poor 'dubbing' of the voices (the show is originally Spanish so it got dubbed into English), the poor quality of the animation, repeated frames, low frame rate, it's still perfectly watchable if you can accept that it really hasn't aged quite as well as other things have.

But yet what do I remember the most?, the theme song, it's so unerringly catchy it's almost impossible to not sing along, especially if you remember it from years gone by.

This intro clip is taken from a DVD release, so it's possibly the best quality you're going to get!.

Yeah, it's cheesy but I still kinda like it, it's a fairly big influence in some ways, also note how all the good guys are felines and all the bad guys are canines, didn't notice that until I watched it again.

A trick of the cartoon industry back then and in some ways still exists today is that they'll have exceptionally good and catchy intros, usually utilizing the best animation they could whilst the rest of the series may not be as polished or decent looking, it's to lure you in to keep watching, it could be said that 'It's Sometimes Better Than The Show'.

So onto today's video cavalcade of intros from Anime series.

Yes I've gone from a western show to Japanese Anime, now I've talked at length at times about my childhood cartoons, there is a lot of intros which I know and love, so does everyone else, but Anime is different to me as it's something I got into much later and they really put a lot of effort into their intros, usually using a hit song or popular artist of the time in the opening or ending theme, it makes for a really refreshing change to what we're normally used to over here, I'm going to show a couple of my personal fave intros/outros from Anime here, now I will admit, some of these I actually have not seen the series for but I've seen the intro and like the intro for various reasons.

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Opening 'Inner Universe'

Animated entirely in CGI (the series is traditionally animated), this intro sets the scene for the series based on 'Ghost In The Shell', a haunting song over images of the city, robots and our protagonist, I've not seen the series but I've been told it's exceptional and I should catch it sometime, if the intro is anything to go by, I should.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Opening #4 'Period'

Not going to lie, 'FMA Brotherhood' is my favorite anime, I love the story and characters and I really recommend it to anyone, this intro is the fourth from the series and it's my fave, the music and animation are superb, setting the tone for the series at that period in the story, the animation quality also extends into the series itself and it's of a really high standard, the music combines the slightly more somber moments with high paced action and very much worth a look.

D.Grey-Man - Opening #3 'Doubt & Trust'

Another anime which I've not watched but I really like this opening, the visuals and music match to give a real 'epic' feel to this darkly gothic series, what's going on? I don't know! but I like what I see.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood  - Ending #2 'Let It Out'

No, I'm not cheating putting FMA again on the list but this ending theme is just too good to not mention, it's a wonderful song put over more wonderful animation from the series, sometimes within the series the ending theme started playing before the credits rolled striking a emotional chord to some of the scenes within, it's a great song from a great series.

So there is a couple of faves from me, is there more out there, more than likely, to finish on another piece of classic nostalgia, here's a full episode of Trap Door which has the full version of the theme song within, curious to note is that due to the short length of the episode (average episode length including intro etc is 5 minutes!) it means you hear the song THREE times, the intro, the outro and the full song itself!

It's worthwhile to note that it was released as a single back in the day, it's exceptionally rare to find.

Enjoy!

Kickstarter And The Personal Touch

Some of the folks who browse around the internet have heard of Kickstarter, it's basically a fundraising thing for projects of varying scope from independent films to new technology.

One such example of a item which launched via Kickstarter is the Pebble Smartwatch, I didn't back it personally but I bought one later.

And through time I've ended up backing a couple of projects on Kickstarter, one thing which makes the whole thing slightly different is that the more you give, sometimes, the more you get, so you could pledge money just to get the product (like a DVD, CD or the item itself) or you could pledge more and get more 'perks' as a thank you for pledging more.

When I look to backing a Kickstarter I always see what the range of the perks is, now you don't HAVE to take any perks, you could just pledge money, usually the higher end 'tiers' of perks have interesting things attached to them, from Meet and Greets with the creators to personal thank yous.

Now a Kickstarter works on a thing of that people 'pledge' money towards supporting the project, the project will have a goal and a timescale for that, lets say a project has a £2000 goal to be raised within a month, if the project meets it's goal it's successful and the money is taken, if the goal isn't reached, say it raised £1999 and time ran out, then it failed and nobody's money is taken.

So not everything is guaranteed to win on Kickstarter, there has been success stories but there have also been failed projects, due to lack of interest or poor planning.

So to reel this back to what I'm talking about, 'The Personal Touch'.

The strange quirk of Kickstarter is that it makes projects all the more personal, you know who gave you money, who believed in your project, who supported it and how much they gave.

The last couple of Kickstarters I've backed I have nearly always gone with a high level perk for varying reasons.

Havok and Hijinks is a really quick and easy card game featuring some wonderful artwork with absolutely adorable baby dragons, I'm all for dragons, especially when they're being protrayed in a nicer light than a big baddie, this Kickstarter had a top tier pledge level wherein they would create and print your -own- dragon card to use within the game, working directly with the creators and artist to create it, I knew I HAD to back at this level and the results are wonderful.

Note, there is text on the 'backside' of this card with the tired side, I have three cards and one of them has no game text which is the right one here.

So I have my own personal, professionally done game card for this charming wonderful card game, usually to be included in a card game like this, you'd have to be best friends with the creators, but since I gave my own money to support the project, this was my reward for doing so.

I have mentioned other Kickstarters I have backed in the past in the posts 'The Experiment Of Spoons', 'My Love Can Change That' and 'Technology And Charity'.

Which got me a animated cameo in a popular webseries' intro, a thank you credit in a music video (as well as a personal thank you from the musician involved, read 'Technology And Charity' for the full story).

There is another similar fundraising site called 'Indiegogo' which works the same way to Kickstarter but it'll take the money off you first, it'll refund you if it's unsuccessful, I backed a film called 'Ashens And The Quest For The GameChild', it's available on youtube fully able to be watched by anyone, it's good fun and a enjoyable romp. Plus it is now available to purchase at Amazon or your local entertainment retailer.

Stuart's look to camera just slays me.

I got some DVD's from the project and my name read out in a personal 'Thank You' video which Stuart Ashen reads out the names of everyone whom backed the project, now I'm not going to make you sit through a over hour long video just for one little bit.

Yes I could've used my real name but I decided to use my screen name instead because I wanted to get a reaction from them and I did, really made my day when I first saw it.

So what's next, well I've not gained anything like a cameo appearance in a film or video game like some other projects have provided but you may never know what's around the corner.

What I am currently backing is Eric Stuart's latest project, a 4 Song EP called 'Character', Eric is a fantastic musician and song writer and I really recommend checking out his works!

New York Part 2

Times Square!, Its much smaller in real life.

Well moving onwards, we got taken to this botanical gardens which were staggeringly beautiful in their size, we spent quite a few hours wandering around the gardens.

Later the same day we got taken to a pizzeria, to try some proper New York style pizza it was called Luigi's and I'll always remember it as the place which spoiled pizza for me forever... because it was that damn good.

Photos do these slices of pizza absolutely no justice, absolutely the best pizza I've ever had, I got a pen from the restaurant which now reminds me that I'll probably never have pizza as good again, until we go back that is!

Sorry for a much shorter post, it's hard to recant some things, the trip was overall a wonderful time, I've said that this was the single best trip to the USA I've ever had, the first time I went was fine enough but I was in a relationship which just didn't work out, the second time I went as a friend but it was overshadowed by times past, this time was full of bright wonderful memories, yes we had moments, as relationships do, but we're still together because even if you have a argument, the strength of the relationship can heal it, yes I'm admitting that we had some arguments there but the overall experience was so incredibly positive I cannot even bring myself to think of the negatives.

One thing I'll say is that during our city visit, I had a panic attack right in the middle of a subway station, it really rattled me that I broke down so easily over pretty much nothing, but my boyfriend was there whom pulled me back together, I'm only saying this because I cannot really honestly type all this out without mentioning a incident like that.

We are both already planning ahead towards our next USA visit, planning to make it a longer visit as well as visiting Anthrocon, the world's largest Furry Convention, with around 6000 attendees, it is in Pittsburgh but we are already looking at options of how to get there from New York state.

I certainly cannot wait to be a Englishman in New York again.

New York Part 1

The Empire State Building taken from just down 5th Avenue

Well, another long pause in the blog, yeah, it's just that mostly I've had nothing really to particularly write about nor the mood to write, three weeks ago I came back from my third USA visit but it's been a real struggle getting back into my usual rhythm of work, it's not usually this hard for me.

So yes, New York, it was wonderful visiting the states again and it was a blessing to be able to go with my boyfriend, one thing I'll say right away that this was hands down the -best- visit I've had to the USA.

We stayed with cousins of my boyfriend and they were the most accommodating, kindest, nicest, most pleasant people I've ever had the pleasure of staying with, the hospitality we received was truly exceptional, they made us feel like close family, barely halfway through the visit they were asking when were we coming back, it was such a delight to meet and be around people of such pure kindness.

To you all if you read this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, Thank You.

The flight was more than fine, despite a issue which had caused some discord when I had pointed it out, in a nutshell Finnair decided to pull some of their planes to do maintenance on them, specifically the Airbus A330/340 and that they got LOT Polish Airlines to co-run with their 787 Dreamliner.

Uh oh, I thought.

A odd thing about Finnair's Airbus is that there isn't a B row in the seats, it goes AC DEF GH, why? I don't friggin' know!, me and my boyfriend had booked 25A and C, so we're sat together, when I learned about the aircraft change I looked up the 787 seat plan, ABC DEF GHI, er a seat's appeared between us, so I voice my concerns to my boyfriend whom promptly rang up Finnair whom said 'nothing changed', so we relaxed and thought nothing more, until we're at the airport and it's the 787 Dreamliner sat at the gate, thankfully the lady who was going to sit between us moved and sat at the window so we sat together at least.

The entertainment centre of the LOT 787 Dreamliner

The 787 is a lovely aircraft, it's one of the quietest planes I've been on and one of the most up-to-date ones, the windows don't have shutters they have these windows which darken at a push of a button so you could turn it all the way down but you could still see outside, it was really nice, plus all the seats had smart screens which had a variety of content on with cool little controllers which popped out at a push, I watched The LEGO Movie and The Hobbit 2 on these, the lady whom moved into what was my seat, her screen wasn't working properly, the sound didn't work, so she moved to another seat, leaving me and my boyfriend with the row to ourselves, quite lucky then.

That's me sorted, The Hobbit and Lego Movie!

The USA border was fine at JFK Airport if not exceptionally busy, we queued for quite a while, luckily when the US citizens had gone through they opened up the other gates to the rest of us, they filtered off the line from where we were standing so we got lucky, didn't have to wait for bags as they were already off the belt by the time we got through.

So tired from the flight, we had to make our way to East Northport, we had both never been in the area and we had a still sizable chunk of journey left to make, luckily the trains were not too hard to figure out, about a hour or so later we arrived, got picked up and taken to the residence.

"But I want the toy!", Cutest dog I've perhaps ever met.

After getting a quick tour of the home, and introduced to two really sweet dogs, whose names I cannot remember how to spell, pictured is Reina (I think thats how you spell it!), we got taken to a local Indian restaurant and had what was the absolutely best curry I've had, despite jetlag catching up like a looming shadow over the both of us, we had such a great meal, I knew that we were going to have a great time, I was falling asleep in the car on the way home, thankfully we got to bed and I slept like a rock!

"We got the Mini!"

The next day we woke up, minimal jetlag which was a blessing, we set off to get our rental car, which ended up being a wonderful little cream white Mini, it was such a perfect little car for us to have whilst in the states, my boyfriend was very anxious driving for the first couple days but he got the hang of it, and getting that car really helped us explore, no waiting on public transport or lifts from others, we could just go where we wanted and whenever.

My Boyfriends starter from Cheesecake Factory, Fried Calamari 

We took ourselves to a Cheesecake Factory, we'd seen it mentioned on The Big Bang Theory and decided we should go, it was a wonderfully presented restaurant, the interior was really lovely, we decided to get a starter each, whoops!, they were HUGE, one could've easily fed both of us with no issue, the food was great, the service was good.

My Starter, rustic garlic bread with a garlic oil dip and tomato dip

Over the days we went to alot of malls, I know that sounds so weird but, we're not really the 'sightseeing' types, we like retail therapy, one thing we both noticed is that in nearly every shop we went into we got seen to by a assistant, sometimes that's lovely but other times it's nice just to browse!, one time I was looking at a item and upon asking the assistant if they had any he kinda quickly answered yes but then decided to point me towards another similar item which was darn near double the price, I played polite and looked around, but it's that sort of tactic which can and did scare me off.

'Medium' (!) portion of boneless wings with Parmesan oregano sauce and ranch dip, drink was Mountain Dew.

Independence Day, we got given tickets to go see a baseball game, proper american!, earlier in the day we went to a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, there we got served by the nicest lady, even though working on a national holiday she was so nice, tended to us exceptionally well, chatted with us, asked what we was doing, all round wonderful service, why doesn't Europe have this level of service, yes we know they're working for tips (and we ALWAYS did tip), but you didn't feel that they were doing it for the tip, you felt like they were doing it because they could and by goodness, this lady did.

Wonderful view we had during the game

The baseball game was good fun, we got really into it, the weather was sketchy at first but cleared up lovely, one thing which amused me and my boyfriend to no end was that during one break in play, they played a scene from the film Independence Day, where the president makes a speech that rallies the troops for the flight against the alien forces, er, hang on, that doesn't seem quite right, yes it's a great scene from the movie but...erm... bares no relation to this day?

Also being a spectator is highly dangerous, at least 7/8 times baseballs shot into the stands, one got kinda close to us but that was NOTHING compared to the last pitch of the game, he swings, we hear a crack, great big baseball bat shooting towards us, the section we were sat in DUCKED, and I mean EVERYONE did, thankfully the net just behind the players caught it, but it would've been nasty if that bat hit somebody!

The Long Island Ducks are a minor league team but it was still a lovely evening out, we got some 'quackers' and baseballs from the store, I would've loved a team shirt but by god I'm not paying $80 for a single shirt even my Wigan Warriors shirt with custom naming on the back didn't cost that much!

There is so much to cover, I'll try make another post detailing more later, this one's gone on long enough!

Oh 'Appy Day

I recently acquired a iPad 4th Gen from my boyfriends brother, thank you!, mostly because I know of a ton of apps which just are not available on the Android platform and I've been wanting a decent sized tablet for a while, one thing Apple does well is the large tablet, so getting one is a blessing, here are a couple of apps which I've been playing.

Ticket To Ride (Available on App Store and Play Store)

A app version of the wonderfully simple but hard to master boardgame, I've sunk already a ton of time into this, you get routes to complete on a map and you have to place trains down to complete routes, sounds simple and it plays simple but its ruthless and a ton of fun!

Surgeon Simulator 'Touch' (Available on the App Store)

A app version of the crazy insane PC game hit from last year, this brings it to the iPad with all new touch controls and a few new mechanics to keep veterans of the PC game on their toes, such as your patient being able to have a heart attack, you just try to get that heart started in time, its not easy!
Infamous for it's dodgy slightly intentionally broken controls, this game is fantastic for a quick laugh and is certainly not for the squeamish!

If I mention something which was a little disappointing it's 'Sherlock The Network', it's only on the App Store and it's billed almost as a addition to the hit tv series, it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock and Watson respectively, you're one of the latest members of the homeless network and you help solve cases and the like, sadly other than the wonderful videos and voices of Benedict and Martin the game lacks any other real substance and for a game which cost nearly €5, is a real shame, one for die hard Sherlock fans, as I am, but if you're not, best steer clear.