When You're Dying For a Wii

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: When we were in Blackpool and whilst visiting rellies, we were treated to a go on a Wii. Ok, I'd heard of them but had just lumped them in with PlayStation/XBox 360s etc which I am utterly useless at anything that requires more than two buttons pressing at the same time (yes, I know that's most of them...you get the picture) and haven't got the patience for. (Give me an old Mega Drive 2 with an Aladdin cartridge and now you're talking).

Anyway, after a few hours spent digitally ten pin bowling and lobbing a virtual tennis ball over a photoshopped net we were hooked. I lasted about a week before we went and got one from Argos. Three days later we were still moaning about sore muscles that we hadn't used for some time. Bloody good fun though. My son Joe had his 19th birthday recently so that was a good excuse to buy him Mario Karts, House of the Dead and Call of Duty. Mario Karts is pretty good fun and the most 'family' orientated. House of The Dead is obviously a massive gore-fest with plenty of exposed rib cages after you've unloaded your pump-action into the chests of a lurching zombies. Haven't played that one yet...looks a bit scary.



Aside from Mario Karts, the next most played game I bought is 'Blazing Angels'. Yes, I know, predictably it's a WWII flying game with missions, dogfights, bombing and strafing runs etc. A little tricky to get the hang of the controls at first (if you're a klutz like me that is) but once you've managed to take off without destroying half your own airfield it's like plain sailing...I mean flying. Great fun apart from getting your arse riddled with tracer fire when you're not expecting it. Utterly frustrating but immensely satisfying sending Heinkel 111s spiralling out of the sky trailing plumes of black smoke. Joe is miles ahead of me and I don't get many goes on it but it's much more fun than watching telly or doing the washing up.

Red Rant

Ok, this is minor...but nonetheless it gets my goat every time I reach for the tommy sauce to spruce up a sausage sandwich. Not that I consume much of the stuff anyway but when I do it would be nice if the stuff came out of the bottle in an orderly fashion. For decades, if not longer, the consumer of this fine product has had to endure bruised palms from slapping the arse off the bottle trying to get a glob of ketchup to appear. The freshly opened bottles were the worst, I've had to resort to stuffing a knife down it's neck just to dislodge some of the red stuff.

Finally some boffin in the Heinz labs came up with the idea of the 'squeezer'. Good idea...except it still doesn't work. The new inverted ones (the fat one on the left in the pic) are the worst. You have to squeeze it so hard to get anything to appear that it nearly always overshoots the target and goes all over the plate/table/trousers etc. If you're going to re-design packaging Herr Heinz, do it properly please because this sucks. Sort it out.

Working From Home...

click on photo for larger view

Whilst the entire country seems to be taking the day off to have snowball fights or just stay in bed and watch TV the humble home worker plods on immune to the effects of the weather. I listen to the local radio and am told that nearly every school and university/college in Bristol and Bath has been closed. I hear people who are old enough to know better phone in and tell the radio presenter how much fun they are having on their day off in the snow. Am I jealous?

Yes.

I can't think of a single excuse for not delivering a job on time as I 'work from home' anyway. Still, I shall try and get out at lunch-time and throw a large snowball at any passing child that comes withing range. Humbug.