JR

Internet Necking

"Schoolgirl, 14, found hanged after becoming upset when father confiscated her phone."

This was the rather depressing headline that greeted me upon waking this morning. And worryingly, its not the first story I have heard about teenagers killing themselves over a consficated phone. Then as if to underline my fears, somebody posted this under the story in the comments secrtion:

"My fiance's grandaughter was 10 last year. She has had a mobile phone for some years now and MUST take it with her wherever she goes, even at the dinner table she has to keep playing games on it. Whenever she is asked to leave it alone or put it away - she sulks big time."

When Sky Lights Scramble A Wired Brain

UFO? What I saw.

I am no fan of Star Trek and space capers so im not one quick to subscribe to stories of UFOs and alien abduction. Indeed much of it I look at as the crazy ramblings of drunkards and attention seekers, eager to find their way into those late night news slots after the important events have been covered and they're looking for light entertainment. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean I discard tales of "little green men" completely. In fact I honestly-to-my-bones don't believe we are alone in this universe, of course I don't, afterall the universe is a pretty vast place and there must be SOMETHING else out there, even its just different coloured grass. These has to be life elsewhere.
But I don't go around (like some do) believing that every strange light the the nighttime sky is down to E.T. Remember, the military have some pretty neat looking pieces of flying kit which can seem very alien to the civilian eye. Especially a civilian brought up on Star Wars and Dr Who. Imagination is a powerful thing, with no limit to the amount of weird images that can be conjured up. When the sun goes down, a science fiction fan can easily transform a Chinook helicopter into the Millenium Falcon. My minds eye is not as easily fooled.
However on the evening of November 17th, 2009 at around 11pm, I DID witness something strange in the sky. Admittedly one might put it down to the fact I had been at the scotch but I was not falling down drunk and seeing things. Also my wife was at my side and she rarely drinks. No this was something....different. If it convinced me it must have been because even when merry on whisky im not one to be persuaded by unicorns and yetis. As we both stood shocked, I couldn't quite orchestrate my thoughts. There was no fear (probably the booze helped there) and no instant panic. Just silence as we watched this craft hover for around two or three minutes. It was made all the more intense because we live on a hill in a very rural area so the only light came from this glassy looking beast, there are no other house lights, streetlights or traffic to catch and maybe confuse the eye.
Other people who have witnessed UFOs have reported hearing low humming sounds but there was no sound to this curious sight on a usually very uneventful Carmarthenshire hillside.
As for colours, I have always imagined UFOs to be neon green and red thanks to a spinning toy I had as a boy but as you can see in my shabbily drawn sketch (made on my computers painting programme) this one was mainly orange and yellow with streaks of light blue. The orange was most vivid and is most 'alive' im my mind when I picture it.
It disappeared as quickly as it arrived and left me, the cynic supreme, with a new appreciation of just how wild and wonderful this life, this universe is.

The Tonypandy Terror

‎It has been one hundred years today since the birth of Wales' finest boxers (or one of them), the Rhondda born fighter Tommy Farr. Known as the "Tonypandy Terror", he became British & Empire heavyweight champion on 15 March 1937. Few (re: none) would argue his deserved lofty place in the ranks of greatest British hevyweights.

On 30 August 1937, Tommy gained the respect of the boxing world when for a whopping purse of $60,000 (a huge amount in those days), he fought world heavyweight champion Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium in New York, and despite losing out due to a controversial points decision after 15 rounds, his place in sporting history was set forever. Never forget that the "Brown Bomber" (and these nicknames are delicious to a writer) was one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, who had knocked out 8 of his previous 9 opponents (and KO'd the next 7) but that mattered not a jot as the Bomber was mercilessly pumelled and hurt by the Terror in one of the hardest battles of his life.
The crowd thought Farr had won. And evidently referee Arthur Donovan did too because he was seen shaking Farr's hand after the bout, seemingly congratulating the Welsh fighter on a job well done. The 50,000 audience booed when Louis was awarded the narrow points decision.

Thanks to the wonders of video (with a nod to Youtube) you can watch it all here. Tommy Farr died in 1986 on St. David's Day aged 72.
Long live the Tonypandy Terror! Cymru Am Byth.

Falklands Remain British

The people of the Falkland Islands have voted overwhlemingly to remain British - with only three chosing "No" in a referendum !

Wise choice my friends, being British is a unique feeling. We had one of the planets biggest and most badass Empires dont forget. We brought far way lands civilzation, taught them how not to act like savages.
And we might tear into each other off during rugby etc but its banter, something other less fortunate countries fail to get. They dont understand our humour.
But know this, come times of war we would all fight shoulder to shoulder to defend our Isle. An island not invaded for a 1000 years.

Cry Me A Rivers

Joan was unavailable for photos

So Joan Rivers appeared on David Letterman’s show and called cockney songbird Adele fat. She joked: “What is her song? Rolling In The Deep? She should add Fried Chicken.” And our tabloids have rushed to Adele's defence like the guardians of morality they surely are *cough*
Excuse me but have they forgotten that Joan is a comedian and besides having a pop at others, she isn't afraid to include herself in the pizztaking and routinely pokes fun at herself. Let's not forget, Britain has birthed its fair share of near-the-knuckle comics from Monty Python to Bernard Manning. Go seek out out an early Manning show (probably on Youtube) and see for thyself, just make sure theres no ethnic minorities or even the elderly nearby.
I will be the first to admit that Joan was bang out of order with the Holocaust/Klum remark, that was totally wrong but her comments toward Adele were in my opinion pretty tame and although I can't speak for Adele, if it was me they were aimed at then I wouldn't have a problem. (And im sure the singer feels the same, afterall she's a Brit like me, we have thick skins and take the mickey out of each all the time.) Being called fat? No drama.
Folks ought to know by now that Ms Rivers has an acerbic wit and most annoying is the fact that Americans have nobody who is able to stand up to her with razor sharp repartee. Imagine a scenario of Joan and Sir Winston Churchill together onstage? That would be awesome to behold! Remember the exchanges between Sir Winnie and Lady Nancy Astor? Google them if you don't and you will see what I mean.

By the way I can't believe Joan was born in 1931. She looks fabulous for 79! Yes yes, we are all aware she has had cosmetic sugery but seriously, it doesn't bother me a jot. I think she looks stunning. In fact having just been browsing photos of her in younger days, Id say she looks better today. Good for Joan, and I for one applaud her sense of humour.

Playstation 4

Ubisoft's Watch Dogs

Wednesday 11pm saw gamers huddle around their laptops,iPads,etc to watch the live announcememt of Sony's new console, Playstation 4. And as a fan who has been the Playstation since it first surfaced back in 1995, I expected to be skipping on rainbows of ecstasy like a giddy schoolgirl by the end of it (forgetting the fact im now 41.) I dont care what anyone says, there is a curious thrill about the unveiling of a new videogame console. I was stunned by Wipeout (PS1), KO'd by Resident Evil 2 (PS2) and even swooned over Motorstorm when that hit Playstation 3 in 2007. Im not ashamed by this, its what you get if you give a boy an Oric 1 for Christmas in 1983.
So it is with great sadness that after admitting all of the above, the Playstation 4 announcementleft me slightly cold. Not quite sub zero cold, (more like tee shirt in March cold) but I was certainly not overheating in anticipation of pixelated rapture. I think it was all the talk of "social media" and sharing on Facebook/Twitter that did it. Sorry Sony but I just want to play VIDEOGAMES, im not in the least bit interested in posting scores on Facebook or challenging Twitter followers to online races. I simply want to slip a game into the console and smite weird beasties to kingdom come. Balls to Facebook. Im old fashioned like that. Its nothing new of course, theres already a ton of places on teh interwebz that use social networking sites to share folks interests, and fine some people like that kind of thing but it doesn't boil my kettle im afraid. (Reading comments on forums and underneath news stories about PS4, im not alone either.)
As for the Playstation 4 being able to predict what game you might be interested in and downloading it automatically? I hope we'll be able to disable that nonsense. (Im being dragged into the future kicking and screaming Laughs Out Loud.)
Thankfully things start to look up on the gaming side of things. This is why we're here afterall! 'Watch Dogs' got me most interested (see the trailer above) as did 'Killzone: Shadow Fall'. I didn't notice a huge difference graphically to PS3 (even when a Evolution developer waffled about "even the suede on the car seats has a direction") but as time goes on, game designers will learn how best to squeeze the most OOMPH out of the machine. We didn't get to see any sports titles (or was I asleep?) and I can't wait to see how a NFL or golf game looks on Playstation 4.
Unfortunately we also didn't get to see what the actual console looked like either so fanboys will have to make do with gawking at the new DualShock 4 joypad, complete with touchscreen and LED tracker. Looks a little rubbery but I quite like it. The screen on the pads front reminding me of the Dreamcast's VMU. Speaking of older consoles, as a RetroHead backwards compatabilty is important to me so I was a tad miffed to learn that PS1, 2 and 3 games will be available via Playstation 4’s cloud service. So no using my original copy of Tombi or Yakuza then? Bah! Happy they will be available in some form though.
I realise this started on a downer with the Facebook sharing side of things but I am quite excited about Playstation 4. Its just (obviously) not the mind blowing transition I experienced going from Oric to MegaDrive to Playstation back in those wilderness years.

Here are some games that we got a glimpse of:

Watch Dogs (Ubisoft)
Killzone: Shadow Fall (Guerrilla)
Diablo III (Blizzard)
DriveClub (Evolution)
Deep Down (Capcom)
Destiny (Bungie)


DriveClub