Here's what our Chatterbox community of avid gamers talked about at the end of March. Caution: contains fantasised celebrity imprisonment and bad tourist attractions.
Which two celebrities would you most like to be stuck in a small cell with? This and many other video game questions were asked ? and sometimes almost answered ? by our community of electronic entertainment veterans in the week of March 21-25.
If you want to find out what else the Chatterbox fraternity got up to in the closing days of last month, you have very much come to an adequate place.
Monday
First?
Of course I am. There's no one else here. I win.
Books. Films. Games. The news. The weekend. Airports. Meats. Racial profiling. Beer boasting. Jesus. Tennis. Kevin Costner. Finger nails. America!
That appears to be little more than a string of random words or statements, seemingly unrelated, with an exclamation mark at the end for emphasis. Seeing it written down like that, it doesn't really work. Still, we're too far in now. And those really are the things that everyone talked about, in roughly the order they talked about them, so I'm not sure what else you expect me to do here.
A big morning of sports chat focused mostly on a revitalised Irish rugby team, who just the previous Saturday had dismantled a hugely disappointing England side in Dublin. Dreams of an historic first ever Grand Slam for the red rose shattered. Men against boys, someone said. The chat turned to Blood Bowl soon enough, the sport for people not cut out to play real sports (and me, of course). The blog's own 'Blood Bowel' league was piloting a fairly new approach to online competition, where no one actually plays any games, and all matches are decided by a complex (and secretive) set of mathematical formulae, developed by Blood Bowl 'Boss of Bosses' Henry Pootle. The field was narrowed, and there was all to play for. Or not play for, or whatever.
Sometime around lunch, the font on the blog seemed to change. But had it really? Well, yes. I'd accidently hit a button on my keyboard that made everything appear bigger. It's still massive. I have literally no idea what I pressed or how to fix it. Anyway, that's not the point. Although larger in sheer size, the overall quality of the chat remained much the same as before (i.e. awesome). A discussion of the Comic Relief live television broadcast from the previous Friday didn't last long, with the consensus being that it was all a bit depressing for a block on the schedule traditionally reserved for light entertainment. For the record, I personally thought Frank Bruno was superb. Newcomer LukeTs then popped in to say hello, and attempted to spark an intelligent paid-for debate about the future of gaming, a debate he envisioned lasting at least? four days. This place would be perfect for that, I thought, but I didn't have the balls to speak up for the kid. It's one of my biggest regrets.
The afternoon drew to a close with some talk about sitcoms featuring predominently African American casts, and about all the dancing and the sexualised subtext and everything. It was what I'd imagine film school to be like, but with better arguments, and probably more girls. Someone posted all the lyrics from the theme song to 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air', and that sort of ruined it. I just went home after that.
Quotes of the day
"In retrospect the third movie is probably the weakest, it's really forgettable"
R042, a man who clearly doesn't get the 'K-9' trilogy at all.
"Idle hands make light work of the brooth."
HateMale. I don't actually know what this means. I just thought it was a good sentence.
Mouesday
A bit of a departure for the Chatterbox as "Lazy" Keith Stuart forgot about Tuesday until lunchtime, meaning that today's is Mouesday's. Clearly 'journalism' for the Guardian Technology section involves not setting the alarm on your fruit phone.
Mouesday began with further news of the Blood Bowl League quarter finals omni-shambles, with the only games played featuring both the players who are on different continents to the rest of us. Recriminations and apologies were forthcoming, along with arrangements made. Brilliantly one of the quarter finalists, RustyJames, was drunk by midday ? "I'm f**ked. I'm on holiday, not at work." We look forward to tonight's result!
Homefront continued to split opinion, although tales of the MP experience were generally positive. Annual bonuses were hoving into view for some bloggers, with some getting more than others.
There was a lot of love for Virtual Tennis today. Uncle3en had fallen, and fallen hard:
"I'll be honest, I saw Worv, Treble and StiLt playing Top Spin on Sunday afternoon after talking about it Friday. No one was playing KZ. Bit bored, so headed to HMV. Living in town is dangerous sometimes. Usually these purchases are a mistake. This, so far, has been a great success. Stayed up 'til 1am playing career last night. On a Monday? 'Sake. Hooked. Lovely stuff. Online with career player? Oh my."
Talk of the hideous player faces you can create, and making female players "grunt" for you tells you all you need to know about the type of people enjoying this.
The afternoon descended into a lot of impenetrable PC upgrade chat, most of it acronym-riddled jargon-filled nonsense although doubtless a useful resource if you live alone. Or with your mum and dad in your twenties. Luckily the day was saved by Warhammer 40K blog rearing its ugly head. Wait, no.
Quote of the Day
"Cunning gets an extra �20 for every time he pedantically corrects someone in the office. I heard he's buying a yacht this year."
Limni reveals that bonus structure in full
Wednesday
Do we only like games we are good at? Apparently not. Most bloggers seemed to get a rude awakening as to the limits of their talents with the advent of online gaming. However good you think you are, there's always someone harder, better, faster, stronger, it seems. Intrav3nus still seems relatively fresh to it all judging by her post: "I commandeered the Xbox and played some Bayonetta. Very enjoyable, although I found myself flailing and doing things without being quite sure how I did it. Am currently stuck trying to get through a wall." We all started somewhere...
Someone with some genuine ethereal ability at Pro Evolution Soccer is Goody84. He swooped in to castigate late runners as usual, but he also had a special announcement: "PES community 1 hit 1300 games last night. Plus 400 in the overspill community 2. I think it should be in the top 20 of the world now." That's a massive achievement, congratulations to everyone involved.
Makar27 had been idly fantasising his way through the morning: "I was tinking earlier about which two people I would like to be stuck in a room with. And when I say room, I mean like a really small cell... measuring say 3ft by 3ft." Predictably enough this quickly transformed into bloggers listing two individuals they would attempt to have sex with simultaneously. If you have a genuine desire to find out who fuels the flame of desire for the nation's geeks then you will have to go back to source.
The chaste, and to be honest bewildering, choice of R042 deserves special mention though: "Sue Perkins and Konnie Huq. Untowardness aside, the conversation would probably be good." Whether or not timthemonkey has 'met' Summer Glau was a bone of contention a little later on. The dictionary backs him up, but most agreed that anyone paying to have their picture taken at some convention, while they awkwardly pose next to, and paw at, some jailbait starlet is not really 'meeting' someone. It's hardly the foundation on which lasting and productive relationships are built.
ImperfectRex especially wasn't impressed, he pointed out the disparity of emotional investment on the opposing sides of such an encounter, and brilliantly illustrated that it's mostly oddballs who attend these kind of events. Sorbical and DrStatham were abuzz with news about bees and the dangers they face from the Varroa destructor; which is some sort of mite apparently. Do we have a couple of Apiarists in our midst? The chatterbox truly is the font of all knowledge at times. Game Over Wednesday.
Thursday
Thursday? Blood Bowl, Anchorman, quoting.
Beyond this: the power of love ... A 51 year old with an 18 year old girl. Pregnancy. Boom. This is life. Scamander posted his own intrigue. Viagra and dementia. But not his own.
One man mooted an unused blog topic. Worst tourist attractions.
A shabby haunted house.
A lawnmowing tribute
The Imperial War Museum ('No actual war ...')
Piip experienced some trying house beefs, bouncing the chat into 'bad housemates'. It soon became clear the Chatterbox was actually full of 'bad housemates', and that the rest of the world just tolerated them.
Fantomex self-aggrandised, a lot, and as 'Chubby blog' ambled into view the day closed, much like any other.
Quote of the day
"They all pan the Bee's tech advice and then come crawling back with tails between their legs. 'It's not the hard disk after all,' they say. It's always the same."
BeardOfBees auditions for the next series of The I.T Crowd
Friday
The end of the week is upon us and it's a day for reflection on the week's successes and failures. Today saw the release of the new 3DS and the iPad 2. Milkncheese followed some of the early morning coverage on BBC Breakfast. "It was like two-year-olds trying to describe the Budget to an Inuit. Confused and pointless."
The caring familial nature of the blog was revealed early on as Discobox enquired as to health of Weecooper following his revelation the previous day that he's a MAS (Middle Age Shredder). Apparently all is well as wee has "A Good Touch for a big man".
The morning progressed in its usual eclectic fashion covering such diverse topics as cereal blog, coffee passed through the intestines of small mammals, nut/seed/kernelblog, diceblog and Disney singstar with a helping of quantum mechanics/physics/theory? (It's all beyond me to be honest) for good measure. Then SuperSmashIn waded in with the dilemma of the day. "Bacon or Sausage? If you could only ever have one of these for the rest of your life, which would you choose." A divisive question which is probably best summed up by HateMale: "It's like asking me which of my two nieces I'd shoot if I was forced to by a crazed gunman."
As the morning turned to lunchtime and lunchtime to afternoon, golf was high on the agenda (A blog first?). Several bloggers seem keen on spoiling perfectly good walks and offered a variety of playing, club and fashion tips. Catzilla offered Limni some crucial fashion advice: "Jeans? T-shirts? This, quite frankly, is an outrage! To participate in Golf, one must look the part. If you turned up at my golf club in that attire, you will either be escorted off the premises or handed a plunger and told to get busy in the staff toilets."
The afternoon progressed with the disparagement of those who use well known text abbreviations and advertising catchphrases in everyday conversation. Simian pondered whether this could be grounds for a 'separation'. "Missus Sim says simples, and even does the squeek thing after... i accept I'm going to have to have her put down, cunning could I borrow a spot under your patio?"
As the afternoon wound down the chat bounced around more than... something very bouncy. Blog pitfighting, archaeology, Time Team and Tony Robinson, wistful memories of youthful fitness and plans for the weekend.
Quote of the day
"I'd probably be surprisingly normal if it hadn't been for all of that."
Cunning reflects on his time spent posting on the chatterbox.
End game
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This week's 'Best of' was written by McBegbie, Fantomex, RustyJames, CrispyCrumb and HereComesTreble. It was edited by, 'a very special guest editor who shall remain nameless.'
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but 'That's funny...'"
Isaac Asimov
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/07/best-of-chatterbox
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