I seem to have a horrific habit of wasting my time. I have done almost nothing of worth on my day off. I mean, yes, it’s my day off, but I really need to do more exciting things with my free time. But when the weather is mediocre and the kids are off school, it’s rather hard to go to some places.

I finished watching Torchwood The Children of Earth today. And I have to say I enjoyed it. The portrayal of the political classes was perhaps a bit harsh (But depressingly believable), but I have to say I enjoyed the whole thing overall. This may be linked to fact it was almost nothing like Torchwood at all, and if anything, if you cut out the Torchwoody bits and replaced them with a similar “people uncover conspiracy and threaten to blow it wide open” it’d have made a solid show in it’s own right. As it stands, however, it seems to be the last hurrah for Torchwood, but the bits I enjoyed most were the sections that didn’t involve the regulars (Not a slander against them, they did a remarkable job, which just goes to show what let the last two seasons down was shitty writing), Peter Capaldi in particular did a great job as the seemingly villainous Civil Servant John Frobisher. His parts of the Fifth Day… well. Yeah.
As for the… well, I won’t say villains, as they aren’t alone in villainous activity, but the aliens are the mysterious race known only as The Four Five Six, who’re never directly seen, but the glimpses from the fog seem to imply they aren’t humanoid in the least. They’re probably the most interesting new race introduced into the Whoniverse, too, if only from a perspective of design and motive. And that motive? Watch the episodes. It deserves to be seen properly.

As an aside, I’d perhaps watch the new episode of Mock the Week straight afterwards. You’ll need a good laugh.

Very tired. Also, very lazy.

Played a fair bit of TF2 tonight. It involved nailing people to walls, and generally sticking arrows in them. It was rather nice. Shame that some of the new maps weren’t up to snuff, but some were superb. Gydan is worth the entry fee for the side-tunnel alone.
I’d also like to thank Retro and Met for being such good sports.

I did watch the new run of Torchwood, or at least the first three parts. And from what I’ve seen, I hope this is the last of it. Because it’ll be remembered for being fantastic. It’s tense, grim and full of everything that was missing from the dreadful first two seasons.
And RTD wrote it. Good lord, was he saving all his good work for the last five years for this? It’s like it isn’t the same man. Maybe he really wanted to go out on a high?

Gods I’m tired.

Didn’t do much at all today. I did finish Wrath of the Lemming Men, which is a fun little book and you should buy it so maybe Tony Frost will write others.

I’m tired, sweaty, and full of pizza and beer. I think I’ll cut this short and call it a night.

TF2 contained amusement, tempered by undiluted rage. We still won a defence on Steel, though. And I got to nail Stormgale to a wall. There is something satisfying about the Huntsman over the standard-issue Sniper Rifle. It has a bit of a droop and lacks the sheer range, but it’s just a lot more fun to use. And I don’t get twitchy about spies.

However, crap day overall. The miserable that’s been sitting at the back of my brain leapt to the front today, so I’ve been in a perpetually shit mood. Which is why instead of being a good, if fucking irate, little writer and doing something productive, I plumped to play TF2, just to cheer myself up. Which it did.

Despite the last two seasons of Torchwood being utter shite, seems the mini-series was rather good. I’ll have to check this out.

I’ll be honest, today is something of a repeat of yesterday.

I started the third Space Captain Smith novel, Wrath of the Lemming Men, and barely into the first chapter and the puns caused me intense physical pain. Frost is truly a master of reference, especially, hah, the Tam. It’s a river. There’re others, but you need to read it, as they slip in so smoothly it takes a few moments for the brain to catch onto what you’ve just read.

Tiredness was my chief foe today. I think I may need to start taking coffee in the morning instead of tea, as I really need the caffeine. And I may be forced to put Nutella on my toast again. You know, for the sugar.

Again, not a lot has gone on, or will be going on, given that it’s squarely the middle of the week and a time when fuck all happens. I usually spend most of the evening slacking off, cooking dinner and watching the news before realising most of my evening has vanished and I need to get some productive things done. I really need to manage my time better. I could try one of those self-improvement books written by Americans with Lego Man hair, but I’d fear that I’d set fire to it.

Regardless, I bought myself the Tales of Monkey Island full season on the grounds that I loved all three Monkey Island games, and Telltale certainly did a bang-up job with another beloved Lucasarts property, Sam and Max (Although the second season the Freelance Police lacked the zing of the first). This purchase of £22 also netted me a free episode of another Telltale series, so I plumped for the first episode of Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People. When I get around to finishing Overlord parts one and two, and find a gap in my hectic gaming schedule where I’m not playing Team Fortress 2, I’ll have to give them a whirl.
That being said, I now have a craving for The Curse of Monkey Island, one of my favourite games of all time. Such a shame they elected to go for 3D instead of the gorgeous cartoon style when they went to make Tales of Monkey Island, and as Lucasarts try to gain some credibility by remaking The Secret of Monkey Island.

I finished Churchill’s Wizards, and if you’ve any interest in WW2, I suggest picking it up. It’s a great primer for expansion into more specialist areas of deception in the World Wars. Codename GARBO in particular deserves to be committed to celluloid, as I believe such a thing could work quite well.

Somehow, TF2 happened tonight. So did Jeff. I did get a glorious little streak where I nailed four people with the Huntsman, though. But it was distressingly by the numbers. I think we need to seriously shake up the rotation.

 I haven’t got much else. At all. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I have that rather irritating feeling that coasts the edge of depression, but isn’t proper depression. It’s more than a mere sulky attitude, but not exactly the depths of raw, unvarnished sorrow. Crap day all around, but what was the giant turd atop it all was getting turned down for that librarian job. No doubt because I’m not someone’s son or nephew, given that local government is a seething pot of nepotism. Bob’s your uncle indeed.

I have been enjoying Churchill’s Wizards. No, it isn’t about a clandestine order of magi under the command of Winston during the Second World War (Although that’d be awesome). It’s about the emergence of camouflage and propaganda during the Great War, and its development during the Second World War. The section of the emergence of the art of “black” propaganda via the wireless is amusing, with the British and Germans trying to fool each other with fake radio stations.
In particular, I trust you’ve heard of Lord Haw-Haw, a German attempt at using demoralising broadcasts? How was this counteracted? They took the piss out him, Hitler, and by extension the entire Axis via It’s That Man Again. That’s how it’s done.

Also, I do wonder if it’s possible to do a mountaintop Pipeline map for TF2.

Tiring and sweaty day.

In particular, me and lotharhex watched Street Fighter, in an attempt to cheer him up. It seemed to work to a greater or lesser extent. The special effects in particular are something special, since they would have been out of date four years before the film was shot.
Still, for all the numerous faults, it makes up for it in a wave of cheese and some glorious acting from Raul Julia, who just turned the ham all the way up to Eleven. And come on, his response to Chun Li’s little speech? It’s a thing of beauty. A truly, utterly terrible film, that somehow goes so far and so fast it becomes something wonderful.

A bit more TF2 as well, which involved a bit of mixing up, including punching people to death as The Heavy, and nailing Gribbles between the eyes with a Huntsman, then stapling silversword_en to the wall with the aforesaid weapon.

I’m slightly inebriated, having had a pint of what apparently is the Official Beer of England, Old Empire. It tastes of Imperialism. And muskets.

The Gentlemen’s Club tried out some new maps tonight, which didn’t go terribly well as we didn’t have the numbers, so odds are the likes of Aerospace didn’t get a proper airing, but we did give Great Heights a proper go. It needs a lot more polish and a lot less lens flare, as the buildings need a bit more uniformity, and a bit more logic in the layouts. And a lot less lensflare.
Knocking people to their doom was surprisingly fun, though. Compression Blast for the win.

Didn’t do much else, though. Haven’t even got much else to say. I’m tired and slightly inebriate and want to sleep in the bath and maybe finish another chapter of Churchill’s Wizards.

I finally finished listening to Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds in the car today, because to me, it’s perfect driving music. And I can’t help but wishing someone would create an animated movie for the music. It would work. You know it would. But given that cell animation for a more mature (In a thoughtful, intellectual sense, not tits and blood “mature”) market that isn’t aimed at Japan is dead in the water, it’ll never happen.
More’s the pity, as I can picture the crazed look across the face of the Artilleryman as he tells the Journalist his mad plans.

I’ve also decided to start scribbling my thoughts down on Overlord II as I go along, so I can put together a decent enough review. Or, rather, a mad rambling piece that will no doubt end with “it’s good, not great, but worth getting on the PC for maybe £25”. And screaming about a spider that’d show up on Ordinance Survey maps.

In other news, Megan Fox has slated the latest Transformers film, stating it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on, and comes across overall a confusing mess, a view shared by most critics. And so, how does the Transfandom as a whole react? With contempt and naked, blatant sexism. Way to make the side look good, lads. And you wonder why most of you never felt the touch of a woman you weren’t related to.
Thing is, I can’t really pass comment on whether or not I agree with her, given I haven’t seen the second film. But the first was, on hindsight, a poorly edited mess with horrific camerawork. Apparently this isn’t as good.
This could be because Bay has made precisely one (1) good film in his life (The Rock) and even that was mostly due to the cast (Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery were wonderful. Maybe they should have done a buddy cop film) rather than his crappy skills with the camera. Edgar Wright could take the bugger to bloody school.

I should stop worrying about TVTropes’ Small Name, Big Ego page, with it’s entry on myself and lotharhex. Mostly because it seems to have been written by one of the former legions of people who seemed to think Lothar was terribly interested in why he was doing such a shit job and they should use Random Email Person’s ideas, and were rather unimpressed by a rebuttal that consisted of informing them they should die in a goddamn fire.
Still, some of it I find hard to disagree with, as yes, I do have an ego. I also have enough self-loathing to choke a kraken. So it balances out, after a fashion. I do have a very high opinion of my own creations when they’re good, given that I think the vast majority of what I tend to throw out is utter bilge.

I’m also hoping to throw in a few new maps for the Gentlemen’s Club this weekend. One’s that aren’t Payload. It’s terrifying, I know. But for some reason I prefer CP maps that had RED defending and BLU on the offensive, than ones that are back and forth. They seem less prone to rushing, and more open to building a solid defensive line, making far more interesting games.

Overlord II continues to amuse, with the elves proving to be comedy gold. What with being a race of goddamn hippies, with an adoration of Fluffy Things. This leads to amusing things happening, like smacking them until they die, or… well. You’ll see when you manage to get yourself a boat.

Lothar sent me a copy of Street Fighter The Movie. Whilst to some of you this may seem a punishment, I’m quite a fan of this rather wonderful piece of cinematic glory.

Also, had the dentist today. Turns out I don’t need to see him for another year. Hoorah.

So, I caved in today and bought Overlord II on the PC, given I got it for £22.50. Can’t argue with that, can you? And I’ve delved nice and deep into the start of the game, resulting in having conquered a town (But not Conquered, there’s a difference), gained a Mistress and crushed one of the Elves’ realms. It was really rather nice.
However, whilst the PC version sidesteps the crippling problem of the console versions (Namely, that the console version has dreadful controls), there is a rather irritating problem of hitting brick walls and the game neglecting to tell you, even vaguely, what to do. Whilst sometimes the answer is obvious (KILL THEM ALL, STEAL THEIR SHIT, ENSLAVE THEIR WOMENFOLK), it can be a bit more problematic. Like getting past the very first flame barriers you come across. Oh for fucks sake indeed.

But Overlord is rather difficult to categorise, in a genre. If anything, I’d argue it was a puzzle game. But to get a bit deeper, one day, it’s the offspring of the forbidden love of an RTS and a Puzzle game, but the parents were slain by a ruthless team of FPS’, and the child was raised by a wandering band of Western RPGs. 

Also, hayfever. Mind-bendingly bad hayfever.