From next week onwards every Thursday will be Japanese day where I write a very stilted conversation between two people in Japanese in order to make my quota for my Japanese course. Where I’m learning Japanese. I really think so.
As predicted by myself I was hopelessly lost today & couldn’t even remember to ask people their name. So I’ve hit my mp3’s of Japanese learning. Expect my last.fm charts to be full of such hit artists as ‘BBC Japan’ and ‘BBC Japan CD2′.
Writing this slightly late as my mobile phone wouldn’t let me send a blog. It further backs up what I wrote in that failed blog. Which was that I’m having a very crap week and feel as though I’m Larry David in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
However I’ve got over this hump and am now embracing this period of bad luck. In fact I now feel pretty, pretty good.
Man, I’m annoyed today. Just washed all my white work shirts in my crappy washing machine only for them all to some out with big black marks on them. So I’m going to have to buy another five/six shirts, then get the landlord to bring in a new machine.
The current one has never worked properly. It was all dirty when we moved in & has never spun round correctly. What a piece of crap.
At least we’ll get our money’s worth from the fifteen quid increase in rent.
In fake news my alter-ego who is currently playing upfront for Forest (and won Euro 2008 for England) has rejected their latest contract offer. I did this by accident. I suspect Chimbonda did the same thing at Spurs and is now trying to cover his tracks. Cheerio!
Sunday is now officially reviews day. Where I’ll review things that I found during my week and then mark them out of seven (because then I can’t give anything half marks*). In this inaugural edition I will be reviewing Mario Vs Donkey Kong on the GameBoy Advance.
Mario Vs Donkey Kong is based on Donkey Kong 94 which was the Game Boy game that could be played on the Super Game Boy for added graphical effects. DK94 is the game that connects 3D Mario to 2D Mario as it was in this game that Mario started to do backflips, somersaults and not really care about how many lives you had. It was also very hard and whilst easy to complete, to fully get all of the extra goodies took a lot of skill and patience. Yes, plenty of patience.
Mario Versus Donkey Kong is more of the same. But with better graphics and great sound bites**. The aim is to collect a key to get through the door, and the challenge is in all the little things that get in the way. You can also collect the three presents for an opportunity to win an extra life and completing the level with a high enough score gives you a star (apparently getting all of these unlocks expert levels, which luckily I’m nowhere near getting).
So it’s Mario & Donkey Kong business as usual, except every six levels you have a section where you have to guide mini toy Marios to a toybox***. This is more of a challenge as the Mario’s follow you, but can’t do the same moves as you, so you have to make the level mini-friendly in a Timekeepers sort of way.
I’m rapidly losing enthusiasm for this reviews Sunday format, therefore I will end by saying that Mario Versus Donkey Kong is a worthy successor to the excellent Donkey Kong 94 and I highly recommend it to anyone. Six out of seven.
“Thank you very much for to reading my reviewsis.”
* Unless you count zero as a mark, in which case three would be a half mark. But I’m not so it’s not. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll explain my scoring system. Hopefully not.
** They’re really great. Charles Martinet really earns his money on this one. When starting the ‘plus’ levels Mario says “Here we go again. Again.”
*** There’s a vague plot about DK getting annoyed with Mario having his own toyline. In a first for a Mario game (probably) the Princess DOESN’T get kidnapped. Just some toys.
Ordered Freya’s valentines present # making ringtones about MEATBAWLS!!! # Am wearing a slightly glittery shirt to work # Yay! Oscar is out! # Had a good appraisal. Just need to convert it into money # Think I’ve dislocated a tooth. Is that even possible? # Did I really just hear someone mention ‘Chutes and Ladders’? # Dressed and ready to go out by noon. Ah Saturday how I’ve missed you #
Appetizer How many times per day do you usually laugh? On average? About five ish. Normally I’m laughing when I’m with Freya. Work, not so much. So I’d guess the par score for laughs goes up on the weekends.
Soup What do your sunglasses look like? I do not wear sunglasses. This might explain why my eyes are failing. That or too much time watching telly/on the PC. I must get back into books!
Salad You win a free trip to anywhere on your continent, but you have to travel by train. Where do you go? Let’s go on the Orient Express. That way the train would be a pretty good holiday in itself. I would suggest a trip a la The Darjeeling Limited, but going from England to India by train would really wear me out.
Main Course Name one thing you consider a great quality about living in your town/city. I can walk into town to work and it only takes me twenty minutes.
Dessert If the sky could be another color, what color do you think would look best? Purple. I have no reason why.
Things I keep meaning to blog about but forget to. # Japan # Baseball # Baseball in Japan # MeatBAWLS! # Being an idiot # Being a massive idiot # Music # Advance Wars # Super Mario Galaxy # Work # My teeth hurting
From having no-one babies ben loves babies! he wants a sprogling! a bear cub to call his own – erm sorry about that, I think Freya interrupted me there. From having none of my friends/work colleagues being with child I’ve had a run of people in such a situation.
I think there’s about nine people at work who have just had kids, three who are about to have kids and my hairdresser has just dropped a sprog as well. I’m not taking the hint, even though I think I’d be a good Dad I just couldn’t deal with my sleep being interrupted all the time. The annoying brat next door waking me every ten days with her crying is winding me up enough already. If I knew the crying was my responsibility and that I had to get up to make it stop I think I would be complaining about being tired much more than I am already.
I do look forward to a time when I’m so tired that I have afternoon naps. Unfortunately at the moment I feel tired enough to sleep, but never actually do it. Mostly because I’m at work when the mood takes me.
I know I should be more positive and happy in these blogs, but I think I’m like Mr. Biffo in that I always see the worst in everything, or I at least I do when I’m writing this in the evening.
So I had my appraisal this morning and it went very well. The thing that worried me most was that my manager said “You’ve got a laid back style, but people still do work if you ask them to do it. That will be interesting to see how it works out when you’re managing people yourself.”
