Slow News

Looking at the date on my watch, it's been a full 12 13 days since the last time I published anything.  How awful!  I have been alternately depressed and busy over the preceding fortnight, so there's that.  I have been thinking about what I should write about, but not really hitting any bulls eyes:

• I have a new phone now and I have no idea what I'm doing
• How the hell did a Bejeweled clone take over Facebook
• What I'm going to do with The Scholary when everybody else leaves
• How much I hate everything and what that actually means

I think you get the point.  It's been a dry fortnight, shall we say, with very little exciting happening and then DESPAIR and then A NEW PHONE and then back to absolutely nothing again.  And now we're here!

There's little new to report, and that's the problem.  Another week of unsuccessful job applications and aborted attempts at asking people on dates, and then last Thursday I had the closest I've come to a complete breakdown when I lost my wallet and basically just lost it and ended up rocking backwards and forwards in the Cathedral Office and stammering so badly that I legitimately had to reassess my vocabulary and restart sentences so I could avoid whatever syllable I was stuck on it was awful I wanted to die.  I mean honestly, how can one little tiny thing that goes wrong like that upset me so much?  I think I apologised to everybody about ten bloody times after I found the offending item in the interior side of the reclining sofa (who no longer reclines).  Vomit.  I mean seriously...

Okay, but the next day, excitingly enough, I finally sorted out a new mobile telephone.  Instead of upgrading to a Windows 8 handset (which actually I rather fear I should have), I now have a top-of-the-line Android handset, the Sony Xperia Z.  And I almost have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  It's been...what?  5 days already, so I'm blundering my way through, although it is one hell of a fag getting all my contacts over (and I'm sure that there's some that have been missed out anyway).  Of course, the Sony has two things that I really wanted out of a phone and that's a good camera and the option of expandable storage... The only Windows 8 phone with anything approaching both is the expensive and difficult to find Samsung Ativ S.  One thing I've noticed is this insane hardware arms race with phones nowadays, even more so that home videogames consoles - I'm pretty sure my phone now has more RAM than my laptop, the HD touchscreen, 13.1 Megapixel camera blah blah... Of course, there isn't anything that has Windows 8 in it that can come close, hardware-wise, let alone when you get to the whole waterproof thing.  It's early days. 

Maybe Android will grow on me, much like black mold grows on anything left alone for too long in the Scholary Kitchen.  It's a shame I have swapped out really, as Windows Phone is a pretty good mobile OS.  Microsoft really need to get their finger out and actually get the more popular applications like Instagram and more app support across the board generally.  Too many websites have links to iTunes and Google Play alone, without the Windows Marketplace alongside.  As for the hardware race?  One of the things I noticed about the running speeds of my old and new handsets is that I can hardly notice anything at all.  What Windows did was great, press the back arrow enough times and the apps shut down, they're not shuffled to the back like on the Xperia and have to be closed manually, which may well be the cause for Android getting beefier hardware.  The Windows desktop is tiles that rotate, not up to 7 homescreens with widgets that rotate in 3D.  It doesn't need to have huge amounts of power to run, because it's optimised down.  Although at this rate I'll be on course to pick up a Windows Phone 9 handset once this contract is over... I'll be talking about phones again later this week.  I know how exciting that must be.

Something else I've been puzzled with recently is the appearance and the supposed "addictiveness" of 'Candy Crush Saga', a Bejeweled clone that has taken over Facebook, phones, people's lives, taken their children away &c &c... And I just don't get it!  Sure, it's a fine game to burn a half hour on, but other than that I don't really see it.  I am only truly addicted to one game, and I have to be careful when I choose to play it - this year's tour to Sweden will see hours stacked away YES BECAUSE I MEAN TETRIS.  I actually have to limit myself because it's just too easy to get sucked in to beating my score all the time.  I don't go by the string of numbers, I go by line count, and I currently stand at 192.  I swear to God, and you as my witness that by September 2013, I will have broken the 200 barrier.  I may have to sacrifice higher brain function, but whatever, I don't care.  Where was I?  Oh yes, Candy Crush Saga.  Where a cheap story line has been wrapped around some colourful graphics laid over the top of the 12 year old Bejeweled engine.  Okay, maybe it isn't the same on before any sort of copyright action takes place, but the process is exactly the same.  Match three of the same symbols to blast them off the board, BUT WAIT WIKIPEDIA HAS MORE TO SAY ON THE MATTER where in fact this concept comes from a Russian game, Shariki, programmed in 1994.  That's older than this generation of school leavers.  So that's why it's so addictive.  Another great game from the frozen north! 

So, almost 20 years of colour-matching later and it's finally taking over Facebook.  I wonder what message lies therein?  If you want a good game that's simple and eats up your every living second, call Russia, circa 1984 to 1994?  In a world where the hardware war between console generations is reaching simply ridiculous heights of power and realistic, High Definition graphics rendering, it doesn't half amuse me that things like Candy Crush and even Temple Run are so popular and addictive - perhaps a necessary tonic to the sheer power of console and PC gaming.  As for me, I'm playing my way through the Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker again, and bar the ridiculous sea journey aspect of it (which is roughly half the game), it's just great fun.  The actual dungeon design and combat improvements over the legendary Ocarina of Time and the brain-bending Majora's Mask are really well done.  Not bad for a game over 10 years old.  It may well be showing its age, but it's still really just a fun game.  It's a Nintendo thing, really.  They got out of the hardware arms race with the launch of the Wii, and have continued on their business plan with the WiiU. 

Maybe I did have a lot to say after all?  Don't worry folks, I still haven't forgotten about how much I hate everything (and what that really means), which will form the core of a future post, probably alongside the fate of The Scholary.  For now though, I shall retire... But not for too long.  Honest.