Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day everyone!

FUCK YOU!

...Yes, that's my middle finger.

My 100th Flash

I have to admit, I haven't done a lot on my 100th Flash so far. The best I've done is drawing Bahamut and the rest has been just drawing different styles of eyes, head shapes, nose shapes and trying to design a house with a 3D-ish look. Right now, I want to get the house sorted out, but some parts of it I can't put my finger on. I'll be looking for some ideas on how to get it to look right and I'll try and do better this month.

Despite not doing much, at least I've said how I'm doing and will keep you updated once a month until the flash is done.

Job Interview

I've been given a Job Interview for HMRC a week tomorrow in Liverpool, so hopefully I'll do better this time. I have a better chance at getting this job since I've had work experience with HMRC before and if they have less disabled people employed than they should have, that will improve my chances. :)

Tom & Jerry: The Movie

I don't talk about specific videos very often on my blogs, but this movie review by Nostalgia Critic I'd like to mention. I remember wanting to watch Tom & Jerry: The Movie because I really liked watching their cartoons on TV. Those cartoons were fucking classic, but when I watched the movie, I was really disappointed. Until recently, I didn't remember much about the movie, but I knew it was a poor movie. However, I didn't remember it being THIS BAD!

While NC's movies are mostly satirical work, I have to agree on some points he made. The fact that they added so many horrendous musical scores AND Tom and Jerry talking in this movie made this film an atrocity. I hate most musical scores in films and TV shows with a passion, but the crap I heard from this film has to be some of the worst songs EVER! And Tom and Jerry talking...UGH!

So thank you That Guy With the Glasses for reviewing this piece of shit and reminding me how terrible this movie was. Seriously, I've said about how movies like The Simpsons Movie and I Am Legend were bad, but I actually find them better than Tom & Jerry: The Movie. Anyway, for those that want to watch the movie review, here you go:

It was a great day yesterday and the reason for that is I went to Alton Towers with my sister and her boyfriend. While I've been here many times before, I always love going there again and again. The first time I ever went there was when I was only 3 and after visiting there many times since, it has become my favourite theme park of all time. I have so much fun everytime I go there and this time was no exception.

Now there were a few problems that occurred on this day. The first problem was the time the coach we got to Alton Towers was leaving. It was to leave at 5PM and only gave us around 6 hours in the park. However, we decided to change plans to getting back home and got a later coach which would arrive at Hanley Station at 10PM. This allowed us to stay until 7:30PM when the bus to the station would arrive at the park. So the change of plan was worth it to go on an extra ride or two.

The only other problem was since the park was open from 10AM - 7PM, you only have enough time to go on 5 or so rides for the entire day and maybe more if you're there dead on 10AM. Yes, the queues for that day were really long. Most rides had a queue time for up to 75 minutes. As a result, we were short on time to go on all the rides we wanted to be on. Despite that, waiting an hour each for the Nemesis and Air was well fucking worth it. Those two roller coasters have to be some of my favourite of all time. Both of them were kickass from start to finish! :D

Now I know there's a Fastrack system in Alton Towers, but we couldn't get any that day. Why? Because they were sold out on Fastrack tickets for the day. :( We probably could have got some when we got there at 11:30AM if we knew where exactly to get them, but we thought they'd be available in most shops.

Luckily, the wait time for the Oblivion wasn't as long as Nemesis or Air. The wait time was only half an hour and for a really short ride like Oblivion, the wait was more reasonable. Although, if we had to wait an hour long, it would have been well worth it for a kickass ride! ^^ If you know the ride, I shouldn't have to explain why it's awesome. Most people's reactions at the stopping part on Oblivion are hilarious. My sister's boyfriend was like "OH SHIT!" was I like "I feel like I'm going to fall off." But when going down, we're like "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOA!"

Going off topic to what happened yesterday for a moment. In 2005 when my high school had annual school trips to several places including Alton Towers, I was with Omega-2 most of the time with a few others and I forced him to go on the Oblivion. Well, I only just said that if you don't go on it, you might regret it, but as a result of him going on it, he vows to kill me. XD

The other two rides we went on were Hex and Duel. The former isn't much of a ride with the exception of the last part, but rather tells the story of an old legend about some curse in the family who lived in the Alton Towers house. The latter was originally a generic Haunted House ride, but turned into a shooting game where you shoot any targets you see (no shit). Both of them were a lot of fun, but not as great as Nemesis, Air or Oblivion are.

After those two rides, we only had an hour before the park closed. We tried to queue up for Rita, but unfortunately, by the time we got there from the Gloomy Woods, there was only 45 minutes left, so unfortunately, we had to miss out on both Rita and Corkscrew. Well, I guess we were lucky to have not had time for Corkscrew because of the minor injuries it can do to you, but it would have been a ride to go on nonetheless.

So due to that misfortune, we had to miss out on other rides including Conga River Rapids, Log Flume, Spinball Whizzer and of course, the aforementioned Roller coasters. We would have needed a second day to go on the rest of the rides we missed out on the first day, but sadly we didn't plan that. And besides, we'd either have to stay somewhere for the night or get there and back by coach for the second time. However, we were able to go on the very best rides, so it wasn't too bad. :)

And that's our entire day in Alton Towers. Only went on five rides that day, but like I said, waiting a hell long time for those rides is definitely worth it! :D I certainly hope to go there again sometime in a year or two whether it would be with my family or my friends. Just as long as we all have a good time, that's all that matters.

Oh, here's a summary for you lazy bastards:

- Nemesis kicks ass!!!
- Air kicks ass!!!
- Oblivion kicks ass!!!
- Hex doesn't kick as much ass as the three aforementioned rides.
- Duel kicks ass.
- We didn't have enough time to go on the all the rides we wanted to go on.
- It was a great day overall.

One last thing, here's videos of the rides for those who aren't familiar with the park:

Nemesis

Oblivion

Rita

Air

Corkscrew

Spinball Whizzer

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Just some random notes:

- I completed Another World for the Mega Drive and damn, it's a very short game. I found out you can complete this game in just 15 minutes. Well, maybe not the slow and laggy Mega Drive version, but very possible on the Windows XP version or any other platform that doesn't run slow!

- Casualty was in New York City over the last week. And no, he didn't destroy the city. Shame on you Casualty! :P

OK, SPOILER WARNINGS FOR THE NEXT PART
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- I watched The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor today and to quote Chester A. Bum, "I don't think I saw the movie. I think I've must have gotten high instead. I mean, who would actually put all that stuff in a movie?" Seriously, a Mummy film about some Dragon Emperor who becomes cursed for centuries and seeks to take over the world when he's brought back to life? What the hell happened here?

I really should watch the first movie of this trilogy again to make up for this huge disappointment. However, I'll name one part I liked in this movie and that was seeing the main antagonist transforming into a three-headed dragon and kicking ass. So throwing in dragon in the title wasn't false advertisement to me (*cough*Red Dragon*cough*).

Job Interview

Like I said on my previous news post, I attended the job interview I had last Tuesday. I was given a letter from the hospital last Friday and said I was unsuccessful. I was disappointed, but at least they gave me a job interview. To me, that's something. However, my mum's not impressed and just talked bollocks by saying they already took someone on the job before the interviews started and only gave job interviews to applicants to prove they did interview people.

She also went on saying how no normal job will take me on just because I've not taken an Apprentice job before. Seriously, that fucking bitch isn't supporting my decisions at all right now. I'm really not happy with her. A few weeks ago, she WAS supporting me to getting a normal job, but now, she's just throwing shit at me. Well, whatever that fucking bitch says, she's not going to change a thing! I will keep searching for genuine jobs and if she doesn't want me to do that, she can go fuck herself!

Mega Drive

Yes, I've had more fun on the Mega Drive. Since my last news post, I ordered some games for the console. They were:

- Another World
- Ecco: The Tides of Time
- Warlock

Although Ecco: The Tides of Time hasn't arrived yet, I've been enjoying myself a lot with the other two games. On Another World, I've died plenty of times because I'm either unlucky, careless or the lags on the game just lead me to getting killed by the enemies. Despite that and some control issues I've had (i.e. Not pressing the jump button soon enough will lead your character to falling down the screen below rather than jumping over the gap), I'm still enjoying myself!

Another thing I really like about this game is the similarities between this and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus. The side-scroller gameplay and the environments remind me of the 2D Oddworld games. Perhaps this game had a big influence on Oddworld and if it did, much respect to Another World! :D

I'd love to play the sequel to this game, but sadly, Heart of the Alien was only ever released on the Sega CD. I don't feel like getting the Sega CD just for one damn game. Oh well, there's always Flashback to have a look at, which was made by Delphine Software, the same company who developed Another World.

For those who want to give Another World a try, you can download the demo version right here.

For Warlock, I haven't got very far in this game yet. While I've gotten further than when I played it 11 years ago, so far I'm only on the second level and have been struggling to get through it without dying. The next time I play this game, what I need to do is slowly go through the level killing every enemy I see and don't attempt to run away from them. Seriously, I tried running away from them and it resulted in myself getting owned by 10 bats and 5 spiders at the same time. *sigh* Oh well, I'll get through it eventually.

I was able to complete Ecco the Dolphin last week and the last few levels were hell! I died countless times on the last three levels and the worst part was when you die on the last level, the game puts you back to the previous level. While that's annoying, at least you can simply type in the password to the last level to save you from going through the one before that which takes 7 minutes to finish. It's OK once, but having to go through it everytime you die against the last boss? That ain't cool. At least I managed to complete the game and now, I'm looking forward to playing the sequel. :)

Overall, it's been great playing these games on the Mega Drive again and I'm sure to look out for other great games for the console. However, Final Fantasy IV DS remake will be out in Europe soon and I want to get it the day it's released in Europe. I know I could have just bought the American version, but I was wanting to play on other games in the mean time.

Job Interview

Some of you might know this already, but today, I had a job interview at the local hospital for a clerical job. This job involves taking a lot of casenote requests and while I've been told I'd have to do a lot of work each day to get everything done, I don't mind the hard work at all. At least I'd have a lot to do throughout the day and not sit around doing nothing, which funny enough makes me tired in work. :S

But anyway, the job interview went well today and I should hear something from them no later than Monday. I've also been told that loads of people applied for the same job, so hopefully I've got the job. If not, at least I was given an interview. I've been applying to other places as well, so there's always another place to look forward to.

Mega Drive

What's happened recently has surprised me. I was talking to my sister about the old games available from the Wii Shop and mentioned certain games that we once played on the Mega Drive. The games I mentioned to her were Dynamite Headdy and Ecco the Dolphin. We remembered renting Mega Drive games from the video shop that used to be a few blocks away such as the aforementioned games, After Burner II, Warlock and Out of this World/Another World. While we did rent more games from another video shop, the Mega Drives we borrowed there weren't as interesting as the aforementioned ones. However, that video shop did introduce me to awesome PS1 games such as Tomb Raider and Tekken, but that's another story.

It was more renting games than buying games for the Mega Drive. Infact, I never even bought a single Mega Drive game, only got them as presents. They were:

Mega Games I - Columns, Super Hang-On and World Cup Italia '90
The Lion King
Toy Story

I admit, during the second half of 1997, I was starting to give more of a damn about the Playstation and gave less of a damn about the Mega Drive. However, just looking back at all those games, I really want to play them again and lucky for me and my sister (and her boyfriend when he's here on Friday), we'll be able to play the Mega Drive. :D The console itself is still in good condition, but sadly, I've lost the cable for the console. Lucky for us, there's a site selling all sorts of cables for the old consoles and so, we bought them and 2 controllers as well (the latter is from an eBay seller). They should be here in a day or two. :)

Never thought I'd go back and play on the Mega Drive again, but I'm glad I thought about the old games and eager to play them once more.

Oh, and regarding Sonic for the Mega Drive, I did borrow ONE Sonic game from my cousin, which was Sonic & Knuckles. Never got far in the game, though.

Ecco the Dolphin

Although a Mega Drive game, I was able to download this game from the Wii Shop Channel . I know I could have waited a week for the missing Mega Drive parts to arrive along with the game assuming we ordered it, but we didn't decide to get the Mega Drive out until AFTER I bought this game on the Virtual Console.

So anyway, I've been playing through this game, remembering everything from when I played it 11 years ago and damn, it was a hard game back then and it's a hard game now. Years ago, I couldn't get any further than level 5. Now, while I struggled on the levels I struggled on back then, I at least managed to get through them and even got all the way to the last few levels of the game.

Of course, the game didn't get easier. It got much harder, but you know what? I fucking dealt with the high difficulty of the game and have been enjoying it so damn much. It's a good thing they added a password system on this game and allowed you to make as many attempts as you needed to complete any level. To me, it makes the game extremely fair. I would have hated having to go back to the very start every time I died.

But yeah, tough game, but so enjoyable. I'm glad I played this game once again and I look forward to playing all the other Mega Drive games soon. :)

P.S. The puffer fishes on this game scared the living shit out of me and my sister when we were young. XD

Ah, it's Clock Day once again. Today shall be lots of fun. Have fun in the portal everyone. ;)

Oh, and like I said, I have submitted two flashes on Clock Day and here they are:
Sonic vs Mario grand finale
The Very Best of Bahamut

Only one more flash to go! :O

Also, please keep all 100th flash discussions here.

My work on it begins NOW!

NOTE: By 100th flash, I'm talking about the 100th flash that *I* am going to submit, not all the flashes I've been coauthored on as well as the flashes I've submitted.

Alright, as I promised, I have written up about what happened to me on my 18th birthday.

So how was I on my 18th birthday? Well, for that day, there was a big party held at the Rugby Club near mine. Around 60 - 70 people attended that night, while another 10 - 20 weren't able to come that night. I was quite disappointed there were quite a lot that weren't able to attend, but those who did come made up for that letdown. Most of my family, friends and even teachers who I knew from my primary school attended that night.

Seeing these people I haven't seen in years really made me happy. I really wanted to see them all again and my 18th birthday was a good time for that, despite 5 out of the small class I was in for primary school couldn't be with us that night. One did call me to say she couldn't make it to the party, while the others (except two I was still in touch with) didn't a say to me and didn't go, except for one. It's a shame, but hopefully there can be another arrangement to see us all again.

But anyway, back to my party. Some of you have asked if I got drunk on my 18th birthday and guess what? I DID!! I had 5 pints and got pretty drunk. Lucky for me, I didn't get a hangover the next day, so I was able to remember everything on that night. However, that didn't stop me from acting pretty crazy. I was shouting a lot, I was waving my hands a lot (but still had hold of my drink) and even ran around on the rugby pitch and then rolled on it. I got pretty dirty after doing that 5 times, but it was worth it.

I guess if I had another pint or two, I would have gotten a lot worse than I was then and had a hangover, which isn't what I wanted if I wanted to write up about this day. Some of you might think I should have had more to drink anyway, but I felt five drinks were enough for that night. Getting drunk then was well worth it! :D

There is no such thing as a perfect day, but to me, that day was the closest to perfection. It really was an awesome day and without my family and friends, this day would have been really dull. So a big thanks to them for making this day so wonderful!

Oh, and what did I get for my birthday? Besides the tickets to see Iron Maiden on 5th July that I talked about previously, here's what I got:

Money:

-£590
-£45 HMV Vouchers (already spent £10 of that on Cream's Disraeli Gears)
-£40 of WHSmith vouchers (All I can think of getting from there are food and drinks)
-£10 of ADSA vouchers (spending this will be more of a difficult task than WHSmith)

CDs:

-AC/DC - High Voltage
-Iron Maiden - Rock in Rio
-Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at the Moon

Others:

-Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
-Super Smash Bros. Brawl
-A watch
-Hundreds of birthday cards (tons of fun for Sky)

With that £590, I was thinking of getting a PSP that I asked for my birthday, but I then thought I could get something even bigger, like a PS3 or a new laptop. I was keen on a PS3 for MGS4 and a few other games, but some have advised me to get a laptop and I have to agree with them. Right now, a laptop would be great since I could play games such as Spore and Team Fortress 2, which this computer can't do.

Also, yes, I've had a lot of fun on Brawl and I'm glad I waited until my birthday to get this game. My main focus on the game is to unlock all characters and then use whoever I want. Overall, I'm very impressed with this game! :D

Oh, completely unrelated to my birthday, but lol at this kid.