Goafer

With other companies showing games that won't be out for another few years, it's refreshing to see Nintendo go the other way and showcase games that were released decades ago. I love my Switch, but it's becoming a console for playing old games that I'd like to replay, rather than excitedly waiting for new ones.

The helmet or my massive head? The helmet is about £70. It's one of the cheaper ones available, but it has decent safety ratings (as far as I can tell) and I liked the design. I didn't go too cheap though, as the £40 ones seemed too cheap to be reassuring. I also didn't want to spend too much beforehand, as I still might end up terrified of going 60mph balanced on an engine with wheels. Another day, another chunk of savings that will be leaving me. At least this was what the savings were for I guess.

Was planning on buying the rest of my motorcycle stuff after I passed and just using the loan stuff from the training place, but I decided to at least buy a helmet beforehand for two reasons: 1: Covid. 2: I have a massive head and didn't want to risk them not having one that fits. I've not technically bought this yet, as I've reserved it and am off to try it on tomorrow. The measurements check out though.

Watched a couple of episodes last night. Enjoying it so far. It's a bit of a slow one, but I love how that adds to the tension and unease. The characters do suffer a bit from questionable motivations at time, but I can overlook it.

I have to admit, I do much prefer audio to just text. Games just feel a bit basic without it nowadays. It's not a deal-breaker though. I can live with either. I'm still undecided on Arceus. All the reviews sound good, but then I watch the footage and feel a bit "meh" about it. I do want a Pokémon game, but I'll probably just go with Sword/Shield.

If the N64 games are listed the same as NES/SNES, then yes. I get that there are a lot of games to display and it's never going to look great, but my God is it an eyesore. That said, I've always found Nintendo's UIs to be pretty bad, at least when it comes to the OS/dashboards. Thankfully it's never been a deal-breaker for me, so I can just deal with it and forget all about it as soon as I've picked a game.

I was thinking about retro gaming and generally, I have a cut off for different type of games. Before certain generations, I have very little interest, bar a few exceptions. 2D games: Mega Drive and SNES is as far back as I'll go. Before that and the games are just too basic to be fun. Weirdly, I'm totally fine with original Gameboy games, which are arguably as basic as NES games. 3D games: PS2/XBox/Dreamcast/GameCube. There are a few PS1 and Saturn games I remember fondly, but generally I find PS1 and Saturn games to be awkward, clunky and downright ugly. RPGs and Racing games are a bit of an exception, as there were some belters on PS1/Saturn, but 3D action or platformers are almost unplayable to me nowadays. Plus non-analogue controls are no fun. The N64 is an awkward middle ground to me. The games are playable in some cases, but I have no nostalgia for the console, so I tend to just go for GameCube instead. Does anyone else have a cut off?

I didn't say I was going to wear a hat...

Nah. Doing it entirely nude apart from the boots. They'll give me a pass out of sheer awkwardness. The actual reason is they just said sturdy boots and jeans for the course. They provide the rest, so I'll buy it all afterwards, just in case I end up hating it (or failing miserably).

I need to wear "sturdy boots" for my upcoming motorcycle lessons and as I don't have any, I figured I'd just go ahead and order actual motorcycle boots. Wanted a more casual look, so went with these. All the reviews said they feel as sturdy and well protected as bigger boots, so hopefully they'll be good.

I REALLY wanted Smash. Also, work trip.

Tesco seems to be selling off all its Switch stock, so some good prices if you can actually find any stock left. The Tesco I was in* was one of the annoying ones that doesn't add "Out of stock" labels to things, so tried to buy Pokémon Sword (£23), BotW (£36) and Smash (£35). I didn't expect any to be in stock, as they haven't been anywhere else up to this point, but Smash was, so bought that. *Tesco Bradford for anyone interested.

From what I remember from when I looked at similar aged Audi S3s a while back, Audis (and most modern German cars) are great, but complicated and expensive to repair when they do start going wrong. I always found my 2005 Fiesta ST to be a good mix of practicality, performance, comfort and reliability. Things got VERY expensive at around 125k miles though and eventually the engine gave up. Flawless up until that point though, so a low mileage one that's been well maintained should be a safe bet. Just watch for rust, as Fords are awful for it, especially underneath. As for me, I bloody love cars. Currently have a VW Passat estate and a 1991 VW Scirocco. A compilation of all the cars I've owned over the years (in the order I owned them):

I bought the Switch for when I'm away from home and in a weird coincidence, I now have an overnight stay for a work thing for the first time since before the pandemic. So I needed a case. I also bought a memory card. Switch branded, obviously. (It was only a few pounds more than a SanDisk Ultra and and I vaguely recall reading that the Switch branded ones are a tiny bit faster and have a lifetime warranty. Either way, pretty colour).

This was on Radio 2 a while back. I think the issue was that, although you can change the wakeup word, Alexa is the default and the one that everyone knows. The name has now become heavily associated with a servant.