Suddenly being allergic is actually a thing

Actually, I was wrong. Something did happen recently. I became allergic to a bunch of food.

I don't even know how that's possible. One day, fine, next day, blam! You're allergic to this particular foodstuff, buddy. The rest time you eat it for the rest of your life, have fun with that.

I'm both blessed and cursed. For starters, my allergies appear to be on the tame side, for now. I just break out in hives and rashes, and they always start on my right hand's ring finger middle joint. Yes, that is ridiculously specific, that's where it wants to flare up, I can't stop it. So at least I am not dealing with a throat-closing up dramatic death scene every time I sniff a peanut.

The cursed bit is that with a bit of narrowing down, I'm pretty sure it's sulphites.

Want to know what sulphites are in?

FUCKING EVERYTHING.

Pictured: FUCKING EVERYTHING

Look at that list. Look at it! What the fuck can I eat now? I'm down to bread and water... wait, bread's baked? Shit. Hmm. Chocolate doesn't appear. Fuck it. Chocolate and water. Let's ride this fucking train.

This is utter bullshit. How, how! How do you become allergic to everything as an adult? Look at it! That is everything. Apparently, the next time you're sat down in front of someone's signature dish that they're really proud of but they can't cook for shit you can legitimately go: Sorry, bra. Turns out I am suddenly allergic to all that shiz-niz, yo. Well, peace outy, I'm laters! and that's something that really happens. The allergies, I mean. That sort of language only appears on Dog the Bounty Hunter, and that's probably staged.

And how do allergies develop? Am I stuck with an itchy joint forever, or in a couple of months am I looking at a heart-breaking tear-jerking lifetime special movie?

I am far too old to pull this sort of crap off

It's not like my whole life I've battled with an rash on my knuckle, or dealt with asthma like symptoms. A month or two ago, I was like, huh, I have a rash. A few weeks later, huh, the rash is back, same place, weird. For more weeks and I'm keeping a food diary and yep, sulphites are the common thing, god damn it.

It's also delicious irony. Which is more delicious irony because it's keeping me from delicious things. It's multiple layers of irony, (like an onion, which I probably can not have) which as we all know using irony correctly now makes me ridiculously attractive on the internet.

Anyway, getting back to the irony bit,  for religious reasons, I used to not drink alcohol. Later in life and outside that constriction, I was watching the pennies and people vomiting over themselves in university and just didn't start. Didn't see the need. I can be bad enough sober for fuck's sake, I did not want to see me without what little common sense I had turned off.

whoops

Out of sheer curiosity way later on, I tried wine. I didn't like it. Then I tried cider. I didn't like it. Then I tried peach and apricot cider and oh my god what is this delightful beverage. Now, I like my ciders. I like them a lot. And so, I drink them a fair bit. Because of the whole liking thing, and I'm an adult, with my own disposable income and everything. Sure, it's basically a slightly more grown up alco-pop, but fuck you, they're delicious.  I still only ever drink the one and done, because hey, keep that remnants of common sense turned on for as long as possible, but now? Every cider. Every bloody cider has sulphites. Every. Single. One.

Now this atheist can't have cider.

Or anything, really.

This is bullshit. You hear me? Bullshit. I don't have to put up with this, body. I don't have to put up with your shitty, malfunctioning eyes. I don't have to put up with your shitty, malfunctioning guts, and I especially don't have to deal with your shitty, malfunctioning immune system!

I'm calling in the warranty, and I'm getting a new one.

Something happen, please

No update today out of sheer lack of anything happening, and I feel guilty about that. I mean, I was intending to get more material out of England being shit at football, but we managed to eliminate ourselves in a mere two matches so that's great. Thanks England. Way to suck even harder then I expected you to. Your prize is my further contempt, which is a bit of a let down as I got you that last year.

Oh, there's a story going round that Nick Clegg is toxic for the Liberal Democrats.

Please.

Considering what they've done in their half power, it's clear that the Liberal Democrats are toxic for the Liberal Democrats.

We won't win the World Cup. I can change that!

Whelp, time for another World Cup. Now this wouldn't be so bad, if that was all it entailed. But no, I am British, or strictly speaking English, so I have endure weeks of 'this year could be our year!' and 'come on England!'

It's not going to be our year.

Because our football team sucks.

This may come as a surprise to you

The last few World Cups they looked like people who got a free holiday but all they have to do is a one-hour meeting about the benefits of buying a timeshare. Every minute on the pitch they sulked about, eager to get the fuck off and back to the bar. So far, the only difference this year is that they avoided looking like this for 45 minutes before they lost interest in the sport.

I mean, fuck it, we're not going to win. Patriotism doesn't trump reality. So why not have fun with it? David Beckham wanted to play one last time - why not? It wouldn't hurt our chance. Hell, let's get nostalgic and ask if Linker or Gazza is free. Super dedicated fans have travelled to Brazil to watch their team play: why not let them participate instead? Hold a lottery, or hell, just point to random people in the crowd and tell them to jump in. Don't want to play? Well, why don't you manage instead? Knock yourselves out. There's Make a Wish Foundation too, if they want to get in on that. It's not like it'll hurt our chances!

Perhaps we could roll with this, and use the fact we are just not sucky enough to fail to qualify every yeah, and use it as a bribe. We exchange our place in the World Cup to the Scottish football team, and we'll publicly announce that this means, yes, they are better than us at football... just that they gotta stick it out with us in the union. Why not? Scotland, for one, they would actually want to be there, and once again, it's not like substituting Scotland would hurt our chances.

I'm saying our chances are 0%, right? You got that?

As much chance as this ending well

In fairness, while I'm bashing on our team for sucking more than an atomic power vacuum cleaner, it's not entirely their fault. Every year the media hypes up our chances and our players until they talk of Wayne Rooney being some form of football messiah who's descended from heaven to lead us to glory... when he's clearly not. And we play a team of people who barely know each other, as we grab random players from a menagerie of rival teams and tell them to ignore all the training and teamwork they've done with their individual teams and play with these practical strangers... and what do you know, they play like shit. Funny, that.

Now some of you are reading about my bitching and wondering if I don't like it, then I can shut the fuck up and go home. Fine. But it bothers me that me embarrass ourselves like this every year. So, thinking to myself, I devised a plan. It's a glorious plan, literally. My plan will not only win ourselves a World Cup, but I guarantee a second World Cup - yes! Defending champions, something only shared with Italy and Brazil. And just maybe - maybe - an unprecedented third cup in a row. Three in a row baby! Though I do admit that'll be hard to pull off.

So here's my plan. From the get go, it's long term. I will need twelve years. So, we're going to suck for another twelve years. But look on the bright side: without my plan, we'd suck for twelve years, then continue sucking after that. With my plan, suck for twelve years, then GLORY.

So I'm going to need about a hundred children.

And their parents! Jesus. Calm the fuck down. You see, where we suck now is that we don't have players trained early enough, and trained early enough together. We need team-mates, not acquaintances. So, I need a hundred children, about six years old or round about, who love football, and want to play. See? Not so sinister. Then I will train them.

The first few months the children will be monitored closely. I'm looking for passion and talent, and more of the former than the latter - I'd rather have trained skill then people relying on just talent. Then after the first few months, I'd let the injured and the not caring go.

Then the real training begins.

Yeah, that phrase is never preceding something good

It's going to be fucking brutal. It's going to be harsh. These children will learn nothing that is not related to football. Sure they're learn some maths - engineering and trigonometry because you better learn the angles son, because if you don't I will kill your parents.

Fine, we've moved back into sinister territory, but we haven't won a cup in over sixty years and desperate times call for desperate measures. Those children will be playing for more than the love of the game - they'll be playing for their parents lives. Eh, major psychological trauma on a few dozen children versus multiple World Cup victories? The public will be on my side.

They will become the greatest football players known to man, though I must admit I recently watched Soldier with Kurt Russell and I may be basing my entire plan on that film's plot, but whatevs, it's not like Hollywood lies to us.

Originally I planned on whittling down the player to a final team by some form of football themed gladiatorial death matches, but I eliminated that as being needlessly wasteful. For starters, if I had thirty equally skilled players, then it's a hella waste when spares will do fine. Secondly, I don't want to encourage individuality, I want teams of players. I want them to band together, united by hatred of me and and desire to save their loved ones. United they'll be an even better team.

Thirdly, it'd just look ridiculous.

And they will march on the pitch, at eighteen years old, and fucking annihilate the opposition. They will march to victory without pause or mercy. And they'll return at twenty two years old. And twenty six. Depending on the attrition rate, or whether of not they get other their unholy fear of me and beat me to death in some back alley somewhere. Besides, maybe I don't have to kill all the failed player's and their parents - maybe the first set of six, and the rest can just disappear.

Sure, it'll be an awful, protracted crime, but two to three World Cups! Maybe four!

Metro: Last Light shows you how not to do a silent protagonist

Why do we still have silent protagonists? Or rather, why do we still use them so badly?

I've been catching up with Metro: Last Light recently, or perhaps known by it's less catchy name: 'Miserable and Bleak Soviet Apocalyptica: The Game.' Whilst I'm being drawn in by it's world, the atmosphere, I am constantly being taken out of it by the way my character stares dumbly at people whilst they talk at him. By the end of what's laughably called a conversation, I wordlessly go do what they said. It's gone from unsettling to really creepy, and it's putting me in mind that my character is the world's ultimate doormat.

No, this doormat is way to interesting for Metro's main character.

I doubt I would feel this way if I was playing the first Metro game, but I'm playing a sequel. Silent protagonists are great for putting yourself into the situation, but that's not really relevant now. My character, WhatsHisNameSki, has done stuff without. Done a lot of stuff the last game. A lot of world changing, morally ambiguous stuff. So what this character has, strictly speaking, is character. He's no longer the blank slate; his slate has been appropriately muddied with experiences and life choices and the fuck I know of any of it, making the doormat feature of my personality super awkward.

I live in terror of playing Half Life 2 again and finding myself unable to enjoy it because of the shared mutism.

Twice now I've ran into old friends, who've greeted me warmly and I've stared at them quietly for a bit, before getting bored and rifling through their stuff for ammo, which they've either politely ignored me thieving what precious little they have left of they view it as an endearing character trait of mine, and if it is, I'd love the game to share it with me. What's WhatsHisNameSki likes, dislikes, what's his parents like? Does he have hobbies? Does he like ham? I would really like to know. Fucking seriously. Tell me - something - about this dude. His room was sparsely decorated - it had a box of books in, so he might like reading? But I couldn't see the spines so I have no idea what he reads (aside from the Metro series of book ha ha get it?)

My only other insights into him is a little internal monologue between chapters and his diary, which apparently he writes ahead of time for everything that'll happen in the day and scatter them randomly about the level ahead of him, because adding collectable items is a quick an easy way to extend game length of reasons.

So clearly he's a amnesiac time-traveller.

The internal monologue has indicated he doesn't like communist, but he dislikes Nazis way more. Well yip-dee-fucking-doo, everybody dislikes communists but hates Nazis more. Also he's sort of conflicted about killing the last Dark One off, but Grr Grr Duty Grr. Actually, come to think about it, the last time I passed a mirror the developers never bothered to animate the character in. So I have no idea of what my character looks like along with no knowing what he is. Aside from being a vampire, obviously. An amnesiac time-travelling vampire.

It's a definite pity, because god damn is this word interesting. The very first opening fight is against the Dark Ones, who look weird and toothy and as you drop each one, they turn into your mates and that is creepy as all hell. They get into you mind, but my character has somehow communicated with them before, which no one has accomplished before or even though possible. So I'm an amnesiac Chosen One time-travelling vampire.

But I'm a post-apocalypse nut, and this is one of the few downsides. As stated, the world is vividly interesting - mankind stuck after the bomb in old Russian metro stations - and the scavenging aspect to survive on the poisoned surface really appeals to me. What's especially interesting the the weird physic phenomenon on the surface. I was wondering around on a crashed plane, and my partner warned me to keep it together. Keep it together, geez. What, is my dude well known for having an over-active imagination? Do I need to add it to the bullshit list I made up? It's getting kinda long now.

Well, it turns out that the world itself gives you an over-active imagination, as we both starting having flashbacks of the plane's final moments. It really killed my partner, as to escape the smoke filling the cockpit in the flashback he ripped off his gasmask... and proceeded to choke on the poisoned air of the surface. A little later, whilst dicking around looking for bullets and filters dead men started to appear in the corners of my vision, and I ended up crawling out as they got more real. Well done Metro: Dead Space taught me to explore through my fear, you taught me to stop exploring as it's terrifying again.

Then I run into another person who talks around me for a bit, and I'm completely taken out of the experience.

Say something! Anything! TELL ME YOU LIKE HAM.

This is not to say silent protagonists are inherently bad. I'll contrast another - Isaac Clarke from the first Dead Space. Now Isaac Clarke didn't speak, and was ordered around a lot. Fair enough, you're a low ranking engineer, and most of the orders you're getting involve the phrasing 'for god's sake fix this part of the ship before we all die,' which doesn't necessitate much response other than 'yep, on it.' No leisuerely chats between friends, here. But we know we're looking for his girlfriend (look, a relationship!) we know he's scared out his damn mind, and everything else has been stripped out to put you in the place he is so you are likewise scared. Unlike Metro, your weapons are cobbled together tools for the most part, and you lumber around in a heavy rig suit, taking away the super-soldier feel. By the time Dead Space 2 rolls around, having survived and grown some, Isaac talks and is his own character SEE METRO. That's what you do. In horror games, a blank slate can be key for helping you to immerse yourself in the threat.

And don't try to contradict me by saying Metro is both a horror game: once you have a shotgun and thus can apply said shotgun to threat's face the horror is suitably diminished.

Pictured: Reassurance (in noisy form)

Want to have a silent protagonist with a past? Make it mysterious, and make it the point of uncovering it. If your past is spread over previous games, and you keep running into prior acquaintances, then trying to justify your inability to open your damn mouth and say, no, I don't want to go down the spider's nest alone where the horrible spiders that eat your eyes and lay eggs in the empty sockets are, as that sound's fucking stupid...

Well, it get's rather daft, see?

That being said, please don't mistake this bitching as that I'm not enjoying Metro: Last Light, that while your character may be bland the world certainly isn't, and I look forward to seeing what the amnesiac Chosen One time-travelling vampire becomes next. I'm hoping for a robot!

I'm still here! Mostly.

I am writing again! Just getting over neck pain and wrestling with my feeling of pointlessness of continuing with the blog, so, you know, a Tuesday. I'll put it up tomorrow. I mean, I could put it up now, but I having yet giving it my cursory typo and spelling check... and you're aware how bad I am after checking?

You don't want to see my posts before the check.

People die.

Wanted: New neck. Old one defective.

I have done something god awful to my neck. I think I've thrown it out, if that's possible, and if it isn't I want to throw the damn thing out and get a new one. I am functional only by a combination of Deep Heat and ibuprofen.

So.

No updates until it fixes itself, as it hurts to sit in chairs, lean down, lift thinks, or walk. It's a good thing my day job has all those things, right?