Purpen Blog

The ShadowCat

The Shadowcat the Shadow in ZeroShadow is ill, he is a little better though tonight after being given an injection at the vets. He also had to have his temperature taken, Mmmm! He hasn’t wanted to be in the same room for a while now, lol. You do know how vets do that don’t you, ouch!

As you can see when he wants to show you his displeasure he can.

He had not eaten for 2 days, which for Shadow is a very very very very long time, he is usually the first in the kitchen. Tonight though he ate some food, so I think he is on the mend now.

Get better soon ShadowCat, Zero will be lost without you, and so would we. Just for completeness, here is the Hero that can only be Zero.

 What do you see when you look at this photograph? A genius who fortold how things were going to be now. Well yes, a much maligned comentator of our time who was telling everyone from the start that the powers that REALLY rule the world would eventually take what was theirs. The corporations, the rich, leaving everyone else with nothing.

The warmongers who would send the poor to fight against made up enemies in far off countries that most had not even heard of.

Yes all of those things, but to my wife and I its a totally different thing that we see. Its something that you would not have even considered. That picture brings back memories of the most terrifying day of my life. The nerves were raw, the adrenalin was flowing.

By the end of 26th February 1994, I was a married man. Yes thats our wedding anniversary. Do you know what its like to learn that one of your hero’s died while you were getting married. Every year we toast a lost genius, this year it will be 15 years, we haven’t decided what we do yet. Have a party, go away somewhere special, or just ignore it until 20 years.

Time will tell, but Bill entered my head today and I wanted you all to try to find at least one of his stand up routines on youtube and maybe just maybe, this time you’ll listen to what he actually said and not what was funny.

Tags: Bill Hicks, Wedding Anniversary

Tonight I finished reading the diary of Anne Frank. Its a very moving book just because when you read you cannot get rid of the thought that the girl and her family died in the concentration camps. I think that this diary should be read by anyone wanting to hear how childrens/teenagers lives have not changed that much over the years.

When you listen to the news media you would think that people have changed a lot. Youth is something to fear, as they have guns, knives, hudded tops and lots of other scary things that make them different to past generations.

I personally don’t see any difference now to my teenage years, and the teenage years I read in this diary from the 1940’s. Kids are kids, they haven’t changed, its us that have changed, its us that have alienated youth. Its not totally our fault though its the news media sensationalising single events and reporting them over and over every 10 to 15 minutes and making you believe its always happening.

My solution is easy, let kids be kids, ignore the news media and have a great life, and enjoyable life and don’t listen to the idiots who think this is happening to them when it hasn’t. I’m tired of hearing people saying this or that person got mugged or burgled, never giving a name or any real evidence. Thats easy to do, its also most likely a lie. I’m 41, never been mugged, and I can tell you I have been in some bad areas, never been burgled, and I’ve lived in places worse than those on the news.

It happens to other, very rarely, so live your life in peace and don’t worry about it.

Tags: Anne Frank, Huddies, kids, news media, thugs, youth

This week has seen a few articles and comments from game industry people about how the rental and used games market is reducing their sales. I cannot see how that is possible. Do they not realise that most people who rent a game usually buy it if its a good game. I know I do that. Then there is the used game market. Not everyone is rich enough to pay £40 for a game, and as so many come out in a short period of a time during the year, usually the weeks from september until christmas.

Most used games are there because someone exchanged the game at the store and used the cash to buy another game, Duh! So basically they get the cash back anyway. So stop whining and make some good games for us to play, you make millions from sales and excusive deals from the console makers.

Oh and the first console game I play that requires me to register a key or pay extra for the end boss will mean the end of the console market FULL STOP, thats the stupidest idea ever.

Tags: game rental, used games, whining industry

Over the years I’ve bought a ton of PC games, but I realised recently that I hardly ever finish any of them A few such as Halflife, Halflife 2 and all its addons yes. Stronghold etc, so I decided it was a good idea to install them and try to do so. Its also a very good idea in the current economic climate, as I won’t be spending my hard earned cash on all the latest titles.

On the console its a different issue, I have completed almost all the games I play. Is this because console games are easier or that its I just get on better with a controller than a keyboard/mouse combo. Who knows?

One of two of the games I’ve tried so far, have been crap. I remembered after playing for a while that they are not worth the cash I originally paid for them. I also realised I bought a ton of RTS/strategy type games on the PC, something I still think the PC does better than a console.

Also this week I played the demo for Left4dead. It was excellent, not sure if I’ll buy it yet as I said above, but the demo is a download on the xbox360 or PC that you should try to get, partitularly if you are a horror film fan.

I have a link to a service I recently found our about. Its called Good Old Games. They sell old PC games that have been tested to work on XP and Vista. Such titles as Fallout, Fallout 2, MDK, Battlechess etc. All at reasonable non DRM prices, and even better they accept paypal too.

If your a PC user and you’ve been living in a cave for the last few years then you should be sure to check out Valves Steam client. They have a great store full of the latest games, Demo’s etc. They also accept paypal, and they have offers and exclusives on games etc. They recently also added third party mod downloads for Halflife 2 source engine. The client can be swapped to a different PC and all purchased games can be downloaded as many times as you like.

Tags: consoles, fallout, halflife, pc games, steam, stronghold, valve, xbox 360