Liesure Gems

My man cave is very small, It's just a retro gaming bar in my sitting room. I was playing on my retro mini flashback sega mega drive console and noticed that it has quite a few RPG games on there. As a much older man, I'm more interested in RPG computer games. I saw a game on there called 'Light Crusader', it is very interesting. I am at the beginning stage where you have to work out what is going on and solve a puzzle to get to the next stage. It comes across as a puzzle based game. I hope to play through all the RPG type games on there. I thought I would just want to play sonic the hedgehog, the side scrolling platformer but I wasn't interested, I was drawn to the slower paced RPG type games. I'm a different person to '90s Alan, everything about me has changed even in liesure. 

I think that is the way life should be, you work very hard during the day, then from 18:00 till 20:00 you play computer games. Life is very short, do the things you like to do because when you die it is game over. The only reason we live in this world is because of the creator that made it so, without God life is meaningless it is just a slow death. 

Mancave Evercade

My Man-cave is about ⅕ of its intended size at the moment. It is just a retro gaming bar. A bar where you can sit down and play old side scrolling computer games and have a nice cup of coffee or a soft drink. 

People come to my home and say "Alan, is that a Bar in your sitting room". I tell them sort of. I explain that it is the beginning of my man-cave, a room for liesure where men come together and play computer games and table sports . I call it the 'Happy Zone'. The retro gaming bar will take you back to the '90s, unless you were an egg in the '90s; then it will take you to the '90s for the first time.

I was wondering if the evercade should be added to my retro gaming bar, I was looking at all the cartridges that come with it, evercade cartridges. 

They're very nice but they aren't enough to convince me to buy the system just yet. Perhaps if they put the original Doom on there and Commander keen 1,2,3,4,5,6. That would be very nice. 

Window Shopping

I was window shopping on the internet the other day. In Britain, window shopping means to look at products without the intent of buying them straight away. 

I was looking at the Evercade and all the cartridges that comes with it. The Evercade is a retro style games console that takes cartridges with fully licensed games on it. 

The Evercade web site is https://evercade.co.uk/. 

It don't like the games selections they have enough to buy the system right now. If they made a cartridge with ID software's '90s hits, I would consider buying it. 

I was thinking of Commander Keen 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 plus Doom and Wolfenstein. If they had a cartridge with those games on it, I wouldn't mind buying the system along with the C64 cartridge. Plus I would pick a space shooter selection. 

Stern Day

Jacob, my Son. 

We recently learned that the police force in the UK have some personnel that are unlawful. They arrested a cop that was committing sex offences. I was wondering if the profession attracts bad people or they just have some bad people amoungst them just like every profession. We had a radio presenter that was raping children, we had a doctor that was murdering patients for example. I thought it may be the other way around, there are fewer harmful police officers than harmful personnel in other professions. Perhaps it's more rare to find a bad cop than a bad teacher for example. I try not to think about it much; I only think about the issue when it becomes news. 

I like to play computer games on my phone and on our TV. I was looking at the Evercade website the other day and thought they don't have any cartridges that I want. If they produce a cartridge with all the 'commander keen' computer games from the '90s, I would think about buying the system. I also have some computer games I play on my phone. I think girls self-harm themselves more than boys because boys play computer games more. Girls look at other girls on social media and feel like their value is based on their outward appearance, boys just like doing difficult missions on their computer games and don't have time for all that nonsense. That is the one thing most boys have over most girls, their mind set on what they are doing and not on their perceived value. 

Missing my innocence

One of the songs on my main music playlist is 'Deeply Dippy' by 'Right Said Fred'. I play it to remind me how innocent I was in the '90s. I would hear the song on the radio and think it was a sea shanty about a boat. I actually thought they were singing about a boat. You need the mind of a kid to understand how the lyrics fit into a sea shanty. 

'90s-Alan also thought that the police were infallible, that all their staff had very strong moral fabric. I now think differently, I think there are harmful people present in every profession, there are doctors that murder people and police officers that abuse their authority. This way of thinking was reinforced earlier in the week when I learned that constable 'David Carrick' was a rapist and a prolific sex offender. 

Even a few months ago I felt angry because people were filming police officers with their phone because I thought it was rude. It would be like going to shop and filming a shop assistant and putting the video on social media to invite strangers to mock that person, it is very disrespectful. I still think it's very disrespectful to do that. When I see a video of staff being criticized on social media, I flag the video as abuse and complain in the comments. I say that filming a staff to mock them on a public domain very disrespectful and akin to bullying; not always though, sometimes the person is taking the piss. 

Martin Luther King Statue

I learned recently that the city of Boston in the American state of Massachusetts displayed a modern art statue representing Martin Luther King and his struggles. I couldn't quite get my head around the posture of the statue. 

I don't really get abstract modern art. I draw pen sketches in this blog but they show my thoughts the way they really are. They're not excellent but they are clear. 

I went to the Tate modern a few times in the past, I didn't like the art there. I like the large empty space inside the main hall of the building though. 

Half of January

We're already half way through January, It seemed like yesterday that we were counting down the start of 2023. 

I cheered myself up with a happy memory earlier in the week. I was remembering a time when I was waiting to fly to Peru to meet my extended family and arrived in the departure lounge 6 hours early because I was worried about the problems they were having with staff at the airport. I thought if my flight is cancelled, I would have a greater chance of getting another flight that day if I came early. 

I was very bored after 2 hours  and began to regret coming so early but then wandered around and saw they had a wetherspoons pub in the lounge, a proper full functioning wetherspoons pub in the departure lounge of Heathrow airport, I think it was terminal 5. I found a small table with a single seat in the corner of the pub, I ordered my favourite pub meal and refillable coffee. I must have had 3 cups. Before I left the pub, I managed to burn off 1 and a half hours of waiting time. Plus I thought to myself I could come back there if I'm still bored later.  The happiness was sitting quietly on my own and thinking nothing for a while. Just sipping coffee and being lost in the chorus of many languages being spoken all around me. Then I thought I could just sit and read for another hour. I will remember sitting in the wetherspoons in the departure lounge of the airport as a happy memory.  

Chromecast and Samaritans

I went to the top floor of the car park at my local shopping mall because it was crowded below and noticed there was signs on the wall for the Samaritans, I didn't make a connection in my head until I reached the lift; they put the sign there to try and stop people committing suicide. Samaritans is a phone number you can call for free and get counseling for free here in Britain. The number is 116 123. If you call 116 123 in Britain, you can talk to a stranger about your problems. Being a man isn't easy, I stood in the lift and wanted to shed a tear because I knew there was a problem with people jumping off the top floor of the car park and that is why they put the signs there; I restrained my emotions so no one could see. People think men don't have emotions, this is not true, we just restrain ourselves and hide our feelings. Men harm other men that show their emotions so we all restrain ourselves. 

I thought about my little Chromecast stick with Google TV to cheer me up a bit. I like the way it has Bluetooth built into it, I can connect my bluetooth headphones and generic Bluetooth joy pad and play computer games at 1am if I wanted to. I also like the way it uses CEC to override the TV controls, the HDMI cable can send signals to the TV to increase the volume or turn it off. The Chromecast controller can control the TV through the HDMI cable. The CEC feature needs to be switched on for both devices for it to work though. I won't go on though. 

Just think about a time when I work hard and leave time to play computer games on the phone and TV. A nicely balanced life. 

Lisa Presley Dies

I recently learned that Elvis Presley's Daughter passed away because of a heart attack. I feel pity for her friends and Family. I think about death every day because it can't be avoided. One day my luck will run out and my life in this world will end. I'm only one bad cell away from Cancer and one blood clot away from stroke. Every day I'm alive is good luck. 

At the time Lisa Presley Died, I was thinking about Prestige-Alan, an alter ego of me that doesn't exist. A version of me that is famous. He would have nothing useful to say. He would just laugh if someone said something he didn't like about him and turn rumours about him into a joke. The reason I was thinking this way was because Prince Harry released a book about the Royal family, he reminds me of Princes Fergy. If he was concerned about privacy and the press, then why the book and the Netflix series? I don't know. I have nothing personal against prince Harry, or Prince William. 

I think the most important thing in this life is to live a life free of hate and grudges. To be pleasing to the creator. It is more important to be righteous than to be popular. I hope that I avoid being pompous through the remainder off my life. 

One third of January

One third of January passed by, just like that. It goes by too quickly for me. It was filled with lots of thoughts. I wondered if they ever tried to make a car that runs on dry ice. Frozen Carbon Dioxide goes straight from ice to gas when it heats up. I thought that when it turns into a gas, it is still cold and has a lot of room for expansion. You could have a heat exchanger that mixes warm air with dry ice co2 to produce a lot of expansion. At the same time there would be contraction from air mixed and even that could be harnessed. 

Then I was thinking how rivers are full of kinetic energy and they are very long. Some of the water from the river could be syphoned off into aquaducts and used to turn lots of water wheels below the ground close to river banks. Yet we turn to wind all the time, most of the rivers are always flowing but the wind doesn't always blow. I don't get the logic. 

Then I was thinking about if they dropped tinned baked beans near an enemy in war and they made it look like a mistake. The enemy would eat the beans and fart. "Faaaaart" then "bang". Fart Fart, bang bang. Fart location, they would shoot at the farting. Who cares if my thoughts are silly? I don't care. One day there will be no thoughts in my brain, just decay; it would be as if my thoughts never existed. 

I was also thinking about the Chromecast a lot. I was wondering if it can handle a graphically demanding game without slowing down too much. My TV has a frame rate of 50 hertz but the Chromecast was running at 60 hertz, I slowed it down and the image was the same, it was working hard for nothing. 

A few January thoughts

I was thinking about the festive tub chocolates you get during the Christmas period; during January they're reducing the price of the Tubs. Every year the same thing happens. We eat the Caramel and the Fondant filled chocolates first, I think Fondant is cream mixed with fruit syrup; we Brits are always copying the French. Then we eat the solid chocolates, then we look for the hazel nut cream ones. Finally we are left with a tub of Toffee coins and Toffee fingers. The toffee coins and fingers are very hard, they're usually wrapped in a metallic gold coloured wrapper. I can't eat them unless I hold them in my hand for 1 and a half minutes to make it soft. You need patience to enjoy them.

I was wondering if it would be a good idea to put a toffee coin in your oat porridge. It could melt and sweeten the flavour of the food? I don't know, I'll have to wait 11 months to try it. 

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What December 2022 means to me

December 2022 was a mild winter for my part of the world, the temperature would often go from about 3°C at night to about 9°c in the day time. Half of the month was spent watching the knockout stages of the world cup in Qatar; I was amazed by the arrogance of my society. Instead of showing the opening ceremony of the world cup, the BBC was criticizing Qatar. They were making claims of human rights abuses and things like that. It would be like Britain hosting the world cup and other countries sending their journalists to the British museum to point out that we stole hundreds of objects from other nations and didn't give it back instead of talking about the football. I was very disappointed with British journalism. I was also disappointed with people wearing things that promote gay rights to the game because it is illegal to be openly gay in their country, they were showing disrespect for the host nation's laws and customs. I think my nation is very arrogant. 

December was about inflation and war, a theme that dominated the whole year. At one point in the year, fuel was priced at £2 per liter, £60 to fill up my tank. Plus natural gas was 10p per kilowatt-hour, very expensive. We had a very challenging year. 

The other big topic of the month was the takeover of twitter and the inside revelation of the company. Elon revealed that Twitter was abusing its censorship controls. It was censoring people because they didn't like them and covering up scandal about politicians that they supported. They were taking public money that was earmarked for teachers and police staff and using it to pay twitter to silence bad news about democrat leaders; a taste of corruption that was swept under the carpet by the press. 

It is now 2023, I pray and hope for a peaceful world with co-operative kindness to all. A happy 2023? Let's see.