Quintumply

I have a headache.

It makes my head hurt.

It also makes playing Bloggle very difficult, because the words get stuck in the metaphorical (or perhaps, rather worringly, literal) gloop that my brain is currently at the mercy of.  Deary me.

I would take some paracetamol or other pain killing device, but unfortunately my throat is too narrow to allow such large objects through.  The good news is that I need never fear of choking.  Yes, I’d rather have a headache than be dead, it must be said.  Dr. Seuss has gotten loose, and plucked a tasty-looking goose.

But why do I have this headhurt?  I must question it.  I am not dehydrated.  Indeed, my fluid levels seem to be ample at the moment.  This leaves me with one other possibility.

The music and crowd-loud at work today.  Goodness me, it was busy today.  Busy like no-one’s business, you’d be right in saying.  A vicious cycle took place whereby the music in the shop would be turned up if you couldn’t hear it properly, but as the day went on, the shopulation (a clever mix of the words ‘shop’ and ‘population’, I’m sure you’ll agree) increased beyond comfort, and so the music was turned up to match.  It wouldn’t be so bad if modern music was worth getting a headache over.  Yeah, that’s right, Lady Roux and Florence and the Gaga, I’m not buying your albums.  Partly because I don’t know which artist is which, but mostly because I couldn’t care less for your electropop.

And if I could, then I would, believe you me.

The quality of the customers wasn’t worth nominating for the Mercury prize, either.  Far from pleasant chatter and chortling, the noise was a hazy fizz of shouting, cackling and crying, mingled with shouts of “next please” and “can I help?”.  The only truly pleasant thing I heard at work today was one of the new Saturday girls, whose demeanour and tones are both refreshingly polite and humble.  She’s almost old fashioned in her phrasing.  For example, she said to me for small favours and pointing things out, “Oh my goodness” and “thank you ever so much”.  The norm is a brief “cheers” and off they pop.  Not the Saturday girl, oh no.  She was like a Soother inexplicably mixed in with a rack of Clubland compilations and spikes.

Headache inducing spikes.

The headpound is still upon my cranium, but it’s fading like a film transition, so I’m hoping to be free of pain within the next couple of hours.   Slowing the process down is that the X Factor is currently weeping and meowing its way into my ears, like a saddened cat.  I’m also going to make it worse for myself later by playing the Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta which, as you may or may not know, involves more than your fair share of gunfire and fantastic orchestral pieces.

To depart from the subject of brain pain, I can’t decide if I like the new advert for Rocky chocolate bars or not.  ”ROCKY TASTES ACE WITH ELBOW SPACE.”  What if I like eating my Rocky in an enclosed area, where there is not elbow space to speak of?  I suppose the advantage of having a flawed advert is that you can make the next one better, and while this simple logic doesn’t solve any problems at all, it does highlight the problem with producing a fantastic debut advert.  No one will want to buy your product if the second advertising campaign is worse than the first one.  This could just be me, however.

Is this blog post boring you?  Well, whether it is or isn’t, I’m closing the door, now.  Oh, and locking it as well.  Can’t have you pesky internet types getting in and wrecking the place while I’m asleep.

Run along now, little ones.

Unless you’re big ones.  Oh, just run.  RUN.  I’m sending the dogs after you.  Don’t turn around, they hate that.  Their award-winning speed is fueled by hatred.

Hello again.  Jeremy’s party went swimmingly, if you wanted to know.  Which I assume you do, because from what you read, it was shaping up to be a corker.

He impressed several lady types with his mastery of the art of hanging pictures up, and with his dab-handery at the keyboard.  He picked up six numbers, but no names.  He shall be having a thrilling game of 20 Questions on the phone over the next few days.

Welcome once more to my now glistening blog, hopefully now to be better maintained than the only camel in the desert.  Does that make any sense?  Where are your trousers?  Does anyone know who that is in the background of that pic of me wearing the Shrek mask?

I am here to report, mostly, that the Beatles: Rock Band is joyous and spiffing.  When compared to other band specific games, such as Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, it simply glistens with delight and craftsmanship.  The opening cinematic is one of the best I’ve seen in recent times; it is so brilliantly stylised and completely typical of the Beatles ways.  It takes you on a journey through their career even before you’ve strummed, sang or thwacked something.  Simply marvelous.

Next on the agenda that only I can see (although, saying that, I can’t see it either.  I can see it in my mind.  It’s written on lined paper from a small notepad, and some of the writing is indecipherable) is drumming.  Drummles.  Dribble.  Boom boom tish.  Just Rock Band drumming, not proper drumming.  Who do you think I am, a famous drummer that isn’t Ringo?

I thought that getting the drum set for Beatles Rock Band would be the best time to try my hand at hitting things rhythmically, because Ringo’s drum beats are simple, but also functional.  They do the job.  Good for starting out on the drums, as there’s nothing overly complex to bend your forehead around.  As a result, I’m currently at the stage of Hard difficulty on the easier songs, such as Yellow Submarine and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.  I can do Medium on all songs now, but I’d like to be as good at the drums as I am the guitar, which is Hard/Expert on all songs.  Thankfully, I have a week off work, and so I shall have plenty of time to practice.

You are now looking at the words I have typed.  This is applicable to the entire blog post.  Feel free to go back and read it again, having gained this knowledge.

Didn’t think you would.  You naïve little bag of poo.  Yay, I have the little double dots for above the i in naïve, because I am special and you are a sack of muck.

I don’t really mean it when I say you’re a satchel of excrement.  Thesaurus.  The dinosaur which helps writers come up with different words to better express what they are trying to convey.  Only thing is with them, though, is that they look over your shoulder all the time, and they breathe on your papers and spill your cups of tea and stuff.  Bloody things.  Glad they’re extinct, or I’d have to kill them all.  Luckily, their usefulness does not dwindle when they’re six feet under.

CHURN UP MY BUTTER AND CALL ME A YOGHURT, LOOK AT ALL THESE DAIRY WORDS.

Also, pull my trousers up and call me the king of the beavers, it’s gotten rather dusty here. Back in a second, internet, I’m just going to get my dustpan and brush.

[INTERLUDE]

Jeremy sighed a sigh of gods, and flomped down into his beanbag. Finally, after years of painstaking research and problematic interludes, the picture frame hung magnificently above the fireplace. A cup of tea and an hour of Spaced was not enough to celebrate his life’s work; Jeremy was thinking big. A party. Yes, he thought, this deserves the greatest house party in the history of mankind. A party so awesomely outrageous that it would surely disturb his hateful neighbours, the Kruftons. An evil chuckle breezed through the flat. Tonight, Jeremy thought, shall be a night of revenge. And with that, he reached for the-

[/INTERLUDE]

Chucking it down outside. Why did I go outside to get a dustpan and brush, you ask? Well, that’s where I keep it. Don’t give me that look, or any look that makes me feel stupid and alien. I have my methods, you have yours. Agree to disagree?  Lovely.

Deary me, I’ve really let this place get out of hand. The weeds are all up the sides, and the spiders are neglecting their cobwebs. They’ve given up, sick of their current abode and wishing for the place to be tidy once more.  Best get to it.  I’m not normally one for manual labour, and I shall continue this trend, as this is merely a fictitious illusion depicting the blog as my decrepit living space.  Don’t let my smoke and mirrors fool you.  Although saying that, if I were to live on my own, this would probably be the state it’d get in.  Golly.

So, Cillit Bang or Flash?  I’m thinking Cillit Bang, considering my wallpaper made entirely of copper coins.  They’re all crusty and brown.  They should be shiny.  Shiny like a the leg joint of a teen awaiting their exam results. Yes, Cillit Bang shall do nicely.  Crimeny, I have no cloth, or anything to apply the strange, foamy liquid to the scummy surfaces. Snarl. Back in a tick.

[INTERLUDE]

-phonebook. All of his friends and all of their friends were invited. Food? Pizza. Who doesn’t like pizza? Entertainment? Singstar and Guitar Hero. No more needs to be said. Booze? Jeremy peered into the fridge. Nothing but a can of Strongbow, a cider he doesn’t even like. NEED MOAR BEER, Jeremy thought. Music? iPod. This shall be fantastic.

The phone calls were made and the flat was prepared, albeit with an air of worry, as Jeremy wanted to impress his guests, most of whom he didn’t know.  With everything prepared, Jeremy sat and watched the clock, counting the hours until eight o’clock. Tick, and indeed, tock, so did the clock go.

[/INTERLUDE]

Crimeny, this isn’t looking good. There are no cloths to speak of in my inventory. I can’t do cleaning. Cleaning is for cleaners. I never wanted this. Huff and sigh. Oh shut UP Boris, I’m working on it. Sorry, the chief spider was having a bit of a moan. Sooner or later, this blog shall shimmer again, and I know just the man for the job. The cleaner from Black Books. Unfortunately, he is but a fictional character. I shall have to hire a boring, normal cleaner. How very dull.

I would just like to take a moment to congratulate you all for reading this.

Congratulations.

Party poppers.

Now, usually when I type a new post for my blog, I have some idea of what I want to do beforehand.  Not in this case.  Or in this backpack, or this glove box.  For you see, I currently have absolutely no inspiration and am winging it like the pigeon I am.  Let’s see what happens.  Are you excited?  Personally, I’ve never been more excited in my life, though whether this is a lie or not is undetermined, for I cannot remember every time I’ve been excited in my life ever.  That’d be impressive, and I am, generally speaking, an unimpressive person.

Well, hello again.  Welcome to the paragraph under the one above.  We have macadamia nuts and baskets of cherries.  They are a complimentary supplement to your experience here today.  On your left is a lavatory, if needs be, and on your right is the conservatory.  Now, if you will follow me, I will take you there.  Fear not, for I shall guide your feet.

The percentage of people likely to choose Coca Cola over Pepsi is 81%.  This statistic has been made up, although I like to think it is fairly accurate.  To oppose this, blind taste tests have proven that more people prefer the taste of Pepsi.  Strangely, the same people who took this test were asked if they preferred Coca Cola or Pepsi, and the result matched that of the above statistic.  The British public is a bizarre quantity, there’s no denying.

But what does this have to do with conservatories, you ask me, a look of sheer puzzlement spread unnervingly smoothly across your collective face?  The answer to this question can be found on page sixty two of your text books.  I urge you to read it in your own time, for the answer is simply exhausting to read aloud.  A word of caution; when you do read it, please have some green tea at the ready, for it eases the pain.  How and why does it do so, you ask, a curious look not indifferent to the puzzled look you displayed earlier beaming from your cheeks?  Page eighty five, my dears.  Bring a flask.

A fisherman once asked of me, “Quintumply, catch a fish”.  I was unsure of how to respond.  My instinctive reply would have been something like, “Good sir, surely the act of catching a fish is an area in which you excel and, indeed, enjoy enough to repeatedly repeat on a daily basis as part of your job description?” but I was certain that he would take that kind of questioning in the wrong way.  I felt this way due to the fishing line wrapped tightly around my neck, and thought it to be inappropriate to challenge him in such a way.  Instead, I simply said, “Ok,” and caught a small mackerel.  This is the end of this particular unexplained and disjointed scenario.

Can you believe that this is a completely spontaneous blog post, as opposed to an almost completely spontaneous blog post?  I can.  I base my beliefs on facts, and the fact is that I am typing this with no prior intention or knowledge of this happening.  Perhaps it is time for me to stop.  The lights have gone red, after all.

WordPress has just gotten in contact with me, and they are appalled at my lack of organisation.  They wish for me to commence stopping this post before it becomes an immovable stain on the XXL sized t-shirt of blogging.

Goodbye.

“Charles was not at all pleased with his tractor.  Its trombone handle had chipmunked the custard sprockets.  This would’ve normally unicycled the bean sprouts into the forward milk cartons, but obviously this wasn’t the river.

Whatever Charles tried, the yolk fork did nothing to fetter the scoops, and in some tanks made it worse.  He was determined to lollipop the stirrup, though, and so kept banging the horse for several moon jackets.

Six jugs later, and with more than eight helicopters consumed, Charles gave up on the whole cave and dusted his wagon in frustration.  His cracker, Madeline, didn’t flute anything, either.  She spent the entire time creasing all of the spears in their kitchen, which only strangled Charles further.  Lungs had gathered under the china plates long before any cream calmed down.

Onions and handbags went by and Charles still wouldn’t trout to Madeline.  This was the biggest pillow they’d ever smothered in fifteen swans.  Charles wanted to cloud the whole train and just forget about the flag, but Madeline was pillaging none of it.

Poor Charles.”

Wow, writing in a similar style to that in the Rowntree’s Randoms adverts is surprisingly difficult.  Well, back to the drawing board.

Actually, I don’t have a drawing board, so a more accurate motion would be to go back to the new post page.  Yes, I could just delete this post and write a new one in its place, and no, I’m not going to.  It took a small amount of effort to write that, and with me, any effort I spend out on things I don’t need is a stupid idea.  I should keep my energy for work and dancing enthusiastically.

Feet.

THOSE CRIMINALS.

Yes, it’s true, a couple of teens on hallucinogens broke into my house (the one with bright green paint and sporting racing stripes) and stole my keyboard, thus rendering my blog-writing skills useless.  I’m 89% sure that the break from blogging will have affected my performance, in a negative way.  I 100% hope not, however.

‘Wait a second, Quintumply,’ Says the collective you, ‘if your keyboard was stolen, how are you writing this blog post?  EXPLAIN YOURSELF.’

It’s quite simple.

I bought another one.

Hello and hi, I’m back, and it still smells wonderful in here.  Almost as nice as it smells in my red Nissan Micra.  It has an air freshener in it.  Thinking about it, air freshener is a bit of a con name for the device.  It does not freshen the air, it simply masks it with a stronger, yet more pleasant, scent of something floral.  I shall inform my superiors.  Glade shall fall!

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.  Having said that, I don’t really have much to talk about at the moment, apart from Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction and The Orange Box.  I bought these two gems a number of hours ago (roughly 72 if you want a more specific specification) and have been enjoying their offerings.

Let us begin, then, with Ratchet and Clank.  It is a game.  Ratchet is the name of Ratchet, the Lombax, and Clank is his robot-companion.  It combines the genres of shooter and platformer with exquisite results.  The bright colours and extremely fluid animation bring Pixar or Dreamworks to the forefront of my headbox, and the game is equally as imaginative and fun as one of their films.  Only more fun, really, because it’s a game, and games are more fun than films.

The gameplay is brilliantly devised, with an effective and addictive weapons upgrade system, among other chips.  As you use a weapon, it builds up xp, and eventually upgrades itself.  Tasty.  But you can also manually upgrade the weapons at handy kiosks.  Very tasty.  Probably the tastiest thing is the weaponry itself, which has a wide array of swivery.  The Groovitron, for example, is a grenade-like device that makes all enemies within range dance uncontrollably.  Genius.  The Plasma Beasts are gloopy creatures you fire at enemies, who go ‘RAWR’ and inflict severe damage.  In fact, there are too many to go through, and all of them deserve a mention, so I won’t bother.  Rest assured, however, that the guns are fantastic, and you’ll want to use them in every game you ever play.

Including Modern Warfare 2.

The Orange Box is a menagerie of shooters, but not only shooters, good shooters.  Half Life 2 (including Episodes 1 and 2), Portal and Team Fortress 2 are all present and accounted for, and all are just spiffing.  Half Life 2 is, of course, a PC classic, so revisiting this golden oldie for no other reason than to reminisce makes this worth the purchase.  Portal is a short, but very sweet, little shooter/puzzler in which you fire, oh yes, portals at walls and ceilings and floors in order to progress.  So you fire one at a wall in front of you, and one onto the back wall of a high platform you need to get to.  Walk into the portal and you walk straight out of the other.  Yay, science is fun.

There are buttons to hold down, firey balls of doom to re-route and robots with laser sights and automatic weaponry to avoid, and it certainly gets the cogs working.  The difficulty level is judged very well and, though you may get stuck a few times, the experience is certainly worth the minor frustrations.  Portal is an absolute diamond and needs to be played, if you haven’t already.  Worth buying the Orange Box for.

Team Fortress 2 is the online segment of the medley.  Seemingly inspired by old fashioned cartoons like the Looney Tunes, the art style is to die for and is truly beautiful.  The gameplay is exactly the same as HL2, only more online-ish.  Don’t expect lagless games, because there’s lag.  The game is strictly class based and pits two teams – red and blue – against each other in capture the intelligence briefcase and territory type games.  Needless to say it is lots of fun and quickly becomes addictive.  For those among you who enjoy getting sucked into online shooters, this is another one to get sucked into.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.  Worth purchasing the Orange Box for.

Well yes, I am fully aware that both of these games are old news, and that I am far behind the times, but I do not care, for I am happy.  And so are you.  I bet you are.  If you aren’t, then cheer up.

Miserable lot.

‘Well, fine then!’  Roared Mr. Frankland, in a state of angry give-upperance, ‘I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone!  In fact, you can keep this godforsaken trifle.  Nobody eats trifle these days, anyway!’

And it was with this sentence uttered that the miffed gentleman thrust the layered dessert into and onto Christie’s alarmingly small face.  In return, the now quite messy woman offered a choked and horrified yelp as a rebuttal.  This did not have the desired effect, however, and Mr. Frankland walked, unphased and still mad as a badger, in the direction that led him away from Christie’s house.

Panting from the shock and wondering what on Earth had provoked such a reaction to her kindly trifle-shaped gift, Christie fell back into her least favourite armchair and wiped the custard from her eyelids.  Once her vision and sense of direction were back to the required level of quality for normal human behaviour, she realised her mistake of sitting in her least favourite chair, and moved to her favourite.  It was chocolate brown, and had a mayonnaise-related stain on the back cushion.

Mr. Frankland’s walk home was short, as he stopped walking when he got inside his car.  The drive home would be much longer, both in terms of distance and of time.  So much so, in fact, that the Sun would rise as he neared his destination, and it was roughly half past one in the morning.  His watch was not at all visible in the dark, and he did not think to switch his car’s internal light on to check properly, nor did he much care.  The words of Christie were still circling his grey matter at a speed and ferocity normally associated with Cheetahs, or sports cars.  ’NnnneeeeeeeeeeeeOOOOOOoowwwwwwwwwww,’ She had said, repeatedly, over dinner.  This, in addition to other engine sound effects – such as ‘VROOOM!’ and the incomprehensible sound that replicates tyre-screeching – had gotten on Mr. Frankland’s nerves, and his tendons too.  There was never a moment in history that he was known for his peaceful demeanor, and took Christie’s peculiar behaviour to be an insult to his sex drive.

‘Bah,’ Huffed Frankland, ‘Trifle.  Trifle indeed.  Hmph.  Pssh.  Phuff.’  Similar grunts and sighs sprouted from his tongue-box for many an hour during his journey home.  He suddenly stopped at approximately six minutes to five and turned the radio on.  It spaketh, ‘…just four crates left in their outhouse.  Thus ends our news broadcast. I’ve been, and continue to be, Judy Cachemeer.  Back to you, Greg…. Thank you Judy, spiffing news as always.  Now, on to the main event of the morning, the fourteenth cro-’

But Greg was cut short.  Mr. Frankland turned off the radio because it was distracting him from his irritated grunts and huffles.  And grunt and huffle he did, all the way home, into the sunrise.

If and when you need a cake, be it for a wedding, birthday or similar celebratory event, do you make one or buy one?  Assemble the necessary ingredients and create a stunning masterpiece, or buy a pre-made effort from one of the big name supermarkets?

The reason I ask is because William, a pre-made cake in Sainsbury’s, asked me to ask you.  You see, he wanted to know what us humans prefer in a cake, and to let us all know of the struggle that cakes face every day.  According to William, there are over six cakes baked worldwide every year, and while that is a huge understatement, is still true.  William makes sense.  William is a truly remarkable cake, and wants his time to shine.

This is William, the optimistic cake.

_

Hello, my name is William!  Some people call me Victoria, but they’re just making terrible, obvious jokes related to cake names.  I call these people Nicks, because Nick is the name of a guy who makes makes terrible, obvious jokes.

I’m a birthday cake, for a ten-year-old.  I was baked a week ago, and am feeling the age spread over my icing, like jam on a sandwich.  But I don’t let old age get me down; with age comes wisdom, and a pension!  Although cakes don’t really have much use for a pension…  Oh well, I’m sure it’ll all work itself out when the time comes, in a day or two.

I’ve been sat on the shelf with all the other cakes in Sainsbury’s since my bakeday, just waiting for that eager ten-year-old boy or girl to look up at me and say, “Can I have that one, oh please?  Look, it’s got balloons on and everything!”  I’m quite proud of my balloons.

As you can imagine, being a cake is quite a lonely life.  You have no parents or siblings and can’t make friends, because you have no mouth to speak with.  That’s why a lot of cakes suffer from depression, especially the cakes near the back, and often go stale prior to their marked use by date.  But not me!  I’ve always thought, life’s pretty dull already, what’s the point in adding to it by just giving up as soon as you’re out of the oven?  I was at the back early on, but over hours and hours and days and days, I’ve gradually been brought forward as humans have purchased other cakes, who I like to think of as friends, but aren’t really.

The other thing about cakes is that, because of the lack of talking, we often find ourselves thinking a lot.  We think about all sorts of things, but in the last few hours I’ve been thinking mainly about home made cakes.  What are they like?  Do they have boxes?  Do they taste different?  How long do they last before they go stale?  These questions have been buzzing around my top layer and I can’t stop thinking about them, I’m so curious.  Perhaps home made cakes can talk..?

The only way I’ll know is if I am sold to the right family, one that makes cakes.  In particular, one that makes a cake while I’m in the kitchen, which would be silly really because they’ll already have a cake!

Wha-  …oh, I’m at the very front now!  It shouldn’t be too much longer before I’m sold!  Hopefully, seeing as it’s nearing closing time, there’ll be a panicking family in desperate need of a ten-year-old’s birthday cake.  I’ve seen it happen a few times before.

Well, I think you’re going to have to leave now, it’s nearly closing time.  Unless you need me for someone’s birthday party?  ..Ok, no problem!  Oh, on the way out, if you see any families with small children, could you point me out?  Thanks a bundle!  Won’t see you again, but it was lovely meeting you!  Take care!

Morning.  Afternoon.  Evening.  Night.  What do all of these have in common?  Well, they’re all parts of the day, and rest assured that you are in at least one of them at this very moment.  Wishing someone a good morning, evening or what have you via a blog is rather difficult, as the reader might not be in the correct part of the day for the greeting to make sense.  To avoid this, I am wishing you all four parts of the day at once.  You should feel honoured, like an olympic gold medalist, and happy, like a backpack.

Backpacks are happy.  Yes they are.

So am I.  I am happy today, for things happened that made me feel such a feeling.  I was at work today; I work at HMV, which is, for the uninitiated, an entertainment shop that focuses on music, films and games and the bits and bobs that these entail, such as iPods, consoles and DVD players.  HMV stands for His Master’s Voice, which is also the name of a famous painting.  The painting is of a dog with its ears pricked up, listening to an old record player, thinking that the voice on the record was that of its owner.  The dog has an inquisitive and curious look on its face.  This image is also HMV’s logo, with the dog nicknamed Nipper.  HMV started off as a small music record shop and has since expanded and evolved to become one of the most successful shops in the business, running for well over a century.

WAKE UP, YOU FOOL.  NIPPER WILL BITE YOUR SLEEPY FACE OFF.

Ahem.  Please excuse my slight tangent, and allow me to carry on with my anecdote.

Thank you.

Today at HMV, we were celebrating the beginning of our summer sale by having a themed dress down day.  The theme was, rather imaginatively, summer.   This allowed for all sorts of whoozles and colourful treats.  I went into work in a green and orange striped shirt, unbuttoned to add an air of casual warmth, and a white t-shirt with an orange and black image of an exploded Game Boy, showing all the parts that make it up and all the magical gaming wonder that is locked away inside, in its feather box.  It is quite the t-shirt.  I also wore jeans and Converse, and placed a pair of sunglasses on my head, rather like a cooler and more manly hairband.  Or something.

It was a sight for colour-starved eyes going into work this morning; everyone was all jolly and bouncy.  Especially the lady-types.  There were pinks and reds and greens and blues and oh, oh my, was it magical.  I felt like I was working in a HMV shop inside a rainbow.

Usually when we have promotional-type days of wondercrust, we set up a TV and Wii console on the shop floor so that customers may try out a fancy gamelicious treat.  In today’s case, that game was EA Grand Slam Tennis, a game which supports Wii Motion Plus, the new Wii Remote-enhancing add-on that basically makes the Wii Remote do what it’s supposed to do a little bit better.  They still haven’t fixed the problem of the infrared sensor bar which, if walked in front of, disrupts the infrared beam between the Remote and the bar, which for a console whose “USP” (unique selling point) is motion sensing controls, is rather poor.  Rather poor indeed.

Oh, there go my tangent stems once again, beating a tune on my cortex.

It was a joy to see joyous customers joyously flinging their arms around like drunk sign posts with elbows.  Even one of the Saturday guys had a quick swing-a-ling.  They lost, 0-40.  GRAND SLAM TENNIS, SHE’S A HARSH MISTRESS.

Further adding chuckles and japes to the goings on was the fact that my decorative sunglasses, rather like a star on top of a summery Christmas tree, kept falling down onto my nose.  This made some customers giggle and chortle as they were buying their Michael Jackson album and their copy of Bolt with free plush toy of Rhino, the hamster.

The day was good, and good was the day.  The only thing preventing the day from earning a perfect score is the fact that my Converse shoesies made my feet hurt, rather a lot, despite the fact that they are old and comfy.  Though, when I came home and fed my face, I chilled out, like a fridge in the Maldives.  Beautiful.  I have a cup of tea right now.  The current amount of tea left in the mug is approximately 46% full.

Tea, my friends, is the drink of kings.  That is why kings always have nasty, yellow teeth.

Oh, hello again.  How are you today?  Had any raspberries recently?  I haven’t.

So, I’m posting a new post.  What’s this all about, you’re thinking.  Or, more likely, you’re thinking of clicking the little ‘x’ of doom and going back to your beloved social networking site and/or instant messaging service.  But I urge you to not, for I am about to make considerably more sense.

This is a lie.

But you still shouldn’t leave.

To give you reason to stay, I offer you my humble opinion on a video game I recently acquired from a shop.  It is entitled Rock Band, and has a subtitle.  That subtitle is Unplugged.  Together, the title and subtitle make Rock Band: Unplugged, a new, PSP exclusive instalment in EA’s much praised rhythm-action/party game franchise.  The game is the first of several big name games coming to PSP this year (and possibly next, forgive my lack of research, I’m winging this review) in an attempt to reinvigorate the platform and get more developers interested in making games for it.

For some time, the PSP has been seen as the failing current-gen console, handheld and home consoles included, with many developers supporting every other platform except Sony’s pocket-sized PlayStation (well, at least the PSP Go! will be pocket sized anyway) simply because it wasn’t performing at the desired level, in terms of MONEHS.  The truth hurts, but the truth is also correct, and true.  However, Sony is not giving up on the PSP, and with the help of big name franchises and big name developers, such as EA, Ubisoft, Media Molecule and Evolution Studios, is hoping to throw the struggling platform back into the fray, giving it fresh boxing gloves and giving it motivational words to remember during the fight.

So, we have Rock Band Unplugged.  HOW DOES ROCK BAND WORK ON THE PSP, YOU CAN’T HAVE INSTRUMENT CONTROLLERS ON A PSP, I hear you cry into your cups of tea.  Well, Harmonix have worked around that.  You see, using a mini guitar controller or a mini drum kit would be unwieldy and difficult, and would probably result in even greater RSI than with full-sized peripherals.  Equally, using the regular Rock Band controllers is out of the question because, well, where would they plug in?  The only way to sort that out would be to create some sort of adapter, but that will just waste time and money, two resources no one has much of these days.  Plus you’d have to hold the PSP somehow whilst strumming and it’d just be a mess.

So what have they done?  Well, Harmonix has gone back to its roots, employing the gameplay mechanic from their earlier games Amplitude and Frequency, whereby you use buttons on the controller to play the sound nuggets in time with the music.  Oh, and you also play all parts of the song at once.  Bass, drums, vocals and guitar.  It sounds difficult and hectic, but it’s genuinely intuitive and very simple.

The basic format of playing a song in Unplugged is this: it starts you off on one of the tracks and you play along, hitting the red, yellow, green and blue notes as they come down the screen using the left, up, triangle and circle buttons by default, although you can change them if you feel it necessary.  Once you complete a phrase (a short segment of that instrument’s part of the song) you need to switch to another instrument, and you flick between them using the L and R shoulder buttons.  You then play the phrase on that instrument, and carry on like that until the song is over.  If you do badly at one particular instrument, it fails.  Fail three times and you lose the song.  The rest is tried and tested Rock Band stuff; you collect energy and then unleash it for a double-the-points boost and you earn a rating out of five stars, with success percentages for each instrument shown after the song is complete.  It is wonderfully addictive and never frustrating.

You create a band and play through a world tour, earning things like roadies, tour buses and planes, and employing people for cash and fan boosts.  Earning cash allows you to buy new instruments and clothing for your band, and earning fans gets you into more gigs.  Your rating stars are collected too, and are necessary for certain gigs and sets.  It isn’t long before you start unlocking stuff however, and the difficulty curve is expertly balanced.  It’s like they took a pencil, balanced it on the tip of a thumb tack, and replicated the balance to the game’s difficulty.  It’s grand.

The track list is a mish-mash of the songs available in previous Rock Band games, with a few exclusive tracks to Unplugged.  It’s got something for everyone, from Weezer to The Who to Queens of the Stone Age to The Jackson Five.  There are hardly any duds to make a fool of, and that is a rather good thing in a game focused on the music.

The last game I bought for my PSP was Loco Roco 2, and I hadn’t played on my PSP since.  Rock Band Unplugged has given me hope for its future, and essentially, got me playing my PSP again.  It really is a very good little machine and deserves games of Unplugged’s quality to be released more frequently.  It seems that, overall and thus far, that Sony’s in-house developers are the only ones to really show what is possible on the platform, but EA has shown that big franchises can work, and wonderfully so.  If you have a PSP and even a passing interest in Rock Band or Guitar Hero, buy this game.  It is fabuloso.

Quintumply gives it 9 toasters out of 10.  You can never have too much toast.