Everything I Learned, I Learned From The Movies

That Time We Did Some Bad Summaries

What The Buzz: #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly

This week's trending topic is something of a mouthful and looks like my own brand of 'hashtags which shouldn't be a hashtag as they are way too long and cumbersome'.

(...Actually, come to think of it, that statement might apply to a lot of things in my life, not just hashtags. )

In any event, this hashtag caught my eye because a) I thought the contributions would be pretty hysterical and b) I took part in something very similar back in the old days when Livejournal was all the rage and communities on said Livejournal were alive and kicking.

This goat scarred many teenagers.

Getting off the subject (as usual), the tweets for this trending topic were amazing and here are some of my favourites:

#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly A jealous cowboy and a self-important astronaut must work together to escape a mass murderer. pic.twitter.com/E8DvgrDvkj

— Helen Kingston (@kingstonwrites) December 17, 2015

kid comes out of the closet #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly pic.twitter.com/XcjJvtzDaD

— Kira Mendenhall (@kira_mendenhall) December 16, 2015

#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly Ice Bucket Challenge gone horribly wrong. pic.twitter.com/U8R8LwXkJ3

— Kat (@KatGoneGamer) December 15, 2015

Girl learns she can get the guy as long as she fundamentally changes all her core values. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly pic.twitter.com/BmpX1yMeHa

— . (@IamJackieMc) December 14, 2015

Him: I love you Her: new phone who dis? #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly pic.twitter.com/o2rTXDxtvk

— Southern Post Grad (@southern_grad) December 14, 2015

American invades foreign land, kills local leadership, struggles to find exit strategy. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly pic.twitter.com/V0GgGUIq9Z

— Round John Virgin (@JAMyerson) December 14, 2015

I love sarcastic little quips like this so here are a few of my recycled ones from Livejournal (RIP).

- "Humans make robots. Robots kill humans. Humans kill robots. Humans kill humans. Robots kill robots. Somewhere along the way everyone forgets who the good guys are."

- "A quirky, English-sounding bloke takes people in his blue box to places that look an awful lot like quarries in Wales."

- "A billionaire playboy on the wrong side of middle age somehow builds a highly powered suit in a cave and then proceeds to annoy the US military by blowing things (and people) up." 

- "Billionaire is running on batteries of his own design and realises that the thing keeping him alive is also killing him. Irony, thy name is Iron Man."

- "Kids that are considered ‘freaks’ go to a special school where they learn about the fashion faux pas that is black, skin tight leather." 

If you fancy a giggle check the hashtag for more brilliant examples :D

&&Fin.

How Did It Get So Late So Soon?

That Time I Was Rubbish At Posting On Time (The First, But I Expect Not The Last)

Dear readers, I do apologise for missing the Monday What The Buzz post.

This week has been crazy.

As per my previous post, I was at Law school over the weekend which in and of itself is normally rather draining but this week was gruelling for a whole new and entirely foul reason.

So when Monday rolled around, the last thing on my mind was posting to the Blog.

And I do apologise as there were plenty of good hashtags to choose from.

But let me run through the rest of the week for comparison:

Tuesday: Off to my parents to cook dinner

Every week (read as: 'most weeks when I remember') I visit my parents and my younger sister and do some 'experimental' cooking by trying out a brand new recipe from the BBC website.

So far it has been quite successful with different menus including a home made curry with raita and onion bhajis or the sticky bbq chicken or even the most recent sausage and bacon rustic hotpot.  As my younger sister is a vegetarian this can sometimes be a bit of a challenge as it requires making two separate meals.  But in general I really enjoy it and it gives me an excuse to go round and visit and not feel like a free-loader.

Or not.  As the case may be.

Wednesday: Out for dinner with a friend

I went out for dinner with a friend in the evening which I have been looking forward to immensely.  Unfortunately, we are both very busy and also have the tendency of cancelling on one another either due to illness or just because we are super busy and life gets in the way.  But she is one of the few people in my life that knows time will be made eventually and that we are both grown ups with busy lives. 

It was a lovely evening and, even though one of our topics of conversation was probably a little unusual, it was great to catch up and be able to talk about things candidly. 

But it meant that I was out for the whole evening and didn't get home until nearly 11. 

Thursday: Mum and Dad's Wedding Anniversary

As it was my Mum and Dad's 32nd (32nd!!) wedding anniversary, my sister and I bought flowers and treated them both to a takeaway for dinner. 

The whole evening was great as I love spending time with ma famille.  And after dinner we played a new board game (new for us at least) - Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Ooooh, the spooks!

My family has a 'thing' about board games and card games.  So we were all looking forward to trying out this new co-operative game.

Or were we...?

The game is cooperative to begin with but then somebody becomes a traitor.  Ooooh.  The intrigue. 

It's a really good game but I think it will be more enjoyable the second time round when we already understand some of the rules as much of the evening consisted of me flicking rapidly through the rule book and getting flustered when I couldn't answer various questions about die rolls and coal chutes. 

(Don't ask.)

Friday: Alex B's last day in the office (aka the last day of term)

Today was a work colleague's (a friend's) last day in the office.  It was a pretty emosh day but it was hard to take anything too seriously as it was also Children in Need and we were all in fancy dress as heroes and villains. 

I was dressed as Bat Girl.

"Yes, I take your personal injury claim very seriously, Mr Bloggs..."

So nothing I said was really going to come across that seriously.

After many larks in the office and pretty much getting no work done (sorry, boss!) we all headed to the pub for a few farewell drinkies.  I was supposed to be out until the wee hours of the morning but, as you can see, I made it home fairly early.  

And therefore had the chance to write this beautiful catch up post for you, dear readers. 

And there you have it; my week in a very brief nutshell. 

Insert clever pun here.

It's been busy but good (in some ways - in others not so much but let us not dwell).  

So I hope you forgive me for not posting the scheduled What The Buzz post this week.  This post is really just one long excuse and I really hate that but I genuinely have been super busy.

Please stay tuned for your regular scheduled programmes and I will endeavour to get my life together by next Monday. 

&&Fin.

PS. I have been watching Twitch a lot recently and one streamer in particular 'IamslowLoris' has been playing Dark Souls and his commentary is actually really funny plus the chat is very friendly.  If you have five minutes and like Dark Souls, I would recommend you check out his streams - 8pm on the weekdays. Peace!

The Worst Thing A Kid Can Say About A Game Is That It's Too Easy

That Time We Discussed Video Games

What The Buzz: Life is Strange

'Life is Strange' is an episodic graphic adventure game developed by DontNod Entertainment and published by Square Enix.

The final episode (#5) is out tomorrow and has been highly anticipated throughout the gaming community.  I have watched several Let's Plays of this game and it is truly beautiful.  The graphics are fantastic and the actual plot of the story is amazingly gripping.  The dialogue is somewhat awkward in places and I don't know which teenagers they based it off but the flow of the game doesn't suffer too much for it.

The game focuses on the main character - Max Caulfield - a photography student at the local college in Arcadia Bay who quickly discovers that she is able to rewind time.  Some strange weather anomalies start occurring and Max foresees a huge tornado ripping through Arcadia Bay.  This together with disappearing girls, a suicidal student and reconnecting with an old friend form the basis of the game.  Max has lots of difficult decisions to make throughout and you normally have a handy 'do-over' button if you decide you don't like the outcome.

But, as Max learns only too well, sometimes you cannot change the course of fate...

The game is full of intrigue and twists enough to keep the player interested but the second episode is a little slow and sometimes the development feels too sluggish as you need to replay certain aspects of the game repeatedly in order to get the information required to progress.  But the graphics are good, the characters are interesting and the voice acting is great (and that is no mean feat given some of the dialogue).  I don't want to spoil too much of the game so I won't go into any more detail about the plot.

This is definitely a game that I would recommend people should play as watching other people can be ridiculously frustrating when you don't agree with their decisions or they miss big clues (Pewdiepie I am looking at you!!) but it runs almost like a film in some places and it really is immersive.

When I have finally moved into my new house and have my gaming PC set up again (sweet baby Jesus I cannot wait!) I will be buying a copy of the game and having a play through of my own - which will be posted on the J Squared YouTube (just fyi).  Hopefully you will tune in for that and no doubt provide lots of advice and criticisms on my poor decision making!

In the meantime, I hope you join me in watching and supporting other gamers playing this amazing game after the final episode is released tomorrow (20th October 2015).

Oh, and also have a #fantasticMonday.

&&Fin.