It’s the first time I remember in the last 5 years I’ve weighed below 18 stone

I’m chuffed to bits with it. I’ve been rather public with this goal and I’m happy how well it is going. It’s also helped me being strong (like yesterday when the Metrolink failed, rather than go to the pub, or even get on the bus, I walked).

I’ve still got a long way to go to 15 stone, here are some goals that I have set up along the way.

• 17 Stone 11 lbs - That’ll be under 250 lbs.
• 17 Stone 6 lbs – That’ll be 244 lbs, which is beneath the weight of TV fatty Homer Simpson
• 17 Stone
• 16 Stone 8 lbs – That’ll be 232 lbs. This was my billed wrestling weight in my one and only match (yeah, I must be the only wrestler who’s billed weight is under my actual weight).
• 16 Stone

But yeah, chuffed to bits so far. First half stone lost. Chuffed!

Anyway I found the video games I made, including the game mentioned above – Wormhole, so I’ve decided to give them away as a free Download.

I usually give them away (they were on my other blog for ages), but for those who missed them, I’m sharing them here .

1. The Wormhole – The game mentioned above, a game that was started out as a bet, but turned out to be pretty good. A mate of mine said that I couldn’t create a game that copied the helicopter game to perfection. So I spent the best part of two days making this: The Wormhole. My mate said that it was better than the original, so I lost this sportsman bet in the greatest travesty in recent history.

Download The Wormhole

2. The Square Game - Loosely based on an old Commodore 64 Game: Sensitive, The Square Game was my most ambitious game I ever made. Took over 6 months to make, and features a Level Editor. Fairly well received (featured on loads of download sites), but I didn’t enjoy playing it up until recently, as by the end of the project, I was sick of it.

Download The Square Game

3. Penalty Prize 2002 - A remake of my first ever game made in QBasic! Updated for the 2002 World Cup (the original was for the 1998). Penalty Prize is back, live and in living colour! 2 players only and featuring the last 16 teams in the World Cup (so all you French and Argentine’s have to make a cup of tea!). 6 players for each team trying to win the shoot out. Incidentally, the first game that I was in talks with for being published, and me receiving money for. Result!

Download Penalty Prize 2002

4. Intruder Alert - After a discussion over at Blitzcoder about certain games, this was the result. The discussion was about games where you play the bad guy (Dungeon Keeper and Wario) spring to mind. This is Pac Man, but instead of playing the hero, you play the ghost, who has to protect his pills from the intruding Pac-Men. First game I made to feature music. Not, fortunately, made by me.

Download Intruder Alert

5. Gridshot - This was a competition entry for “Produce a Vector Game” (lines and internal graphic functions only). This was loosely based on the classic Tempest. Not as good, but still good fun to make.

Download Gridshot

6. Eskew - The Second Entry for the “Produce A Vector Game”. Move a circle around a grid, collecting squares and avoiding blue balls. Was based on a flash game.

Download Eskew

7. Sudoku Blitz - My Sudoku game. Nothing more, nothing less.

Download Sudoku Blitz

8. Lizzie’s Jubilee Manager - I completely forgot I made this! There was a “Stupidest Game” Competition on Blitzcoder, and my game was a Satirical Satirical Commentary on The Golden Jubilee that was happening at the time. Increase Royal Popularity by completing a whistle-stop tour of the UK. It’s crap, but that was the point.

Download Lizzie’s Jubilee Manager

Disclaimer

These games are for Windows PC’s. These games work on my Windows 7 machine. Your milage may vary though. I’m not sure if these games work on Apple Macs.

Some of these games have dismal music (Intruder Alert, I’m looking at you), so you may want to mute your speakers.

I’ve checked (and compiled) these files, so there’s nothing untoward in them. However, if you download these and your computer blows up, you can’t hold me responsible.

A Chance of A Christmas Miracle?

These are most of the games I’ve made, but not all. I made more games that I’ve been unable to find. My Christmas Wish would be to find these games, as they represented a good time for me:-

• Ripcord – No idea why I don’t have this. Was my first ever game I produced and was a parachute simulator. It was featured on remakes.org (now Retro Remakes) and looked like this. Possible file name – ripcord.zip.
• Intruder Alert 2 - A sequel to Intruder Alert that was an entry into the Blitzcoder “8 Bit” Competition. Play a Space Invader and destroy wave after wave of Turrets. It looked like this. Possible file name – ia2.zip
• Blitz Lights - A “Lights Out” Clone. That’s all I know about this I’m afraid.

So if you can think of ways of digging up the files (these were previously hosted on http://mysite.freeserve.co.uk, and then http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk), I’d be extremely greatful!

Merry Christmas Everybody

Rhys

* Copter was based on another game (which name escapes me – Wormhole’s based more on that flash game – linkback if anybody can remember it)

I like the syncing feature with my phone and the offline mode (which is great when listening to music on your phone as you don’t get charged a metric shit load of data) so I set about creating a playlist featuring songs I listen to regularly, which raided all my previously made playlists (including my Epic 90′s Playlist) and the Manual Link Building playlist that we usually listen to in work.

Unfortunately, on test run one, it was tricky to find songs, as instead of being listed A – Z (like it should be), it listed it in the order I copied & pasted it (I’m not a firm believer in orders of playlist, sorry, I don’t care about music that much).

Anyway, there is a workaround, which I’d thought I’d share (until Spotify implement this feature).

1. Create Your New Playlist – Something Like [Original Playlist Name - A - Z]

In this example, I’ll use my equally epic Welsh Music Playlist. If you don’t know how to do this, then really you’re struggling.

2. Organise Your Original Playlist Into Alphabetical Order

I do this by track (as on Spotify Mobile I find it easier to find stuff). To do this click on the track heading.

3. Copy Your Tracks into the New Playlist

Boom!

As I said, it may be obvious to some people, but it took me ages to figure out. Google wasn’t much help, but now it will (hopefully) be.

The Illuminations of Blackpool are famous, generating thousands of thousands pounds worth of tourism to the area when most of the rest of the area is drab as the UK enters Autumn. It certainly brightens up the area, at least! Here’s some photos from them:-

Got a little surprise for my Christmas Post, posted just before Christmas. I’ll leave you to speculate what it is!

Lets say I do a Google Search, finding the directions between Witton Albion to Northwich Victoria. I click search and this gets brought up.

Useful, but not exactly what I want. Instead I want Google Maps. And I click on the link highlighted in the green arrow. This what happens:-

The query disappears!

I can’t be the only one who does this, am I? I know you can click on the links down the side, but surely it’ll be more useful preserving the queries between the links on the top of the page.

Anybody? Or just me?

photo credit: ArunMarsh

Tomorrow, Wales kick off against France in the Rugby World Cup Semi Final. We’ve been here once before, bowing out to a strong New Zealand side. France are the opponents tomorrow.

I’m feeling stupidly patriotic this week, despite being scammed and ill in Bulgaria meaning that I couldn’t watch us win against Bulgaria (tip: never go to Bulgaria!). So I decided to make a Welsh Spotify Playlist in preparation for the game tomorrow!

It’s by no means complete, just a few Welsh songs I like, plus some traditional rugby songs. Feel free to add to it, but as many people say they’re supporting the Welsh tomorrow, it’d be good to get you lot feeling a little bit more Welsh.

To get the playlist, please click here.

DEWCH YMLAEN CYMRU!

* Yes I’m well aware that this isn’t from the Rugby World Cup

I was running a little late (an epic game of Angry Birds meant I missed my tram stop) so missed the first recording, but by the second cut I moved into the background and followed the simple choreographed moves. The whole process took about 30 minutes, after which Matt signed autographs and copies of his book, as well as posed for photos.

It was great fun and a nice distraction from a cold Wednesday in early Autumn. The video will go on the internet in early 2012. I’ll be at the back, to the left, in a grey hoodie.

If I make the cut, though!

Click here to view the embedded video.

His name is Matt, and he runs Where The Hell is Matt.

He’s doing another one, and he’s filming a bit of it in Manchester. He’s filming it next Wednesday at 6pm. There’s an event on facebook on it.

I’m aiming to be there, will you be?

For those of you who follow me on twitter on almost stalkerish levels, you’ll know that a URL I have analytics access to was retweeted by Hulk Hogan yesterday (not sure why I’m linking to Hogan, if you don’t know who he is you really have lived a sheltered life). I took bets on how many visitors he’d bring to the website. One person – Sam Crocker – gave a suggestion. He was off. Way off.

So, at 7pm on a wet Thursday in Manchester, here’s what the Analytics have shown for the page that was tweeted by Hogan:-

60 visits. In comparison. I got retweeted by Rand Fishkin once and here’s the traffic I got:-

Over 1000 visits! Therefore, Rand Fishkin is more powerful (in terms of online reach) than Hulk Hogan.

How You Can Be Too…..

I guess I should explain about the tweet in question that Hulk Hogan retweeted. The tweet was about Callum Murray. Callum is a 9 year old kid that suffers from Arnold Chiari Malformation. You can read the full story here. It’s long, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s white text on a black background. Long story short the poor little guy is in pain everyday and desperately needs an operation from the only place that specialises in this condition – The Chiari Institute. The Chiari Institute is in New York.

If you can help, please please do. Be it a retweet of this post, or if you can donate cash. Every penny will be greatfully received.

Please Donate Here

As an incentive, if that total rises above £500 by next week, I’ll link on my Twitter to a wrestling match I’ve been in. You can probably find it on youtube, but you’d now be a selfish cunt for searching for it now & not donating.

Thank you.

That is all.

And that’s why I’ll buy it.