Toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight I'm a rock and roll star

(That song should so be on one of these games...)

Lego Rock Band for the Wii is my new addiction. It's basically Guitar Hero in another guise, but better than the most recent Guitar Hero editions as you can have more than one 'band' on there, meaning you can play your own game.

One thing I like is that every so often you get to record 'albums' and name them yourself. I have resurrected my old band name, Cadmium, and have recorded two albums so far: A Kind of Heavy Metal and Elementalists. (There's a theme there if you can spot it.)

I will shortly be recording my third album and need a name for it. I'm tempted to call it The 'difficult' third, as a reference to the common problem bands face with their third album. By then they have usually run out of material they worked on in their gestation period and have to write something new.

Their are some third albums that buck that trend - the Killers and the All American Rejects managed it. And Bon Jovi made their name off the back of their third album (Slippery When Wet).

But it is weird how the third album is problematic. Dan Piraro makes an interesting comment in his book that I'm currently reading, when he says that people's perceptions of cartoonists is usually that they are in decline from past glories rather than improving with practice. I guess the same is true of many bands.

But really the reverse should be true. Great bands should get better with time and experience. So, why don't they? It's an interesting question.

10 'Best Bits' of 2009

These aren't the only good bits, but they are ten things that made me feel good this year.

1) Getting prayed for by a Bishop before he interviewed me for a job at Lambeth Palace. (I didn't get the job but it was a great experience.)

2) Buying my first new phone in a decade. I need never be out of reach of Facebook ever again!

3) Being rated the number one presentation at our work's Staff Conference, beating all the 'star names'.

4) Being interviewed in the studio by Premier Radio. I've also done several interviews for UCB and will now be doing a monthly slot!

5) Finally getting copies of the book I wrote a chapter for in the post. (I'd written it back in 2007!)

6) Seeing The Tragically Hip in Manchester and Glasgow. And getting to sing into the mic in Glasgow - I still haven't really come down after that.

7) Getting the weather we wanted at Soul Survivor, for once.

8) Two early morning dips in the sea on our youth weekend on the Gower. The water was freezing and yet surprisingly I loved it.

9) Playing on Cathy's Nintendo Wii - getting a gold medal on Tank is one of my ambitions for 2010.

10) Cadbury's going fair trade on a growing number of their chocolates. (Okay, there's rumours they may be bought out by Kraft or the scumbags of evil Nestle, but even so one of the big boys has finally, finally, got the Fair Trade label on their chocolate and apparently others are going to follow suit.)

Super Mario Smash Football

My brother leant me this and it seems I'm addicted. "Just one more game, and then I have to go to bed/work/the toilet..." I. Just. Can't. Seem. To. Switch. It. Off. Seriously it's ruining my life.

For the record I can kick ass at 'Novice' level, but the step up to 'Professional' is tough and fiendishly frustrating. I want to beat the machine! Curse you, Nintendo, you've gone and done it again!

Playability

Often when you talk to someone frequently the same topics come up again and again. With my little brother it's the subject of "playability" in computer games. As far as we're concerned you can forget your fancy graphics and whatnot, what really matters is whether the game is playable.

My proof, if proof were needed, is Zelda on the Super Nintendo versus Zelda on the N64. I loved Zelda on the SNES - except I can only play it with Oasis' Definitely Maybe on in the background (long story, but for me the two go together). But on the N64 it was a so-so rpg, with huge distances you had to cover to get anywhere. It didn't look as good either. Zelda on the SNES was cute. On the N64, it was humdrum. Basically the "better game" lacked playability and effectively killed off Zelda for me, although the screenshots on the Nintendo DS adverts have almost re-converted me.

Recently I've been playing PacMan on Facebook, which is further proof that graphics only get you so far and it's 'playability' that counts. PacMan has been around for almost three decades and yet it knocks many other games into a cocked hat. When I teamed up for a game of Halo with Irony Boy, I loved it, but Destroy All Humans 2 wasn't my bag. One had "playability", the other didn't. Wii Sports is the defining moment in Nintendo's triumph of "playability". Of course the graphics are something else too, but there's a reason Nintendo keep bagging awards for Wii Sports - it's simply great to play.

My favourite top thirteen most playable games

Arcade/Spectrum/other truly ancient consoles
PacMan
Batty
SNES
Super Mario World
The Legend of Zelda - a Link to the Past
Super Star Wars
Game Boy
Tetris
Super Mario World 2 - Six Golden Coins
N64
Mario '64
F-Zero X
X Box
Project Gotham Racing
PlayStation 2
Zoo Puzzle
Gamecube
Super Mario Sunshine
Nintendo Wii
Wii-Sports

So what games do you rates most playable?

An hour of my life I won't get back

I hate being late for things and today I managed the mother of all late arrivals, showing up late to my own house with invited guests standing shivering on the doorstep.

How did this all come about? Blame Asda. That's right. It's all their fault.

We were in Asda buying some pizzas to feed our guests, when we noticed a chap buying two Nintendo Wii consoles. It looked a bit odd, so I asked the girl on the computers and DVD desk how much the Wiis were. She said they were the amazingly low price of £99.97.

Cath and I conferred for all of a minute before deciding this was such a bargain we really had to get one. The only problem was they only had two left and they were both reserved for other customers. But the girl said if either of the other customers hadn't turned up in an hour she'd sell one to us.

There are only so many ways to kill an hour in Asda. I read a couple of magazines. Cath looked at the clothes. I found a copy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes in a special edition tin, and Cath said she'd give it to me for Christmas, to help me nearer my goal of owning every Tim Burton film on DVD. But still it was a drag until the hour was up.

The reservers hadn't turned up and I excitedly thought I was getting a baragin Wii. But then when they rang through the Wii, it came up at £179.97. I queried the price and the stupid shopgirl told me the price she'd originally said had been for a Nintendo DS, not a Wii.

I was tamping.

Not only had we waited a bloody age for a bargain that never was, we then had to queue up to buy all the other crap in our trolley and that made us late to get home to our waiting guests. And I hate being late, as I said. So imagine how much I hated being late for a get-together at my own house!

Wii (or Wi-i) strain

Irony Boy has availed himself of the latest console from Nintendo, so yesterday while we were waiting for the womenfolk to turn up at his house, we played a bit of virtual golf and baseball. Today I have a slight strain in my right elbow when I straighten it. A definite case of Wii Strain.

On a different, but related note, Abz tells me that up in Geordieland people call the Wii the 'wye-eye'. How fantastic is that?