I've moved

to here http://www.mriceguy.wordpress.com. All my old posts have been imported thanks to some incredible Wordpress wizardry. Hopefully I'll be able to buy my own little domain name when I get some cash.

Thanks for the good times Blogger, you were good while it lasted.

Goals

I'm going to try out Joe's Goals for a while. I feel like I need to track my progress this year and this badge will show how I'm doing.

Training Pics

Our bike training pics are up at Flickr. Not long now till the real thing...

The Magic Turkey

The other day I was rummaging through my old school stuff and putting it into cardboard boxes, when I came across an old story I wrote back at Silverstream School. It was called The Magic Turkey. I wrote a number of stories at school over the years - I really loved creative writing but I was never that great at it! There's no date so I can't remember which year exactly but it would've been between 1993-1999. The story was typed up in horrendous capital letters so I thought I'd spare you the assault on your retinas (although the rest of the punctuation is kept the same as when I wrote it). Enjoy the psychotic ramblings of an 8-year-old-or-so kid.


The Magic
Turkey
By Michael Gray

Once upon a time there was a witch called Wanda. She found a turkey in her castle one day. She thought she could make a magic spell for it. Now I need dragons heart, human eyes, frog slime, mouse tail , vampires blood and giants' spit. Suddenly a cat jumped on to the bench.

" Stop Stop!" said Wanda. But it was too late. The cat bumped the turkey into the cauldron. Then the turkey flew right out of the cauldron. The turkey threw a human eye at Wanda. Bonk on to her head.

She tried to run after it but it was too late. The turkey flew out the window. Luckily Wanda saw the window was shut but it went right through the window sill. The turkey flew on and on until he came to a little cottage. It banged right into the door . A little boy opened the door to see who was there but there wasn't any body there .

But just a turkey at the bottom of the door . The boy picked up the turkey and carried it inside . The turkey smelt some muffins baking . Before he could get out of the boy's hands he got put in a tray in the oven.

The turkey just disappeared and appeared again at the boy's bedroom looking at the boy playing with his toys. The turkey squeaked. "Let's have some fun before my life's ended".

So turkey made his best trick on the boy. The turkey hid behind a soft toy. Then he moved over to the boy carrying the pink soft toy with him. The boy suddenly got his eye on the soft pink toy. He picked it up. The turkey clung to the soft pink toy. The turkey grabbed the toy train that the boy was playing with. The turkey threw the toy train into the drain pipe. The boy tried to pick it up but it had already disappeared. The turkey felt sorry for what he had done. So he made himself disappear and appear again inside the drainpipe. He just saw the toy train disappear through the creek pipes. The turkey suddenly saw himself in the sea. He caught a sea plant and tried and tried to hold on tightly, but his feet couldn't hold on any longer. Then he let go and bumped right in to an octopus . The octopus grabbed the turkey and coiled his legs around him. The turkey screamed "Help! Help! Help!" and then came the toy train and knocked itself into the octopus's head. The octopus fell to the ground. The turkey escaped.

Then there was a loud rumble and bumble. It made the stones clatter and jatter. It was the killer whale. It swam right up to the turkey then suddenly he got swallowed up. He floated down his throat. He tumbled and did somersaults in his throat. A giant was fishing outside his house and he caught a big bite. He pulled and pulled and pulled and up came the killer whale which inside was the magic turkey.

The giant cooked the killer whale for ten minutes until it was all nice and brown. The giant served it with tomato , lettuce , herbs and spices . He swallowed every bite one by one . Soon the turkey was in his tum . First he started at the digesting bit . By 5 seconds the turkey was so small that he was only up to your thumb. Now he met the heart right next to him protected by the ribs . Soon he was getting squashed and squeezed and soon he was coming out of his bottom . He saw that there was water at the bottom . Then suddenly he realised that he was at the toilet . He heard a plop then that happened to turkey he plopped right in to the giant's toilet .

He floated up and down until he was at a castle made of iron . There was a sign put up . It said "Dreadful Dracula's Territory" . The turkey drifted down to the ground . He saw the sign . So decided to check in . The castle's door creaked and screeched as the the turkey opened the door. It was dark and spooky.

There were bats hanging on the ceiling. Then he saw a staircase leading to a room. So the turkey wanted to investigate. So he climbed up the staircase. As he did every step the steps squeaked. As he reached the top and opened the door it didn't creak. He caught his eye on a case. It wasn't a case but a coffin made of black leather. Suddenly the coffin opened and out jumped Dreadful Dracula. Then the turkey 's heart beat fast and now even faster. Suddenly Dracula leaped on to the turkey and carried him all the way to the kitchen. Dreadful Dracula cooked him for dinner. Dreadful Dracula had a feast called Spook Bat Turkey. It was so delicious that he had to have a rest for two years. Now the Dracula was a flying Drac grandpa flying to every country in the world.

The End.

Note: I own all rights to this story, so you sneaky hollywood producers better speak to me first before you go about making The Magic Turkey film!

New stuff on the way

Just experimenting with putting my reviews up top so I can still add new blog posts. Trying to find the right javascript code to make it appear when you click it. So far no such luck.

Coming soon, a story I wrote back at primary school. :)

Game Reviews

Hey guys, I won't really be writing on this blog for the time being, as I'm busy helping out writing for ButtonMasher. Though I will keep this post at the top of the blog and keep it updated, showing all the reviews I've done (most recent at the top).

2010 Reviews
January 25 - Dark Void via ButtonMasher

2009 Reviews
December 1 - Encleverment Experiment via ButtonMasher
November 24 - Plants vs. Zombies via ButtonMasher User Blogs
November 4 - Tales of Monkey Island: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood via ButtonMasher
October 25 - South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! via ButtonMasher
October 22 - Lucidity via ButtonMasher
September 30 - Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan via ButtonMasher
September 27 - Dissidia: Final Fantasy via ButtonMasher
September 21 - Batman: Arkham Asylum via Salient
August 24 - Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay via ButtonMasher
August 11 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled via ButtonMasher
August 5 - Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures - Episode 4: The Boegy Man via ButtonMasher
July 9 - Tales of Monkey Island - Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal via ButtonMasher
June 24 - Lode Runner via Xbox Forums (Winner!)
March 30 - Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned via Salient

2008 Reviews
December 18 - Gears of War 2 via Xbox Forums (Winner!)
September 15 - Army of Two via Salient
September 1 - Guitar Hero III via Salient
August 4 - The Simpsons Game via Salient
July 8 - Everybody's Golf 2 via ButtonMasher
May 19 - Grand Theft Auto IV via Salient
May 12 - Stuntman: Ignition via Salient
April 7 - Burnout Paradise via Salient

Opinion
October 18 - The Digital Distribution Take Over via ButtonMasher User Blogs

Sam & Max next week on XBLA!

Well Telltale is really going at it this month! First they introduced the five-part Monkey Island season, and now they have announced their re-envisioning of Sam & Max for Xbox Live Arcade!

And such a good deal too; 1600 Microsoft points for the entire Season 1 collection, consisting of 6 episodes. That's around $24.75 (if you have 100 or so points already) versus $90 on Wii or $30 on PC.

A great deal for those into adventure gaming and who haven't already experienced it on the PC or Wii.


*The ButtonMasher link

ButtonMasher’s Upcoming Releases

I came up with the idea on the ButtonMasher forums to write down a list of games we are looking forward to and their release dates, New Zealand specifically if we could get them. So basically a giant release schedule but only for interesting games! I will be constantly updating it along with the help of other Button Mashers.

The Google Spreadsheet

The ButtonMasher Forum Post

Starcraft II Beta

Blizzard are now letting people sign up for the Starcraft II Beta. Just login to Battle.net, find the option under profile settings and follow the steps. Let us know in the comments if you get accepted.

I used to play the original Starcraft back in the heydey but it truly has been a while. Let's hope Starcraft II is a worthy sequel.

By Mriceguy

3D Realms Goes Under

Just when we thought the day was finally coming closer to Duke Nukem Forever's release, after 12 years in the making, developer 3D Realms has closed its doors. Shacknews reports that because of lack of funding 3D Realms has had no choice but to discontinue. Somehow after all this time they were still funding themselves. Take-Two will still own Duke Nukem Forever's publishing rights but I hardly think that they will hire a new developer to work on the game after this point.

But did any of us really believe that Duke Nukem Forever would ever come out?

In remembrance of Duke and his great one liners, "Your face, your ass, what's the difference?"

By Mriceguy