April, 2010

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Thank goodness for the Wii part II

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Finally the easter holidays are over! I thought they’d never end!

Eldest always gets more time off than any other child I know and was flopping around the house for almost three weeks until he made his way back to school yesterday.

For a change the weather was pretty good, and we made the most of it by visiting the park and going for walks.

On the cold and wet days, we turned to the Wii again. I was lucky enough to be sent a game by Activison called ‘How to train your Dragon’ based on the Dreamworks film of the same name.

Eldest wasn’t the slightest bit interested. If it’s for the Wii and not the PS3, he doesn’t want to know.

Middle son, on the other hand , loves playing Wii games. Probably because they’re a little easier to play than the more complex games his older brother enjoys.

After he’s spent a couple of weeks playing, he invited one of his friends over so that they could play on it together. My son hasn’t seen the film although his friend has and this is what they both had to say. (They’re 8 remember!)

Son “It’s really good with lots of adventures in the game though I found some a bit hard to do. The graphics are awesome, really colourful and I liked the way you can change parts of your Dragon so that you can make it your own. I want to see the film now.” He gave it 8 out of 10

Friend: “I’ve seen the film and some of the things they say are the same as in the game. It was easy to play and there was lots of adventures and the Dragons are cool and awesome!” He gave it 9 out of 10

OH and I had a little play while the kids were in bed and had a great laugh, although we had drunk a bottle of wine!

Essentially a fighting game, I enjoyed the mini games which involved solving puzzles. I also liked the way you can customize your own Dragon. With sharp graphics and easy game play, which I suppose is the beauty of the Wii, it certainly did a good job of keeping a little boy happy on his easter break.

And while I’m here, if Activison have anything that needs reviewing for the Nintendo DS….I’m your woman!

How to train your Dragon is available to buy in all the usual games formats, RRP £39.99

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Posted in Reviews | 1 Response »
Tags: Activision, Easter, How to train your Dragon, Nintendo DS, Wii

I’ll be your best (Facebook) friend forever!

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Have you ever been ‘un-friended’ on facebook? I don’t mean by someone you’ve never met before, but by someone you know and you thought was your friend?

If you have, how did you feel? A little strange maybe..or confused?

I was ‘removed’ from a friend list. Not by a great friend or anything, but by someone my OH knew from way back and then had met up with again.

This guy came and ate dinner with us, stayed over-night and then came to OH’s 40th. He ate our food, drank our wine and flirted with all of my single friends! Next day he’d made us all his friends on facebook!

Great stuff! We exchanged messages, had some banter and looked at each other’s photos. As the months went on a few of my friends told me they had been culled from his list on Facebook. Oh! I checked and I was still there! Maybe it’s because he felt he didn’t know them very well…..but it was only a matter of time before both me and OH disappeared too! And then you start to get a bit paranoid.

Since that time I have begun to notice how when my friends change their status from ‘In a relationship’ to ‘Single’ it becomes big news. One friends husband hacked into her profile and changed her status!! The comments she got were unbelievable! People were ‘devastated’ and were going around with bottles of wine to console her…but it was all a big joke!

A few weeks ago, one of my best friends split up from her boyfriend. “I couldn’t believe it”, she said, “I broke up with him and by the time I got home he’d already changed his status to single”.

I think that upset her more than the relationship ending.

So you know what I did? I took him off my Facebook friends list! That’ll show him!

But here’s the most disturbing thing yet. OH was updating his Facebook yesterday evening when he exlaimed, “Oh my God!”. He does that alot, so I did what I do alot. I ignored him!

“I can’t believe it!” He continued. “One of my old work colleagues has died…it’s here…on Facebook.”

And there it was, the death had been announced on Facebook. OK….that’s not so weird, after all that’s a good way of letting people know.

Here was the strange thing. Even though he had sadly passed away, people were still leaving messages for him. Stuff like “It was a great send off mate, you would have loved it” and “Sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral”, and finally “Lovin’ the profile pic!!! Love all the pics with you in!!!!”

I know that people want to pay their last respects, but I just find it a little weird. Another friend of my OH’s was killed in a helicopter crash last year, and we’ve heard that her family closed her Facebook page because they couldn’t cope with the messages that were still being left for her.

Is it a good thing though? A way to keep someone’s memory alive maybe? I’m not so sure, what do you think?

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Posted in Family | 4 Responses »
Tags: Facebook, Friends, Relationships, Single

Mountains to climb.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

This morning when my OH woke up I knew something was wrong. He’s usually such a happy chap but this morning he seemed…well…flat!

“Are you OK?” I asked

“Not really”, he said. “I’m feeling a little flat.”

So I decided it was best to leave him alone and that he’d tell me what was wrong in his own good time.

About half an hour later he found me and told me the problem.

Part of his work requires him to make a minimum of 25 cold calls a day. A cold call meaning he has to pick up the ‘phone, talk to a complete stranger and invite them to one of his seminars. It’s a toughie and I certainly couldn’t do it.

“I feel like I have a huge mountain to climb each day”, he sighed “And it’s hard.”

“A bit like my ironing pile?” I suggested not very helpfully, but at least it got a smile out of him.

We carried on chatting and talked about what completing the calls would actually mean in terms of business and that all mountains are tough to climb but getting to the top is a joy!

We came up with an idea that he should put a favourite photograph in his office of something he enjoyed doing. He now has a photograph of the time he went sky diving and hopefully that will provide the focus he needs to make the dreaded calls.

I then got thinking about what my favourite photo would be, so I went through my virtual photo album and came up with this:

This is a photo of us outside the Rockerfeller Centre during a long weekend spent in New York a few years ago.