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In June 2010 my girlfriend and daughter bought me a Transformer for Christmas. Six months later, this is the result.

Was bickering with Mrs Ben about it earlier. She argues they’re “little plastic bits of tat” whereas I remain adamant that they’re “little pieces of art”. And they are. The imagination, the engineering, the feelings they evoke.

Nightmare to dust, though.

Gallery

Just got Minecraft so obviously the first thing I do is a build a huge Optimus Prime!

I would have liked to illuminate his eyes but he’s made of wool and I’m a bit terrified of burning him down.

He’s modelled on the G1 version of Optimus. I may revisit him and adjust his proportions for authenticity. My ‘model’ for the build was the Hasbro 20th Anniversary Second Edition US version of Takara’s MP-01 Masterpiece.

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Dark Souls’ grand heresy against prevailing games industry wisdom is the idea that, if you want to be rewarded in this game, you are going to have to do something worthy of reward. 2011 has been the year in which many developers have found riches in creating game experiences that challenge us not to excel but rather to mindlessly persevere. Increase the abilities of your avatar by simply playing the game every day and you will eventually prevail, they say.

Dark Souls, by contrast, is a game in which you must improve yourself before progress can be won.

http://www.chewingpixels.com/dark-souls-2/ (via disastersauce)

The worst things

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Sometimes you spend too long with the wrong people. In the wrong job. Thinking about the wrong things. Losing perspective on what it is to be human. Then you write something like this from a September 7th 2011 press release entitled “Global Bay and Epicor Partner to Offer Comprehensive In-Store Mobile Retail Applications Suite”. This is the introductory sentence:

Addressing retailers’ desire to leverage the power and performance of the latest mobile devices to drive transaction efficiencies, improve operational visibility and in-store customer engagement, Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organizations, and Global Bay Mobile Technologies, a leading provider of next-generation mobile retail software, have partnered to provide retailers running heritage Epicor® software solutions with an innovative and comprehensive suite of mobile retail applications.

Die. I want to die.