PANIC! Now stop panicing...

I find it funny that this has become a meme in art, considering that it was used during the second world war...
It's a bit late now...

Just before I start this Blog I like to thank those who checked out my blog yesterday night, I got a HUGE... surge of viewers checking out my page and so far it's been a personal record of mine of a whopping 35 views for my "Wow I'm Lazy" blog post. So thanks guys!

...And on with the blog!

For those who don't listen into the media of the gaming industry, Nintendo's lead Game Desiger/Producer/Director Shigeru Miyamoto announced yesterday that he's going to retire from Nintendo...

That blew my mind...

However it's not as bad as I thought, apparently there was a bit of a communication error with the interview that Wired Magazine had with Shigeru. It turns out that the creator of Super Mario wants to do smaller projects with young developers, after all in Japan, Nintendo owns an Art and IT School called DigiPen where they seek their latest talent.

For those who don't know what I'm rambling about, Shigeru Miyamoto was the man that came up for Super Mario for Nintendo. Back in 1980, Nintendo ran into a problem, their latest Arcade game, Radar Scope, was popular in Japan, but it wasn't making any money in the US. Shigeru, who only worked for the company for a year, and helped design Radar Scope, was given the job to go to the United States, along side with the new Nintendo of America staff, and design a new game out of the parts from the unused Radar Scope machines. Originally Shigeru wanted to make an arcade game on Popeye, but as Nintendo didn't have the rights to the Popeye intellectual property, Shigeru had to come up with something original, at the time he was sharing an apartment with another member of Nintendo of America's staff, and they had an Italian landlord, who many believe was the inspiration for Mario. Shigeru eventually came up with an idea of a game that involved a carpenter, yes Mario started off as a carpenter, not a plumber, where he had to rescue his girlfriend, a woman called Pauline, not Princess Peach Toadstool, from the clutches of a giant ape named Donkey Kong, who was Mario's pet, who went on a rampage after his ill treatment. 

Due to the context of the game, Universal, the publisher of the famous 1933 film, King Kong, felt that this arcade game went against copyright law and attempted to sue Nintendo. However Nintendo had a few of very professional law men, which included John Kirby, who yes his name was used in Nintendo's Kirby franchise, argued that the scenes, characters and props used in the King Kong film is part of Public domain and that anyone could in fact re-create King Kong. Meaning that Donkey Kong and Mario were safe, and in turn created a legacy that would span multiple franchises under Shigeru's name...

Mario detached himself from Donkey Kong and joined up with his brother Luigi in Super Mario Bros for the NES and Famicom.

Shigeru went on to make the Legend of Zelda series based on his Childhood memories of exploring caves.

With Pilot Wings, Shigeru Miyamoto demonstated the Super Nintendo's ablity of using "Mode 7" to create "Faux 3D" effects on screen, enabling smooth scaling, rotation and distortion of two dimensional sprites in his F Zero futuristic racing game.

With British microprocessor manufacturer Argonaut, Shigeru Miyamoto showed off that 3D polygons could in fact be pulled off on the Super Nintendo with help of the "SuperFX" chip with StarFox and StarWing.

Shigeru Miyamoto created the very foundation to how a three dimension game should work in Super Mario 64, by using a free flowing camera represented by a camera man flying on cloud that you can control by pressing the camera buttons on the Nintendo 64 controller.

On the GameCube, Shigeru Miyamoto created a unique real time strategy game that involved a tiny 3 inch tall alien called Olimar to command troops of plant based creatures called Pikmin to help fix his damaged space ship. It was inspired by Shigeru's hobby of gardening, and based the first level of the game by the design of his own garden in Osaka.

The ill-fated Wii Music was created by Shigeru because of his passion for music and playing the guitar, unfortunately this wasn't the best of Shigeru's efforts.

So... With Shigeru going into smaller things, it makes you wonder what the future holds for his franchises that he made for Nintendo. Then again, Eiji Aonuma now directs the current Zelda games, such as Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and the latest Skyward Sword. As Nintendo Tokyo now leads the work on the latest Mario games such as Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D Land. So even if we love Shigeru's franchises it's not like he's still working on them, and from the sounds of things it sounds like he wants to work on smaller projects rather than bigger AAA titles. It's still kind of a shame that someone of such a great importance in the industry is stepping down a little, but then again it's not like we live forever right? We need to look for the latest talent and see what Nintendo's new big hit franchise is going to be!

Wow I'm lazy...

Ok, yeah, I've been lazy in the realm of the blogosphere. I really mean it, since I haven't written anything since the 21st of November. So...  As a sort of pseudo "make up for it" apology, I'm going to pretty much make this a blog about stuff between then and how and cram it into bite size pieces so that you can still get your Goobs Says Blog fix!

• Job opportunity
  
  Ok, I didn't go into this before, but I had a great opportunity to get a really good job that would start my career into IT. Unfortunately I didn't get the interview, and it bloody sucks! Apparently I didn't get the interview because they felt that I didn't have "Enough Experience", I always get annoyed when people say that, mainly because I have to ask "Where do you get experience?", come on it's not like a video game where in like Dragon Quest you can spend hours running in circles, fighting slimes, and grinding for experience; clearly there's something in my life that can prove that, I mean hey I built a whole database system for a charity, don't tell me that's not enough experience for you!?
  
  Urgh...  before I whine on better get to the next subject...
   
• Video Games
  
  Ah ha, yes, as you may have noticed from a previous blog, it's getting close to Christmas, and the top selling games are coming out, and oh my, if there's a reason why I haven't posted anything for ages it's because of Zelda Skyward Sword. Sure I have Skyrim, and I have Super Mario 3D Land, but Zelda Skyward Sword is REALLY good, and the more I play it the better it gets! I mean ok I hear a lot of people, include my best friend, about how amazing Skyrim is, but here's the issue, it's STILL an Elder Scrolls game. "But what do you mean Ian, yes, it is an Elder Scrolls game!", that's the issue, as much as they've changed stuff, such as not using Gamebyro, Thank God... It's still pretty much, find enemy, walk backwards and swing your sword like a crazy man and hope you have better range than they have. Which I've seen in previous Elder Scrolls games, at least in Zelda Skyward Sword, Nintendo made an effort, and I really mean effort, into motion plus to make the best use of (near) 1:1 sword motion control, and it really works this time, which means that fighting this time isn't a case of bashing a button enough time until an enemy dies, you need to observe their defence and attack their opening, swinging like a mad man won't get you anywhere. That and there's lots of personalty in the game which I haven't seen in previous Zelda games. At the moment I'm at about 35 hours in, which is pretty dang long for a Zelda game, since it took me about 20 hours to beat Ocarina of Time, and I haven't beat Skyward Sword yet! So it's clear that the game is pretty damn big! So yeah, big thumbs up for Zelda Skyward Sword!
• Kindle
  
  Yup, I got tempted, and I got myself a Kindle! I waited for Black Friday, and I saw no price change for the Kindle 4. So I went the John Lewis and got myself a Kindle. What do I think of it? It's pretty cool, its screen makes all the difference, reading on it is just like paper, and reading for long periods of time doesn't strains my eyes like my phone does. I bought a few books, mainly Terry Pratchett and Shakespeare scripts, I've been reading the Carpet People, The Colour of Magic, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Great Expectations; reading more of The Colour of Magic makes me want to read the other Disc World books that Terry Pratchett wrote! So yes, the Kindle is defiantly making me want to read more books! Which is a good thing!
• Hair Cut
  
  Oh yeah, I got a hair cut today, have a look...

Hello... ladies...  lol!

 That's pretty much all I have, I hope I haven't disappointed you, I know it's been a while, but I'm GOING TO DO MY BEST to write Blog posts on a regular basis!

I really want a Kindle...

Yeah, I really want to get a Kindle...  "But Ian you hardly ever read, why would you want one?", well, here's my answer to that. For ages I haven't read any form of written literature for a long time, I read when I was in Primary School, but that was for Homework, I read lots of Shakespeare Scripts in Secondary School, and that was for studies. And in College and University I read a lot of IT Text Books, because as you can guess, they were for studies... Since then, I haven't read a lot of anything since school, people like to blame it on other media like the internet, music, TV, Videogames, etc, etc... Though I figured out that it's sorta correct...  Not because people prefer those over books, but because in this day and age there are so many different ways to get entertainment through many types of media, it's easy to forget that books exists, unless you're REALLY INTO BOOKS, like my Mother...

The Amazon Kindle eBook

Still, I think the Kindle is a great excuse for me to get into reading! I mean come on, it's a gadget right? Gadgets and excuses aside, it's proven that the Kindle in the Market is as big to books as the iPod was to music; after all, the Kindle can hold many, many books on it, the same way that an iPod can hold your entire music collection on! One slight problem though...  The price...

In the UK, the Kindle 4, the latest model, shown above, cost £89, which turns out to be about $140 US. There's another model, the Kindle Keyboard with 3G, which is £149, which turns out about $235 US! Comparing the prices on Amazon's US site, the prices are MUCH lower than Amazon UK's prices. First off there's more models, not only is there the Kindle 4 and the Kindle Keyboard, but there's a Kindle 4 with a touch screen, and these models come with a choice of having commercials and adverts for books as a screen saver, which reduces the price if you pick the model with adverts.

This is the selection that Amazon UK has...

And here's the selection made available on Amazon US, and I put the UK price next to them

It's crazy, if I was in the States, I can get a Kindle touch cheaper than a regular Kindle 4 in the UK. Now, I understand that US prices have always been cheaper than it is back home, but really though!? When I can get a model up cheaper than the model I want, something is a little wrong there! What's funny is that Amazon UK this week is doing Black Friday deals, this is a part of a commercial event the US does to sell cheap good before Thanks Giving and the Christmas Holiday. Thing is, the UK doesn't do this, since we don't celebrate Thanks Giving, after all Thanks Giving is about Pilgrims coming to the US, desperate for food, and the Native Americans help them by giving them food and water to survive. This is an American thing that I'm talking about there, lol. However it turns out that Amazon UK did this last year, which I wasn't aware of, and turned out to be a success, so they're doing it this year, which is great! But the Kindle 4 is still at £89...  :/

Amazon! Make my  Kindle cheaper damn you!!! D:<

For the time being though, I'm using the Kindle App on my HTC Android Phone... But it's not quite the same as using a real Kindle. Not is it the size of my phone, but it's that it has a lit screen, meaning that it glares into your eyes after a while reading what book you're reading, making the actuall Kindle with eInk work better, since it's not a lit screen.

Now there's actually a good mode on the Kindle for Android app, it's "White-on-Black" mode. Shown in the image above, with my HTC Desire, since the majority of the screen is black, and only the text is white, it makes it easier on the eyes as not as much light is going on the eye from the screen, which makes reading a little better, but I'd still want to read with a real kindle though, as it relies on light being reflected from the Kindle screen, which is matte like paper, onto the eye, making long term reading easier on the eyes.

Now...  again...  If only Amazon reduced that damn price! LOL!

Dentist Drama, the Conclusion!

Ok, it's Wednesday, the 16th of November, AND FINALLY I go to the dentist again! OK I sound really weird then, as if I really like going to the dentist, but with the bloody fake chip that he put on my tooth that felt like a tooth wrapped in sand paper, I WANTED TO GO! Get rid of this abrasiveness that's been scratching the inside of my lip for the last 2 damn weeks!!! I still don't know why he didn't just do everything there and then in the first place, apparently he used "too much time" and needed to get to his next patient. Still, I'm glad that it's finally over, and that the chip is silky smooth, and the inside of my lip doesn't have to slowly bleed each time I talk!

Another terrible picture of me, but with my new better, smoother chip!

Anyway, I'm just going to keep this short, I received my Copy of Super Mario 3D Land which I'm enjoying a lot!

Until next time...

Why I dislike (certain) technophobes...

If any of my readers know me personally, you may know that my patience towards certain people isn't the best. I have a bad tendency to get cross easily when I can clearly see a solution and someone else in my vicinity is still scratching their head about it.

One of the types of people are Technophobes, individuals that are scared of technology and can't seem to keep up with up coming future advancements of technology. Now before people do that the whole pointy finger "You're so mean Goobs" thing; there's a reason why I put "certain" in brackets in the title. What I've discovered through my journey in life is that there's no such thing as one kind of "Technophobe".

• The "Absent" Technophobe
  
  This is more or less what most people, at least in the UK, think is a technophobe, a person who never used technology, therefore as they haven't used technology, are a scared of technology purely on the basis that they never used it before. These can be people such as older generations, such as my grandparents, who didn't have the same education as I had where I had computers in schools and they didn't. Fortunately these Technophobes can be educated, and can take things in, they can be willing to learn, unlike the others below...
  
• The "Wanna-be" Technophobe
  
  These are more of less the people that drive me crazy, they're the kind of person who even though they have the kit, and have used it for a long time, you can't seem to learn them anything! They'll use a mobile phone for years, know how to make calls, can send the occasional text message, but showing them that they can receive their emails through their phone too, and they're instantly lost. You can show them plenty of times how to do it, but they just block out things because they make it look hard for themselves and not realise how easy it is, they only want to learn something if it's something that they have to do all the time rather than something that might be done every other day. A good example is my Mother, I don't want to give her grief, I really don't want to, but on a daily basis she'll scream at me from downstairs and demands that I solve a problem for her, thing is we have had the same amount of time exposed to technology, we have had a PC or a Mac in the house since 1994, yet simple thing like "Finding the Spell check" and "How to send attachments" can still be a challenge to my Mother, even if I show her plenty of times how to do it!
  
• The "Protesting/Gullible" Technophobe
  
  Oh boy...  This came up in a conversation that I had with a customer, fortunately the customer was on my side. He was telling me about a client of his who was against have a wireless router in their room because of "Techno Smog". Yeah...  Fortunately I don't have to bare with these kind of people so much, but I have met a few of them, the kind that are scared of mobile phone signals giving them cancer, despite the fact they own a microwave! They believe in what I call "Electronic Conspiracies", nonsense that other technophobes have written that try to claim that technology is out to kill us and we need to live our lives in more simple ways. In irony in most cases like this is that most "Electronic Conspiracies" target certain types of technology, be it mobile phone, wireless networks, even thing like electrical pylons! They then get conned by other technophobes to purchase crazy clothing made of tin foil to so called "Protect them", despite the fact that last time I did physics I swore it was lead that blocked radio waves, not tin!

What's worse it that the more I look into things, the internet is (slowly) becoming a way to spread technophobia onto others. Be it against video games, social networking or the new trend of saying that ALL mobile phones have hidden microphones inside that the FCC and the CIA are listening to everybody, even when it's turned off! I mean come on, when it's turned off!? Someone didn't pay attention to physics again, I might advise taking night classes at your local highschool/SixthForm and learn a little about how electronics work before telling me that there's a microphone in my phone and can listen on me even when it's turned off!

Plus I was randomly looking things up on Google and StumbleUpon when I discovered this Cartoon...

All I can say is "Really?", I know cartoons are there for comedic purposes, but it does put me in a mode of thought where even in a fraction of a percentage; there's a chance that the artist may believe that what's he's draw is correct, that Twitter will be the fall of Human communication. Again this is Technophobia kicking in and not realising that there's more ways to get your voice on the internet other than just Twitter, there's Facebook, Google+ and other social networks. Not only that but you have Forums, instant messengers, IRCs, Skype/VOIP, the internet isn't just an evolution of communication technology, it branches out different ways to communicate, not just Twitter...

Anyway, before I sound like I'm ranting a bit too much, there is light on the other end of the tunnel here. I follow @stephenfry on Twitter and he wrote a Tweet about an event that the BBC is doing called "Go-On Give and Hour", an event where people like me give an hour to an "Absent" technophobe to encourage them to get online and enjoy what the internet can give them. I'm very tempted to get onto this, and use my skills to get someone to enjoy the internet rather than avoid it. Maybe I can get a reader of mine to get involved too! :D

Preemptive apology!?

Ermm...  yeah! Saying this before I get caught up with "You have a blog yet you don't write anything" issue. Today a package came through the post with a copy of Skyrim in it. And yes, I'm playing it, and I'm very, very impressed, considering that fact that I didn't jump onto the "OMG A NEW ELDER SCROLLS GAME!!!!!" band-wagon. To be honest when my friend got his XBox 360 many moons ago, his first game he got with it was Elder Scrolls Oblivion, which sounded really cool since I read up on many sites claiming how great it is and stuff. I wasn't that impressed with it though compared to my friend who really got into it. Instead I got into another Bethesda game, Fallout 3, which I bought cheap copy on impulse to discover how amazing it was! Shame Fallout New Vegas wasn't as hot...

This is the reason why I didn't leave the house today!

Now I have this game and been playing it for the majority of the day, I then realised that Zelda Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land is out next week! I'm going to have to apologise in advance that if I don't blog for next few weeks, you'll know that I'm being anti social playing videos 'till some crazy hour at night and not sleeping enough to handle the coming working day... It's Christmas time, people are going to be buying stuff left, right and centre! So what a better way to sell games than the holiday season!

Next weeks obsession!

Truth be told though, even with the up coming anti social behaviour I'll be having, I'll DO MY BEST to review these games and blog them! And don't you worry, I won't be using some stupid score based system that game websites like to use, it'll all about reading the actual review rather than skipping pages to find a score! So keep your eyes on this blog for up coming reviews over the holiday season!

Google+ Pages

The Brand New Google+ Logo!

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that I've been getting into Google+ a lot recently, it's a nice, clean and advert free social media site that incorporates my gmail and creates a profile. On Tuesday, Google released Google+ Pages, their equivalent of Facebooks groups and fan pages. This is primarily made for companies to show off their businesses on Google+, however it can also be used to make pages for fandom, blogs, or almost anything else. However there's a bit of confusion, so I'm here to clear things up. I'm going to go through how to make your own Google+ page and explain a few things about the "confusing" terms that I've discovered.

First off you will need a Google+ account, assuming you already got one, lets through ourselves in!

On the bottom right hand corner on Google+ you'll see this new link, click it and you'll start, the step by step process...

You'll need to pick a category out of these selections, since my page is based on my blog, I picked "Other".

Next you'll need to give the Page a name, you have a choice of linking the page to your own web site, if you have one, and then you have to say if your page is suitable for Any Google+ user, to to mature audiences. If you select any of the other categories you'll need to select a sub-category such as Music, film, money, etc. After that you'll need to make a profile picture for your page by either using a photo of a logo of your company.

You can now start to work on your  page, the first thing to do is to invite people to it, click on the "Spread the Word" button.

You'll get something like this, very similar to what you do when you post a link on Google+, here you're simply making a link to your page for others to see.

You'll create something like this for others to see, but here comes a little confusing, you don't "Join" pages, and "Circle" them, just like other people's profiles. It sounds weird and doesn't quite sound right, but as it's Google+ it only natural that they kept the same word to keep things consistant, maybe we shouldn't be so comfortable with Facebook! Heh!

This took me some time to figure out when I first created my page, I was freaking out that I was called "Goobs Says Blog" rather than "Ian Guebert". Thing was I didn't see this drop down link just below the name of the page here. This is where you switch between your profile and your page.


Here are a list provided by Google of things that show the differences between a Google+ Profile and a Google+ Page...

1. You Can +1 a Page to Show Support or Add Them to Your Circles

We know you love some brands and businesses. Others you may want to show a quick note of support, but not see all their updates. So just drop a little +1 and keep going, or add a page to any circle you want. You're in control.

2. No Google+ Page Can Follow You Until You Follow Them

We want Google+ to be a place you love to share. Pages cannot circle you until you follow them first. Of course, if you are in their circles, they can share great deals, exclusive coupons, product tips and hangouts, but the relationship is yours to start.

3. In Fact, Google+ Pages Can't Even Mention You Unless You're Connected

That's right. The Google+ page can't even say your name unless you're following. No +mention spam.

4. Google+ Pages Automatically Unfollow You If You Unfollow Them

If you remove a Google+ Page from your circles, you are automatically removed from their circles. You always are in charge.

5. You Can Find Google+ Pages In Google Search

With a new feature we call Direct Connect, just type + followed by the brand name in Google Search, and you can see pages automatically display. Type +Pepsi to see Pepsi, and +Dell for Dell. It's that easy.

Google themselves have provided their very own "How to" on how to make and work on a Google+ Page, so if I'm not helpful at all and you're still stuck click here, http://www.google.com/+/business/index.html