When Nintendo came out with their second home console, the SNES, they also released a new Mario side scrolling platformer.
    This time the game isn't set in the Mushroom Kingdom but, instead, in Dinosaur Land where Mario, Luigi and Peach are having themselves a holiday. Of course, Bowser and his Koopalings also happen to be there, so he kidnaps Peach and Mario must travel across this new land in order to defeat all of them and rescue her. The change of setting is quite nice, I think, as it brings with it some new kinds of levels that hadn't been seen up until now such as forests, ghost houses and volcanic tunnels. Though most importantly, it is in Dinosaur Land where Mario meets Yoshi who becomes an integral part of the series.
    Yoshi brings with him a nice addition to the gameplay. When going through the levels you will occasionally find a Yoshi egg which Yoshi will be inside of. Once you've freed him from his egg, you can ride Yoshi through the level and any levels afterward that you manage to keep him through. Yoshi can eat most of the enemies and he gives you an extra hit before losing a life. When you do come into contact with an enemy, Yoshi will run away in fear, but, unless he runs off a cliff, you can just hop back onto him and continue riding. As well as Yoshi, this game also gives a new power up in the form of the cape which you can use to fly and the balloon which also helps you to fly, but in a different way. You're also offered a similar multiplayer option that previous games in the series have: player 1 is Mario, player 2 is Luigi, they both play identically and take it in turns to play a level, which is a nice way to make the game fun for more than one person, but not amazing.
    One thing I especially liked about Super Mario World was the fact that it really does feel like you're exploring a large new area. You start on a large overworld map and there are two directions you can head, each presenting you with a different side-scrolling level. So you see, from the start you’re given more freedom than in other 2D Mario games. Many levels have secret exits which branch out into other directions and there are, in fact, two whole secret areas which are fun to discover. The levels are all pretty fun and once you've finished the main storyline, I imagine you'll go back and play some of them again and, when doing so, it's likely that you'll stumble across places you'd never noticed before and then you'll end up opening a whole new part of the world.
    It's a wonderful addition to the Mario series and it has a lovely art style too. Rating: 9.2/10.

(Click here for information on an interesting fan creation.)

(I do not own the copyright of the screenshot.)

(Here's this week's Finger Puppet Show!)

I guess people who have never had a migraine before don't actually have any idea what it's like. Of course, everybody can imagine a really, really bad headache, but, the visual side of it is a little hard to explain. Therefore, I decided to make some pictures to show what it's like!

As you can see, at first you barely realise that you have a migraine starting, there's a tiny blip in your vision, but you may not even notice. There's certainly no pain at the start. After a while, the blip grows and you realise it is a migraine, you'll probably have a mild headache at this point. After that, the visual aura gets bigger and bigger and so does the headache. Eventually you feel nauseous too, the aura also seems to throb along with the pain in your head and is absolutely horrible to 'look' at. Thankfully, in my case at least, it never blocks out everything, You can see properly after a couple of hours (unless it comes back) but the headache doesn't cease for a long time.

Thank goodness I've not had one in a few years now!

(Don't miss yesterday's extra Finger Puppet Show!)

(If you happen to suffer from migraines, then you might find this article from Healthline very helpful and interesting.)

Back in 2004, when I was in Year 6 of primary school, I was given the task of watching one of the Year 1 classes for twenty minutes or so. At that time, I wasn't quite the same build as I am now, and, in fact, I was rather overweight. Why is this significant? Well, you'll find out shortly!
    I arrived at the classroom of the younger children and spoke briefly with the teacher who gave me a few brief pointers about what to do while she was gone. The children were only playing with some toys when I arrived, so, I didn't expect to have any difficulty.
    "Bouncy castle!" shouted one of them as soon as the teacher left.
    Then all of the children ran over to me, one of them pushed me over and they all started jumping on me as if I were a bouncy castle. It seems that being somewhat overweight made me especially bouncy, which I guess must have been nice for them. A few minutes before the teacher got back, they all stopped jumping on me and I got up.
    And so, with that, I earned the experience of serving as a bouncy castle. I'm sure that would be a very unique addition to a CV.

(Don't miss Saturday's special Doctor Who themed Finger Puppet Show!)

This is the novel that introduced the world to one of my all-time favourite characters: Sherlock Holmes. As with all of his stories this book takes the form of a murder mystery.
    The first half of the book is about how Dr. Watson first met Holmes and then how they got involved with the investigation of this story's main murder. Here you get all of the things that make the Sherlock Holmes stories so good: charming little chats between Holmes and Watson, Holmes's arrogance towards police, scenes of excellent deduction and Holmes's loveable eccentricities. All of this is written from the point of view of Dr. Watson; we see Sherlock Holmes, this extraordinary man, through the eyes of an ordinary man like us and through that we get to see how he 'works', if that makes sense.
    The second half is, quite unexpectedly, a flashback to Salt Lake City in America. Here the novel shifts from the first person storytelling of Dr. Watson and gives you a third person account of a man named John Ferrier and his adopted daughter Lucy. I must admit, I was cautious about this change, as I worried it'd be boring, but it was actually very good. They're a pair of very likeable characters and their edgy relationship with their Mormon neighbours is quite tense and I found myself quite concerned for them. It's also very interesting, as you'll learn quite a bit of historical information about America in that area at that time, and it's always nice to learn new things while you're being entertained.
    So, on the whole this novel is a fantastic debut for a fantastic character. You'll feel emotions for every character in it, perhaps you'll find somebody hilarious, perhaps you'll find somebody intriguing or perhaps you'll find somebody downright hateable, but you will always be feeling something, which is a sign of a very well written novel, I think. I would recommend this to anybody.
    Rating: 9/10

(I do not own the copyright of the cover image)

(Don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)

I was on David Tubb's blog the other day and I came across this really lovely entry which has inspired me to make a post about ten items that are of significant value to me. I'd also like to say, that being fond of physical possessions is often criticised as being materialistic and I think I agree in the case of things such as solid gold yachts and the like, but in today's entry I'm going to talk about ten items I'm very attached to because they remind me of happy memories or of relationships with close friends and I don't think that's at all materialistic. Of course, I have a lot more than ten items that are very special to me, so I had to leave a lot out, so maybe I'll make a follow up post at some point, but, anyway, here they are:

LJ the Cheetah

This was brought back from South Africa (I think, it may have been somewhere else) by a friend of mine and then given to me as a gift. There was a time when I was very close with this person, but now the pair of us don't seem to have any contact. This isn't because anything bad happened, we just went in separate directions when we went to university, but this little wooden cheetah is a fond reminder of our past friendship.

Picture of David and I

Sadly, I can't see David quite as often as I used to, but I see this picture of he and I every single day as it sits on top of the bookshelf beside my bed. He surprised me with this picture one time when I came round for a visit, and it was a lovely treat. Even better, he has his own identical picture up at his house! You may not be able to tell from the photo, but he has also edited a picture of Gallifrey into the background, which is a nice touch.

John-Boy Walton Action Figure

The Waltons is one of my absolute favourite television shows. Like Doctor Who, it's one of the only things I'm always watching. As such, I was very pleased when my Mum gave me this as a surprise Christmas present last year!

Aeroplane

This does have a special name, but, I don't remember what it is. At the end of the summer I got to meet my internet friend Rhinowater in real life for the first time, and it was wonderful. When I first saw him, he gave me this model aeroplane as a gift, having bought one for himself too. We did plan to have a play with them at a park, but unfortunately we didn't get a chance to. In a way, it's a bit bittersweet, as I may not get to see him in real life again or his sister (an old friend of mine), but primarily this reminds me of the happy time I got to spend with him.

Colin the Cow

I bought Colin and wore him on my jacket as a bit of an in-joke between a couple of friends of mine. I don't wear him so often now as he's damaged and I don't want to make things worse, but he still regularly appears in my webcomic, Finger Puppet Show! I wrote a bit about why I like Colin so much before.

Yo-yos

For years I really, really wanted to learn how to use a yo-yo, then last Christmas a friend of mine bought me one and taught me how to use it! Then it broke a few months later... But then they got me another one that's still fine now! I don't think I could ever bring myself to throw out the, broken, green one. Yoing a yo-yo is often quite therapeutic, I find.

Heartfelt Card

After a certain family tragedy, I was off school. Two days later two good friends of mine popped by with this absolutely amazing card signed by all of my friends. Even now, six years later, looking at it makes me happy.

TARDIS Poster

As I mentioned above, I love Doctor Who. I never really had any posters up in my room, but then one day a good friend of mine was visiting Corsham for a while and they gave me this. It was so unexpected and kind of them, so I put it up as soon as I got home. Now it's a pleasant reminder of both one of my favourite TV shows and one of my favourite people! It's up on the wall beside my bed.

Fourth Doctor Scarf

More Doctor Who! Not only is this a fantastic replica of the Fourth Doctor's scarf, but it was a great Christmas present from a couple of friends of mine. It looks really cool and it's really good at keeping me warm on cold days.

Trusty Water Bottle

Of course this had to be included! It's the item all my friends associate with me. This very blog is named after it! Of course, in reality, there have been more than sixty individual water bottles, but as I throw one out and it's replaced with another, the essence of 'the' Trusty Water Bottle transfers from one to the other. It's a wonderful all-purpose tool which can put out fires, clean up messes, provide water, act as a relaxant, act as a stress ball, be a pointer, give me energy... It can do anything, basically and I feel strange without it. I started carrying it in 2008 and I have fond memories involving it and almost every person I've ever met. That could be a blog post all on its own...

I enjoy the Super Smash Bros. series of video games for a number of reasons:
- The gameplay is very fun.
- It connects lots of things together (I love that kind of thing).
- There's excellent multiplayer for two to four people.
- There are very many things to unlock.
- It's full of nostalgic references.
But none of those things are what I love most about the series.
    What I do love most about the series, and the main reason I would suggest others try it, is that it opens the doors to other games. Before I played Super Smash Bros. I had never heard of Fire Emblem, Kirby, Metal Gear or Metroid but, thanks to the inclusion of characters from those series, I've gone on to play several games from each one and to enjoy them very much.
    I think we're all a bit cautious about trying something new, especially with something as expensive as video games, but Super Smash Bros. rather ingeniously, eases you into these things. You may buy it simply because you’re a Mario fan, but then have a lot of fun playing as Link and decide you want to find out more about him, so you then buy one of The Legend of Zelda games. So, this is why I heartily recommend these games as it may well encourage you to buy and play games which you'll love and which, otherwise, you may never have heard of or given a second look.

(I do not own the copyright of the image)

So now we're about half way through November and it's around now that the average person begins to get excited about Christmas and for people like me, who have been excited since September or earlier, to become very excited. But, sadly, this pleasant time of year doesn't only bring about these happy people, but also people who feel the need to say "It's only November, Christmas is ages away!" This annoys me for several reasons.
    A month is not a very long period of time. I'm always looking forward to things that are happening in several months’ time, and so, of course I'm excited about Christmas months in advance too. I think that most people are pretty excited about things of an equal temporal distance because you so often see people on Facebook write things like "Only three months until my exotic summer holiday, I can't wait" but then when winter comes around they write "Excited for Christmas? It's only November, you silly jerk". So I just don't understand why it's not acceptable to be excited early for Christmas, my theory is that people complain about this excitement to cement themselves as an 'adult'. Christmas is, for them, something which is 'for kids' and so a serious adult like them won't be getting excited for it except, maybe, on Christmas Eve (this is may also explain, another criticism, of this wonderful time of year). This is rather ironic though, because for a child, yes, a month may be a long time, but for an adult that time will fly by in the blink of an eye.
    In the end, I guess this is just another example of people complaining for the sake of having something to say which I find quite sad. The internet is full of sarcastic, annoyed comments about things, so much so that it outweighs all the nice things people have to say and I hate to think this is an accurate reflection of human nature. Why can't we all be more positive about life?

(Also, today is Friday so don't miss this week's Finger Puppet Show!)

I've noticed a strange tendency of mine to find myself thinking about very light-hearted and/or funny moments of my life whenever something serious happens. Let me give you a couple of examples.
    Years ago I went on a school trip to a place in Wales called Pencelli and I was there for about a week. One of the things I did there was go up in the mountains (where there were abandoned castles and wild horses) for exploration and climbing. On the way back, I was walking along a very narrow path on the edge of a cliff. One of my teachers was a little bit behind me and everybody else was quite far ahead. All of a sudden I slipped and started falling sideways so that I'd go over the edge of the cliff.
    "Oh no," I thought to myself, "I'll die if I fall down there."
    But then, rather reflecting on that, I started thinking about something else entirely. Specifically, I started to think about the German lessons I had at the time, I had a strict teacher who I didn't like very much and I thought he was a bit silly, but I quite liked him too. I used to sit at the end of a row of my friends, the one on the end had done the work and everybody else consecutively copied it. And I was just thinking about that. Luckily, I grabbed onto the edge and my teacher helped pull me back up.
    Another time I was staying at a friend's house and I was in a spare room doing some reading. It was quite late and my friend knocked on the door and came in for a chat. Everything seemed fine, but after a short while they broke into tears and went down onto the floor. They were very upset about certain things and asked me if I wouldn't mind holding them. As I held them in my arms while they sobbed quietly, I found myself thinking "It'd be funny if Mike Wing walked in now". I hadn't seen him in years and I smiled as I thought of his crazy antics, such as the time he wanted me to compare chests with him and the unusual night that followed. Of course, I was very sad for my friend, but at the same time Mike had randomly popped into my head, which was nice.
    I could list other examples too, but I don't want to make this entry too long. I wonder if this kind of thing is some kind of natural defence mechanism? Every time something sad or stressful happens, my mind sends down an old happy memory, or something like that. Does this happen to anybody else?

Back in 2007, I got two things for the first time: a messenger account and a webcam. I really enjoyed doing video calls with my friends and also talking to them from home because, until that point, they were people who I would only have contact with when I was actually in school. So, as you can imagine, I was very happy about that.
    However, this blog post isn’t just an appreciation of internet communication; before long things took an unfortunate turn. Quite often I would be chatting to my friends around the time of day that I would get changed which, on its own, wasn't an issue. The problem stemmed from the fact that my computer was also very slow, and it froze up for ages every time I started and ended a video call. As such, as I trusted my friends, if I was chatting and needed to get changed, I'd say "I'm just going to get changed now, so, minimise the call until I send another message, please!" This plan worked perfectly fine for a while, until somebody threw a metaphorical spanner into the works.
    "If you get changed right now, I'm just going to watch you," said one of my friends (it was actually two friends of mine, one round the house of the other).
    "No you won't," I replied, "I am getting completely changed, you know!"
    Of course, I had every reason to believe this was just some way of teasing me. Why would she watch? She had absolutely no reason to. So I ignored that remark and continued to get changed.
    Now, before I continue, I think I should tell you that I'm often told that I'm a rather naive person. When people say that, I usually think that they don't fully understand the way in which I look at the world, but I suppose this story in particular does portray me in a rather naive light. My friend did watch the entire time I was getting changed (the other later told me that she looked away the whole time, kindly) and then they also told every person that I knew all about it. That would be bad enough on its own, but there's still more.
    Rumour has it that she screen captured me at a rather exposed moment and showed it to loads of people. I have to say, though, that I never came across this screen capture so, perhaps a little optimistically, I don't believe that it existed. But still, even that is not the worst part of this story; somehow or another, I was the one who came off negatively when this story was repeated amongst people. It wasn't that somebody had spied on me getting changed; it was that I had acted indecently on webcam! Which was a shame really, because if you looked at past occurrences (like the time she ripped off half of my clothes in a garden or the time she stretched open my trousers and peeped inside as if I were a doll she wanted to check for anatomical correctness!) it was quite clear how things had happened.
    But still, I hope this may act as some kind of cautionary tale for people!

Last night Laci Green posted a video on her Tumblr which I thought was very sad. She spoke about how she struggle with depression and how reading about horrible things that happen in the world and rude comments that people leave on her work often get her down an awful lot. She also spoke about how she wishes that people with depression weren't so stigmatised and how she hates that having a mental illness will often lead people to erroneously believe that you are crazy and/or to treat you as if you cannot cope. (Go over there and watch it if you like, I was going to post the video here, but, since it's unlisted, I thought I had better not.)
    Laci Green is a role model of mine (and, along with Earl Hamner Jr., is one of the only non-fictional one too) and I have to admit that I was rather shocked to see her in such a vulnerable state. I suppose when we look up to somebody, it's easy to forget that they are just regular person and have their own personal problems too. It was through Laci Green that I got more into feminism, before watching her videos I thought of myself as 'pro-feminist' but I didn't really know about many of the important issues in our society and her videos opened my eyes to them. I guess I just wish that she thought she was as wonderful as I think she is.
    Another part of the video that particularly affected me, was when she talked about the stigma attached to people with depression. I would say that probably the majority of my friends suffer / have suffered from depression at some point or another (and some people, funnily enough, have thought I may do too, which seems unlikely to me, but then again, I could relate to some of the things Laci was saying in the video), so it clearly is not a rare thing and I hate to think that any of them have come across any of the issues she mentioned. If somebody tells me that they have depression I just think "How sad, poor them" but I don't treat them any differently, and you shouldn't do, but I guess a lot of people to, which only adds to the problems.
    Unfortunately I don't have much of a conclusion to today's post. Originally I had an anecdote planned for today, but I wrote this instead to keep things topical. I guess I'll end be saying this: do you know anybody with a mental health problem? And do you treat them any differently? If so, you should change that. It may not even be a conscious thing and it doesn’t make you a bad person, but it's the kind of thing we should always be wary of.

(Also, today is Friday, so don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)