Super Mario 64 takes me back in time!

I've been playing Super Mario 64 on my Wii U and I've been having so much fun. It amazes me how well that game has aged and how much it still feels exactly the same to me as it did when I first played it maybe twenty years ago now? God was it really that long ago? The graphics are amazing for its time and it is stunningly creative even now. When I enter the castle and that music starts playing there is something about that room with the blue walls with white smiling clouds that makes me so fucking giddy. I've never actually 100%ed the game because I have a thing with not liking to do that with some games because you can only play something through once for the first time. If I never finish it then there is always something waiting for me to discover. I might actually finish it this time. I'm even getting 100 coins in each of the levels. I've never done that before. I love things that make me feel like a kid again. It keeps you young. It makes me happy. I never want to let go of that little girl. I hope she always stays with me.

What the Star Wars books meant to me

It took me a long time to learn how to read. The first books I got into were Peanuts. I really liked Patty because she had brown hair and freckles like me and struggled in school like me. I also liked how she was into sports and was a tom boy and was a good friend and wore shorts and thongs and wasn't a stereotype of what a little girl should be. I wasn't a huge tom boy. I was a mix. I loved fairies and mermaids but also Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles. When I was about 13 I read my first Star Wars book. I liked the films and my mother and sister were reading the books and already had a little collection. I'll never forget when I read the first opening paragraph of the first book in the Thrawn trilogy. This was very different to Peanuts! as the author described a star destoryer sliding through the inky blackness of space I could see it in my mind like a movie inside my skull. It was amazing. My own little world. My escape. I have no idea how many of these books I have now but I went through a phase where I wanted to collect them all and bought a lot online. I will never throw these books out because they were some of the first I ever read and I look at some and can remember where I was and how old I was when I read them. I'm even keeping the ones I didn't like and didn't even read because I've had them so long and some of them were my mother's which I pinched. These books are my child hood. I grew up with them. It saddens me that the new movies are ditching them but it makes sense really because the other alternative would have been to re-cast the main three actors but they also wanted to do their own thing which is fine but that doesn't stop me from being sad over how much is being lost. No Jaina, no Mara, no Jacen to name just a few characters now gone. They're not publishing the books anymore either. They want to start a fresh. Again I understand why. In the books the main three were getting pretty old. They couldn't go on forever. At the same time though plot lines have been left unfinished and good characters that could've taken the story forward are being pushed aside. I'll be truthful though I haven't been into these books in the past few years as I used to be. The last series was too political, too boring. I'm going to read the last few because of nostaglia they are the last ones I feel like I have to at least try to read them. I guess its best to think of the books I love as a seperate reality of star wars I guess. Those stories, those characters, they're still there and still important and I'll always have the memories. These books got me into reading and helped me become a writer and I think helped me in school as well. The more I read the more my English improved I think.

People should stop bugging George R.R Martin

I think I've blogged about this before but I'm going to blog about it again: people who keep nagging George R.R Martin to finish his series have absolutely no idea how hard it is to write a book yet alone a series as fucking huge and mind boggling as his one is. It is so easy for them to shout "Hey! finish writing!" and crack a whip without taking two seconds to try and wrap their brains around how mentally exhausting and isolating writing can be and the sheer amount of pressure this man must be under to finish soon and to make it good. I once read that JK Rowling was under so much pressure to finish book four of Harry Potter on time that she considered breaking her own. That's fucked up. I think George probably will finish the series. Just because he's a big guy and not a spring chicken doesn't mean he's on deaths door. And even if he doesn't finish he probably has enough stuff written that a ghost writer could probably pen the rest of it and we're going to see the end in the show first anyway. I used to love his books and I still do but they're gone on for too long, are too long now, and have too many sub-characters and sub-plots running around like headless chickens that for the life of me I cannot remember who is who and what the hell is going on. That doesn't make his book bad. He's still an awesome writer I just think that he has too many ideas and tries to slap them all down on the plate when sometimes I think he needs an editor to tell him to cut it back and get to the juicy, meaty bits. He will finish in his own time and even if he doesn't he doesn't owe anyone anything. That man should live his life how he wishes. He shoudn't have to become a hermit until he finishes the books. Its like every time people hear of him doing something else or see him doing something else they want to snap their fingers and go "Hey! fattie! go write!"

Will Negan be uncensored on the Walking Dead?

The Walking Dead TV show has almost caught up to the comic books and everyone is asking is Negan going to appear and is he going to be censored? In the comic books Negan is a man who carries around a baseball bat covered in barbed wire and he swears a lot. Every second word is fuck. This is apparently fine in the comics which everyone knows are for adults - but in the TV show (also for adults) if he does appear its pretty much a given that he is going to be as violent and crazy as he is in the comics but the swearing will probably be gone. And the question is why?

Why is violence allowed on TV but not a character who swears like a child? In the Walking Dead TV show we have seen people get horribly ripped apart and a child shot in the back of the head - and that is okay, apparently, but swearing isn't? Why are swear words so taboo? there is a scene in the show when Rick says "They're messing with the wrong people" but in the book he says "They're fucking with the wrong people" I find it bewildering and amusing that as a society we're fine with horror violence but sex? boobs? swearing? God no! That's taking it too far. But seeing a man wince while zombies feast on his insides? Fine, mate. After all. This show is for adults.

I can understand censoring a show for children but I don't understand why we censor shows for adults. Are adults not allowed to swear? are we not allowed to hear someone swearing? Why? They are just words. Back when I was watching Breaking Bad there was a scene where someone had written fuck on a bit of paper and the word was blurred out! Why!?! In Breaking Bad of all shows? Melting bodies in a bathtub is fine but God forbid someone writes fuck on a bit of paper. That's taking it too far, man.

I hope Negan does appear because he is a great character and a great villain but I hope he is not censored. That is never going to happen though which is frustratingly stupid.

The Fifty Shades of Grey movie was not that bad!

I read Fifty Shades a Grey a while ago now and can remember summing up my feelings as "Meh" when I finished it. I managed to finish the whole thing which doesn't make it the worst book I've ever read. I was defintely intrigued and it held my attention in a lot of bits. I would probably label it as either a C or a B minus. It started off shaky but got better but ultimately, in the end, I could tell it began its life as a piece of fan fiction. The author has talent but it is raw. I think in time she will improve. There was a lot that was good but there were a lot of bits that were poorly written.

What was interesting about the movie was that it took a medicore book and cut out the flab and made it into a somewhat halfway decent film. The best thing that film was did was take out all of Ana's stupid inner dialogue. In the book she constantly makes references to her "inner goddess" when she thinks about wanting to have sex with Christian. It was stupid, childish and horribly repetitive.

Once you take all of that out the whole thing comes across as way, way more mature. What you're left with is an intriguing film about a relationship that straddles the line between abusive and adventurous.

Why do people hate the characters on Girls?

I discovered the show Girls last year and immediately got sucked in. I loved the writing, the wonderfully flawed characters, and how realistic I felt the whole thing was. The characters on Girls are very well written. In real life people have layers: we can all be a jerk, a bitch, a narcissist, or the best friend you could ever have. The girls on Girls are normal dumb 20-somethings learning about the world one mistake at a time. What mystifies me about this show is the level of hate often directed toward it.

Yes, the characters are not always likeable. Marnie is in my opinion the least likable. She was positively gleeful once she realised she was putting a wedge between Desi and his girlfriend. The look of delight on her face at the end of season three when she saw them fighting. It was a little disturbing like she was feeding off the drama like the witches feed off souls like in Hocus Pocus.

Hannah is annoying, selfish, mentally ill, and sometimes baffling but she's not the worst person to ever walk the face of the Earth but the way some people whinge online you would think she was the most terrible human being ever. I find it weird that people watch shows like Breaking Bad and cheer on Walt as kills people and then melts their bodies but when Hannah does something flaky the pitchforks come out?

The hatred for the characters on Girls is a lot like the hatred that was directed toward Skylar White back when Breaking Bad was on. People had an irrational hatred of her as well and it made no sense. She finds out her husband is a drug lord, a criminal, a meth cook and a killer and she does not react well and she's a bitch because of that? I found it fascinating that so many people thought she was the more shittier human being for having an affair and not "supporting" him compared to him being the Darth Vader of the Meth world.

Why do so many people cheer on characters like Walter White but mock and complain about characters like Hannah from Girls goes nude or ditches her friends to go and do something selfish? How is Hannah the more terrible human being? Hannah is a typical, self-centered, slightly spoiled young girl who is used to a certain level of entitlement. She is raw and real. And that is what makes her such a well written character. I don't hate her for her flaws. I find her flaws fascinating. I went and saw Fifty Shades of Grey yesterday at the cinema and I was talking to my husband about it afterwards and how I felt that Ana was a bit of a blank slate. Anyone could be Ana. "Oh I study English Lit and work in a hardware store" it's like the author spent five minutes fleshing out her character. Now Hannah, on the other hand, is so detailed, so fleshed out, I could talk about her for days. Love her or hate her but you have got to admit she gets people talking and that is the sign of a good writer.

Why do journalists use such crappy cliches all the time?

I saw an article titled "Wayward sister 'nun the wiser' about baby boy" it was about a Nun who somehow got pregnant. I read it and I rolled my eyes so hard I'm surprised they did not fall out of my head. Growing up I was told repeatedly to AVOID cliches as much as possible by the older, wiser writers I chatted with online. Why is it then that journalists go out of their way to use the most cringe worthiest cliches ever in their headlines? for laughs? It's not funny. It's stupid. It's bad writing. Please, for the love of God, STOP. Just tell the stupid story without trying to be clever. I mean come on. You have one job. Report the story. People used to tell me all the time to go into journalism when I told them I liked to write. I'm glad I never did. A creative writer is not the same thing as a journalist. When I see the front covers of some of the more raggy magazines that have lies on the front about the rich and famous that are not even close to being believable I think to myself "Is the person who wrote the story happy with themselves? All those years studying journalism to end up writing rubbish that most people will probably only read in a doctor's waiting room?" I feel bad for them.