GrumpyDaddy

Do you ever just read something and hold your head in your hands in despair? I did when I just read some online debates among tens of parents on whether they let their children play games rated for adults. Seemingly intelligent and well educated people can be seen trying to justify allowing their children to view the most violent of content. These people know how violent the content is, they can't even plead ignorance of that. Yet out of some misplaced pride in their child's ability to function as an adult or perhaps a typically modern and lazy aproach to let their little darling have whatever he wants they would attempt to justify their reckless stupidity.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Many years ago - before I began a career writing about videogames - worked in a videogames store. We would often have parents walking up to the counter with a violent game intended for their child nexrt to them. In such cases we would point out the nature of the content. In many cases - thankfully - the parent would be shocked and it would be clear the child had lied about what was in that game case. In all too many cases though - especially among the educationally bereft - the parent would reply that they didn't give a toss (or something stronger). And in those cases we wouldn't sell them the game either.

Eagled eyed readers will notice there's now a Mumsnet Blog Network badge displayed in the right hand column of this site. This this daddy is now one of the certified bloggers on Mumsnet. I've only been involved for a week or so but the debate among the many bloggers that caught my eye during this time is over "mummyblaggers".

What is a mummyblagger? That's a blog where the writer seems to be going all out to get as much free stuff as possible, filling the site with more reviews - well let's be honest very thinly disguised adverts - for whatever free junk some lazy PR rep is willing to send them. I've written of my dislike for this kind of approach in the past.

Today marks the start of the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo - otherwise known as E3. This massive trade show in California sees the big platform holders and publishers announce new wares to get the industry, retailers and gamers excited. I've attended the expo in Los Angeles, played the games, asked the usual questions, been given the same bullshit PR-okayed answers, drank the free drinks and flew home again. And you know what? The whole thing was a complete waste of time.

Attending the expo is pointless for anyone who thinks they are a videogames journalist. There are no stories there, no scoops. There's nothing you will read over the next few days that is anything other than carefully managed ouput from the PR department of major electronics and software companies. For the fanboys there will be some excitement, yes for those who somehow pin their self worth on a major corporation, but when all is said and done E3 is just glorified multimedia press release.

A few weeks ago my laptop died. The internal fan over the GPU stopped working and within short order the graphics card melted. The first I knew of this was when the screen corrupted. I've seen this kind of mess before and knew it meant the death of the computer. And since then I've been without a computer much of the time. Yes I do have a rather nice desktop machine but using it means being away from my family. Of an evening I may want to do some work but still spend time with wifey in front of the telly. Much as I love my Android powered smartphone writing and posting website content with it is not easy.

I do have a Netbook I bought several years ago. But it's really underpowered and the screen is very poor - making for lots of headaches due to my eyesight problems. So what to do? Of course the most obvious thing is a new laptop. However I spend a lot of time using my phone for Twitter, Facebook and the web and so began to consider the idea of a tablet.

Great, get an iPad Harry, I hear you say. I say, no. While Apple's tablet is brilliant for music production - something that made it really appeal to me - it's pretty useless as a computer replacement. It's a big glass vanity object for hipsters and posers. Getting anything actually done with the things is a pain, especially as Apple locks you down in terms of your ability to use it as a grown up - moving and uploading files. Can you copy over your files from your DSLR and back them up to a portable hard drive or USB stick with an iPad? No you can't. Though the worst thing about the - actually rather impressive iPad - isn't the hardware, it's the reliance on the worst piece of software ever created - iTunes (may it rot in hell forever).

I hate flying. Flying on commercial passenger jets that is. Such planes are horrible, claustrophobic, smelly, unsafe, fragile tin-cans that hurtle through the sky at stupid speeds eight miles up. They are flown by companies seeking to cut corners at every opportunity and are making a complete mess of our environment - much more so than our cars or empty cornflake packets.

A few years ago I flew to Los Angeles from London for the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo and both ways it was just crap - hot, smelly, turbulent, crap. Admittedly a lot of my problems with flying stem from a lack of control, but even discounting this the experience of long-haul flight is just rubbish. Being rattled around in a tin can miles in the sky is frightening enough - but when the airline is too cheap to give you decent air to breath it makes matters worse.

When I returned from LA I promised I was never going to fly again. But that was not wholly true. I will be quite happy to fly across the Atlantic again when we do the sensible thing and bring back airships.

Looking for a way of wasting some time in the office today? Why not try Gopherwood Studios' brilliantly elegant browser puzzle game - Entanglement.

You'll find it right here.

I've not yet reached the age of forty but it's pretty clear I am entering middle age. However none of the usual signs are there - I've not lost my sense of humour, I still listen to new music, I don't read the Telegraph and neither am I afraid of immigrants.

Yet it's clear I am a flabby old man. Why? Because I've just discovered the joys of an automatic transmission and can't imagine owning a car with anything else.

Let me step back a minute and explain. We recently traded in our trusty much-loved Ford C-Max. We replaced it with a shiny Citroen C4 Grand Picasso. The Citroen is loaded to the gunwales with technology - there are rear parking sensors, traction control, dual-zone climate control, central computer display, automatic wipers, speed limiter, cruise control, automatic lights etc. But the major clever piece of technology is the transmission.

Cbeebies is full of very strange programmes. Take Numberjacks for example. This appears to be a remake of spooky 70s show Sapphire & Steele albeit with the eponymous heroes replaced with CGI talking numbers that live inside a sofa. Then of course there's Waybaloo a show about dwarfish Buddhists with speech and learning difficulties, which tries very hard to be representative and fill each episode with a group of children of every hue that means the production company is very likely to exhaust Canada's supply of Chinese children pretty soon.

One of the oddest shows is Grandpa In My Pocket. Here James Bolam, slumming it from grown-ups' telly, plays the titular Grandpa. Now don't get worried - grandpa's excursions into "my" pocket are not of the Daily Mail-baiting "I'll give you a Werthers original sonny if I can have a rummage" kind¹. Oh no, instead it refers to Grandpa's ability to shrink to a pocket size when wearing his "magical shrinking cap".

Sorry you had to put up with all that guff about selling my Canon gear. It was clearly madness, one invests in lenses, and I have two f2.8 I love and would be bonkers to sell.

Anyway I solved the whole "small camera to carry around when with the family - but with enough control to appeal to the nerdy photographer" (very long-winded) dilemma.

The answer was a Canon S95 thanks to some money that fell into my lap. A compact for folks who like to dabble with SLRs. I promise to shut up about cameras now.

I've never tried using a Kindle electronic book reader. As they aren't backlit I doubt I'd use one - I tend to read ebooks in bed with the lights off, so wifey can sleep.

But thankfully Amazon offers free Kindle apps for Android, PC and Apple devices. Thus you can read in the dark on your iPod Touch or HTC Desire.

Now the truth be told as an ebook reading app Kindle does leave something to be desired in terms of features. For example the iPod version doesn't let you change the screen brightness - but the Android version does.

I've got a new website. Me and some of the other writers that have been shat upon by AATec (owners of Boomtown.net) have got a new videogames blog on the go. As we're ex-Boomtown we've cheekily called the site Boomtown X.

Do check it out. We've been working hard on it the last week or so.

I must admit that I've fallen out of love with photography this year. Being busy with our new addition (the wonderful baby Will) limited my time for the hobby and over time I've become somewhat disillusioned with it. It's not helped that none of my recent pictures have been any good and people have told me so. You need some encouragement to keep up with learning a new hobby - when you get the opposite it can take the wind from your sails.

To be honest if wifey would let me I'd probably put my DSLR on Ebay tomorrow because I'd rather the cash than something I didn't really use. I've been considering selling the DSLR and just relying on my SLR film camera. I've sold one 1.6x crop lens today and have another I could sell. Leaving my best lens for the film camera.

Would that be mad? Probably. Though would fit in my long term goal of buying a full frame DSLR should my love of the hobby return. I'm just starting to feel the love coming back. Not from playing with my very expensive DSLR, no, by messing around with the Vignette app on my new phone and using my film SLR.

Taken with Vignette on a HTC Desire phone.