Tonight, my BT Broadband (hopefully) fixed thanks to the advice from @btcare and others to change my wireless channel (yeah, we'll see) I had the night off and so I decided to set up the new Xbox 360 I had foolishly bought (as if I had time for such a thing) before Edinburgh, but not yet played.
I was pretty blown away just by the set up menu, which included a video advertising their online options, which was terrifically exciting. I then settled down to play "Red Dead Redemption", hoping the controls wouldn't prove too complicated for my stupid old brain. They were a bit complicated for my stupid old brain, but I had fun attempting to make the cowboy that I was supposed to be try and walk around town without getting stuck in a corner and not be able to turn around. What I quite liked about the game is that once I had followed the man in the saloon out to the ranch on my horse, the game entered a video mode which I had no control over and my character was shot, seemingly dead. It would have been terrific if that had been it. But (SPOILER ALERT) the stupid game designers decided to have him/me recover and live to fight another day. I sure would like to get revenge on the varmint who shot me though. If only there was some way I could do that. But that would involve playing the whole game through properly. At the moment I prefer to just be evil and shoot innocent bystanders and then have to escape town on my horse and then kill the posse who are sent to get me. By the end of the night I could keep this going for ages. I even found one town where there was presumably no law as I didn't even get into trouble for shooting people for no reason. Aces!
I am sure there will be more to it than this and I might very well try and play the game properly, in the unlikely event that I get that chance to kill the man who nearly killed me. Or I might just kill more shopkeepers and women. I have learned nothing.
It's all a bit of a step on from playing Space Invaders in the Cliff Hotel in 1979 (and a lot more expensive - I could have had a lot of games of Space Invaders at 10p a shot, even not allowing for inflation). I might become a full time virtual cowboy and just try and live a peaceful life where I pick herbs and go for walks and try and see if I can marry the woman who lives in the big house. I prefer being a cowboy to being me.
But does my desire to go on a murder spree within half an hour of starting this game show some latent desire to kill strangers in real life? Almost certainly. Never give me a gun.
The script for Monday is a lot closer to being ready, but still too long, but I am going to leave it until Sunday, of course. Of course I am. I am a twat. A woman killing, desperado twat.
I am 43 years old.
