Not tonight dear, I have a headache.

You may have noticed I forgot to update the blog last week, sorry about that! A combination of laziness, real work and other such concepts are the reasons behind that. Still got plenty on my plate so I will try and keep this one brief folks!

Nothing spectacularly interesting has been happening in these past few weeks really. Hard to believe I know, I do lead such an interesting life. Most of it has been taken up by reading various books for my course, or the pursuit of ever-more elaborate means of procrastinating, in order to avoid the reading of the previously mentioned books for my course. Some examples of these include playing video games, including digging up old games that I used to play. This week the game of choice has been Call of Duty 3 on the Wii. That's right, 3. None of this Modern Warfare business for me thank you very much! Don't mistake me, I'm sure the MW games are great, but personally I don't go in for all of that. I guess it's because it's set around modern times (hence the title, utter genius), it could be construed as a little insensitive to the conflicts occuring at the present time.

Though it's not just that, I suppose the fact of it being representitive of recent (and I believe slightly in the future? Please correct me if I'm wrong) warfare, it just doesn't seem interesting to me. But this is a whole part of the escapism debate for me. I play video games to 'escape' to another world, to enjoy the life of another character, and while the MW games obviously do that, it's just a little too close to reality for me I think. I much prefer the WWII style era of FPS games, especially since they are handled so delicately. Especially in this installment of the series, you play as several countries other than simply America, and at no point does it attempt to glorify war. The many quotes that pop up upon the death of your character lend further credibility to this idea, allowing you to feel like you're contributing to the good fight, and learning a little bit at the same time. But I'm a geek, so what do I know!

As mentioned earlier I play the Wii version, which I enjoy for a few reasons, the main one being the control scheme. Granted, the graphics aren't fantastic, but the simple act of actually having to aim your weapon redeems this in full. Occaisonally it can be annoying, and there are more glitches in the game than I'd like, but overall I really enjoy the feeling that my marksmanship is actually improving, and I think this really helps you to feel involved in the game. Watch out German's, I got me a MP40 and I'm not afraid to defend the freedom of the free world with it! An MP40 is a type of German machine gun, for those of you not familiar with WWII-era weaponry; though shame on you for not knowing your history!

I really should be doing some more reading, but talking about this has got me wanting to play again...maybe just a quick go. It'll be fine, right? I mean, it's not like I'll get frustrated and die, and keep attempting the same section in order to try and complete it. I'm above that. A quick go will be fine, and then I'll have plenty of time to read. Awesome. Anyway, I'll leave you with this little thought as is per usual and be off: why are hamburgers and frankfurters nothing to do with Hamburg and Frankfurt?

~ Toby