Fortnite's Alright? Certainly is for Christmas Presents!

Gah! Like all parents around the globe I'm sick to my back teeth hearing about blooming Fortnite!

"I was sat there waiting with my pump (pump action shot-gun) waiting to blow
em to smithereens....."
"Yeah, I was scoping the hills, sniping them as they came down."
"Whoah. The cube has moved. Dad! The cube moved and then it cracked and then (blah blah my brains outta here).... it was awesome!"
"I'm on level 99."
"Hah! You're a NEWB!*"
"Hah! NEWB skin! Gonna snipe them if I can be arsed!"
"Oooh, a Scar (a type of rifle, apparently). Scars are Cooool"
"Oi! That's my treasure! Mate, that's my treasure. Nah, you're alright mate. I've just been killed anyway...."
"Just one more game, Dad. It'll only take a few minuuuttesss....."
Etc etc etc.

Newb= Newbie = New to the game or considered such given the fact they haven't forked out a ton of money for a some virtual fancy-dress.

And so it goes on. After about 8 months it doesn't seem to be the fad I was hoping it is. So, with Christmas rocking around the corner I guess there is one positive we can take from all this. At least it gives us something to buy for the kids for Christmas!

When it comes to my two they've got all the equipment they need for football, a stock pile of books to read, they have pretty much lost interest in Lego and there's little point buying any other X-Box games until they stop playing Fortnite. 😄

So, if like me you find yourself facing the dilemna of what to buy your Fortnite-mad kids for Christmas I've compiled a few suggestions that might help.

I cannot "Floss". I've tried. Once. Maybe your little one can Floss like a Boss



Don't look like a complete Newb at school with this Fortnite back-pack, gym bag, lunch box and pencil case


Genuinely this is actually quite a good idea - Draw Fortnite like a boss!


Fortnite toys, games and stocking fillers. I have to say, though, a Fortnite Monopoly game? Wow! Just wow!



Get even better at playing the game. No more Newb status for you, sunshine! Anything that gets the kids reading is a good idea.


Oh, hello. It's actually coming out in disc format too! Perhaps for us oldies who don't get the online way of playing!


And, well, here's the best of the rest a.k.a miscellaneous.



 So, there you have it. That's just scraping the surface of the Fortnite related stuff out there. Hopefully this will help you find something for your Fortnite made kids (or adults!). This search has certainly helped me pick out a few items for upcoming birthdays and for Chrimbo. I'm pretty sure they'll still be in to this game in a few months time.

 Of course, if you're buying from Amazon then having Amazon Prime might help too.

Thunderclap

Like an Icelandic thunderclap, the sound of activity on my blogs in deafening. Ok, over-dramatic prose but still.... I have been very busy.

On MaJaTo Scribes I've taken to just coming up with stuff off the top of my head and typing it without any plan. Just to get the creative writing juices flowing.

 At the moment new posts are appearing every few days on Pocket Picture Taker and Random 70s/80s/90s blog too. Original StarWars has had a couple of recent posts too. I'll try to keep up the pace, people.

On NorfolkPlaces everything is pretty active too. It's the website's 7th birthday this month and it continues to grow, establishing itself as Norfolk's favourite and best independent tourism, leisure and lifestyle website.

 To celebrate this hive of activity, here's a fantastic song from A House, an Irish indie/alternative band from the 1990's. Tune.

From nowhere

After years on sporadic activity, today I've added two new blogs to the family.

Introducing Pocket Picture Taker - My phone takes pictures in my pocket. Without me doing anything. It's that simple. Rather than just delete them I decided I should create somewhere to post them.

Next up is Random Stuff From My Life in 1970s, 80s and 90s - Basically I'm having a bit fo a clear out and I keep finding lots of oddities from my youth. Some sentimental, some valuable (perhaps), some tat destined for the bin. I figured I would share this "stuff".

There have also been new posts on other blogs Original Star Wars and MaJaTo Scribes.

The King of Procrastination

The exertions of an early start, fleeting thoughts echo around my hollow head. The news. The emails. The social media. All checked. And checked again. For I am the king of procrastination and I wear my crown wearily. My domains are my domain. It's a kingdom of isolation. Indeed, the outside the world is frozen as I type. Hence the plagiarised line. :o)

So what brings me to blog on this here wintry day? Well, to avoid work of course. House work, health work (gym), my work (my domains), real work. No other reason, because the only other reason is vanity. And I don't do vain. At least, I don't think I do, but what do I know? Precisely.

Whilst I'm here I may as well poison your minds. Afterall, isn't that what kings and leaders have done for millennia? Not that I lead. But I don't follow either.

So, that poison. It's a poison of the soul, and poison can be good for what ails you. For you dear reader are quite probably sick. We all are. It's part of the human condition. We seek things that will make us feel better; Quick fixes that fade and leave a scar like butterfly stitching. We're here so fleetingly that we must grab stuff that makes us feel really better about ourselves for just that bit longer. Music is one of the few poisons that work for real.

So, the dispensary offers you a healthy dose of tunerificary (yep, I made that word up. It's not latin for terrific tune, but that's what it means. Or not. Call the police).

I force this perspective upon you. Maybe it fuses to your guts' inner lining. Imagine the rain, an inner city slum of desperation, hate, love, fear, hopeful hopelessness. An undercurrent eddies beneath the  skin. Oppression, suppression, class, race, religion. Friction, fact.  Forget all that, and close your eyes. Taste this. Feet it. Underappreciated, not forgotten. And still here.

"Up the Empire/Balls to the Bulldog Breed" - by King of the Slums, from the album "Dandelions".


The King of Procrastination retires to his jail of thoughts once more.

See, I told you.

Crazy! It's not even 10am in good ole Blighty and I'm doing the 2nd post of the day, as promised.

Just wanted to put a link up on here to the latest article on the fabulous NorfolkPlaces website.

A couple of days ago recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro, gave a talk at the UEA. NorfolkPlaces were there at this sold out event and so figured the big literature fans amongst you might be interested to see what Ishiguro had to say.

Click here to read the review of Kazuo Ishiguro's talk

There you go. That's probably it for the year now!

Back once again

Back once again for the renegade master D4 damager, power to the people Back once again for the renegade master D4 damager, with the ill behaviour....etc

Yep, these Wildchild/Fatboy Slim lyrics sprung to mind the instant I typed the post title "Back once again". That's more apt as a title than Take That's "Back for good" but "Back on the chaingang" (The Pretenders) is in the running too.

 Rather than post what I was going to post I think I'll just include some musical links instead (just in time for Christmas!). That way I get to do posts in one day, doubling last years' feeble effort!

Posting for the sake of it

Yep. I got the sudden urge to, y'know post. But, and here's the pickle; I don't really have anything to post about at the moment.

It's kind of like an itch you need to scratch but you know scratching it won't do anything for you but you're gonna do it anyway. It's of no benefit whatsoever ever. Except perhaps my innate desire to procrastinate and stop myself from working. Yeah. That. It'll be that.

My bad

My bad; It's been over a year since my last post and to be honest I don't have much of an excuse. I don't work "for the man" any more so as a self-employed dude who sits at a computer for 10+ hours a day I should have time to blog.

But I don't. I don't. I don't because, well for several reasons. Firstly I forgot (I know, my bad) and secondly working for yourself is a lot harder than I thought it would be, meaning pretty much every minute on the  computer is devoted to my business, NorfolkPlaces.

So, anyways.......... time is short and I should really be working right now but I thought I'd stop by for a quick update on life in general.

As you can see from above, I work for myself now and NorfolkPlaces is doing ok. Swing by sometime and check out the site for info on where to visit/stay in Norfolk :-)

The boys are doing well and growing up fast. Big one is at High school and little one is in Junior school and both are super-wicked-awesome at football. In addition to playing for the village team they're both in development squads for professional football teams. So, between the pair of them there's football going on every single day of the week!

Anecdotes? No, sorry. No silly anecdotes that I can recall recently. Tbh, life is a big blur it's going so fast. Really could do with a holiday, but being self-employed doesn't exactly cover the cost of that at the moment (or much else!).

So, Christmas is almost upon us........again! I had hoped to spend some time writing this year but that hasn't happened. Still, The Christmas Starfish is still available form Amazon - see previous post below.

In case I don't post again this year (highly likely) then Happy Chrimbo, Happy New Year and every other seasons' greating for the next few months!

The Christmas Starfish

Out now, in time for Christmas!!!! :o)

EDIT: It was available briefly on Amazon, however, I took it off the market as I know this little sotry is worthy of a wider audience. So, at the moment I am in the process of finding a suitable publisher for this book (and more!).

My favourite Annoying Orange videos

some updates

I've posted a few new things over on MaJaTo Scribes - first updates for over 2 years! Yep, that's even less frequent than this blog! :o)

Chickaboo

One of these days I'm going to find my collection of 1980s Chickaboos, photograph them and stick them on here. I only had 3 or 4 of them, including Father Christmas and E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, but I kept them for nostalgia. Of course, they may well find there way on to Ebay too :o)

Still here...

For anyone checking in on this blog, I'm still here and just as inactive at blogging as ever.

Over four mounths have passed since my last post, which is probably a new record! As usual NorfolkPlaces is taking up most of my spare time, and I don't really have too much to say about anything else at the moment.

Sure, I could go on about the latest working situation (not great stuff), the kids (good stuff and bad stuff), holiday plans (excellent stuff) or a whole bunch of other things but I simply don't have the time. I hardly even have the time to enjoy a drink! Yeah, I could make the time to blog more and do other things, but I'm too busy to make time too! :o)

One of these days....

I will get back to more regular blogging, though I can't make a promise on it because work, websites and of course family are taking up most of my time.
For example, I spent 5 hours last night trying to figure out a code problem and didn't succeed. After research I found lit was a known Wordpress problem, but no-one had been able to fix it. Trying to solve these kinds of problems make the hours just melt away.
Still no likelihood of a possible return to writing, though I do have some old stuff I could post on MaJaToScribes at some point. Interestingly, the highest viewed story on that blog is an odd coffe-break fiction story called Angie.

My son, the genius

At 8 years old, Luke is at an age where he gets homework regularly. This includes weekly a spelling test, which he's been acing with 10/10 every week this term.

That's excellent, but not the main story of this post.

Ben has only just started school a few weeks ago, but he likes to do homework too. Teachers don't really give reception kids homework so we set him tasks such as drawing or sounding out his letters.

Yesterday morning I asked Luke to look at his spellings to prepare for his next test. Ben decided he wanted to do some spellings too, so I asked him to write a few basic words that he can read but not necessarily write yet.

He got them all right. Great. Still not the punchline though!

I left the room for a moment and when I came back he had written a word and asked me to look at what he had written. I was astonished to see he had written in excellent hand-writing (for a 4 year old) the word "synopsis".

Stunned, I asked him where he had heard that word and how did he know how to spell it let alone write it. With a big pleased-with-himself grin he pointed at the word printed further down on the piece of scrap paper he had written on!