Surprises are great aren’t they? Well, except the bad ones like unexpected bills, health concerns or global pandemics. But sometimes they can be nice. And I had a nice one last weekend when my partner and I visited London for a day out.

N.B. The following was a comment I posted on my 10 year anniversary video, uploaded on January 10th 2021 - I thought it best to make a blog post too!

Ten years condensed into five minutes. I uploaded the first video to my YouTube channel back on 10th January 2011 which means it’s been a whopping decade of Let’s Plays, livestreams, collaborations and more. Whilst you might expect a big, blowout anniversary special for reaching the big 1-0, I figured a simple montage would keep it short and sweet. And that also means no incessant rambling from yours truly! I figured I’d be best off writing something down instead of babbling and losing my train of thought narrating. Let’s go!

I did it. I finally made some merch. It seems like an obligatory stage in a YouTuber’s journey - heading to spreadshirt.com, sticking your logo on a t-shirt and Bob’s your uncle, sorted.

Except for me that wasn’t the case.

I always thought simply sticking your name or logo on a cheap t-shirt was a bit naff. Combined with the fact that personally I dislike t-shirts with big, gaudy graphics plastered over them, it didn’t seem like a very enticing prospect. So for the time being, I’ve ignored any idea of making merchandise - and since my channel isn’t humongous anyway, it’s never been a big deal.

In a previous blog post that was all about Billie Eilish and her then recently released theme for the newest Bond film ‘No Time To Die’. I ended it noting:

“Not long to go now until the film itself – you could say there’s no time ‘til No Time to Die.”

Well how was I supposed to know about a global pandemic that was about to hit and the use of the word ‘unprecedented’ was about to skyrocket? No Time To Die was delayed until November 2020 and I won’t be surprised if it’s delayed again.

Have you been injured at work and it wasn’t your fault?

Adverts. We all hate adverts, right? And yet the internet is filled with more adverts than ever, popping up before that video or enclosing a news article so much that you can barely read the actual text. I’ve never really been one for using an adblocker but that’s not to say I’m against them. That might be a bit of a strange opinion to have as a ‘content creator’ but if you’re sick of what surfing the web has turned into, more power to you!

A few months back when I started to create regular content once again, I initially uploaded a welcome back video with a slightly different intro. One of the things I most wanted to do with my recent ‘rebrand’ was customise it to suit the particular series or Let’s Play it was in. Yellow for The Simpsons, wooden planks for Monkey Island - you get the point…

The 25th James Bond film is creeping ever closer and with each step towards its release on April 3rd comes more and more information. Sponsorship brands, 30-second Super Bowl spots and now the biggie - the theme song!

As some of you may know, I’m a bit of a James Bond fan. I’ve been one ever since I was a little kid, giving a show and tell to the rest of my class on the names of all the villains and henchmen, movie titles and Bond girls. (The thought of a nine-year-old talking about Pussy Galore must have given my teacher a chuckle.)

Last November I stepped foot inside Disneyland Paris for the very first time and if I’m being completely honest, I’ve thought about that trip near enough daily ever since. It wasn’t a very long holiday, just three days spent racking up thousands of steps wandering around the most magical place on Earth™. But as corny as that sounds I really did have an incredible time in that bizarre little bubble of a world at Marne-la-Vallée, located just outside Paris.

Well would you look at that, it’s only gone and turned 2019!

With that being the case, I think it’s long overdue I revive this dusty ol’ blog and actually use it. As mentioned in my 8 Year Anniversary Special (yes, it’s really been that long), I dropped the ball so hard with my original plan to blog that said ball burrowed through the Earth’s layers and popped up somewhere in Australia instead.

So the plan to write blog posts semi-regularly fell through completely. Clearly I was just too happy with my previous Simpsons game essay to bother writing anymore. Sure, I was pleased with it and I hope some others enjoyed reading but…it’s hardly worth purchasing an entire WordPress site for, is it?

To kick things off I thought I’d write up a bit about my thought process when it came to the new look of the channel – the ‘rebrand’ so to speak. And with that comes a look back at my older designs too, and the realisation of just how horrible some of them were. But before all that, maybe it’s time I quickly addressed a question I get quite often…

Over its 28 year history, spanning 29 seasons and 600+ episodes, The Simpsons has racked up its fair share of video games. Not content with its breakout success on the Fox network, the show entered into the console world just 2 years after its debut with Bart vs. the Space Mutants in 1991. Business execs were keen to ride the wave of Bartmania sweeping across the nation and fans were equally as eager to play as the “underachiever and proud of it.” It’s no wonder then why 6 more Bart-centric games were released between 1991 and 1992 alone, all to varying degrees of success. Quantity over quality was the driving factor but as the decade progressed, the video games broadened away from Bart’s adventurous exploits and into new territory.