Hello all
Just so you all know, I no longer blog on Blogspot, I now use Wordpress.
My new blog can be found here - https://fromthemindofkate.wordpress.com/
Kate
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Saturday 3 October 2015
Friday 14 March 2014
2 years on from the great plot twist
Hello all
Firstly, a song.....
Sunday marks the anniversary of a date that will always stick with me. On March 16th it will be two years since my friendship with Jodi fell apart. Jodi has asked me to not write about her in this blog, so just to prevent her annoyance before it actually starts, if she ever reads this, don't worry Jodi, this blog isn't about you or what happened towards the end our friendship as we have covered that ground far too many times.
For those who knew me back in early 2012, I was a very different person, or rather, scratch that, those who knew me in mid 2011 knew that I was a very different person back then to who I am now. Let's just ignore the fact that back then I was still Nathan and although I wanted to do it, I never actually imagined myself actually going through the gender change I had wanted since before I can remember.
At the time I was generally quite happy. I was 26 years old and had a strong group of friends. I was in a job that I was very good at and things were looking up for my career. I was settled in life but something always seemed missing, something never seemed complete. I have grown restless, I was 26 but had done precisely fuck all in my life that was noteworthy and something needed to change, I needed to do something meaningful, but I didn't at that point know what it was.
In the height of a very hot summer, me and three friends went to Scotland. One is a Leeds supporter and they were playing away at Falkirk, so we went up as a group and explored the various outposts of Scottish football before the game. It was the first time that I had ever visited Scotland and I loved it, I loved going to a new place and in the middle of a flurry with conversations with Jodi, I knew what I was missing, I wanted to see the world.
Throughout the next few months I change as I planned to move over to either America or Canada, I suddenly went from someone who was a generally quite happy person to being really quiet and reserved. I cut a lot of people out of my life, including a Facebook friend list that contained 558 people being dwindled down to just 136 in the space of 3 days. I was planning to leave my previous life behind and start fresh in America or Canada, and everything in my head kept telling me to just go. I remember travelling to Colwyn Bay (North Wales) to watch City play in the trophy and as you're going along, you drive right next to the sea and you can see just seemingly endless ocean. What possibilities lay beyond those waters?
Time goes on and my desire to move abroad grows and grows, whilst my friendship with Jodi falls apart very quickly, and at the time she was one of the few people holding my sanity together. On March 16th our friendship finally ended when I called her a less than favourable word, and looking back on it, it, and a lot of things said with it, weren't necessary and I am not proud of myself for that.
At first it didn't really effect me, but by the end of that day I was a wreck. I didn't know what to do with myself. It's a horrible feeling losing someone who you considered to be a close friend, especially when it was all my fault. I felt dead inside for weeks and the previous few months and the falling apart of the friendship kept playing over and over in my mind, and whilst I have no doubt that Jodi moved on pretty quickly, for me it was different.
I know I am not a nice person to be around or to talk to a lot of the time. I can be moody as fuck and am very opinionated. I am aware that sometimes I can come off as being very self-involved and when things aren't going my way, I tend not to react well. I have no doubt that when one of my friendships ends, the other person is quite relieved to be rid of me, and I have no doubt that is what Jodi thought at the time, and probably still does.
Anyway, I digress. By this time I was 27 and reaching a point in my life where I needed to change something and so I left Lincoln, moving to nearby Newark (to be fair mainly to be closer to work), got a job working in a pub part time, started reconnecting with friends I hadn't been overly close to and to finally started planning to change gender.
Looking back, I think that my life needed a big event like losing someone who I considered to be a good friend to finally move on. Whilst it wasn't ideally on a lot of levels, it allowed me to grow as a person and whilst on some days I still can be a moody fuck, or be nice as fuck to you one day and barely acknowledge your existence the next, I like to think that this experience has allowed me to become a better person.
Certainly since that day I have changed many things about myself, but the thing I am most proud of is that I now feel free to experience things for the first time, or pursue life long ambitions. Since that day I have actively pursued things I would have done before and despite the initial depression about what happened, I now look back on that day favorably due to what happened afterwards.
I do still think about the end of the friendship occasionally and ultimately the conclusion is that maybe we were never supposed to be friends. We were just two completely different people and in reality had very little in common. We had very different values, ambitions and in reality, whilst we got on really well when things were going well, when things went badly, they went very badly. For what it's worth Jodi, if you ever find yourself reading this, I hope you find happiness in whatever you choose to do in life.
Firstly, a song.....
Sunday marks the anniversary of a date that will always stick with me. On March 16th it will be two years since my friendship with Jodi fell apart. Jodi has asked me to not write about her in this blog, so just to prevent her annoyance before it actually starts, if she ever reads this, don't worry Jodi, this blog isn't about you or what happened towards the end our friendship as we have covered that ground far too many times.
For those who knew me back in early 2012, I was a very different person, or rather, scratch that, those who knew me in mid 2011 knew that I was a very different person back then to who I am now. Let's just ignore the fact that back then I was still Nathan and although I wanted to do it, I never actually imagined myself actually going through the gender change I had wanted since before I can remember.
At the time I was generally quite happy. I was 26 years old and had a strong group of friends. I was in a job that I was very good at and things were looking up for my career. I was settled in life but something always seemed missing, something never seemed complete. I have grown restless, I was 26 but had done precisely fuck all in my life that was noteworthy and something needed to change, I needed to do something meaningful, but I didn't at that point know what it was.
In the height of a very hot summer, me and three friends went to Scotland. One is a Leeds supporter and they were playing away at Falkirk, so we went up as a group and explored the various outposts of Scottish football before the game. It was the first time that I had ever visited Scotland and I loved it, I loved going to a new place and in the middle of a flurry with conversations with Jodi, I knew what I was missing, I wanted to see the world.
Throughout the next few months I change as I planned to move over to either America or Canada, I suddenly went from someone who was a generally quite happy person to being really quiet and reserved. I cut a lot of people out of my life, including a Facebook friend list that contained 558 people being dwindled down to just 136 in the space of 3 days. I was planning to leave my previous life behind and start fresh in America or Canada, and everything in my head kept telling me to just go. I remember travelling to Colwyn Bay (North Wales) to watch City play in the trophy and as you're going along, you drive right next to the sea and you can see just seemingly endless ocean. What possibilities lay beyond those waters?
Time goes on and my desire to move abroad grows and grows, whilst my friendship with Jodi falls apart very quickly, and at the time she was one of the few people holding my sanity together. On March 16th our friendship finally ended when I called her a less than favourable word, and looking back on it, it, and a lot of things said with it, weren't necessary and I am not proud of myself for that.
At first it didn't really effect me, but by the end of that day I was a wreck. I didn't know what to do with myself. It's a horrible feeling losing someone who you considered to be a close friend, especially when it was all my fault. I felt dead inside for weeks and the previous few months and the falling apart of the friendship kept playing over and over in my mind, and whilst I have no doubt that Jodi moved on pretty quickly, for me it was different.
I know I am not a nice person to be around or to talk to a lot of the time. I can be moody as fuck and am very opinionated. I am aware that sometimes I can come off as being very self-involved and when things aren't going my way, I tend not to react well. I have no doubt that when one of my friendships ends, the other person is quite relieved to be rid of me, and I have no doubt that is what Jodi thought at the time, and probably still does.
Anyway, I digress. By this time I was 27 and reaching a point in my life where I needed to change something and so I left Lincoln, moving to nearby Newark (to be fair mainly to be closer to work), got a job working in a pub part time, started reconnecting with friends I hadn't been overly close to and to finally started planning to change gender.
Looking back, I think that my life needed a big event like losing someone who I considered to be a good friend to finally move on. Whilst it wasn't ideally on a lot of levels, it allowed me to grow as a person and whilst on some days I still can be a moody fuck, or be nice as fuck to you one day and barely acknowledge your existence the next, I like to think that this experience has allowed me to become a better person.
Certainly since that day I have changed many things about myself, but the thing I am most proud of is that I now feel free to experience things for the first time, or pursue life long ambitions. Since that day I have actively pursued things I would have done before and despite the initial depression about what happened, I now look back on that day favorably due to what happened afterwards.
I do still think about the end of the friendship occasionally and ultimately the conclusion is that maybe we were never supposed to be friends. We were just two completely different people and in reality had very little in common. We had very different values, ambitions and in reality, whilst we got on really well when things were going well, when things went badly, they went very badly. For what it's worth Jodi, if you ever find yourself reading this, I hope you find happiness in whatever you choose to do in life.
Friday 14 February 2014
A lot can happen in four months
Hello all
I realised that other day that it's been nearly four months since my last blog update and when I started thining about it further, a LOT has happened in that four months.
Firstly though, a song. It's probably my favourite song off of Canterbury's new album but annoyingly Youtube doesn't link into Blogspot properly and I have to use a live version rather than the version where you can hear what's going on....oh well.
So yeah, it's been nearly four months since I last wrote a blog entry and a lot has changed, where to even start?
Well, let's start with work. I am still at BT and although it took me a while, I am starting to like the role. When I went on a week long holiday in November I was determined to leave and spent most of my week off searching for a new job and to be honest, it was like that up until mid-January, but then something changed....I started liking my job.
I can pin down why I like it or why I am now very likely to stay. It's probably more financial than anything else. I started on the bonus structure in January and in the two months combined I have earned nearly £850 worth of bonus, that on top of my normal wages. I'm not going to lie, I left Vodafone for many reasons, with the main one being that the pay was a bit crap for the work that I was actually doing (I saw pretty much the exact same role at other companies for almost double what I was getting paid there), however, I couldn't have dreamt about the financial boost that the job at BT has given and if I average out that bonus over a year, on top of my wage, I will be earning almost £9,000 more a year than I was at Vodafone, which is massive.
Changing sex isn't cheap and the extra finances have given me a bit more freedom to get things done a bit quicker. For example, the electrolysis hasn't really given decent results, infact, fairly minimal in the 14 months since I started on hormones, but I recently had a consultation for IPL hair removal and although slightly more costly (and not by much), it is far quicker at getting results and the place I am going to have it done is about a 15 minute walk from my house as opposed to the near 4 hour journey on trains to London.
In terms of changing sex, well, it's a bit strange, some times it really feels like the changes are coming thick and fast, whereas other days I don't feel any different to what I did before all of this started. I do however look different facially to before all of this started. The two below pictures were taken about a month or before I started even being Kate full time (June 2012) and the one on the right was taken about two months ago. My face seems a longer than it was and the hair growth is considerably fast than back before I started all of this.
Other than that, things are progressing ok, I am still considering various surgeries (other than the obvious) but one thing at a time, unless of course I get considerably more bonus. One thing at a time, I am still only 29 so I have a lot of time left to do things....hopefully.
The reason I say hopefully is that my granddad died a few days ago and has kind of bummed me out. I won't claim to know him at all well and we never really had a proper conversation, but it's still gutting. He was 93 at the time of his passing (two days before his 94th birthday) so I suppose it was to be expected. The funeral is a week on Monday, hopefully I will be able to go, it depends on what work say but hopefully they will be cool with it. The only trouble really is going to be that it comes just a few days before I am actually on annual leave for a week two days after that and as the funeral is over the other side of the country (Norfolk to be precise) it would mean missing at least one, possibly two days of work, so I don't know. Hopefully they will be ok with it.
Anyway, onto slightly happier things. My love affair with Lincoln City finally ended. I mentioned in my last blog that I had missed my first game in nine years in October, one became two, two became three and let's put it this way, it's now mid-February and I haven't been to a game since December 28th, nor do I intend to go to a Lincoln game anytime soon. Infact, I have only been to two football matches this calendar year, Chorley vs Fylde and Stoke vs Manchester United.
As people on Facebook will have probably realised, football has now been replaced by hockey as my main passion. As I mentioned in my last blog, I had gone to my first ever game of hockey when Blackburn lost to Solway. My attendance was sporadic at first but I soon started attending regularly and I have seen 12 games so far with the Hawks winning ten of those (the only two defeats both coming to Solway). I am certainly spoilt for goals and all the results of the games I have been to have been 1-2, 4-2, 8-1, 9-1, 10-6, 6-1, 3-1, 6-2, 0-1, 4-2, 7-4 and 7-2.
I have become involved in the Blackburn Hawks and now do the match videos and highlights on an official basis. I don't get paid for it but you know what, it's actually good fun, and I have gained some good friends since I started doing that, and it's the first time in a long time I have been socialising with people on a regular basis that has nothing to do with football. Infact, I see more of them than I do anyone that I don't live with.
Anyway, I'm going to leave this blog entry here, I know I said a lot had changed and several things other than that have altered in recent months, but it's 12:15am and I am going to go to bed, so until next time, peace out.
I realised that other day that it's been nearly four months since my last blog update and when I started thining about it further, a LOT has happened in that four months.
Firstly though, a song. It's probably my favourite song off of Canterbury's new album but annoyingly Youtube doesn't link into Blogspot properly and I have to use a live version rather than the version where you can hear what's going on....oh well.
So yeah, it's been nearly four months since I last wrote a blog entry and a lot has changed, where to even start?
Well, let's start with work. I am still at BT and although it took me a while, I am starting to like the role. When I went on a week long holiday in November I was determined to leave and spent most of my week off searching for a new job and to be honest, it was like that up until mid-January, but then something changed....I started liking my job.
I can pin down why I like it or why I am now very likely to stay. It's probably more financial than anything else. I started on the bonus structure in January and in the two months combined I have earned nearly £850 worth of bonus, that on top of my normal wages. I'm not going to lie, I left Vodafone for many reasons, with the main one being that the pay was a bit crap for the work that I was actually doing (I saw pretty much the exact same role at other companies for almost double what I was getting paid there), however, I couldn't have dreamt about the financial boost that the job at BT has given and if I average out that bonus over a year, on top of my wage, I will be earning almost £9,000 more a year than I was at Vodafone, which is massive.
Changing sex isn't cheap and the extra finances have given me a bit more freedom to get things done a bit quicker. For example, the electrolysis hasn't really given decent results, infact, fairly minimal in the 14 months since I started on hormones, but I recently had a consultation for IPL hair removal and although slightly more costly (and not by much), it is far quicker at getting results and the place I am going to have it done is about a 15 minute walk from my house as opposed to the near 4 hour journey on trains to London.
In terms of changing sex, well, it's a bit strange, some times it really feels like the changes are coming thick and fast, whereas other days I don't feel any different to what I did before all of this started. I do however look different facially to before all of this started. The two below pictures were taken about a month or before I started even being Kate full time (June 2012) and the one on the right was taken about two months ago. My face seems a longer than it was and the hair growth is considerably fast than back before I started all of this.
The reason I say hopefully is that my granddad died a few days ago and has kind of bummed me out. I won't claim to know him at all well and we never really had a proper conversation, but it's still gutting. He was 93 at the time of his passing (two days before his 94th birthday) so I suppose it was to be expected. The funeral is a week on Monday, hopefully I will be able to go, it depends on what work say but hopefully they will be cool with it. The only trouble really is going to be that it comes just a few days before I am actually on annual leave for a week two days after that and as the funeral is over the other side of the country (Norfolk to be precise) it would mean missing at least one, possibly two days of work, so I don't know. Hopefully they will be ok with it.
Anyway, onto slightly happier things. My love affair with Lincoln City finally ended. I mentioned in my last blog that I had missed my first game in nine years in October, one became two, two became three and let's put it this way, it's now mid-February and I haven't been to a game since December 28th, nor do I intend to go to a Lincoln game anytime soon. Infact, I have only been to two football matches this calendar year, Chorley vs Fylde and Stoke vs Manchester United.
As people on Facebook will have probably realised, football has now been replaced by hockey as my main passion. As I mentioned in my last blog, I had gone to my first ever game of hockey when Blackburn lost to Solway. My attendance was sporadic at first but I soon started attending regularly and I have seen 12 games so far with the Hawks winning ten of those (the only two defeats both coming to Solway). I am certainly spoilt for goals and all the results of the games I have been to have been 1-2, 4-2, 8-1, 9-1, 10-6, 6-1, 3-1, 6-2, 0-1, 4-2, 7-4 and 7-2.
I have become involved in the Blackburn Hawks and now do the match videos and highlights on an official basis. I don't get paid for it but you know what, it's actually good fun, and I have gained some good friends since I started doing that, and it's the first time in a long time I have been socialising with people on a regular basis that has nothing to do with football. Infact, I see more of them than I do anyone that I don't live with.
The channel that I do videos for can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiT2YOywZsYc3_J41H6mmKA
Anyway, I'm going to leave this blog entry here, I know I said a lot had changed and several things other than that have altered in recent months, but it's 12:15am and I am going to go to bed, so until next time, peace out.
Monday 21 October 2013
18 months of firsts.
Hello all
I trust all is well with everyone?
You know what’s strange, ever since I started changing
gender I have found myself doing things that I probably never would have done before,
or actively pursuing things that I wanted to do for a long time.
I’m now going to share some of these experiences.
Blink 182
Strictly speaking this one counts, even though I had this
planned for long before I started officially being Kate, infact, I have the
tickets for a full 18 months before I went to this, but in July 2012, just 9
days after I had come out to every as transgendered, I went to watch probably
my favourite band of all time live in Nottingham.
It was a great event and it was a great chance to see the
friends I had made whilst I lived in Nottingham. Obviously it was the first
time many had seen me since I started changing, but they were all cool about
it.
Manchester United
Many people know that
I am a Man United fan and have been since around the second month of liking
football (the first club I actually supported was Sheffield Wednesday…..I have
no idea why), and whilst I had been occasionally to Old Trafford, I got the
chance during the summer of 2012 to get a season ticket at Manchester United.
After a bit of a debate, I took up the offer, meaning that I
would comfortably beat my previous best of two games in a season. For the
experience it was great, I went to nine games and saw some of the world’s best
players during my time. Some of the players I saw (other than United players
obviously) included Juan Mata and Gareth Bale, some truly world class
players……I also saw Andy Carroll.
Despite the positives, this fucked me financially. It was
£74 a month for the season ticket and £50 per home match in the cups. Basically
you were forced to have a ticket for every game at home in the cups, regardless
of whether you wanted to go or not. The problem with this was that United
played at home in every single round of every single cup, with the exception of
one game in the Carling Cup (Chelsea away). In one month the season ticket cost
me nearly £300 because of cup draws.
There were also occasions when people had promised that they
would buy the season ticket off me for a game if they couldn’t go…..but these
people were nowhere to be seen when the time came. I probably wouldn’t have got
it had I known that I would only go to 9 of the 26 games that United had and I
wouldn’t sell the ticket for at least ten of the rest.
Jack Dee
I have always been a fan of the deadpan comedian. Ever since
I first heard of him (towards the end of the last millennium), I have actively
followed his stand up career but then he sort of retired from that about 10
years ago. It had always been an ambition of mine to see him live but my
opportunity had passed.
One night I was watching the Graham Norton show and he was
on it. He spoke about numerous things, but also about his upcoming tour. I got
really excited and he was even coming to Lincolnshire….Skegness to be precise.
I bought the tickets, booked a hotel and went to watch him. It was hilarious.
Barcelona
I had never been abroad on holiday before this year. I had been to France with school but it's not the same,
so I was excited when I organised a holiday to Barcelona. It was a fantastic trip and although it was only a weekend, I feel in love with the city. It is truly majestic, it really is. If you haven't been, go.
The main reason I had never been abroad on holiday was that I am I terrified of heights, and therefore the thought of being on a plane sends shivers down my spine, and it's funny in a way because I was really nervous on the plane, sweating heavily and it wasn't helped when the plane tilted and I could see the M6 from about 1 mile up.......I shook and I could tell the person next to me was getting a bit worried.
Thankfully I made it through both journeys (I was fine on the way home) and would love to go again some day.
Moving to Blackburn
I had long had ambitions to move out of the East Midlands and whilst the plan two years ago was to go to either Canada or America, I suppose Blackburn isn't an absolutely awful place. I was actually quite surprised at how nice Blackburn is....not in terms of looks because it does look like a massive council estate, but as a place to live I can't complain at all.
Despite the town centre being shite, there's nothing I don't really like. The people are friendly enough and there is a bit of do in various areas. My one small issue is that I still haven't really made any friends here.
Blackburn Hawks vs
Solway Sharks
I have been a fan of ice hockey for many years but never really visioned that I would actually go to a game, mainly because I didn't think the English leagues would be any good, however, when I found out Blackburn had a team I thought it was a good idea to go with it.
The game I went to was the Hawks vs the Solway Sharks and it was very different to any kind of sporting event I had been to. It felt in many ways more like a party that an ice hockey match. Even though Solway went on to win 2-1, the home crowd never got frustrated with their team and it was such a relief from football, where that is certainly not the case.
In all honesty, I have seriously contemplated taking this up as my main attended sport and stopping attending football. I have found in recent years that I sort of hate going to football, and it is something that I can actually see doing in the future. Maybe not right now, but certainly in the future.
Saturday 24 August 2013
A lot can happen in two months
Hello all
Firstly, a song.....
It's been more than two months since my last blog entry and that wasn't particularly relevant to anything, so I just wanted to take some time and talk about how my life has changed in the last two months.
I mentioned in my last blog entry (well, the last one about me anyway) that I had been offered a new job, a job which I have now started. I handed my notice at Vodafone pretty much straight after being offered the new job and it was a bizarre four weeks. It's amazing how little you give a shit when you know you're leaving. Before that I was a hard worker and hated not having something to work on, however, immediately afterwards I was happy just to sit there with nothing to do most of the day.
Don't get me wrong, I still got on with work, but I no longer actively sought things to do in between, and people weren't in a hurry to give me more stuff. They knew I couldn't give a crap. Anyway, four weeks pass and it gets down to the final day of me working for Vodafone and I say goodbye to everyone that I want to say goodbye to. There are numerous people who work there that I will quite gladly never see or speak to again, but there are several people who I consider good friends that I know I won't ever see again in all likelihood.
I got on really well with the members of the Tech Admin team and had a laugh with them every day (SHAMONE, HE HE), and I will miss people like Vic, Jamie and a few others. It was strange in a way that I had wanted to leave for so long and then it was all of a sudden right there, and I think at that point I realised that I would miss it in a way, but oh well, it's in the past now.
So I moved up to work for BT and I now live in Blackburn. I've been in the job for two weeks now and I think I'm doing ok, but I am always my own biggest critic, so yeah. The training doesn't end for another three weeks, so I probably know until then whether I am good at it or not, but it's something different and that's always a good thing.
The only thing I really miss is my friends. I haven't made a single friend since I moved up to the area, although I do get on well with some of the people that I work with, however, it takes a lot before I start considering my colleagues as friends. I know I am back in Lincoln on a semi regular basis anyway, so hopefully I will see some of them at some point, but yeah, I just miss them, and it's a shame because my friends have gotten me through some pretty hard times over the years, and people such as Jenna, Debra, Charlie, Ellen and so many others really helped me when I came out as transgendered last year.
That leads me nicely only my transition. Things are starting to process as my oestrogen levels went from 161 to 836 in the space of just over 2 months, which is an insane increase, especially when you consider that my testosterone levels are now 3.2, which is the same as the average female apparently. I know I still look and sound like a guy, but I am trying hard to become more feminine in various aspects of my life, but it's not an easy thing.
Emotionally the hormones have definitely taken a grip and I am now more prone to showing my emotions. I have twice started crying in recent months for situations where I wouldn't have cried before the hormones, such as seeing a friend leave (even though I know I will (hopefully) see them again in the future.
My voice is particularly getting me down at the moment, I have been to five therapy sessions and my voice still sounds exactly like it did before I started, and as my gender consultant says "You can dress as femininely as you want, or wear as much make up as you want, but until you sound female, you will always have a dead give away that you are naturally male."
Don't get me wrong, I know that I still don't put in a lot of effort in terms of my appearance, but I still have a lot of body issues and until the effects of the oestrogen are more obvious, I will continue to dress in a covered up nature. Breasts are developing slowly and I think that once they are a half decent size, I will feel more confident with regards to wearing more feminine clothes. Just so you know, all of the clothes I do wear did come from womens sections of stores, but I choose to only wear the more truly feminine clothes (such as dresses) when I am in a situation where I feel comfortable with it, such as seeing my doctors.
Don't get me wrong, I don't give a fuck if you like that I am transsexual or not. What is between my legs is my choice and I have had too many people dragging me down over the years. I am finally doing something that I have spent my entire life doing, so sorry that it's not what you would want, or what you find normal, because at the end of the day, this is my life. I lost my fear of people's reactions long ago, and only during my first few days of living as Kate was I afraid, but I believe I have shown more courage trying to achieve a life's goal than the average person will ever achieve. So if you want to join me on my journey and what happens after I have reached it's end, then great, if not then get off now, but don't expect me to bend to what you want me to do, because it isn't happening.
So I will leave it there, but yeah, I just wanted to write a blog entry and even though I know not a lot of people read this, it certainly makes me feel a lot better about a lot of things due to being able to write it down and not keep it in. I kept a lot of things in for far too long, so even if no-one reads it, it is nice to be able to at least put it somewhere.
Anyway, until next time,
Peace out.
Firstly, a song.....
It's been more than two months since my last blog entry and that wasn't particularly relevant to anything, so I just wanted to take some time and talk about how my life has changed in the last two months.
I mentioned in my last blog entry (well, the last one about me anyway) that I had been offered a new job, a job which I have now started. I handed my notice at Vodafone pretty much straight after being offered the new job and it was a bizarre four weeks. It's amazing how little you give a shit when you know you're leaving. Before that I was a hard worker and hated not having something to work on, however, immediately afterwards I was happy just to sit there with nothing to do most of the day.
Don't get me wrong, I still got on with work, but I no longer actively sought things to do in between, and people weren't in a hurry to give me more stuff. They knew I couldn't give a crap. Anyway, four weeks pass and it gets down to the final day of me working for Vodafone and I say goodbye to everyone that I want to say goodbye to. There are numerous people who work there that I will quite gladly never see or speak to again, but there are several people who I consider good friends that I know I won't ever see again in all likelihood.
I got on really well with the members of the Tech Admin team and had a laugh with them every day (SHAMONE, HE HE), and I will miss people like Vic, Jamie and a few others. It was strange in a way that I had wanted to leave for so long and then it was all of a sudden right there, and I think at that point I realised that I would miss it in a way, but oh well, it's in the past now.
So I moved up to work for BT and I now live in Blackburn. I've been in the job for two weeks now and I think I'm doing ok, but I am always my own biggest critic, so yeah. The training doesn't end for another three weeks, so I probably know until then whether I am good at it or not, but it's something different and that's always a good thing.
The only thing I really miss is my friends. I haven't made a single friend since I moved up to the area, although I do get on well with some of the people that I work with, however, it takes a lot before I start considering my colleagues as friends. I know I am back in Lincoln on a semi regular basis anyway, so hopefully I will see some of them at some point, but yeah, I just miss them, and it's a shame because my friends have gotten me through some pretty hard times over the years, and people such as Jenna, Debra, Charlie, Ellen and so many others really helped me when I came out as transgendered last year.
That leads me nicely only my transition. Things are starting to process as my oestrogen levels went from 161 to 836 in the space of just over 2 months, which is an insane increase, especially when you consider that my testosterone levels are now 3.2, which is the same as the average female apparently. I know I still look and sound like a guy, but I am trying hard to become more feminine in various aspects of my life, but it's not an easy thing.
Emotionally the hormones have definitely taken a grip and I am now more prone to showing my emotions. I have twice started crying in recent months for situations where I wouldn't have cried before the hormones, such as seeing a friend leave (even though I know I will (hopefully) see them again in the future.
My voice is particularly getting me down at the moment, I have been to five therapy sessions and my voice still sounds exactly like it did before I started, and as my gender consultant says "You can dress as femininely as you want, or wear as much make up as you want, but until you sound female, you will always have a dead give away that you are naturally male."
Don't get me wrong, I know that I still don't put in a lot of effort in terms of my appearance, but I still have a lot of body issues and until the effects of the oestrogen are more obvious, I will continue to dress in a covered up nature. Breasts are developing slowly and I think that once they are a half decent size, I will feel more confident with regards to wearing more feminine clothes. Just so you know, all of the clothes I do wear did come from womens sections of stores, but I choose to only wear the more truly feminine clothes (such as dresses) when I am in a situation where I feel comfortable with it, such as seeing my doctors.
Don't get me wrong, I don't give a fuck if you like that I am transsexual or not. What is between my legs is my choice and I have had too many people dragging me down over the years. I am finally doing something that I have spent my entire life doing, so sorry that it's not what you would want, or what you find normal, because at the end of the day, this is my life. I lost my fear of people's reactions long ago, and only during my first few days of living as Kate was I afraid, but I believe I have shown more courage trying to achieve a life's goal than the average person will ever achieve. So if you want to join me on my journey and what happens after I have reached it's end, then great, if not then get off now, but don't expect me to bend to what you want me to do, because it isn't happening.
So I will leave it there, but yeah, I just wanted to write a blog entry and even though I know not a lot of people read this, it certainly makes me feel a lot better about a lot of things due to being able to write it down and not keep it in. I kept a lot of things in for far too long, so even if no-one reads it, it is nice to be able to at least put it somewhere.
Anyway, until next time,
Peace out.
Saturday 13 July 2013
Movies from the 1980s that anyone born after 1990 needs to watch
Hello all
In my part time job at the Lord Ted, I work with a lot of people were born in the latter half of the 1990s, meaning that by the time that they reached an age where they can remember stuff, they had virtually no chance of watch or hearing of. So below are five movies from the 1980s that won't be well known by the younger generation that I would highly recommend.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Long before before he was Neo in The Matrix, Keanu Reeves was part of a film about two high school slackers who are about to fail their history class. They make a half-arsed attempt at their last report before a person from the future comes and tells them that they eventually form a band that brings world peace, however, they must pass their history class to do it was Reeves' character will be sent to military school if they fail.
They use a telephone booth to travel through time and gather various famous figures from history, such as Billy the Kid, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Sigmund Freud and various others. Various problems occur along the way, such as having part of their booth destroyed by a member of Ghengis Khan's army, and they struggle to deal with it due to their slacker nature.
This is a fun movie and definitely the type that you don't get these days. It's 90 or so minutes of fun. It was so successful that a sequel came out in the early 90s, although the lacked some of the charm of the original and had a much, much darker tone, including being killed by clones and having to fight their way through the after life in order to save their girlfriends.
There is also talks of a third film coming out soon, but given that Reeves and co-star Alex Winter have gone on to have significantly different careers, it'd be surprisingly if it does ever come out.
Spaceballs (1987)
Arguably the biggest films of the 1980s were the second and third installments of the original Star Wars trilogy, but they were far from immune from the Mel Brooks treatment. Mel Brooks was one of the main spoof directors of the 80s and 90s and his legacy ranged from westerns to Robin Hood, however, this spoof of Star Wars is probably the best of the lot.
The story is that the people from the planet Spaceball are running out of oxygen and have decided to steal their air from a nearby planet. Meanwhile, on the nearby planet, a princess is getting married but runs out on her groom and the king hires a guy called Lonestar to track her down, eventually the two stories meet and Lonestar tries to prevent Dark Helmet (the leader of the Spaceball army) from executing the plan.
Spaceballs is one of those great films where you can just sit back and enjoy, it takes no thinking power whatsoever and it's just fun, a thing that a lot of movies of today have forgot about. I guarantee you will laugh and if you're not a big Star Wars fan, you will find this brilliant.
Willow (1988)
My favourite film comes from the 1980s. I love this film.
The storyline is about a baby that is destined to kill a witch who controls the land. The baby ends up in a village of Nelwyns (basically midgets) and in particular, Willow (played by Warrick Davis). He and several others set off on a trip to find the nearest Dikini (normal sized humans) but ends up staying with the baby even after they find someone who agrees to take her....Madmartigan. What follows is the struggle that the good guys have against the witch's army, as well as the desperation to protect this baby.
The film revolutionised morphing technology and was a true pioneering film of the industry. I love this movie as it has pretty much everything, action, adventure, comedy, drama, war, romance, horror, everything is rolled into this film and it fits the bill regardless of what mood you are in.
Unfortunately Willow didn't do that well at the box office and that's why many people from the younger generation haven't heard of this film, other than from myself probably. It was the first film featuring Val Kilmer as the lead actor, and also Warwick Davis' first appearance on a film where he wasn't covered in prosthetics or heavy, heavy make up.
Krull (1983)
Krull is a film from the 1980s that I doubt many from the 80s will remember or even heard of. I can't even
remember when I first saw this film but all around, it was quite a good film.
The story is about a prince and princess are set to wed on an alien planet before a destructive alien race kidnaps the princess. The prince then goes on an adventure with a vast array of different characters, such as a wizard, a cyclops, a magician and various bandits. Throughout it all their journey to the ever-moving castle, they have to deal with the powers of the alien leader taking over various members of them, their struggles as members of their team are regularly killed and the various personal difficulties throughout.
In what was a largely unknown cast at the time, it contained several people who would become very well known actors in holiday, such as Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane and Alun Armstrong.
Much like Willow this film had a lot of different elements to it, with the exception of comedy, and again is a good all around romp. It's slow paced though with a lot of time dedicated to character development.
Masters of the Universe (1987)
Basically "He Man" the movie was a film I had largely forgotten about until I found it recently on Youtube.
The story for this is that a key that can open doors to any world has been sent to Earth accidentally and the evil Skeletor wants it, however, He-Man and his team try to defend Earth and the key. Meanwhile, a young couple are dealing with their personal difficulties and the two storylines mix, making He-Man's task all the more difficult.
He man is a film that doesn't take itself too serious, whilst not actually being a comedy. If you like a good old sci-fi romp with some terrible acting then this is the film for you. It has it's moments throughout and whilst not a brilliant film, it's certainly not a boring one.
If you've got about 2 hours to kill then I would recommend this film. Again, you will think at several points that it is a bit rubbish, it's certainly not one for the awards categories, but again, it's a good laugh and for a non-comedy film, it does have it's moments again, although nothing I can personally point out.
In my part time job at the Lord Ted, I work with a lot of people were born in the latter half of the 1990s, meaning that by the time that they reached an age where they can remember stuff, they had virtually no chance of watch or hearing of. So below are five movies from the 1980s that won't be well known by the younger generation that I would highly recommend.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Long before before he was Neo in The Matrix, Keanu Reeves was part of a film about two high school slackers who are about to fail their history class. They make a half-arsed attempt at their last report before a person from the future comes and tells them that they eventually form a band that brings world peace, however, they must pass their history class to do it was Reeves' character will be sent to military school if they fail.
They use a telephone booth to travel through time and gather various famous figures from history, such as Billy the Kid, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Sigmund Freud and various others. Various problems occur along the way, such as having part of their booth destroyed by a member of Ghengis Khan's army, and they struggle to deal with it due to their slacker nature.
This is a fun movie and definitely the type that you don't get these days. It's 90 or so minutes of fun. It was so successful that a sequel came out in the early 90s, although the lacked some of the charm of the original and had a much, much darker tone, including being killed by clones and having to fight their way through the after life in order to save their girlfriends.
There is also talks of a third film coming out soon, but given that Reeves and co-star Alex Winter have gone on to have significantly different careers, it'd be surprisingly if it does ever come out.
Spaceballs (1987)
Arguably the biggest films of the 1980s were the second and third installments of the original Star Wars trilogy, but they were far from immune from the Mel Brooks treatment. Mel Brooks was one of the main spoof directors of the 80s and 90s and his legacy ranged from westerns to Robin Hood, however, this spoof of Star Wars is probably the best of the lot.
The story is that the people from the planet Spaceball are running out of oxygen and have decided to steal their air from a nearby planet. Meanwhile, on the nearby planet, a princess is getting married but runs out on her groom and the king hires a guy called Lonestar to track her down, eventually the two stories meet and Lonestar tries to prevent Dark Helmet (the leader of the Spaceball army) from executing the plan.
Spaceballs is one of those great films where you can just sit back and enjoy, it takes no thinking power whatsoever and it's just fun, a thing that a lot of movies of today have forgot about. I guarantee you will laugh and if you're not a big Star Wars fan, you will find this brilliant.
Willow (1988)
The storyline is about a baby that is destined to kill a witch who controls the land. The baby ends up in a village of Nelwyns (basically midgets) and in particular, Willow (played by Warrick Davis). He and several others set off on a trip to find the nearest Dikini (normal sized humans) but ends up staying with the baby even after they find someone who agrees to take her....Madmartigan. What follows is the struggle that the good guys have against the witch's army, as well as the desperation to protect this baby.
The film revolutionised morphing technology and was a true pioneering film of the industry. I love this movie as it has pretty much everything, action, adventure, comedy, drama, war, romance, horror, everything is rolled into this film and it fits the bill regardless of what mood you are in.
Unfortunately Willow didn't do that well at the box office and that's why many people from the younger generation haven't heard of this film, other than from myself probably. It was the first film featuring Val Kilmer as the lead actor, and also Warwick Davis' first appearance on a film where he wasn't covered in prosthetics or heavy, heavy make up.
Krull (1983)
Krull is a film from the 1980s that I doubt many from the 80s will remember or even heard of. I can't even
The story is about a prince and princess are set to wed on an alien planet before a destructive alien race kidnaps the princess. The prince then goes on an adventure with a vast array of different characters, such as a wizard, a cyclops, a magician and various bandits. Throughout it all their journey to the ever-moving castle, they have to deal with the powers of the alien leader taking over various members of them, their struggles as members of their team are regularly killed and the various personal difficulties throughout.
In what was a largely unknown cast at the time, it contained several people who would become very well known actors in holiday, such as Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane and Alun Armstrong.
Much like Willow this film had a lot of different elements to it, with the exception of comedy, and again is a good all around romp. It's slow paced though with a lot of time dedicated to character development.
Masters of the Universe (1987)
The story for this is that a key that can open doors to any world has been sent to Earth accidentally and the evil Skeletor wants it, however, He-Man and his team try to defend Earth and the key. Meanwhile, a young couple are dealing with their personal difficulties and the two storylines mix, making He-Man's task all the more difficult.
He man is a film that doesn't take itself too serious, whilst not actually being a comedy. If you like a good old sci-fi romp with some terrible acting then this is the film for you. It has it's moments throughout and whilst not a brilliant film, it's certainly not a boring one.
If you've got about 2 hours to kill then I would recommend this film. Again, you will think at several points that it is a bit rubbish, it's certainly not one for the awards categories, but again, it's a good laugh and for a non-comedy film, it does have it's moments again, although nothing I can personally point out.
Friday 12 July 2013
New chapters, my face and a girl from Norway
Hello all
I trust everyone is well?
Firstly, a song for you all to enjoy. I know, I'm generous aren't I?
Well it's been an interesting few days to say the least. To cut a long story short I got a new job, yay me. After four years of working for Vodafone, I got offered a job at British Telecommunications and I accepted. Not only is it a new chapter in terms of job, but in terms of location. The BT centre is located in Accrington, over 100 miles away, meaning that I will be moving to the area and it's the first time in my life that I will be living outside of the East Midlands, so just that on it's own is a scary prospect, but it's a good kind of scary. I could sit here and whine and bitch about my time at Vodafone, and believe me, part of me really wants to, but I won't.
It will be nice to live in an area where no-one knows me, it's effectively a clean slate. No-one there knew me as Nathan and therefore very few people could refer back to stuff I use to do and question it. I have wanted to get a new life for a while and whilst I wouldn't necessarily have chosen Lancashire, it's a good place to start relatively.
There are a few places of where to choose to live, I could choose the easy option and say Accrington, but I've been to Accrington many times and there isn't a lot to do. Nearby are also Preston, Burnley and Blackburn, which the latter of the three being the most likely choice and I do have some views of houses booked for in the near future.
Then we get onto the gender change. Things are moving slowly in terms of physical changes, however, I am told that hormones really start to kick in after a year, so I won't worry about it until it reaches December, which will be a year on hormones. I'm really struggling with the voice therapy and after three sessions I am no closer to having a feminine voice than before I started, which is frustrating. It's not that I can't get my voice to a higher pitch, but the difficulty is proving to be getting it like that whilst still breathing normally. I can't really stress enough how difficult it is.
My face continues to show no development so on Friday I went to a facial surgery consultation in London and the real life simulations were interesting. I don't think that I looked that different but it's something to consider and as they say, every little helps....whether I will be able to afford it or not is another matter, however, as I will be getting paid considerably more at BT than I was at Vodafone, that will certainly help.
However, the most memorable part of the trip came afterwards, I had time to kill so ended up talking to two women called Jenny and Miriam, the latter of which had been through the facial survey herself and I was absolutely amazed, I would never have guessed that she was trans. After seeing her before/after pictures, I was convinced that FFS was a good thing to be considering, and if I can financially commit then I'm going to go for it, although I don't know how much it will cost at this point (a lot I imagine).
As you can tell from the pictures on the right, Miriam's facial transformation as a result of the surgery was absolutely incredible. I am still struggling to believe it now.
But yeah, anyway, I spoke to Jenny and Miriam for a while and it was the first time that I have had felt like I have had a genuine connections with new people that I have met, it feels quite strange in many ways, but all of them good.
I stayed for three hours after my appointment just talking and what we have established is that I have been mispronouncing Tromso for many years (apparently it's not said like it's spelt), that at some point I will go over to Norway and Miriam will teach me how to snowboard, I will take her to a Manchester United game at some point....and I owe her a drink.
I must say that although I am nervous, I am really looking forward to the new parts of my life.
I trust everyone is well?
Firstly, a song for you all to enjoy. I know, I'm generous aren't I?
Well it's been an interesting few days to say the least. To cut a long story short I got a new job, yay me. After four years of working for Vodafone, I got offered a job at British Telecommunications and I accepted. Not only is it a new chapter in terms of job, but in terms of location. The BT centre is located in Accrington, over 100 miles away, meaning that I will be moving to the area and it's the first time in my life that I will be living outside of the East Midlands, so just that on it's own is a scary prospect, but it's a good kind of scary. I could sit here and whine and bitch about my time at Vodafone, and believe me, part of me really wants to, but I won't.
| Accrington - One of a few places to choose from. |
It will be nice to live in an area where no-one knows me, it's effectively a clean slate. No-one there knew me as Nathan and therefore very few people could refer back to stuff I use to do and question it. I have wanted to get a new life for a while and whilst I wouldn't necessarily have chosen Lancashire, it's a good place to start relatively.
There are a few places of where to choose to live, I could choose the easy option and say Accrington, but I've been to Accrington many times and there isn't a lot to do. Nearby are also Preston, Burnley and Blackburn, which the latter of the three being the most likely choice and I do have some views of houses booked for in the near future.
Then we get onto the gender change. Things are moving slowly in terms of physical changes, however, I am told that hormones really start to kick in after a year, so I won't worry about it until it reaches December, which will be a year on hormones. I'm really struggling with the voice therapy and after three sessions I am no closer to having a feminine voice than before I started, which is frustrating. It's not that I can't get my voice to a higher pitch, but the difficulty is proving to be getting it like that whilst still breathing normally. I can't really stress enough how difficult it is.
My face continues to show no development so on Friday I went to a facial surgery consultation in London and the real life simulations were interesting. I don't think that I looked that different but it's something to consider and as they say, every little helps....whether I will be able to afford it or not is another matter, however, as I will be getting paid considerably more at BT than I was at Vodafone, that will certainly help.
 |
| Miriam's before/after shots Taken from http://www.thehiddenwoman.com/ |
As you can tell from the pictures on the right, Miriam's facial transformation as a result of the surgery was absolutely incredible. I am still struggling to believe it now.
But yeah, anyway, I spoke to Jenny and Miriam for a while and it was the first time that I have had felt like I have had a genuine connections with new people that I have met, it feels quite strange in many ways, but all of them good.
I stayed for three hours after my appointment just talking and what we have established is that I have been mispronouncing Tromso for many years (apparently it's not said like it's spelt), that at some point I will go over to Norway and Miriam will teach me how to snowboard, I will take her to a Manchester United game at some point....and I owe her a drink.
I must say that although I am nervous, I am really looking forward to the new parts of my life.
Friday 5 July 2013
Reasons I hate London
Hello all
Today I went to London and it was one of the most incensing trips to our capital that I think I've ever had. Why the fuck people would ever holiday in London, I will never know. You go on a holiday to relax, something that is impossible in London. So, here is a list of everything I hate about London.
"Busy" queue jumpers
You're in, let's say for argument's sake, a coffee shop and there's a line, all of a sudden someone walks in and just walks straight to the counter as says "coffee, black, to take out" and when told by the staff and the queue that they have just pushed in front of that they will have to go to the back of the line, they say "I'm too busy to wait in line and am due in an urgent meeting!"
If this only happened once or twice then I wouldn't mind, but at one point a few months ago I was waiting in a Starbucks and on four occasions in the same queue, someone came in and tried to jump queue because they were "too busy" to wait.
So you're walking behind someone and perfectly minding your business......all of a sudden the person changes direction randomly and without warning, you almost walk into them and they look at you as if it's your fault.
I know you can get this anywhere but in a 35 minute walk from Wimpole St to Kings Cross today, this happened on at least 8 occasions.
"Have a newspaper"
So, I'm in WH Smiths today, I have a bottle of water and some haribo, I get to the self service till and I scan in the water and all of a sudden the "helper" just scans in a newspaper for me.
"What are you doing?"
"It works out cheaper if you get the newspaper."
"Well how about asking me before you scan it in. I don't want the newspaper and don't care if it works out cheaper, so take that newspaper off of there now!"
He didn't have authority so had to get a team leader to do it, I told them what had happened....they weren't impressed with the person.
The amount of people in London trying to give you a newspaper is ridiculous. I could probably collect a tree's worth of paper in a day if I wanted to.
 |
| Central London - Yeah, it looks nice, but move a few miles down the road and London is not pleasent |
Groups gathering
So, the path is quite narrow and it's the middle of the day, meaning that there are a lot of people about. What you don't need in this case is groups of people just hanging about in the middle of the path and forcing people to bottle neck, and much like everything else on this list, this happens a hell of a lot more in London than anywhere else and on the 35 minute walk I mentioned earlier, I had to stop four times because groups were causing bottle necks and people walking the other way weren't allowing other people through.
I have no problem with people gathering, just as long as it's not on a narrow path.
Oi, dickhead, someone is behind you.
Slow walkers in confined spaces. Enough said.
I know you go to this tube stop before me, but.......
Much like most other train systems in the world, there is an attitude of "I don't care how long you've been
The tube is a test of patience, endurance and most importantly, trying not to lose your sanity. I never willingly subject myself to it during the middle of the day and it's only in the evenings it becomes relatively tolerable, that is unless you're getting on at the first few stops on the route before it goes into central London.
"London is brilliant"
There are those that claim that London is brilliant, mostly Londoners, not, whilst the touristy bits are nice, about 90% of London is a proper shit hole. Whilst the central areas of properly nice, during my life I have visited various other areas of London where words such as "glamourous" certainly do not apply.
I'll bring this into some sort of context and base this on the assumption that "if it's on the tube routes, it's in London" and on that, I have been around the areas of Barnet, Leyton and Dagenham, amongst others, and they were all complete shitholes. I mean seriously, one of the most common lines of 2012 was "The Olympics showcases all of the brilliant bits about London" and my immediate response was "yeah, but it ignores the other 90%.
Seriously, London is, for the majority, a shithole. Like every city and town, it's has it's nice areas and it's shit areas, but nowhere that I have been to has a higher ratio of shit places to nice places.
 |
| Again, it looks nice and pleasant.....but then again so do many of the world's most dangerous plants |
Saturday 22 June 2013
28 years of gaming later......
Hello all
Recently the official battle of Playstation 4 vs X Box One begin, and it got me thinking about my own personal history with computer games. Although I don't play games as much as I used to, back in my youth it was very rare that I wouldn't spend time on computer games (although unlike today's youth, I did plenty of outside activity as well, such as playing football), so I wanted to go through some of the more memorable games that I have played, all in chronological order.
Outlaw - ATARI
The first console system that I ever owned was the ATARI, a system that I suspect a lot of people who are younger than 20 have never heard of. It was pretty much the first home console in existence and whilst the games look extremely basic by today's standards, they were incredibly addictive.
Cowboy was the first game I can remember playing and the objective is to simply shoot the other person on the screen, that is it. It was about as basic as a game could get, but I remember playing it for a long time. The deaths weren't dramatic (basically it was a guy falling over), but it was a good first game to remember. If anyone still has an Atari that works, get this game.
Rainbow Islands - AMIGA
I have early memories of this extremely colourful game. The objective was simply to get from the bottom of the screen to the top, whilst also trying to avoid enemies and the rising waters. To do this you shot rainbows to form a bridge and climb up to the next level.
Looking back on it is also looks quite trippy and I don't think I have ever seen a more colourful game. I think the only colour they don't use at all is black.
Would I play it again now, probably not, but I will always have fond memories of this day.
Monkey Island - Amiga
Back in the early 90s the most popular type of game was the point and click adventure, and none were better than Monkey Island. This was the first game I truly fell in love with, it was amazing, it was pretty much everything you could want in a game. There was comedy, pirates, romance, horror (the main protagonist is a ghost, and takes various similar guises in the subsequent games), sword fighting and action, it was pretty much the pretty game.
You take control of a wannabe pirate, Guybrush Threepwood, and take him on a quest that he hopes will lead to him being a pirate, the only problem is that he's a bit of a wimp. Along the way he meets a woman and falls in love, only for the aforementioned ghost (LeChuck) to kidnap her. Along the way Guybrush meets several interesting characters, such as a bridge troll who turns out to be George Lucas in disguise, as well as the lasiet ship crew that ever existed.
For the time it was probably one of the most graphically sophisicated games available, and also one of the longest, as a full playthrough, even if you knew exactly what you were doing, would take at least two hours, which was very long for the time.
They made a special edition version a few years ago along with the sequel, which you can view below (none of the videos for the original were good enough).
Mortal Kombat - Sega Megadrive
Those who I went to school with know how obsessed I became with the Mortal Kombat series throughout my teens, however at first it was just another computer game, a game that I was very good at. It got to the point where I was regularly beating my brother, who is 15 years old than me, quite easily, and at one point he invited me and a friend round, I was told that I wasn't allowed to use special moves (such as freezing people with one of the characters) to make it fair....did I stick to that? Did I fuck.
What made this game so much better than the vast majority of it's sequels was that there were no overly poor characters, which is something that the games later on in the series suffered with, each character had a great background and a decent ending, and you knew they weren't just thrown in for the sake of it. The first three games were all like that, but then after that they started introducing shit characters that no-one really gave a shit about (hello Kai, Tanya, . Infact, in the Armageddon game, the last before they rebooted the series, there were so many characters that it became a bit of a farce.
Mortal Kombat, the original one, was everything a multiplayer game really should be, something you can just pick up and get right into, and most of all have fun with. Most games these days have forgotten about the fun element.
Theme Park - Amiga
Not many people remember Bullfrog games (and this isn't the only time they will appear on this list), but for those that do, you would agree that they made some awesome games. If you want to talk about addictive games, few could ever replicate the "Theme" series, and it all started with a game where you built a Theme Park.
It was one of the earliest games where you were rewarded for sticking with the game, as you could buy researchers after getting sufficient customers into the park, and they would come up with new games. You do start off with some very shitty rides and attractions, but stick with it and you end up with rollercoasters that allow you to build the track yourself, as well as other similar attractions.
This game was followed by the equally addictive "Theme Hospital", and then the slightest less addictive and considerably more cartoony "Theme Park World". Would I play "Theme Park" again? No, probably not, but as I say, it was one of the earliest games where you felt rewarded for sticking with a game.
Resident Evil - Playstation
In 1997 my brother gave me a game called Resident Evil. He had owned it for a while and couldn't get past a snake that appears 30 minutes into the game, and just got completely frustrated with it. I didn't even know what it was about, it could have been anything, so I start playing and within minutes I find a zombie, and from that moment on I have loved zombie games and movies. I played the game for the rest of the day and easily defeated the snake that my brother had struggled with.
Whilst not generally scary, especially by today's standards, this game was groundbreaking and unlike most of the sequels, there was VERY limited ammo around the place, so much to the point where you regularly had to rely on your knife....which isn't very handy.
Whilst not brilliant in it's own right, it started off one of my favourite computer game franchises and a series for which I have owned ten titles (1-6, Code Veronica, Zero, Re:Make and Outbreak).
It remains the only Resident Evil game I have never completed.
The Curse of Monkey Island - PC
At the time (1997) I had never been so excited about a new game. The third installment in the Monkey Island series became one of the first games I got on the day of release, however, I couldn't play it due to system restraints. My first PC had a capacity of 12MB, no, that isn't a misprint, the youth of today will never know the limitations we had those days and running out of space was a common occurrence, the problem with TCOMI was that it required 16MB of space and my dad bought me a new PC specifically for the purpose of playing this game.
Unlike the previous two games, this game had vocal audio rather than text, which I personally thought made the game far, far more enjoyable as it was easier to understand the jokes. Visually it was also superior to the previous games, understandable given that Monkey Island 2 came out in 1991, and the advancement in technology in those days was far superior to these days. Although it looks very cartoony, this was probably one of the funnest games that I ever played.
I played this game a LOT and it even proved to be the basis of my Graphical Technology coursework during school. I do still also play the game occasionally, although it requires installation of the ScummVM engine if you're playing it on Windows 7.
This was the last good Monkey Island game. The subsequent sequels of "Escape From Monkey Island" and "Tales of Monkey Island" were both terrible and lacked what had made the previous games fun to play.
Populous The Beginning - PC
I had played the demo for this strategy game and become slightly obsessed with it. I even kept the demo long after I had gotten the game because there was a level on the demo that wasn't on the game.
The basic premise of the game is that you control the Shamen of a tribe and the aim is literally to destroy the other tribe(s) on the map. What makes this different to other similar games (such as Age of Empires) is that you use magic to help you destroy the enemy, afterall, what could be more fun than walking up to your opponents and casting a tornado on their church, or even creating a volcano right in the middle of the camp? It was damn addictive and the best part is you can make the levels last as long as you want. There is nothing actually saying that you have to attack, occasionally I just set up my defence and built my force. At one point I just left the game for six hours to go to football, came back and all I had lost was one defence tower....but had gained an army of more than 500 (which was very big for the game), I subsequently marched on the other tribe....500 vs 30 was very one sided.
One of my favourite types of game is building bases, defending and then attacking, but this is by far my favourite one of these types of games. It was hard at times as well, obviously as you move further up the 25 levels the opponents can do more, such as using invisibility spells, turning your own army against you, and numerous other things.
You can still buy this today and it does still work on more advanced systems (I still play in regularly on my Windows 7 computer), or alternatively you can buy it via the Playstation Store
I'm going to leave this section with a video of my favourite level....Level 17 - Middle Ground.
Forbidden Siren - Playstation 2
Fuck a duck, this shit was scary. I had NEVER stopped playing a game because I was too scared before, but that is exactly what happened with this, it's something I haven't done before or since.
This game was unusual in the sense that you could actually use your R3 button to tap into a nearby enemy and see exactly what they see, however, whilst you're doing that the normal gameplay still goes on, so you could come out of that and all of a sudden there was an enemy just stood in front of you....and you have no weapons to defend yourself with.
I played this at 2/3 in the morning with no lights on, and I was sweating buckets by the time I eventually went to bed because it scared the shit out of my that much. That game is AMAZINGLY tense. I still own this game and it's sequel....I have never even opened the latter (I genuinely don't know what I own it :P )
Resident Evil 4 - Playstation 2
Quite possible the PERFECT game and much like Curse of Monkey Island, the definite peak in the series, especially as the two sequels have been crap.
Resident Evil 4 was different to it's previous installments as it moved away from the zombie genre and did lose a bit of the survival horror aspect, however, that didn't stop it being a great game. The graphics are stunning and even nine years on from when I first bought it, it remains as one of the most beautiful games I have ever owned.
This game was excellent from start to finish, and the boss fights were far enough between that you actually enjoyed them when you got to them, whereas the subsequent sequels have had boss fights every five minutes. The boss fights were also genuinely difficult, again, something that has been lost in the sequels, and you had a proper fight on your hands, which was the case with 1, 2 and 3, but this was different due to the fact that in previous games you viewed the game from a fixed angle that many seeing difficult, but in 4 the camera moves with the character, meaning you can see what's coming at you, which in a way makes it scarier, or at least as scary as Resident Evil gets.
There have been a lot of Resident Evil games, but just talking in terms of the main series (in other words the numbers ones), here they are in the order of greatness 4, 2, 3, 1, 6 and then 5. Infact, 2, 3 and 1 are all pretty much on the same level, and 6 is only saved from being last by the Leon campaign in it.
The ONLY problem with Resident Evil 4 was that it was extremely difficult to actually get working. The disk would very rarely read correctly, so on many occasions I really wanted to play it but the PS2 was having none of it. Thankfully this issue has been solved since I was able to download for the PS3 and it works perfectly every time.
Assassins Creed 2 - Playstation 3
The first game I owned on the PS3 was, at first, one of the most frustrating things ever. The first thing you to try and beat the character's brother to the top of a church....it took me nearly an hour to get off of the ground, I was getting so incredibly fucked off with the game that I think I made one of my housemates at the time very worried. I also packed it all in after a few minutes, although I am definitely glad that I didn't.
As you'd expect, the graphics were beautiful and they did an excellent job or creating a brilliant environment for you to explore and kill people in, you could tell that they had spent a lot of time working on the look of the game and that made a change from most games I had played.
I got very involved in this game and completed the main storyline within days, and what I loved was that after you complete the main storyline, it allows you to keep playing afterwards, going around doing sub missions and exploring. At the time I had never had a game that allowed me to do that, and is one of the main reasons I keep buying the Assassins Creed games. I am definitely glad I played this game before the first one though, because whilst the first one is ok, it's very poor in comparison and had I played the first game first, I probably wouldn't have bought number two.
I let a friend from work borrow this in April 2010....I am still waiting for it to be returned to this day, however, I don't really feel I need it back because there is a need Assassins Creed game every year, meaning that you regularly move onto the next game, and forget about the previous one....afterall, it's just over three years since I got my PS3...and in that time 2, Brotherhood, Revelations and 3 have been released....and 4 is going to be released in a few months.
Recently the official battle of Playstation 4 vs X Box One begin, and it got me thinking about my own personal history with computer games. Although I don't play games as much as I used to, back in my youth it was very rare that I wouldn't spend time on computer games (although unlike today's youth, I did plenty of outside activity as well, such as playing football), so I wanted to go through some of the more memorable games that I have played, all in chronological order.
Outlaw - ATARI
The first console system that I ever owned was the ATARI, a system that I suspect a lot of people who are younger than 20 have never heard of. It was pretty much the first home console in existence and whilst the games look extremely basic by today's standards, they were incredibly addictive.
Cowboy was the first game I can remember playing and the objective is to simply shoot the other person on the screen, that is it. It was about as basic as a game could get, but I remember playing it for a long time. The deaths weren't dramatic (basically it was a guy falling over), but it was a good first game to remember. If anyone still has an Atari that works, get this game.
I have early memories of this extremely colourful game. The objective was simply to get from the bottom of the screen to the top, whilst also trying to avoid enemies and the rising waters. To do this you shot rainbows to form a bridge and climb up to the next level.
Looking back on it is also looks quite trippy and I don't think I have ever seen a more colourful game. I think the only colour they don't use at all is black.
Would I play it again now, probably not, but I will always have fond memories of this day.
Monkey Island - Amiga
Back in the early 90s the most popular type of game was the point and click adventure, and none were better than Monkey Island. This was the first game I truly fell in love with, it was amazing, it was pretty much everything you could want in a game. There was comedy, pirates, romance, horror (the main protagonist is a ghost, and takes various similar guises in the subsequent games), sword fighting and action, it was pretty much the pretty game.
You take control of a wannabe pirate, Guybrush Threepwood, and take him on a quest that he hopes will lead to him being a pirate, the only problem is that he's a bit of a wimp. Along the way he meets a woman and falls in love, only for the aforementioned ghost (LeChuck) to kidnap her. Along the way Guybrush meets several interesting characters, such as a bridge troll who turns out to be George Lucas in disguise, as well as the lasiet ship crew that ever existed.
For the time it was probably one of the most graphically sophisicated games available, and also one of the longest, as a full playthrough, even if you knew exactly what you were doing, would take at least two hours, which was very long for the time.
They made a special edition version a few years ago along with the sequel, which you can view below (none of the videos for the original were good enough).
Mortal Kombat - Sega Megadrive
Those who I went to school with know how obsessed I became with the Mortal Kombat series throughout my teens, however at first it was just another computer game, a game that I was very good at. It got to the point where I was regularly beating my brother, who is 15 years old than me, quite easily, and at one point he invited me and a friend round, I was told that I wasn't allowed to use special moves (such as freezing people with one of the characters) to make it fair....did I stick to that? Did I fuck.
What made this game so much better than the vast majority of it's sequels was that there were no overly poor characters, which is something that the games later on in the series suffered with, each character had a great background and a decent ending, and you knew they weren't just thrown in for the sake of it. The first three games were all like that, but then after that they started introducing shit characters that no-one really gave a shit about (hello Kai, Tanya, . Infact, in the Armageddon game, the last before they rebooted the series, there were so many characters that it became a bit of a farce.
Mortal Kombat, the original one, was everything a multiplayer game really should be, something you can just pick up and get right into, and most of all have fun with. Most games these days have forgotten about the fun element.
Theme Park - Amiga
Not many people remember Bullfrog games (and this isn't the only time they will appear on this list), but for those that do, you would agree that they made some awesome games. If you want to talk about addictive games, few could ever replicate the "Theme" series, and it all started with a game where you built a Theme Park.
It was one of the earliest games where you were rewarded for sticking with the game, as you could buy researchers after getting sufficient customers into the park, and they would come up with new games. You do start off with some very shitty rides and attractions, but stick with it and you end up with rollercoasters that allow you to build the track yourself, as well as other similar attractions.
This game was followed by the equally addictive "Theme Hospital", and then the slightest less addictive and considerably more cartoony "Theme Park World". Would I play "Theme Park" again? No, probably not, but as I say, it was one of the earliest games where you felt rewarded for sticking with a game.
Resident Evil - Playstation
In 1997 my brother gave me a game called Resident Evil. He had owned it for a while and couldn't get past a snake that appears 30 minutes into the game, and just got completely frustrated with it. I didn't even know what it was about, it could have been anything, so I start playing and within minutes I find a zombie, and from that moment on I have loved zombie games and movies. I played the game for the rest of the day and easily defeated the snake that my brother had struggled with.
Whilst not generally scary, especially by today's standards, this game was groundbreaking and unlike most of the sequels, there was VERY limited ammo around the place, so much to the point where you regularly had to rely on your knife....which isn't very handy.
Whilst not brilliant in it's own right, it started off one of my favourite computer game franchises and a series for which I have owned ten titles (1-6, Code Veronica, Zero, Re:Make and Outbreak).
It remains the only Resident Evil game I have never completed.
The Curse of Monkey Island - PC
At the time (1997) I had never been so excited about a new game. The third installment in the Monkey Island series became one of the first games I got on the day of release, however, I couldn't play it due to system restraints. My first PC had a capacity of 12MB, no, that isn't a misprint, the youth of today will never know the limitations we had those days and running out of space was a common occurrence, the problem with TCOMI was that it required 16MB of space and my dad bought me a new PC specifically for the purpose of playing this game.
Unlike the previous two games, this game had vocal audio rather than text, which I personally thought made the game far, far more enjoyable as it was easier to understand the jokes. Visually it was also superior to the previous games, understandable given that Monkey Island 2 came out in 1991, and the advancement in technology in those days was far superior to these days. Although it looks very cartoony, this was probably one of the funnest games that I ever played.
I played this game a LOT and it even proved to be the basis of my Graphical Technology coursework during school. I do still also play the game occasionally, although it requires installation of the ScummVM engine if you're playing it on Windows 7.
This was the last good Monkey Island game. The subsequent sequels of "Escape From Monkey Island" and "Tales of Monkey Island" were both terrible and lacked what had made the previous games fun to play.
Populous The Beginning - PC
I had played the demo for this strategy game and become slightly obsessed with it. I even kept the demo long after I had gotten the game because there was a level on the demo that wasn't on the game.
The basic premise of the game is that you control the Shamen of a tribe and the aim is literally to destroy the other tribe(s) on the map. What makes this different to other similar games (such as Age of Empires) is that you use magic to help you destroy the enemy, afterall, what could be more fun than walking up to your opponents and casting a tornado on their church, or even creating a volcano right in the middle of the camp? It was damn addictive and the best part is you can make the levels last as long as you want. There is nothing actually saying that you have to attack, occasionally I just set up my defence and built my force. At one point I just left the game for six hours to go to football, came back and all I had lost was one defence tower....but had gained an army of more than 500 (which was very big for the game), I subsequently marched on the other tribe....500 vs 30 was very one sided.
One of my favourite types of game is building bases, defending and then attacking, but this is by far my favourite one of these types of games. It was hard at times as well, obviously as you move further up the 25 levels the opponents can do more, such as using invisibility spells, turning your own army against you, and numerous other things.
You can still buy this today and it does still work on more advanced systems (I still play in regularly on my Windows 7 computer), or alternatively you can buy it via the Playstation Store
I'm going to leave this section with a video of my favourite level....Level 17 - Middle Ground.
Forbidden Siren - Playstation 2
Fuck a duck, this shit was scary. I had NEVER stopped playing a game because I was too scared before, but that is exactly what happened with this, it's something I haven't done before or since.
This game was unusual in the sense that you could actually use your R3 button to tap into a nearby enemy and see exactly what they see, however, whilst you're doing that the normal gameplay still goes on, so you could come out of that and all of a sudden there was an enemy just stood in front of you....and you have no weapons to defend yourself with.
I played this at 2/3 in the morning with no lights on, and I was sweating buckets by the time I eventually went to bed because it scared the shit out of my that much. That game is AMAZINGLY tense. I still own this game and it's sequel....I have never even opened the latter (I genuinely don't know what I own it :P )
Resident Evil 4 - Playstation 2
Quite possible the PERFECT game and much like Curse of Monkey Island, the definite peak in the series, especially as the two sequels have been crap.
Resident Evil 4 was different to it's previous installments as it moved away from the zombie genre and did lose a bit of the survival horror aspect, however, that didn't stop it being a great game. The graphics are stunning and even nine years on from when I first bought it, it remains as one of the most beautiful games I have ever owned.
This game was excellent from start to finish, and the boss fights were far enough between that you actually enjoyed them when you got to them, whereas the subsequent sequels have had boss fights every five minutes. The boss fights were also genuinely difficult, again, something that has been lost in the sequels, and you had a proper fight on your hands, which was the case with 1, 2 and 3, but this was different due to the fact that in previous games you viewed the game from a fixed angle that many seeing difficult, but in 4 the camera moves with the character, meaning you can see what's coming at you, which in a way makes it scarier, or at least as scary as Resident Evil gets.
There have been a lot of Resident Evil games, but just talking in terms of the main series (in other words the numbers ones), here they are in the order of greatness 4, 2, 3, 1, 6 and then 5. Infact, 2, 3 and 1 are all pretty much on the same level, and 6 is only saved from being last by the Leon campaign in it.
The ONLY problem with Resident Evil 4 was that it was extremely difficult to actually get working. The disk would very rarely read correctly, so on many occasions I really wanted to play it but the PS2 was having none of it. Thankfully this issue has been solved since I was able to download for the PS3 and it works perfectly every time.
Assassins Creed 2 - Playstation 3
The first game I owned on the PS3 was, at first, one of the most frustrating things ever. The first thing you to try and beat the character's brother to the top of a church....it took me nearly an hour to get off of the ground, I was getting so incredibly fucked off with the game that I think I made one of my housemates at the time very worried. I also packed it all in after a few minutes, although I am definitely glad that I didn't.
As you'd expect, the graphics were beautiful and they did an excellent job or creating a brilliant environment for you to explore and kill people in, you could tell that they had spent a lot of time working on the look of the game and that made a change from most games I had played.
I got very involved in this game and completed the main storyline within days, and what I loved was that after you complete the main storyline, it allows you to keep playing afterwards, going around doing sub missions and exploring. At the time I had never had a game that allowed me to do that, and is one of the main reasons I keep buying the Assassins Creed games. I am definitely glad I played this game before the first one though, because whilst the first one is ok, it's very poor in comparison and had I played the first game first, I probably wouldn't have bought number two.
I let a friend from work borrow this in April 2010....I am still waiting for it to be returned to this day, however, I don't really feel I need it back because there is a need Assassins Creed game every year, meaning that you regularly move onto the next game, and forget about the previous one....afterall, it's just over three years since I got my PS3...and in that time 2, Brotherhood, Revelations and 3 have been released....and 4 is going to be released in a few months.
Thursday 20 June 2013
An unexpected twist is a good thing - Manchester vs Lincoln vs Nottingham
Hello all
A few months ago I mentioned that the house I was renting was put up for sale by the owner, I was a bit upset at the time as I was happy living there and loved living with the housemates at the time, however, it was hinted to Amaury by the owner that she wouldn't be renewing her contract with the agency when the year's contract was up in July, and that is what has happened. On Monday I received confirmation that we have 30 days to leave the property, but fortunately my parents have agreed to take me in for a few months.
Now, some of you are probably reading that and thinking "what? why not just move somewhere else?" Well the reason is that I might by moving to the Manchester region in the next few months, so if I did start to rent elsewhere then it would mean I was committed to a minimum six months, and if I moved to Manchester then I would be paying for two places. Moving in with the parents means that I won't have to worry about a committed time period, and don't get me wrong, I don't want to live with my parents again, but it is the most sensible option open to me.
I will know by this time next month whether I will need to move to Manchester or not, and after that period I will start looking at moving to a new place, but not necessarily back to Newark. Don't get me wrong, I like Newark and in terms of pure convenience for getting to/from work, it would be by far the best option, but it's a chance to move somewhere I want to be.
There are two main options available to me really, Lincoln and Nottingham.
Lincoln
Pros
I love Lincoln, grew up there.
I have a lot of friends in Lincoln and it would be good to see them.
I know Lincoln like the back of my hand, virtually no chance of getting lost.
It wouldn't take me a long time to get home after the football.
The Brayford Pool (right) is one of my favourite places, I love to go and chill out there on a regular basis when I am in Lincoln.
Cons
There is precisely fuck all to do in Lincoln after 6pm except for the cinema and Rileys.
Properties aren't particularly cheap and very few have bills included.
Lincoln is the only place I seem to have trouble with regards to being transgendered.
Nottingham
Pros
Unlike the last time I lived in Nottingham, I am mentally prepared and know what to expect
Despite initially hating Nottingham, I love the place now, and have said since the day I left that I wouldn't mind living there again.
There are a lot of things to do and as much as I had my issues with Nottingham in the first spell of living there, but I was never bored.
The properties in Nottingham to rent are surprisingly cheap. On Primelocation the cheapest to rent was £300 without bills included in Newark, there are currently about 20 cheaper than that in Nottingham right now with bills inclusive. Bill inclusive is a big pull for me.
It would be great to see my friends from my days in Nottingham on a regular basis.
Excellent transport links
Cons
Crime. Within the first three months of me living in Nottingham, my car got broken into three times.
A very high representation of the chav culture in Nottingham.
I think we all know which option I am going to choose.....
A few months ago I mentioned that the house I was renting was put up for sale by the owner, I was a bit upset at the time as I was happy living there and loved living with the housemates at the time, however, it was hinted to Amaury by the owner that she wouldn't be renewing her contract with the agency when the year's contract was up in July, and that is what has happened. On Monday I received confirmation that we have 30 days to leave the property, but fortunately my parents have agreed to take me in for a few months.
Now, some of you are probably reading that and thinking "what? why not just move somewhere else?" Well the reason is that I might by moving to the Manchester region in the next few months, so if I did start to rent elsewhere then it would mean I was committed to a minimum six months, and if I moved to Manchester then I would be paying for two places. Moving in with the parents means that I won't have to worry about a committed time period, and don't get me wrong, I don't want to live with my parents again, but it is the most sensible option open to me.
I will know by this time next month whether I will need to move to Manchester or not, and after that period I will start looking at moving to a new place, but not necessarily back to Newark. Don't get me wrong, I like Newark and in terms of pure convenience for getting to/from work, it would be by far the best option, but it's a chance to move somewhere I want to be.
There are two main options available to me really, Lincoln and Nottingham.
Lincoln
Pros
I love Lincoln, grew up there.
I have a lot of friends in Lincoln and it would be good to see them.
I know Lincoln like the back of my hand, virtually no chance of getting lost.
It wouldn't take me a long time to get home after the football.
The Brayford Pool (right) is one of my favourite places, I love to go and chill out there on a regular basis when I am in Lincoln.
Cons
There is precisely fuck all to do in Lincoln after 6pm except for the cinema and Rileys.
Properties aren't particularly cheap and very few have bills included.
Lincoln is the only place I seem to have trouble with regards to being transgendered.
Nottingham
Pros
Unlike the last time I lived in Nottingham, I am mentally prepared and know what to expect
Despite initially hating Nottingham, I love the place now, and have said since the day I left that I wouldn't mind living there again.
There are a lot of things to do and as much as I had my issues with Nottingham in the first spell of living there, but I was never bored.
The properties in Nottingham to rent are surprisingly cheap. On Primelocation the cheapest to rent was £300 without bills included in Newark, there are currently about 20 cheaper than that in Nottingham right now with bills inclusive. Bill inclusive is a big pull for me.
It would be great to see my friends from my days in Nottingham on a regular basis.
Excellent transport links
Cons
Crime. Within the first three months of me living in Nottingham, my car got broken into three times.
A very high representation of the chav culture in Nottingham.
I think we all know which option I am going to choose.....
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