I’m talking Guns ‘n’ Roses, I’m talking Kiss, I’m talking AC/DC, I’m talking any other stadium/power rock band from the 70′s/80′s/90′s. I just don’t get it.

I have honestly tried, but I just find anything from that era bland at best and aggrevating at worst. Maybe it’s the many nights listening to overplayed tracks like living on a prayer and summer of ’69, maybe it’s the almost god like status showered upon these groups that I don’t understand. Either way, it just ain’t my bag, baby.

Quite like a bit of Metallica though.

1. Knuckle down with my studies to fulfil the potential I showed in my first year.

2. Get myself onto a Degree Level course.

3. Hold on the job I enjoy and carry on working up the ladder.

4. Pay off the last of my debts. Which closely ties in with…

5. Find a place for myself to live closer to all the people and things I care for.

6. Be a damn good boyfriend to my damn good girlfriend.

7. Most importantly, make sure I am always there for my wonderful daughter and ensure I see as many astounding moments as she has given me this year.

As I carry on build my own personal online empire, I may actually keep this updated and use it for it’s intended purpose of giving me something to focus my rants at.

Sometime soon, I will be launching a project of mine, www.bigredtech.co.uk. The aim of the site is to bring together the talents of amateur, student and freelance writers, in the field of all things technology. I’m looking for people to submit their news, views and reviews for anything concerned with Hardware, Software, Gaming, Mobile or anything tech-based.

The site’s going to be pretty basic for a period while I get the hang of things and get plenty of content together. If you want to know more or have something that could help, get in touch with me at my Twitter account (www.twitter.com/minty14 or www.twitter.com/bigredtech) and we’ll go on from there.

Further updates to come…

Let me count the ways...

Sure, it wasn’t as pioneering as Super Mario Bros, not as universally adored as Super Mario World nor did it redefine a genre as Super Mario 64 did. However, to me it still surpasses anything that came before or has been encountered since. Why? There are things that evoke memories like nothing else. Going back to your hometown, hearing the song that defined that summer, also smells apparently. SMB3 does all sorts of things to me that make me feel all fuzzy inside. 

This game to me is more than an old relic of a hobby, it’s my time machine. It takes me back 10+ years to my Grandma’s dining room. Endless hours spent throwing the NES pad side to side. Long before the Wii revolution, my Grandparents were the first in our family to own a video game system – the Nintendo Entertainment System. With that, came Super Mario Brothers 3. There were others of course, but they were mere pretenders, this was the game that would have me hooked for many years to come and plant the seeds of a passion held in various degrees, probably for the rest of my life. 

I remember the opening credits. I remember the worlds. I remember the whistles, the secret areas and 99 lives in Pipe-World. Most of all, I remember never getting to complete the game. So many times we came close, only to run out of lives or time, or more often than was acceptable, we would accidentally turn off the console, spelling doom for the last console with no save function. 

Predictably in the your years to come, my gaming ‘skills’ have been honed and I have myself managed to complete the game on different platforms, in different ways and at many different times. But it’s not the same, it never will be. My Grandpa passed away years ago, he never did see me get to the end of the game. He never got to see me finish school, he never saw me make my own home with his grand-daughter-in-law, he never saw the birth of his great-grand-daughter. Maybe, next time I fire up the NES on top of my cupboards, I will pull myself away at the last minute and dedicate my failure to him.

So why bother? Well, firstly there’s me, a 20-something Dad bitten on the arse by a global recession. ‘What better time to reinvent yourself than during economic meltdown?’ I thought. Left in the cold by the dizzying world of ‘employment’, I have decided to plunge head first into a new career, starting this September as I pack up my satchel and head off back to college for a course ambiguously described as ‘IT Systems Support’.

Next, there is my interests. My likes, my hobbies. The things I enjoy. Well, I’m into technology, gadgets and gaming, three sufficiently covered areas in the blogosphere. But wait, there’s more. The postcode lottery designated me a Nottingham Forest fan, so obviously I enjoy catching a glimpse of top class football whenever possible. Of course, I would also describe myself as an observer of good television, a listener of good music and reader of good books. All manner of things to make me sound as normal, as generic and as wonderfully hip as possible.

So that’s it, my blog. Something to call my own. Possibly a path to enlightenment, most probably meaningless rambles, certainly something to pass the time. Let’s see how things go. In the wise words of Professor Brian Cox, ‘thing’s can only get better’.