This weekend strayed from the normal geeky undertakings with a trip to the Rugby.

It is my girlfriends birthday today, and her parents had arranged a surprise trip to go and see England play Australia at Twickenham, a pretty big deal in the rugby world.

So on Saturday morning we hopped on the train – first class (fancy!) and made our way to London. We didn’t get time to check in properly, as we were being picked up to head to a pre match venue – but we were staying at the Hilton Park Lane (fancy!).

The pre match venue was actually London Irish hospital (still fancy!), where we were treated to free drinks and a three course meal. Already this was turning out to be a pretty sweet deal.
Once done eating it was time to make our way to the main event. We made our way, with the hordes or people towards the stadium.

We managed to get to our seats in time to see all the pre match warm ups and feel the atmosphere build up around us.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to see a live sporting event like this, and it’s the first time I’ve seen one at an international level. Let me just say, the moment the National Anthem started up, woah, it’s loud, and certainly makes you feel pretty darn patriotic.

We had great seats right behind the posts.

 

It was a great match – it helped that England won 26 -17, and it was an equally great experience.

After the game we headed back to the hospitality area for me drinks and some nibbles, then out for a curry. Man, we ate a lot of food…

We headed home Sunday afternoon feeling pretty knackered, but feeling like we’d had a real treat.

Once at home, it was time to slob out for the rest of the evening.

I actually got around to watching Guardians of the Galaxy for the first time. Now, I’m not a huge fan of Marvel films, or super hero films in general – I just find them a little silly, and over the top, and they always seem to have stupid moments in the plot lines that just wouldn’t happen in real life, and I don’t mean aliens or supernatural stuff, it’s thing like in Captain America where the super serum is stolen, the whole sequence just annoys me, it’s stupid. In fact, I think it’s mainly Captain America that I have a problem with, I just don’t like him… Anyway I digress.

I do think that GoTG was probably my favourite of the lot. I liked the cast, and I enjoyed to plot, and it was pretty funny in places, it was generally just a pretty good film.
I’ve obviously also been keeping an eye on all the sales. But so far I’ve only picked up three cheap games. The Long Dark, which is a survival game where a geological event has caused pretty much every where to freeze. Your aim is to survive for as long as possible, but gathering supplies and other materials. I’ve only managed to play it very quickly so far, but I do like what I’ve seen. I like that it’s not like other survival gamers where zombies are trying to kill you. The biggest threat is the cold. It’s in early access at the moment, so not all the features are fully realised yet, but there will eventually be a story mode, alongside the survival mode. I’m thinking I will start a survival series/lets play type thing with it pretty soon. See how that goes!

Plague Inc: Evolved, mainly because I’ve always had my eye on it, and for £8 I thought I may as well do it. And Papers Please, because it was £2. Bargain. I’m yet to actually play them though…

– Will

Friday was a worrying day for me. It was the day that Amiibo figures were launching in the UK. Why should I be worried? Well following the reaction from how well they’ve been selling in USA, my concern was that the ‘rarer’ figures would be difficult to pick up here. Again from what I’d read on the USA side of it, Marth & Villager figures had a lot less stock in stores and were becoming difficult to pick up.

Given how difficult it is to find Fire Emblem games on any console now, especially for less than £50 I was concerned at not being able to pick up Marth.

Fortunately I needn’t worry as after work on Friday I managed to pick up 2 Marth figures, Not both for me. One was for a friend honestly. I shouldn’t have been too worried as it appears that in the UK the Amiibo’s that seem to sell more are the more familiar characters in Mario, Yoshi and Donkey Kong. Works well for me. I spent my Friday night drinking with some friends as my wife was out watching Lee Evans.

Saturday we put the Christmas decorations up, which was amusing with our 7 month old kitten amazed by the Christmas tree, treating it as a climbing frame. To be expected.

Sunday my wife was out again (Her social life trumps mine) So I spent about… pssh.. 9 hours solid on Grand Theft Auto 5. Determined to focus on missions only, it’s impossible to do so, so shifting from missions, to messing around, to strangers and freaks. Such a fun game.

And that was my weekend. I’m still left with a little bit of money after a Christmas shopping spree, so think i’ll take a look at either more Amiibo figures, or Far Cry 4 if I have enough left (not likely).

– Murr