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Without wittering on too much, here they are:

• The future of the games industry…
• The future of television…

What do you think will happen in the future of games and TV? Short or long term, go nuts.

One of my day-to-day clients at Meshed Media is Trident Housing Association. I’ve been training a team of staff from the Future Jobs Fund in digital media skills. The idea is that they will then use these skills to help the residents of Trident House, many of whom have limited computer skills, and often poor literacy, social problems and severe financial constraints.

Job centres are set to be shut down (as far as I know) leaving online portals as the main route for jobseekers to find work. This is all well and good for the tech savvy, internet aware generation of literate 20-somethings.

But what about the people I’ve met at Trident House? Most of the people in the tower are unemployed, and will therefore rely on these online jobs sites, but some of them (as I have witnessed personally) don’t even know how to operate a mouse.

The solution I’ve been working on is to provide an online jobs portal backed up with real-world support and analogue methods.

Myself and the Digital Village team conducted a survey of residents to find out what jobs they were looking for and where. This information was then used to create an online resource, which was ultimately derailed by technical issues.

Version 2.0, however, is proving more successful. I’ve created Tumblr blogs for each job sector (such as retail, IT, customer service, etc). The team were then tasked with tagging jobs with the Tumblr bookmarklet to populate the blogs.

Knowing that accessibility to so many blogs would be an issue, I set up a Netvibes page which collected all of the Tumblrs in iframe tabs, so all the latest jobs could be found from one source. This, I hope, has sorted the online aspect of the service although it relies on staff time to tag jobs (automation is perhaps an option here, but I prefer the idea of the stream being filtered for the needs of residents).

To back this up I’ve designed posters which will be printed at the end of each week detailing how many new jobs in each sector are up on the Netvibes page. There will be tear-off tabs so people can take the url away with them or use it in the free computer rooms.

I also intend to continue to gather data with surveys and suggestion boxes so the service can match the residents’ expectations.

The service is just being put into action and I hope the residents will start to find it a useful resource when looking for work and a helpful step towards becoming internet proficient at a time when those skills are becoming increasingly necessary to operate in the modern world.

I’m probably what the industry, and others, would call a casual gamer. As if all other gaming is in fact a full-time profession that you have to fit all other activities around.

It’s not something that bothers me. I like playing games when and how it suits me. What does bother me is that I’m not catered for well by modern games. Here’s a cartoon to explain:

I just don’t get the new form of gaming. I’m not going to pay a monthly rate to participate in a massively multiplayer box-ticking exercise. It’s like doing admin with better graphics and more elves.

Sure, there are a few games for people like me. The New Super Mario Bros Wii is a side-scrolling platformer updating the original. So is Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii. This is why I have a Wii.

But part of me also wants to play other games. Games that don’t exist yet. Games designed for folk like me that aren’t rehashes of old games. Orignal gaming for the casual gamer that isn’t another wacky puzzler. A casual first-person shooter like Goldeneye 007 for example has been updated recently. But in the update, they modernised it and took away the casual factor. It is less fun. And, if anything, I want games to be fun.

Now I’m in the position where I can’t play games online because there are legions of highly-trained non-casuals out there ready to pop a bullet between my eyes from a high tower before I’ve had a chance to fully respawn.

So, there are a few games out there for me, I admit, and by and large I’ve bought them. But if I was truly catered for, well, maybe I wouldn’t be classified as a casual gamer any more.

(Comic found via 24randomthoughts.com)

On Christmas day 1998, I tore into the wrapping paper on a big ol’ box to find a brand new Nintendo 64 console packaged with Super Mario 64. Little did I know that exactly 12 years later I would still be playing that same game, and it would stand up as one of the greatest video games of all time.

And little did I care either, as I was busy opening the cardboard box the game came in, shoving the cartridge into the slot, and being faced by the mustachioed fizzog of everyone’s favourite Italian plumber rendered in three glorius dimensions.

The game was instant fun. You could tweak and play with Mario’s face and spin him around, all before you got to the main menu! And then, as you clicked new game with that tri-pronged controller you whizzed around the castle grounds and leapt into the mushroom kingdom with a joyous ya-hoo!

That sense of wonder really set the tone for the whole experience. From the first experiments bounding around the enormous environments, to swinging Bowser round and round by the tail having only collected a handful of power stars.

I was totally addicted to that game, and I’m pleased to say I’m addicted all over again after a 10 year hiatus.

Late to the party on this one, but the Wii’s virtual console function is glorious. How had I overlooked it for so long? But now I’ve discovered it and the first game on my list to download was Mario 64. I had to. But I was also quite worried. Would it stand the test of time? Had nostalgia rose-tinted my view of the game? Would I play it for five minutes and forget about it all over again?

Thankfully, my concerns were utterely unfounded. It still looks and feels incredible. The physics engine is sublime and the gameplay is not only totally intuitive but rewarding, inventive and well… quite magical. I can safely say it is a better game than any I’ve played in the last 10 years on any platform.

So, thanks Nintendo. I’ve rediscovered my favourite game and get to play it in all its glory over again. I’m genuinely looking forward to meeting Yoshi on the roof of the castle. Ya-hoo!

I could waffle (oh yes) but instead here’s a list of some of the things that happened to me this year (mainly so I can use it to plan next year). Here goes…

• Joined Meshed Media as producer
• Wrote for Created in Birmingham and ran the weekly arts and culture guide CiBmail
• Ran the 48-hour film challenge Film Dash
• Co-managed an art shop in the Europe’s largest shopping centre, Bullring (that did happen, didn’t it? Yes, yes it did)
• Started our regular Popcorn Comedy nights at The Victoria
• Was literally in Bruges with Laura for a few days
• Bought a mutha-chuffin’ house in Moseley
• Was commissioned by Screen WM and UK Film Council to make animated short Man in a Cat
• Went to New York with Louis (and went to the Ghostbusters fire station)
• Got interviews with us in The Birmingham Post, Birmingham Mail, The Metro and Who’s Laughing Now?
• Did my first paid scriptwriting gig
• Got my first bit of freelance social media work
• Directed a couple of comedy videos
• Started comedy maker blog Comedy Dash
• Met a few of my comedy heroes including Robert Popper, Peter Serafinowicz, David Cross, Kevin Eldon, and Tim Key
• Had Kevin Eldon and Josie Long reading a script I wrote for a film we were making (highlight of the year?)
• Went to ARS Electronica in Austria
• Created a cinema room in my loft (an ambition achieved for sure)
• Was involved in my first big pitches and gave some of my first presentations/talks/training sessions on social media
• Met lots of talented people
• Got a couple of cats

I may have missed a couple of things, but that seems like a pretty decent stab at it. As for 2011, well… who knows really. If it’s half as good as 2010 I’ll probably be happy.

How was 2010 for you?

First off, the hunt for a new Popcorn Comedy venue in Birmingham continues. We’ve got some amazing acts lined up for 2011 (including one I am tremendously excited to be able to host), so enabling more people to see them is a priority.

Secondly, I’ve been doing a couple of freelance bits and pieces including writing an animated advert for a charity and agreeing to do the online promotion for a cartoon strip series in the new year. Again, more on those when I have something to show you.

I’ve also been writing new comedy to make with Dice Productions. There’s been a couple of little project ideas that I’ve shot off to some talented folk for some potential collaboration, and I’ve been trying to nail the story for my fairly high-concept sitcom/series thingy.

Comedy Dash has been doing well, with a few guest posts, profiles and an interview going up recently, some nice feedback, and a meeting with Channel 4 about its potential scheduled for January. Hopefully I can sort a challenge date for early next year and it’ll go stellar.

That’ll do for now (you see, this is the level of effort I’m putting in here) but I will endeavor to add some interesting and more detailed stuff up sooooon.

Oh, and I made this silly video with Tom in three hours last weekend:

Over and out.

We’ve been making some of our comedy sketches with Chris and he’s very good at what he does and a nice chap to boot. Here he’s used an 80s lcd game and made a really cool music video. Check it out:

Next up is a couple of new tracks from my good friends Hot Monocles. I went to school with Dan, Will, Matt and Jon and now they’re recording and gigging around Birmingham and, I have to say, I’m a big fan.

Here’s new one A Certain Descent:
A Certain Descent by hotmonocles

And here’s another new one from them, Find You Out:
Find You Out by hotmonocles

Chris is on Vimeo here. And Hot Monocles have a Facebook page here.

Here’s the tweet:

And here’s the drawing:

It’s great, isn’t it? And here’s the original mattress I saw the pig on:

On closer inspection the pig is saying ‘Woof’ and the pig is actually a cow/dog/plant/bird hybrid of some description. Maybe it was Darwin’s or Attenborough’s mattress and this was a doodle of a new species… or maybe it was a bored crackhead. Who knows?

I’d seen @irkafirka’s illustrated tweets before but had no idea they’d do one of mine. @irkafirka are animator/illustrator/writer @pockless and fellow vivid tweeter @chrisbell. I don’t think they take requests, so I suppose if you want your own you’ll have to come up with a tweet as inane as mine.

Here are the other illustrated tweets they’ve done: http://irkafirka.com/

This made me smile.

I chose a couple of main topics to focus my mind on and banished all other ideas until I’d made progress with the selected few. I wasn’t going to not think of new ideas, that’s impossible, but I wasn’t going to put any effort into them until I had time and headspace.

Well, so far, I’m pleased to announce that the experiment has been a roaring…

And this is no bad thing.

For the first week, I stuck to the plan. I concentrated on my limited list of activities and I made some good progress and even remarked on how successful the idea had been.

But then I was naughty. I broke the rules. I had ideas. New ones. And I worked on them.

So now, after only a couple of weeks I have new sketches that are due to be filmed soon, several new projects which have emerged and I’m excited about, and i even started a short story which I’ll be putting out as a free downloadable PDF thingy at some point.

This I see as Success in Failure.

I didn’t achieve what I set out to do, but somehow I’ve come out of it better than when I started. I’ve cleared my head, organised my thoughts and now the creative juices are really flowing and I’ve produced better stuff than I had been previously. Some of the original aims have been met too, like Comedy Dash.

Did I subconsciously know that all I needed was a clearout? Either way, this mental colonic seems to have done wonders.

Experiment over. Result… erm, not sure. Success in Failure.