I’m a big kid. I love the idea of pretend and make-believe and dreams. Every day I wish I were something else; most of the time it’s a stupid thing like a river or a tree or a duck, but there’s an underlying frustration that I cannot ever experience these things.

I won’t ever know what it’s like to fly on my own strength. I’ll never be able to sing and tweet my hours away on the wall like the blackbird that so frequently visits our garden.

Something seems unfair about this. I’m sure a real grown-up wouldn’t agree, that it’s just the way life is, but to my immature and frustrated brain I can’t seem to understand just why dreams don’t come true. There is so much more I would want to do if I could. As full of potential and talent as I’m sure I am, I can only ever truly experience the tiniest sliver of life.

Hannah says that if all wishes came true, we’d have nothing left to wish for. I don’t know how true that is, but if everyone could have what they wanted, they wouldn’t want anything else. Whether that’s a good thing or not isn’t for me to say really. I just find it annoying that I have dreams I can’t fulfill. Seems unfair.

I’d welcome your comments on this one.

Menu screens.

Everybody LOVES menu screens. They let you choose so many things – game modes, characters, options, levels, save games. Wow, that’s five awesome things right there. Who doesn’t remember such classic game moments as “Ranking Mode”, “Game Speed 8 Selected” and, of course, “GAME SAVED”? Wow… such memories.

Menus are great. If I were to record a radio or television programme about games, I would make sure I included as much footage and discussion�of the game’s menus as possible. How do you know whether you’ll like the game unless you see someone carefully moving the cursor up and down? “Story mode… multiplayer mode… edit mode… options…”

Do you disagree? I should bloody well hope so.

Menus are BORING and NOBODY LIKES THEM. The best thing about games is what happens BETWEEN the menus. This is called THE GAME.

This post has been inspired by the single greatest videogame programme of all time – GameLife. I love this show – really. Probably in an ironic way yes, but all the same I have a lot of admiration for these guys. I remember the time when recording a video or a radio show was cool; I used to record Sonic stories on a cassette player so I could listen to them. I made a Sonic newsletter in the days before the Internet, and it was cool. Yes, the Internet has ruined everything.

The guys from GameLife are doing the same thing – making something creative and cool about something they love. Unfortunately, the Internet has happened and they will probably get mauled for it, but I salute them. Their website is http://gamelife.exehq.com – please visit them, watch the videos and enjoy yourself. Relax!