Confused Shelf's Blog - Apr to Jun 12 (105 followers)

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• #267 Already struggling with this daily blogging

A long day at work so I'll keep it short. Settling in to watch the final of The Apprentice tonight. It's the first time I've watched it and it's really got me hooked.

Heading into town tomorrow to watch Prometheus. I've heard nothing but bad things so I'm not expecting great things. If all falls down we can always watch MIB3 which is apparently not too bad.

I may even be handing my Xbox over to my younger brother. He wants to play Mass Effect 3 and I wont need it in the coming months. May have to [SHOCK HORROR] switch to PC gaming for the short time before July.

Anyway it's approaching midnight so I better sign off. Expect my review of whatever film I watch tomorrow.

I'll leave you with the awesome theme to Call of Duty 3.

See you online

• #266 Oh no, not another daily blog

Hello my TA friends and followers and potential strangers and stalkers. You are reading the beginning of a series of daily blogs that will run the entire course of June. It's as much a challenge for myself as it is to entertain you horrible lot. Hopefully I can get some good things going here.

So why the name? Well, in 28 days time I am departing TrueAchievements. I'll certainly miss you lot but my mind is made up. Hey, woah there, settle down. You can stop celebrating because I wont be gone for good. Just a month of absence. I'll go into more detail as the deadline approaches but for now you'll have to be content with that.

And so the obvious question for anyone looking to begin a blog (or even a series of blogs) is where to begin? In 28 days time someone might look back at my blog and wonder what I began with and I don't want them to think "Well that was a bit shit." As any long time follower will tell you, I love Soundtracks. I also have a major nostalgia complex. So clearly, the first installment had to be centered on those facts.

Back when I was a kid there was a series of internet flash videos that I loved that were known for their violence, gore, heavy metal soundtrack and bunnies. One late night last week I was linking my way into the heart of youtube, delving deeper than the foreign area of youtube and past even the crash compilations. It was here, in the dark fissure of youtube's collective memory I found the fourth installment to BunnyKill, the greatest animation ever made.

How could I resist watching this orgy of blood and guts and satisfy my inner child? I was not disappointed. I was rewarded with a masterpiece in animation and the nostalgia rush I had been craving. I started having a heartattack then when I discovered that a fifth video had also been released during the years since I watched the third episode.

I leave you then with the entire collection. If you've never seen them before you're in for a treat.







See you online

• #265 May 2012 Blog Leaderboard

Welcome to the fifth monthly blog leaderboard. This month I’ve extended the leaderboard so it now represents the top 50 bloggers, more than the previous top 30. With such a large number of people being featured it’s impossible to say that I haven’t missed someone somewhere in the process. If you know somebody who should have been on the leaderboard but wasn’t, please contact me.

To use the blog, click a person’s name to be taken to their Friend Feed. Click the follower count to be taken straight to their blog. Click the follow icon (shown below) to follow that person’s blog. This means that they will appear in a list titled “Other Followed Blogs” down the right hand side of your page and anything they write will be posted on your friend feed.

Some interesting statistics for you, a total of 23,458 blogs have been posted since the feature became available on the 14th of September, 2010. That’s an average of 37 and a half blogs a day. The community has clearly been busy. Overall, the top 50 most followed bloggers have a combined follower count of 2771. Our three most followed bloggers make up just shy of 25% of that total figure.

But now, it's time to look at the who's who for the month of may. The TrueAchievements Blog Leaderboard.

Rookies

49th= (N/A) Mystic Typh00n
18 Followers (N/A) (110 Blogs)

49th= (N/A) Sonic Grunge
18 Followers (N/A) (98 Blogs)

49th= (N/A) DJ2e
18 Followers (N/A) (34 Blogs)

48th (N/A) ButterflyEdge
19 Followers (N/A) (33 Blogs)

47th (N/A) Redodua
20 Followers (N/A) (7 Blogs)

44th= (N/A) CHRI5T0PH5R
21 Followers (N/A) (110 Blogs)

44th= (N/A) NinjaDave04
21 Followers (N/A) (26 Blogs)

44th= (N/A) Sir JL
21 Followers (N/A) (12 Blogs)

43rd (N/A) OzarkSavage
22 Followers (N/A) (81 Blogs)

41st= (N/A) mast3r 0r0m1s
23 Followers (N/A) (155 Blogs)

41st= (N/A) Dat Boi Treezy
23 Followers (N/A) (78 Blogs)

A brand new section to the leaderboard means ten new bloggers. Some have been on the leaderboard before and now have a chance to appear once again. Before I look at who has made it onto the board there is some absences that need to be taken care of. Both Nuffzx and x Jedi Ryan x have chosen to leave the site. They had 41 and 33 followers respectively and now they have left those statistics will be locked as there is no way to unfollow someone who has left the site. Having said that there is also no way to view their blogs as clicking the link sends you back to the homepage. As a result I have chosen to exclude them from the board to free up space for more active bloggers.

As none of the people in the Rookie section of the board appeared back in April, I have no figures to compare them to. This is the reason there is so many N/A's across the board. There are other statistics I can look at though. For example, the 50th most followed blogger has 18 followers. At the end of October last year, this would have put you in a tied 16th. Today, 16th has 55 followers, a number that would have put you in 4th place back in October. The competition is clearly far greater than it has ever been.

As far as predictions for next month go, I don't predict much movement. I see a lot of names I've been tracking for some time and the only advances that have been made are marginal. No doubt a couple will move up and knock off the inactive ShadowMonkey987 and Piratonio. Maybe someone will make it as far as to get in the Experienced section of the leaderboard. Only time will tell.

Novice

40th (N/A) ShadowMonkey987
24 Followers (N/A) (47 Blogs)

39th (N/A) Piratonio
26 Followers (N/A) (20 Blogs)

36th= (N/A) N0T PENNYS B0AT
27 Followers (N/A) (40 Blogs)

36th= (N/A) Elestian
27 Followers (N/A) (31 Blogs)

36th= (N/A) Avata
27 Followers (N/A) (20 Blogs)

34th= (N/A) Will072
29 Followers (N/A) (49 Blogs)

34th= (-4) Nonfaith
29 Followers (-1) (41 Blogs)

32nd= (N/A) Foxfire49
32 Followers (N/A) (106 Blogs)

32nd= (N/A) WhataLump
32 Followers (N/A) (36 Blogs)

30th= (-3) Das Kuhnen
33 Followers (+0) (95 Blogs)

30th= (-4) BloodwCinnamon
33 Followers (-1) (15 Blogs)

The Novice section of the board makes for depressing viewing. Here I can see six inactive bloggers who are doing nothing but taking up space for new talent to get showcased. Among the graveyard of bloggers past are two beacons of light that stand out though.

N0T PENNYS B0AT and Foxfire49 have been steadily moving up the board and were looking set to join the big leagues. They just missed out this month but I think Foxfire should make it into the Experienced board next month. N0T PENNYS B0AT has a chance to do the same but there is not a lot of free space up ahead.

Here we also find the first three people who were featured in last months blog. Unfortunately for them, all are moving down three or four places. Nonfaith and BloodwCinnamon both lost a follower dropping four places. Das Kuhnen held on to his 33 followers and lost three places. Three new (and one old) bloggers rushed past to claim their spots.

Experienced

30th= (-3) Das Kuhnen
33 Followers (+0) (95 Blogs)

30th= (-4) BloodwCinnamon
33 Followers (-1) (15 Blogs)

27th= (N/A) Ergo Me Smart
35 Followers (N/A) (145 Blogs)

27th= (N/A) http://www.trueachievements.com/xCherrYXx.htm
35 Followers (N/A) (39 Blogs)

27th= (N/A) MalibuStacey85
35 Followers (N/A) (27 Blogs)

26th (N/A) thebigbadtoph
37 Followers (N/A) (107 Blogs)

25th (-1) smrnov
41 Followers (+5) (14 Blogs)

24th (-2) FinnegansDirge
42 Followers (+4) (91 Blogs)

23rd (-6) planting42
46 Followers (+0) (50 Blogs)

20th= (-1) PunkyLiar
47 Followers (+4) (84 Blogs)

20th= (+3) adiash73
47 Followers (+10) (65 Blogs)

20th= (+9) J0HNNY FRIENDLY
47 Followers (+15) (48 Blogs)

Here things start to hot up. There is a fierce battle for 27th between MalibuStacey85, xCherrYXx and Ergo Me Smart. All three have 35 followers and their gathering is growing at a steady rate. Ergo Me Smart returns after a month or two of absence after a refocusing of his blogs. Just ahead of them and in danger of being dragged into the melee is thebigbadtoph with 37 followers.

The worst performance in the Experienced board comes from Planting42. Simply by not gaining any followers he drops from 17th to 23rd. In contrast, J0HNNY FRIENDLY moves up a brilliant nine places by gaining 15 followers. adiash73 does a sterling job too finding another 10 to move up three spots. FinnegansDirge and smrnov both did well but because of the two I just mentioned, they both lost a spot.

Looking ahead to next month I have no doubt that both J0HNNY FRIENDLY and adiash73 will make it into the top 20 pushing out Big Ell. I'd like to predict that PunkyLiar will follow them and take the spot of Flyboy80498 but Big Ell could pull something out of the bag and hang on in there for another month.

Heroes

20th= (-1) PunkyLiar
47 Followers (+4) (84 Blogs)

20th= (+3) adiash73
47 Followers (+10) (65 Blogs)

20th= (+9) J0HNNY FRIENDLY
47 Followers (+15) (48 Blogs)

19th (-1) Big Ell
48 Followers (+4) (33 Blogs)

18th (-4) Flyboy80498
49 Followers (-1) (100 Blogs)

17th (-2) rayner2814
52 Followers (+5) (154 Blogs)

16th (-1) rotorschnee
55 Followers (+8) (318 Blogs)

15th (-4) http://www.trueachievements.com/ImpureKing999.htm
61 Followers (+0) (152 Blogs)

14th (-1) Matrarch
63 Followers (+13) (66 Blogs)

13th (+8) Ryot Control
65 Followers (+25) (20 Blogs)

12th (+0) REBORN GAIDIN
66 Followers (+9) (213 Blogs)

11th (-1) The Disc
71 Followers (+6) (273 Blogs)

In the Heroes board there is a lot of negatives. This is largely down to two bloggers, one of whom is Ryot Control who gained 25 followers, the third largest increase this month. He jumped eight places into 13th. Whether he can stay here remains to be seen as he doesn't blog very frequently. However if the next is of a similar quality to the last we could see a surprise come June.

We have to go all the way back to the previously mentioned J0HNNY FRIENDLY before we find another who has moved up the board. Surprisingly though, only one person in the Heroes board has lost a follower. It's fair to say that nearly everyone here has done very well, it was just a case of two bloggers making large gains that shifted everyone back a position.

Next month it's difficult to see any movement. Our 10th place blogger doesn't seem to be losing their momentum just yet which will only widen the gap. Ahead of them the 9th placed blogger made a greater gain than The Disc in 11th so if anyone will move it will be Matrarch and rotorschnee each moving up one.

Legends

10th (+14) litepink
77 Followers (+41) (56 Blogs)

9th (+0) Omfamna
80 Followers (+13) (103 Blogs)

8th (-1) moroniccow
85 Followers (+11) (114 Blogs)

7th (-2) Sashamorning
92 Followers (-2) (72 Blogs)

6th (+0) Confused Shelf
95 Followers (+10) (265 Blogs)

5th (+3) Kendrene
96 Followers (+27) (89 Blogs)

4th (+0) Doominatorx6
106 Followers (+1) (329 Blogs)

3rd (+0) Stallion83
196 Followers (+5) (177 Blogs)

2nd (+0) StophJ
233 Followers (+6) (226 Blogs)

1st (+0) phatal1ty
246 Followers (+16) (202 Blogs)

The Legends board is dominated by the arrival of litepink who has entered the top 10 with similar "gusto" as moroniccow did two months ago. Her deal blogs have managed to build quite a following and she looks set to continue her storm up the board. An increase of 41 followers is the biggest gain this month. Will her flame die out before she can break 100 or is she set for greater things?

Everyone else here has done very well with the exception of Sashamorning who drops two followers and two places. A couple months ago that would have had no affect on his position but now the top 10 is as close as any other part of the leaderboard.

Kendrene has returned from a period of few blogs and come back onto the blogging stage with a bang making the second largest gain, 27 followers. She just manages to beat me this month. Could she be the fifth TA member to reach 100?

phatal1ty extends her lead slightly over nearest rival StophJ. The gap separating them is now 13 followers. A small amount when you consider they have averaged far more than that each month since they entered the board.

So what will happen during the month of June? Well, it's going to be close between me and Kendrene. We are both racing for 100 and it really is anyone's game. Doominatorx6 doesn't look like he'll be able to hold onto 4th for another month. One of us looks ready to take his place. litepink is the great unknown though. While she has done very well, historically speaking reaching the same number of followers as me has been the exact moment many bloggers rapid gains have leveled out. At the end of November last year, Kendrene matched my score but it was right at this moment she lost some of her momentum and the two of us continued side by side of a number of months. Sashamorning then went shooting up the board but slowed to a halt just after passing me. moroniccow and Omfamna looked set to do the same but are now matching me. Will we see the same with litepink or will she follow in the footsteps of phatal1ty and StophJ?

Featured Blogger

This month I am interviewing Ergo Me Smart who returns to our board battling with two other newcomers. He's been here before. What does he have to say for himself.

CS: The most obvious question first. Why do you blog?

EMS: At first my blog was mostly to fill boredom, take up the time when I wasn't gaming. Then I started doing indie game reviews as a bit of a laugh and amazingly someone else picked them up and I just kept doing them. Now, with the To-Do Destiny blogs, it's to inspire me to keep going through my backlog, and hopefully give people a bit of enjoyment reading my suffering in the process.

CS: What do you like to see in other peoples blogs? Anyone you particularly enjoy you feel like embarrassing and want to give a shout out for? Is there anything that you wish people wrote less often? We all know my hatred of backlogs.

EMS: Reviews and opinions are often my favourite kind of blogs. I have to admit that I always try to read PunkyLiar and Matrarch weekly blogs, and I'm not just saying that because they're my bosses now, honest! Doominatorx6's humour and N0T PENNYS B0AT's posts on LOST are there when it comes to quality, too.

I don't mind a backlog blog myself, as long as it actually goes into some detail. If it's just a list... then, not so much. Can't beat a good blog full of stats, though. That's what made Will072's blog so good.

CS: In the first half of your TA blogging career, you wrote a lot of Indie game reviews. What gave you the idea to do this? I feel you are perhaps more qualified than anyone else on the site to give your views on Indy games so what do you think of them?

EMS: I got the idea after listening to a Digital Cowboys podcast on the subject. They often mentioned how every indie game only has a demo of 8 minutes, and thought it would be a laugh doing a week's worth of reviews after only playing them for that long. After 3 of those reviews, someone asked me to do them for their site, and I've been reviewing indie games ever since. Just because I've started my To-Do Destiny blogs doesn't mean they're done with, either. With any luck I should post a review of 'A-Band' sometime next week.

The main issue with indie games is that Microsoft have kinda abandoned the XBLIG platform, so good games on there just get lost in a flood of crap. However, the good one's are still very worth getting, even if you get their PC port instead of on the XBox. Dead Pixels and LaserCat's PC ports are currently in the newest 'Indie Royale' bundle, for example.

Speaking of bundles, be careful with them. I only started buying them about 10 months ago and now have 115 PC games to my name because of them. More deadly than Steam sales when it comes to building a backlog I say!

CS: Recently you started a new blog series, To-Do Destiny. I must confess I missed the first one and haven't been able to follow along. Would you like to explain to the readers what the plan was?

EMS: The plan is simple; I click the 'Add random achievement' button in my 'To-Do list', and then keep playing that game until I've unlocked that achievement. Once that's done, I add another achievement and go for that, and so on and so forth until, well.... Well, I haven't thought how to end it yet!

CS: Last but never, ever least, three gadgets or weapons from video games to own in real life, what would they be and why?

EMS: Hm, that's a tough one...

Portal Gun from Portal
Detective Mode from Batman: Arkham Series
Tetrobot from Blocks That Matter (I love that little robot!)

CS: Thanks for your time.

So that's it for this month. As always, I very much appreciate you taking the time to read this. I hope you found it interesting and saw a couple of names there of friends you know. Maybe you were featured in the list yourself. Hopefully I didn't have anything negative to say about you. Remember it's the great and wonderful masses of TA that have the final say. This isn't my opinion shown in this blog, it's yours. Do your part by following the blogs you like. Thanks again.

Side Leaderboards are for members of the top 50 most followed bloggers only. Also note that some bloggers have removed earlier blogs. Therefore these might not be fully accurate.

Most Blogs
1st Doominatorx6 (329)
2nd rotorschnee (318)
3rd The Disc (241) +1
4th Confused Shelf (265) -1
5th StophJ (226)
6th REBORN GAIDIN (213) +1
7th phatal1ty (202) -1
8th Stallion83 (177)
9th mast3r 0r0m1s (155)
10th rayner2814 (154) +1
11th ImpureKing999 (152) -1
12th Ergo Me Smart (145)
13th moroniccow (114)
14th= CHRI5T0PH5R (110)
14th= Mystic Typh00n (110)
16th thebigbadtoph (107)
17th Foxfire49 (106)
18th Omfamna (103)
19th Flyboy80498 (100)

Highest Follower Gain
1st litepink (+41)
2nd Kendrene (+27)
3rd Ryot Control (+25)
4rd phatal1ty (+16)
5th J0HNNY FRIENDLY (+15)
6th= Omfamna (+13)
6th= Matrarch (+13)
8th moroniccow (+11)
9th= Confused Shelf (+10)
9th= adiash73 (+10)

Top 10 "Followers per Blog" Scores
1st Ryot Control (3.25)
2nd smrnov (2.929)
3rd Redodua (2.857)
4th BloodwCinnamon (2.2)
5th Sir JL (1.615)
6th Big Ell (1.455)
7th litepink (1.351)
8th Avata (1.35)
9th Piratonio (1.3)
10th MalibuStacey85 (1.296)

Most Followed Female Blogger: phatal1ty (246)
Most Followed Staff Member: Kendrene (96)
Highest TrueAchievements Blog Leaderboard Debut: StophJ (48)
Hall of Shame: Sashamorning (-2), Flyboy80498 (-1), BloodwCinnamon (-1), Nonfaith (-1)

See you online

• #264 I just plain don't like white people

This blog centers around a comment in the new Hitman trailer thread on the front page. If you haven't seen the trailer, which is pretty awesome, watch it below.

Anyway, Ackter left the following comment in the thread and it really set me off. Rather than responding in the thread with an enraged response I thought I'd make a little blog concerning my views. First up, the quote...
Ok games makers. Little hint. Including one racially diverse person in the middle of a bunch of white people doesn't make you not racist. It makes you MORE racist than if they were all white. We can all see through you, at some point in a meeting somewhere one of you said "better chuck in a black chick so people don't think we're racist". We're on to you.So what's wrong with that quote? Well, it seems to me we live in an age where everyone is so afraid of being called a racist that they'll deliberately censor themselves around people of a different race to such extremes as to not even admit their colour in conversation. For example, at work we were talking about a customer who had come in a number of times during the last week. "Oh was that the... [looks around] ^black guy?" It's absurd. Where I live the population is predominantly white. If I need to describe a guy to one of my fellow waiters... "Where is this starter going?" "Oh, to the black guy sitting around the corner," should be a perfectly acceptable response but the look I got when I said it. Now I'm sorry but that should not be racist.

Moving on to the Hitman trailer, the black nun wasn't there for the sake of ethnic diversity. If you watch the trailer again you'll notice she was the ringleader. She fired the rocket and her headdress was different. "Why did they make the only black girl the leader?" I hear you ask. Well because there is something inherently naughty about that. In the back of ours minds is a suppressed part of our personality that loves to see something so basic and pure as a nun be turned on it's head. That's why the nuns take off their gowns in the trailer to reveal tight-fitting leather. People consider the colour white as a sign of purity and a nun dressed in black, or indeed a black nun, is corrupting the purity of the idea of a nun. It causes a number of powerful subconscious emotions to rush through your body. It's the same reason Bayonetta dressed as a nun only for her clothes to be cut off revealing her black outfit was so "effective." It's the same reason "Nude Nuns with Big Guns" was featured in The Disk's blog a couple days ago. That kind of thing sells.

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• #263 Yes... I think you're a little confused...

Was watching the Monaco Grand Prix live last weekend and when it came to the press conference afterwards I was laughing my head off at Mark Webbers bizarre answer. I edited it a little to cut out the moments where he actually makes sense and this is what I was left with.

Making great use of the new Xbox BBC iPlayer.

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