Birthday Post

Alright, here's a little fun after all the bad hands I've been dealing.

I was going to post this sooner, like, ten days sooner, but due to circumstances, that ended up just not happening. Nonetheless it's still a little fun thing to show off. Positivity, people.

Here's, almost, all of what I got for my birthday.

For the sake of the blog though, I'll mostly restrain myself to the book aspect of the gifts,

Seen above is only a fraction of the artery-clogging load of food I got, which has been mostly eaten by now, and which I've packed on like some introverted bear hibernating for a very cold winter.

Special mention though, has to be made of that lovely Penny Dreadful t-shirt, which, despite being a season 3 bit of merchandise, is still very much appreciated.

Also, this little thing.

The doll doesn't come with Evie Frye's standout Ubisoft Blue outfit (was it Ubisoft Blue?), which was only available in the game via the Uplay service, because of course those fuckers knew just what looked best on her and had to hide it away behind their nauseating service bull-shit.

There's some lovely little detail on the hood, although it seems to be in places rather mushed.

...

The head is oversized...

...

I don't know, man, It's a doll, what do you want me to say?

It's not my thing but it does bring back some memories, of ogling Evie while she is hopping across the rooftops of London. I actually quite liked Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and again, mostly this is because of Evie Frye.

It certainly wasn't because of her twin, because that ass-hat was a complete Jacob.

Eh... yeah that seems about right.

He did redeem himself (somewhat) in the Ripper dlc, which was very good, like a little horror outing set in the Assassin's Creed universe. And I'll likely never forget that one-on-one fight at the start of that story. Good times.

Speaking of good times, this also brings some to mind.

Or does it? It's one of those very ambivalent things.

Anyway: Someone's been reading the blog. Which, despite the connotations, is very gratifying.

I'll admit, when I unwrapped the present and realized what it was, I got a little choked up.

I remember the original copy I read, from the library, not having a dust jacket and being wrapped in a bunch of cellophane tape to protect the cover from getting damaged.

Might be giving it a quiet read again at some point, but for now it'll have to settle for having pride of place on my bookshelf.

Here's something else that gets pride of place:

Me and the Ink-Stained Beard have a friendly little feud, or at least that's what I consider it to be, where one of us loves Neil Gaiman and the other semi-pretends to absolutely revile him.

Oooooh... I suppose this should've been obvious but I just never got it before now.

So getting this book from the inclined-towards Gaiman party could be considered a 'dick-move'.

Especially since I had already purchased and read Good Omens in the edition that matched the Collector's Discworld edition. You know, the ones with the almost minimalist hardcovers that look quite damn good. I've shown them here on the blog at one point, can't remember where though.

I'm very much a fan of Pratchett though so this is still very cool.

Also that red cover with the black lettering is oh so very delicious.

And then of course, when we get to the title page we get this...

Signed by BOTH Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett...

Well damn.

Something, something book club edition. Honestly I have no idea.

I've never much been one for first editions, signatures and printings to be honest.

As long as the edition is fancy and looks good, it's all okay for me.

Somebody's out a pretty penny though.

Here's another one that puts a smile on my face.

One of the, relatively, few Fantasy Masterworks I still need, and it's in rather immaculate condition, which is always a surprise with these things.

Quite a big volume too with all the content made up of them there short stories.

As this edition actually has an introduction by Neil Gaiman I first thought this was another of Beard's gifts, as it arrived in the mail without a note or anything, but it turns out it's from another distant friend of mine.

 Thanks buddy.

And of course, thank you all for the wonderful gifts, all you lucky people.

It was a good birthday.

Just covering all my bases there.

Up next we have another book of the Michael Moorcock Library, 

Which means I've still got three more to go, and I've been assured that another one of those three is still incoming over the next few days, and the other two "Might, just Might *wink, wink* arrive at christmas!"

Aaaand just in time for the post going up here's the other one.

I can see a theme here.

I guess Cornelius is a good name to go for.

And lastly we have a couple of ps4 games:

These two are pick up and play, and I've already had alot of fun with Steep, and will continue to do so long after the stories of other games are done, or so I'm assuming.

For the other, hell and guns, so why not?

I had played doom 3 before, which was pretty ok.

The mythology of the thing is a bit of a headscratcher but I guess it's a brain at the door kind of game.

And here's the one I'm playing right now.

Initial verdict after adapting to the radical overhaul to the combat system:

It is pretty damn awesome.

I'm about to go to Alexandria after playing around for 6 or 7 hours, chasing soldiers and hunting leopards and climbing just about everything in sight.

I'm very much looking forward to having a look at that library, though given the series track record, I'll end up being the one who burns it down to the ground.

*Sigh*

 One just has to be involved in everything or it just doesn't feel special enough, right? Thanks Ubisoft...