I had a holiday, you see. I went to Mallorca, or Majorca, or whatever it's called. As if to teach us a powerful lesson, my wife got stung off a jellyfish and I was bitten by an ostrich. Don't worry - they don't have any teeth.
At least... they didn't by the time I'd finished with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"OMG! Mr Biffo's talking about punching out an ostrich's teeth."
Jokes on you, pal: I didn't punch anything.
I threw a brick at it.
Letters?
If you'd like to apear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, or you've got a picture of a bin you wish to share, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
I wonder if Valve will ever learn to count to 3. They seem to prove that they cant count to 3 with Left 4 Dead 2 and Half Life 2 but no actual Left 4 Dead 3 or Half Life 3.
Perhaps if someone were kind enough to forward them some maths courses that they could do they may eventually learn about the number 3 and then be able to get both Left 4 Dead 3 and Half Life 3 under development.
It is 2019 going on 2020 and Valve isn't doing itself any favors by ignoring the upcomming next gen now is it? Either they can not count numbers or that they may never heard of the number 3.
On a serious note all joking aside do you even think we will ever see a third Half Life or Left 4 Dead 3 or are we all doomed to these last gen titles for ever?
gamertag (gaz be rotten)
However, one of the letters you had on here a few weeks back also appeared on Metro's Gamecentral literally word-for-word, and while I appreciate you wanting to cast your net wide in order to get published, you'd have stood a better chance of getting away with it if you changed every third word to "poo".
There is a house in New Orleans. Just the one mind...!!!
Jon Clay, Taunton, Somerset
Hello!
I hope you both had a lovely holiday full of relaxation and nice food. You deserve so much joy and I sincerely hope the holiday was full of it.
Have you heard of the TV show 'Proving Ground'? It was a 2011 American show that tested stuff from pop culture like video games, comic books etc in real life - for example, they did real life Mario Kart. There was a hiatus during airing as one of the hosts died in a horrible car crash. The concept itself seemed quite Digitiser The Show-esque!
Anyway, welcome back to the Real World Of Not-Holiday, I hope you have an easy return to reality.
Love,
Chai (@teacupsofchai)
I have not heard of this show you mention, though looking it up I see it was co-hosted by former Jackass star Ryan Dunn. Whose death we referenced in a recent Digi video. So, yes... possibly more Digi-esque than you could ever have dreamed!
Dear The Digitiser 2000 Letters Page,
Recently I haven't had much motivation to write one of my special stories, but thanks to Artificial Intelligence I can now write them with even less effort than I put in originally.
For example, feeding the line "Once upon a time there was a very good boy called Mr Biffo" to the talktotransformer.com site yielded the following:
Once upon a time there was a very good boy called Mr Biffo. He had a friend called Mr Brown. Mr Brown had the most charming way of introducing himself in the most ungrateful and sarcastic way. He would come up behind him to talk to him, when Mr Biffo was talking to his boys or friends. He would ask him a question and in answer to it Mr Biffo would try to out-do himself and he was very clever. He was quite popular. All the other boys at school were interested in Mr Biffo and he would tell them about himself, which was amusing for them when they said they hadn't heard anything about Mr Biffo. They were all talking about him. They all knew who he was. But that is the only time Mr Biffo ever came up to the boys. I remember him coming up to them in the schoolyard.
I promise the AI chose the name Mr Brown itself and I haven't cheated here, I have attached a screenshot for verification.
Once upon a time there was a very good boy called Mr Biffo who had a very good friend called Mr Brown, who often appeared in surprising places.
One day some children came to the house and were playing the game of 'Biffa the Brown', which was, well, something really stupid and, I won't say, really ridiculous. But they were laughing and chatting and chatting. At last the play ended and the play began again. In the end it was Mr Brown who came in and said 'Who are you?' and said 'What can you do for me?'
'I'm Biffo's friend - Mr Brown.' They had no idea as to what he meant.
'Ah, but what if you are a friend of Miss Biffo?' he said. 'I'm not Miss Biffo, though - I can't be.'
They were amazed when, all of a sudden, Miss Biffo came running to the door.
'Who is they, you rascals, you rascals?' Miss Biffo screamed
I don't think that one was as good, but you can use the same thing again and it gives you a different result:
Once upon a time there was a very good boy called Mr Biffo who had a very good friend called Mr Brown, who often appeared in surprising places. On one of these occasions Mr Biffo made a trip to the office of his friend, and, being asked to get down to business, he turned up at the door of Mr Brown's room, and, without saying a word, went straight into his cupboard."
Mr Biffo had, he says, been playing round with Mr Brown, who wanted to know "how a little boy could be so clever."
"Mr Brown saw me coming in the doorway, and said, 'Well, then, come with me to this cupboard and make yourself at home.'
"'What are you doing, Brownie?'
"'Don't you know I'm a very clever boy?'
"He started up, and put my arm round his neck and kissed my cheek. Mr Brown went off, and I was all alone.
That's better.
MrPSB
"mr psb did a poo in his own trousers for $100. — Nicky J (@NickyJ) November 17, 2015
Bag and poo is like "what does he/she think I'm thinking"? — Nicky J (@NickyJ) November 17, 2015
The poo was reportedly the result of a night of "a bit of trouble making" and Baggyface's "wisdom" after reading a book.
It wasn't long before Baggyface went on the offense, tweeting "i think you've missed out on a lot of money" before adding "you're in my sights. @j_nelson."
Baggyface eventually offered his apology via his Instagram account, writing "I just want to apologize to the customers I hurt and to our loyal fans... I truly have been doing wrong and I regret it."
The rapper has yet to comment on J Nelson's comments and is apparently still pursuing legal action against Nelson."
I remember text adventures. Oh the fun we'd have, typing in what we wanted to happen only to be thwarted by the game's limited vocabulary and so resorting to swears.
Any long gone game genres that you think belong in the past or should be brought back? Also, what's your favourite cliche about remembering retro games?
elnikoman
BONJOUR KING BIFFO.
I hope you had a lovely time away! From what we saw you doing n the Twitterz, it looked cool. Cool as the vegetable known as a cucumber, as the kiddos these days would say.
Speaking of the kiddos, we've had an interesting arrival over at my part of the world. Woodmill High School got set on fire a week or two ago and we're taking in one of their year groups, which will be interesting.
We were discussing this in German yesterday, and my friend Hayley turned to me and asked me to come with her and stand outside the tutorial rooms where they'd be learning and "do the L fortnite dance to piss them off". A very wise plan from a very wise individual.
This is also the same friend of mine that decided it would be a good idea to threaten arson in an assembly hall full of Woodmill students we were helping. Eh.
We (that being me, Hayley and two of my other friends, Moof and Dazz) decided to team up in our music elective and, while I was trying to set up my bass, managed to break an amp. It made sparks and I was the big scared. Ooft.
Anyway, in more relation to Digi, I've done a presentation to my pse (personal and social education) class about Digitiser and how it's helped me cope, so that was a thing that's occured. Yes. Although my friends have no idea what the hell teletext was and frankly don't care, I had a blast doing it. So yet again, Lord Biffins, thank you for Digi.
ALSO. THE SCIENCE VIDEO. I was very intruiged in watching that. Very gut vidjo, bois.
Stay coolio Biff. I "Biff" you farewell (I am so sorry),
Asho (@catastroasho)
Hope you had a great holiday. For the past 2 weeks, I've been addicted to Red Dead Redemption 2, I know in your review you were in two minds over it when it came out, but I haven't been addicted to a game like this since Wolfenstein.
I was a latecomer to this game, (I usually am when it comes to new consoles and games), but the attention to detail is unbelievable.
If you haven't done so, then online is well worth looking at, as you can create your own character and own a horse and even give it a rude name, (here's a weird thing, Rockstar won't allow you to name your horse Big Dick, but you CAN call your horse Big Willy. What gives?)
So, here's me and Big Willy. I tried to make it look as much like me as possible, but I ended up looking like a demonic, sleep-deprived Jonah Hill in a remake of Jeremiah Johnson, I'll try and fix that.
Has there ever been a game where you've had to cancel everything because it's that good? I wish I'd bought this sooner.
Stuart Kenny
Carlisle, Cumbria
What do we all think Rockstar are going to be doing next? Gotta be GTAVI surely? But where can they possibly set it that they haven't already done? I hope it's not Miami. I liked getting out of the city in GTAV, and everything around Miami is flat swamps and not very interesting. Also: mozzies, my mortal enemies.
So, I finally got myself a Switch. Late to the party, I know, but I’m really impressed by it. In particular, I like the whole moving from a TV-based console to a handheld. It feels like an idea that should have been done sooner.
The other thing I like is the appearance of Fuze4 - from the lot who make the BBC Micro styled Raspberry Pi hardware. It’s a BASIC-like programming environment, along with what appears to be a shed load of 2D and 3D assets. It seems you can even share projects with other Switch users (though I expect that’s limited to other Fuze4 users).
The fact that Nintendo is allowing this speaks volumes - clearly the Switch is more than just playing games on a screen. Usually developer licenses appear to prohibit or severely restrict this kind of thing (that it’s not on the PS4 or Xbox taels me that this is true - also Apple’s iOS developer rules limit this kind of thing severely).
Nintendo seems to have more of an open attitude - encouraging future developers is clearly on the agenda. The Labo stuff also shows that someone in Nintendo is thinking in a very interesting way.
It’s in danger of becoming my favourite console because of all of this. Colour me impressed.
Paul Dunning
Do you ever put on the Robocop title screen music and sing "Gannon, Gannon, Gannon and Ariston" to Paul?
Lee McCormick
Dear Biffo,
Welcome back, I do hope you and the Biffettes had a most excellent holiday, and are now suitably rested and rejuvenated.
It seems pretty much everyone was running on fumes as we approached the end of August, myself included, so I can completely sympathise with how fatigued you must have been. I didn’t resort to drinking homemade bath bombs in my mania, though.
Now we’re all back from our hols and had our photos taken by our front doors looking all smart in our Digi uniforms, I’m sure I’m not the only one eager to hear more about what the latest plans are for the next series.
The tantalising info you coquettishly teased before going all Balearic on us had me keen to hear more, and very optimistic indeed for what’s in store. I’ve been saving my pennies in readiness for the throwing of at you. Shut up/take etc.
On a fansite note, things have been progressing nicely with Super Page 58 lately. There have been dozens of new Digi recoveries sent to me by the mercurial Andrew Nile to stick in the archive, and I still have other stuff planned as well. The next such stuff is going to be a Digi FAQs page.
Now, I’m anxious to make sure that the ‘Q’s are genuinely ‘F-A’, so what would you say you get asked a lot about Digi and being Mr Biffo? What are the top things you’d like to put on such a page that would help you out? Who knows, maybe this will go some way to easing the stream of similar things you get asked a lot.
If any readers want to shout questions in my virtual face as part of this exercise, then they’d be most welcome to: @superpage58 on Twitter and superpage58@gmail.comare open to your query-bombs. Or something.
Thanking!
Chris Bell
I'm in no massive hurry to get to the next Digi series (or whatever it is). I'm enjoying doing the Minis as they are, and once I'm through the current batch of out-of-focus vids I want to give them a bit of a shake-up, in terms of giving a bit more thought given to the set and lighting, and the sorts of videos we do.
I also intend to do some Digi Minis with my dear wife on-camera in the not-too-distant.
My immediate priority needs to be sorting out rest of the Kickstarter backer rewards now we have the live show in the bag. I also just need to recharge my batteries some more before launching into the next big project, as this has been the busiest year of my life, and I've never felt so spent. One thing at a time!
I think I know what I want us to do for the next series... Or at least, I have an idea for a second series, which I mentioned on the previous letters page. Yet, that comes with the disclaimer I might still change my mind. I'm going to wait a bit, see how I feel once I'm properly recovered, and follow wherever the muse takes me.
The other Digi team members all have their own stuff going on - Larry and Octav1us's channels, Gannon's Cheapshow - and currently the Minis are sort of satisfying me, so whatever's next needs to justify itself, and get me excited. It's a big machine to orchestrate, with lots of moving parts, and I need to want to do it, rather than feel obliged. It's important not to rush, and I need to be sure I can give it my full attention and energy.
It's like... after I did Found Footage I felt I should do a follow-up in a similar vein, but it wasn't exciting me. I didn't get that fire under me again until I hit upon the idea for Digitiser The Show, and now I'm in a similar sort of place with Digitiser The Show. This year's big project was the live show, I've been flat-out all year on day job work, had a lot happening on a personal level, and I think it's wrong to make a definitive decision about where I go next until my brain has sprung fully back to life.
So, everyone hang in there. I'll get there.
Quack.
I'm a duck!
Here's a duck joke, that I tell fellow ducks.
Q. What duck invented time travel?
A. Duckter Who!
Sincerely,
Duck
Muso has now put together an entire album - featuring his take on tracks from Outrun, Sonic, Double Dragon, Duke Nukem and more.
And you can purchase this excellent recording from his Bandcamp page for a mere £10.99...!