Newwwwwssss! Tickets for Digi Live 2.0 have sold extremely well. Given we've still got five months to go, and we've sold all but 100 or so of the tickets, I'm hopeful we're going to sell out, or as near as dammit. Which is great. Get yours now so you don't miss out.

If you missed the earlier FAQ, you can find that here. However, a few updates:

We're planning to have a merch table. We've ordered some Digi Logo enamel badges, and - we'll know for certain once they arrive here and have shipped to backers - we may have a limited number of Digitiser The Show DVDs. We probably aren't going to do t-shirts, given the faff with both sizes and the space needed for them, but we're going to sell at least one limited edition Digitiser Live 2.0 shirt beforehand through our Redbubble store, so you can wear it to the event. 

Mugs take up a lot of space too, and are expensive, so most likely we'll just be selling the badges, and possibly posters and postcards. Again, if you want mugs, check out Redbubble. 

Chunky Fringe is coming together, and you can read all about it here. It'll run from 11am to 5pm on the day of the event, and is free to all. Highlights include a Digitiser quiz, a retro gaming panel, and some sort of panel with me on it talking about Digi and Teletext.

Chris Bell is also looking to book somewhere on the Friday night for some sort of gathering. We had considered a screening of some Biffo-related stuff at the Arts Centre, but unfortunately the small hall is being refurbished.

There's also now a Facebook group for attendees. You can find that here. If you're coming on your own, and you're a little anxious, it's the perfect way to introduce yourself, and get to know people beforehand. As said many times, it's a lovely community, and very understanding of people's differing needs. You will be welcomed.

In other news, you may well have seen the first episode of Digitiser Deluxe. I'm very proud of it - it feels like the channel has a new focus. But anyhow, during this first run of Digi Deluxe, you'll be seeing a lot of both Sooz Kempner and Ash Frith. I think it's okay now to announce them both as the first confirmed guests for this year's Digi Live. They fit into Digi perfectly, and I couldn't be more honoured that they want to keep being involved. 

We've got other guests lined-up, but as it's availability dependent, we'll have to confirm them nearer the time. Suffice to say, if we manage to get everyone we want to get... it's going to be a very special day. 

In the first episode of Digitiser Deluxe, we try out real prison food hack recipes, including Prison Pizza, Prison Pad Thai, and Prison Tamales - plus ultra--rare prison chips/crisps, The Whole Shebang. Mr Biffo, Paul Gannon and Eli Silverman, ex of Barshens, stuff their fat faces with special guest Sooz Kempner.

​Not for children! Contains flashing images.

DO NOT WATCH! Due to forces beyond our control, this episode of Digitiser contains a curse. What was intended as a fun general knowledge quiz, with impossible questions about Pokemon vs Digimon, Nintendo's Super Punch-Out and drag queens - and featuring a reunion between Barshens friends Paul Gannon and Chris Bullock - is instead inexplicably haunted. Please accept our apologies. 

I only consider myself to have one foot in the retro gaming community these days. Though I continue to write a column for Retro Gamer magazine, since Digitiser The Show went out I've kind of drifted away from active involvement. Last year was a turning point, as you'd have no doubt picked up from the feelings I wrote about in the multiple posts on here, and Patreon, while trying to figure it out.

Fact is, I didn't play games as much as I had done in the past. Partly, I just didn't have the time or energy. I was incredibly busy with the day job, and... gaming wasn't how I wanted to spend my down time. 

I'd not gone off games, but my interest in writing or making content about them was starting to wane. Over 27 years, I can't imagine how many words about games I've written, and I knew I needed to keep my powder dry when it came to gaming-related projects I did choose to do (Retro Gamer being one, Digitiser Live 2.0 being another). Gaming, broadly, was starting to feel like a straightjacket in terms of my creativity.

However, in truth not all of my move away from games content was due to that sense of ennui. There was also an increasing feeling that rarely a day went by on social media where there wasn't some new retro gaming drama unfolding. 

Every fandom has its dramas of course - I mean, just look at the state of Star Wars - but because I was Mr Biffo, it seemed that there were those, both publicly and behind the scenes, who wanted to draw me into it. I'd get told gossipy stuff uninvited, or be asked for my opinions on the latest scandal, and I just didn't want any part of it. I didn't like the way some of my acquaintances revelled in it.

There are two sides to every story, and, unless I was party to both, or had some vested interest, I tended to stay out of it. But it kept happening. Countless troll accounts. Horacegate. Hate videos. Copyright claims. Whispers and rumours etc. etc. It was ugly and depressing.

Unfortunately, as many of you will no doubt be aware, it has come to light over the past week that many of the dramas the community has been wrestling with over the past year appear as if the may be the work of just one person.

One person - if true - who otherwise acted as a well-intentioned member of the community, who befriended many while stabbing them in the back, who has secretly sat at the heart of all this, like some sort of Machiavellian, retro gaming, spider.

Bird mags. Bird mags. BIRD MAGS. Burd?

Why aren't there as many bird magazines as there used to be?!

Birds. What are they? From whence do they come? Why are they? How are they? Questions to which we are unlikely to ever receive a satisfactory answer. And yet, that never seems to stop movies featuring birds regularly topping the VHS rental charts.

Here's a gallery of some of the greatest bird movies of all time. Please... what are your favourites?

Move over, Baby Yoda! An exciting puppet dance-off between Ricky the Reckless YouTube Commentator, Fat Sow and Baby Beanus takes us neatly into a few rounds of Bad People - a terrible card game for awful millennials, full of embarrassing confessions!

Featuring Eli Silverman from Cheapshow and Barshens! Not for children!

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We taste 5 extremely unusual cheeses, before trying them melted on toast. Naturally, Biffo gets a bit over-excited, and Sanja begs him to stop playing with the knife... 

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​Buy official Digitiser merch from our store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/digi...

We're doing it again! Last year's Digitiser Live was such a success that we're stupidly going to attempt to catch lightning in a bottle a second time. Appropriately, the risk of electrocution is high.

We can't tell you much at the minute - we can't even confirm the date - but what we can tell you is that while there'll be a few changes, it'll once again be themed loosely around retro gaming. We're still awaiting final confirmation from the venue, but we're hoping it'll be held at the same North London arts centre as before, which has decent transport links, and isn't in the scary bit of town. 

Whereas the first Digi Live used Digitiser The Show as its springboard, this year's event will take its cue from the current format of the Digitiser YouTube channel. Having learned a lot from last year, Gannon, Sanja and I hope to invite a stellar array of special guests to join us in the chaos, with the aim of topping the first one in terms of scale and absurdity. 

We're also talking about holding another Chunky Fringe during the day leading up to the live show,  again with the assistance of last year's organisers David Walford and Chris Bell. We also know that for many of you it was a uniquely special social gathering, so we're hoping to make more of that aspect if possible. 

Already many of you have volunteered your services, but right now we're not looking for help. We're still putting the show together, so don't even know all the details ourselves. Rest assured, if we need volunteers... we'll ask.

Tickets will be going on sale soon, but, for now, this is a chance for you to discuss the new live show in the comments. Tell us what you want from the event. Who you'd like to see there. What you enjoyed about the first one. And so on and so forth. 

Tony Stark is dead. Wolverine is dead. Captain America is old. Thor got out of shape - we need a new generation of super-heroes! Forget Watchmen, The Justice League, Marvel's Avengers and X-Men.

In this week's Digitiser, Biffo, Gannon and Eli Silverman step forwards to save the world via a ridiculous game! It's our very own Snyder Cut (or something).  

Subscribe for regular videos, and support Digitiser on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/digitiser2000

Buy official Digitiser merch from our store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/digi...