What's New? (4th May, 2007)

Sorry, but I'm emotionally unavailable right now. Please leave a heartfelt plea for affection after the apathetic shrug. Seriously, I'm spent. This week I've been torn into so many useless pieces that you could rejig the spelling and call me a botched summit. Why? Because I've been indulging in my favourite pastime: absorbing hours of American television while playing computer games.

The reason is simple: I must not be allowed time to think, because the inside of my head is an angry girl, and I can't stand her. She's always lecturing me. I drink too much, I eat unhealthily, I'm mean to people, I never write about what's actually coming out this week. I know I do! Who cares! And when she does put out (thanks, American television) and start getting excited, it's usually rubbish timing. Who wants to think about that on the bus?

So, my habit of watching TV while playing games. Some people do it because they have a short attention span. I do it because if I don't fill the seconds, the she-brain starts nagging me to go and do the washing, feed the dog, get a proper job, etc. It's intolerable. Also on the plus side, TV-and-games can be a bit of a life-saver. I doubt I would have made it through the first 10 minutes of Full Auto without scoring 5/10s into my wrist, if I hadn't been grazing from the trough of MacGyver at the same time.

There are other good reasons too, mind. For example, PSP games often have minor load delays. Easily enough time for my brain to atrophy. Hence, Police Squad DVD box set. It's just good sense. With this in mind, and safe in the knowledge that I'm not the only one who behaves like this, I will devote the rest of this week's increasingly burdensome word-count to the Top 1 Game-And-TV Combo Sessions. I was going to do five, but then I stopped to think... and someone inevitably told me not to. And that I have fat hands.

1. Puzzle Quest and Grey's Anatomy
Puzzle Quest's story appears to have been written by people who thought Lord of the Rings would have been better as Jack Bauer: The High School Years. "YOU'RE MINOTAURS. YOU MUST KNOW SOMETHING. TELL ME WHERE THE BREAD IS." I usually force myself to watch cut-scenes out of a paranoid fear of missing some vitally important information, but even I have limits. So I ignore The Knights Testosterone and watch this popular US TV import instead. And it's drained me. Into the chasm of emotion widened by PQ's incessant babbling (oh god, the dwarf), floods the combined feeling of messrs. Pompeo, whatserface and the other one. Some of them are forcing professional ruthlessness as a means to divert their morality! How do you choose which life to save when it's a black man or a pretty girl with a nice voice! Everyone's having sex absolutely all the time despite claiming they have no time for anything but work! Did they really imagine we hadn't seen Scrubs!

Got any more? Leave them in the comments.

This week:

• Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (Wii Virtual Console)
• Catan (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Centipede & Millipede (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Diner Dash (DS)
• Eledees (Wii)
• Final Fantasy III (DS)
• Genesis Rising (PC)
• Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
• MinDStorm (DS)
• Shockman (Wii Virtual Console)
• Spider-Man 3 (Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC, DS, PSP)
• Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PSP)
• Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (PS3)
• Virtua Fighter 2 (Wii Virtual Console)
• Wonder Boy in Monster World (Wii Virtual Console)