“So, why are you telling us about this now and not a month ago?”, I hear you ask.

Well, as I normally do with recordings and remixes, I have an idea and then upload it to SoundCloud as a “Work in Progress” track. This unfinished track caught the attention of SEGA Nerds as my SoundCloud feed is linked up to twitter and facebook. You can read the article by heading over to:

http://www.seganerds.com/2013/04/07/fan-stuff-chill-out-with-some-space-harrier-jazz/

As a way of saying thank you to them for promoting my music, I decided to allow them to have the initial exclusive on the track (although it was available from SoundCloud), before I posted about it here.

Taking place on the blue blur’s birthday itself, June 23rd, look out for the return of the top 20 countdown of which you can nominate and vote on the most popular remixes of this year.

If you would like to follow me on Newgrounds, head on over to http://foreversonic.newgrounds.com/follow

I have absolutely no idea who these people are relying on my vote. I have no idea how many people are standing for election or where they come from,  what their values are or what they plan to do that our current police force fail to pay attention to.

Every day I see cyclists riding on the footpath with no lights on or any care for the pedestrians they crash into.

What are these people going to do about the cyclists that fail to stop at a red traffic light; cars that fail to switch their lights on when it gets dark; motor cyclists that can’t tell which way the arrow is pointing on a one way street; drivers that think that the footpath is an extension to the road; or drivers that think that driving at 35mph in a 20mph zone is OK because there’s nobody to stop them.

There are posters dotted around the streets that claim that “criminals hope that you don’t vote” but I don’t see any reason to do so. I have no idea who I’m voting for or what difference my vote will make. Chances are that whether I vote or not -  whether I vote for candidate A or B – it won’t make the blindest bit of difference.

A while back, when configuring another part of the server, I seemed to have messed up the file and folder permissions that allowed me to post and upload things.

This has now been fixed on here and on another WordPress site that I’m hosting and so it should now be, “business as usual”

Canon – a Remix of the famous Canon by Pachebel

I still haven’t completed my Sonic Unplugged album, so this is a new track for that. Jungle from Sonic the Hedgehog (Master System):

Finally, another Sonic the Hedgehog track. This is the Flickies theme from Sonic 3D: Blast:

All of these tracks are open for downloading if you would like to do that!

Normally, these events are held in London of which I normally stay in a nearby Travelodge – but this year was different. This year’s event was held in Brighton, near the south coast. My very dear friend “Page” invited me to stay with them as they are only two hours drive away.

Having mentioned that Summer of Sonic was in Brighton this year, I offered to drive another dear friend, Beth down there to see her poorly sister.

Disaster almost struck as the event venue originally planned developed an electrical fault midday and so, it was all hands on deck to clear everything down and move everything to another venue down the road. With everyone helping out where they can, disaster was averted and the day went smoothly.

For those who have seen me at other Summer of Sonic events, they will know that I usually take a musical instrument with me. Normally, I take my acoustic guitar, but I decided to do something different this year. Adam, better known as T-Bird made a comment on the Sonic Stadium Message Board for me to bring a saxophone. Now, I don’t own one of these, nor can I played it, so I decided to take something that is a similar colour – my trombone. The number of requests for Casino Night Zone, as the track was featured in Sonic Generations, was greater than the number of fingers on both hands!!

Once again, I was allowed to help out on the day. This included setting up the RadioSEGA live feed, narrowing down the finalists for the cosplay competition and packing and distributing the goody bags to attendees as they entered the building.

I would like to wish a heart-felt congratulations to the core staff and the volunteers for another successful event.

What made the day though is not what was on offer to the attendees, like the goody bags, the live show by Crush 40 and the playing of Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed, but the meeting up with familiar faces and new faces. Having spoken to people online, it’s always great to actually meet them, face to face; and it’s always fantastic to see people that you haven’t seen for a year or more.

One of the personal highlights of the day would be getting lost around Brighton trying to taxi people back to their hotels. Which way is left again?

Let’s think about it. He’s an older character that still popular 21 years after he was created. You still pause your partypoker and Angry Birds games and think “I want to play Sonic.” Let’s investigate why.

Nostalgia – People have a nostalgia for the characters they grew up with. In the case of Sonic, anyone who was a child during the 90s, and owned a Mega Drive or a Master System, will have a sense of fond nostalgia when they think of the blue hedgehog. Sonic will always hold a special place in the hearts of 90s children, in the same way that Nintendo fans will always love Mario, the fat plumber.

He’s a trademark – As SEGA needed a new mascot to rival the success, Sonic the Hedgehog is in the same league as Nintendo’s Mario. The blue hedgehog is an icon of SEGA, and therefore he’s a very recognisable character. Even if people don’t like Sonic, they can still identify him.

He’s fast – Back in the 90s especially, Sonic was one of the most animated games you could play. While other games had characters toddling along, Sonic would curl up in a ball and whiz around the level collecting rings. It was fun to watch him loop around all over the place. It was a nice change, and one we still appreciate today.

Hedgehog – What’s not to love about a blue hedgehog who goes around saving everyone from the super villain Dr Eggman? At the time of his creation he was a breath of fresh air in the gaming industry.

This includes the breaking of this site by tinkering with the file and folder permissions. Whoops!! Won’t be doing that again!

I’ve been invited to stay in Newcastle with a very dear friend of mine, Tru (CapnCloudchaser), and her husband, Michael, up in Newcastle.

We’ve ventured around Tynemouth and Whittley Bay via the Metro, from North to South Shields by Ferry and all over the place on a number of buses.

What’s more is that we are going to be meeting up with other community members later on this week as a few other friendly faces live nearby, including Scott (SJSSF) and I’ve been told, Mark (Sonicmark).

After finally finishing work, (despite being on annual leave, I still end up working), I was introduced to a number of games that I’d pre-empted not to like, including Rez, Child of Eden, Valkyria Chronicles and Guardian Heroes. Of course, there’s also been time to play a little Rock Band!!

As a thank you gift for allowing me to stay, I sketched a certain hedgehog from the game we played in co-op mode…