It's been a while, hasn't it?

So, despite what my update schedule may imply, I'm still here, meandering angrily through life.

I can't even remember what my last blog was about, before the Arthur C. Clarke one. Huh. A completely random post in early March about my Computing project. Well, I've finished that, after some more difficulty. And my Physics project. And my exams. And my whole school career, in fact.

As of early June, I've been done with Sixth Year and done with my secondary education. Next up, tertiary, but I'll get to that a little later. I spent the time after that mostly hanging around at home, occasionally going in for the odd event. Went in to help with the odd event as well as play Laserquest and some practice for my last ever house marching. Didn't go the prom, again. Still can't see the point.

I wrote a decent Sixth Year Show, something I've been looking forward to since Primary 7, when I first saw the fun the S6s had making fun of the teachers on-stage. I had some good jokes and everyone I showed it to seemed to like it. They did karaoke instead, since apparently a few of the precious shows have offended teachers.

It was, quite frankly, one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. It wasn't just the fact that it was karaoke, which is gut-wrenchingly horrible at the best of times. There was the feeling that I could have done so much better, if I'd been given the opportunity. There was the knowledge that the experience and the feelings would be some of my last memories of Wellington School, a place I've known for over a decade.

I did what any sane man would have done in the situation - I listened to my iPod. A couple of people noticed but nobody whose opinion I actually cared about thought it was anything other than funny. I don't know if any teachers noticed but none of them called me on it if they did. Unfortunately, I still had to traipse up to the front of the hall with everyone else and sing, or at least pretend to from behind everyone else. I have a funny feeling that I will never again be able to enjoy "Bohemian Rhapsody".

But then it was over and it was time to go home. The next day was Speech Day, where I got to sit and listen to the usual droning on from the school governors about fiscal years and fee increases, the usual preaching from the headmaster about commitment, teamwork and how it all came together to make Wellington fantastic at playing rugby and the usual overly-long prayer, thanking God for every little thing that had happened during the year. The guest speaker wasn't too bad this year, compared to some.

I think it's now one of my goals in life - to get good enough at whatever I do (writing, video game design, comedy, whatever I wander into) to be invited back to speak at one of those things.

Anyway, before the main thing (and for a few days previously, in fact), all the leaver's books had been getting passed around. I'm always useless with things like that - it's hard enough for me just trying to conjure up something emotional or deep, let alone doing so under pressure and on paper. So in the first one I was handed, I wrote:

"Bye.
- Alasdair"

This apparently wasn't good enough for the girl who'd asked me so I thought about it some more and wound up writing a couple of paragraphs. I wrote some more generic stuff in some other people's books - mostly just people who were doing the rounds and getting everybody, I think, along with some more joking entries for people I'm confident I'll see again.

I even got one myself. Well, kind of. I happened to have a notepad with me which I took out of my bag, scribbled "Alasdair's Impromptu Leaver's Book (and waste of a perfectly good notebook)" on the front of and got a few people to scrawl in.

But back to my main point - my last day. I grabbed some photos of the common room and savoured the smell one last time before I left. Maybe I'll share the photos at some point. Then it was down to the town hall, some last minute writing and chatting in the chairs on the stage (I'd managed to grab a seat relatively hidden from view, allowing me to play around on my iPhone or read Private Eye if I got too bored) and the speeches I mentioned, then I walked up to get my books (Dune and The Time Machine for the Advanced Higher Maths and Advanced Higher Computing prizes respectively... I'm starting to get an inkling about why people call me a geek).

Back to my seat to sit some more while more people received more prizes (as I did more wondering just how many awards for sporting achievement one school needs). There were some tears and lots of hugging once it was all over. Just to be clear, I was only involved in the hugging, and somewhat reluctantly so at that.

And then I went home. To play Smash Bros Brawl, which had just come out.

I think I'm going to leave the narrative here for now. I may follow up with more tomorrow... or, more accurately, later today. Ah, the joy of not having to do all my posting before midnight. Anyway, there'll be more at some point, if I can be bothered.

RIP Arthur C Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke, one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries, has died in hospital at the age of 90.

I have only read a few of his books (I read, and greatly enjoyed, 2001: A Space Odyssey and then something distracted me before I finished 2010: Odyssey Two) but he has had a huge influence on my life, if only as a byproduct of the influence he has had on the world as a whole.

He was among the first to think about and formally propose the concept of a geostationary satellite, a technology that is the basis of almost all global telecommunication systems, and he was always at the forefront of scientific knowledge. He also brought the concept of space elevators to his audience, an act he believed would leave a far greater legacy than even the satellites.

Really, there's nothing more I can say. He was a great man. Read all the tributes and, more importantly, read his books and you will undoubtedly see why I and so many others think so.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a bookmarked copy of 2010 lying around here somewhere that needs read...

Completely Random Post

I know, I know, I've not done anything for a week. I've been taking it easy and mostly enjoying it.

This likely means nothing but it seems like something I ought to write down so that I can remember it and laugh. Who knows, it may even amuse you. Whoever you are.

You know the Computing project I've been stuck on for weeks, possibly even months, now?

Well, I just solved the last bug that was stopping it from working properly (it's still a little dodgy but I can get on with the basic testing and so on) and iTunes, working it's way through the playlist marked "Other", switches from Still Alive to What a Wonderful World.

Seemed strangely appropriate.

Not Done Yet

I really should have spent more time today trying to write this thing. One year ago today, I wrote this. Now here I am, one year later, challenge more or less fulfilled, and I can't think of anything to write.

Would it be suitably ironic if I just called this a crappy post and left it at that? I don't think I have it in me tonight to write much more. I'll at least try to do a woodle for tomorrow.

Something's happened now that hasn't happened in a while – I have too many ideas. There are a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head, some related to my experience with TWToday, some related to my various fiction projects, even a couple of solutions to my Computing project code problem (which I really need to work on tomorrow).

The problem is that I don't feel like I can do any of them justice in the time I've given myself, especially given that I'm now very tired and can barely type a sentence without at least three spelling errors cropping up.

I think that's the problem with this one post a day strategy. I'm naturally lazy and keep leaving things too late and even if I didn't, I don't think I'd have enough free time in one day to write some of this stuff down the way I really want it done. That ridiculous sentence is probably the best example of what happens when I get rushed.

Or is it ridiculous? It seemed that way at the time, a mere moment ago, but surely with a bit of proof-reading and editing, I'd be happy with it. Maybe I'd be happy with it now if I simply read it over again. Maybe I could have been happy with it before had my poor typing and tiredness not been putting me in a bad mood already.

Was that the right tense?

I don't care. I can't be bothered going back to fix it.

Okay, I've made a decision. Tomorrow, I'll spend some time collecting my thoughts and writing them down. If I don't have them in a form I like by the end of the day then I'll simply save it, go to bed and work on it some more the day after. I'll also try to find some time to make a woodle and start writing The Grey Line again*. And I have to get something done on that Computing project I keep mentioning.


Crap. I went away for a minute and completely lost my momentum. Anyway, that's the plan for now. Hopefully, it heralds some better quality updates around here as well as the completion (or, more accurately, start of) several other plans and projects of mine.

And with that, I bid you goodnight.

Because I was really starting to get sick of that other catchphrase.







*Those paying attention (which at this point is probably just me and even then only for about half the time) will have noticed that I deleted the all the posts at Corbett's Fiction. I wasn't happy with them and I've decided to go for a whole new method, just as soon as I find the time.

On prelim results and some other stuff too

Despite all my worrying and total lack of proper revision, I seem to have done okay in all my prelims. Enough to secure three A's, anyway. I got 70% in Computing, which doesn't sound too great until you consider that everyone else was getting 50-60%. Fortunately for us all, our teacher knew that the paper wasn't great quality and he even said he'd been fairly harsh on the marking, so that seemed to be okay.

Maths was a pleasant surprise – 84%, a mark which meant I was tied with two other people for top marks in the class. I really didn't see that one coming, I figured I'd screwed up a lot more than I actually had. Ditto for Physics where I managed to get 79% somehow.

So that's that over and done with and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. Now I can move on to dealing with the myriad of other problems, crises and decisions that are fast approaching.

One of those will undoubtedly be what to do about my update schedule for TWToday. Though I think I've done my full 365 posts by now, this being the 366th, the anniversary of my challenge is actually tomorrow due to the leap year.

As we've once again had to postpone the Key to Time marathon (reminding me once again just how bloody inconvenient these constant hospital appointments are), I should have some time tomorrow to flick through the blog archives and ponder what's happened over the last year. Then on Sunday... I don't know. Maybe I'll update, maybe I won't.

I've been getting sort of lax with the daily schedule lately. I know I manage to get a post done each day but I keep leaving it far too late and they have a tendency to come out like rushed diary entries. My current thinking is that I'll keep blogging but I'll take my time with each post and try to have something interesting to say in all of them.

Hopefully, I'll also be able to devote some time to my other projects on a regular basis. After all, the entire point of this little exercise was to prove to myself that I can stick to a schedule if I want. I suppose the next logical step would be to stick to a schedule and produce something of consistent quality.


Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. You know, I reckon that if I stick to this idea of only posting when I have something interesting to say, meaning that there's no pressure to post late at night, this may well be the last time I round off a post with the fact that I'm going to bed.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. Have a nice day.

End of the Prelims

Physics... went reasonably well, I guess. It's kind of hard to gauge, looking back on it. I managed to get through most of the mechanics section without too much difficulty, then I started to struggle a bit with the electricity and magnetic fields and was more or less completely stumped by the final waves section.

That was just on the first pass through, though. I think I managed to fill in a few blanks as I went back over it. In the end, I was just flicking between the pages, looking for conspicuous gaps in my answer sheet, so it's a bit hard to remember what exactly I got right or wrong. I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes to do some extra checking but any more than that would probably have driven me nuts as I sat there, racking my brains for facts I didn't know.


Anyway, for the first time in weeks, I feel like I've got no pressure on me. Other than my Computing project... and my Physics project... and the need to learn to drive and to choose a university... Bah. It's a lot less pressure anyway, so it's still a good feeling.


I decided to take my free time today and spend it playing one of those games I got last week. I decided to go with Eternal Sonata over Final Fantasy XII, for no particular reason other than the fact that it was already on my desk.

From what I've played so far, it seems pretty good. The battle system is interesting and the plot seems to be fairly deep. Developer tri-Crescendo still seems to be having some trouble with localising their voice acting, as they did on Baiten Kaitos. It's not all bad and I think I will leave it on sometimes, since the cinematics are now fully animated, meaning that if it wasn't on I'd just see the characters mouths moving to the subtitles.

I'll hopefully get some more of it done tomorrow.


Nothing much else to say tonight. I should be able to think about my prelim results tomorrow and I'll hopefully be able to spare some time to consider the end of my little one post a day challenge.

Or maybe not. Who knows?

Have a nice day.

Almost There...

I think I've reached the acceptance stage now. The point where I'll be willing to flick through my notes a few more times, and I certainly will do when I'm waiting in school before the prelim tomorrow, but I know that it's not going to make a huge difference and I just want it over and done with.

More colloquially, the acceptance stage is also known as the “fuck it” stage.

Seriously though, I'm not quite sure what to do now. I know that there's stuff I don't know, stuff I almost certainly ought to know, but I just can't be bothered looking it up and trying to memorise it at this point. I'm not sure it would even help if I did.

It's just coming up to ten past eleven as I write this, so if I finish this off now, I can go to bed early. Well, early for me anyway.

To round things off, here are a few links.

Seems an executive at Sony doesn't like the Eee PC very much. While I can sort of see his logic, it doesn't really make much sense to me. I might talk about this some more when I have more time and I've done more with Eridani. For now, draw your own conclusions.

Just because I happened to come across it today, here's a clip from the movie of the old Batman series with Adam West. I actually had this film as a kid. I'd say it made more sense when I was that age but it really didn't.

Finally, I shall maintain until the day I die that this is one of the funniest scenes in television history. It builds up slowly but watch it through to the end or you'll be robbing yourself of a classic piece of British sitcom humour.

And that's it. I'm off to bed.

Wish me luck.

Nothing At All

It's six o'clock on Tuesday and I believe I've finally entered panic mode for Thursday's Physics prelim. I've given up on doing my Computing project since I reckon I can get away with it and I need to give priority to my Physics. I could have easily done both if I stopped being so lazy but, hey, I could also have done both if I had a team of Visual Basic coding monkey physicists. One's about as likely to occur as the other so there's no sense speculating.


It's later now, almost half past ten. I didn't get much further with my studying, just a couple more questions on a past paper. Seems that panic mode was, unfortunately for me I suspect, a false alarm. I'll probably do more revision tomorrow. Probably.

I think I've reached the stage now when I just want these prelims out of the way. I still want to do well and I know I'll be kicking myself later if I do badly because I didn't revise but all I'm really after now is less pressure and return to normality. Same goes for my constant hospital appointments, though I won't go into that right now.


I've really done absolutely nothing today. I've just been flitting between being bored out of my skull and checking my usual roster of websites. I've been trying to avoid starting any new games or DVD sets since I know it'll just distract me but I can't be bothered doing any work either so I just sit around being bored and miserable.

Which really isn't a great state of mind to write in or, for that matter, about.


I think I'll just call it a night.


Actually, one thing first. It's just occurred to me that I'm days away from meeting my original challenge of one post a day for a year. That's... kind of scary, actually. Well, with any luck, I should be able to find some time and energy from somewhere to mark the occasion properly. The exact date falls on Saturday, I think, so I might not get much done then. I'll probably be too busy recovering from my prelims and watching Doctor Who. Maybe Sunday. If I don't spend the whole day doing my Computing project...

I'll get round to it eventually.


Okay, now I'm actually stopping.

A fairly small post in which nothing remarkable is said

I managed to make some progress today. Nothing much but it's a start. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my Computing project – looks like I'll be working on it over the weekend at the very least. Well, on Sunday. Saturday is still Key to Time marathon day.

I figure I'll go into panic revision mode sometime tomorrow. The one semi-advantage to these constant hospital trips is that I have to get up early in the morning, which seems to help me get work done. Sort of.


Anyway, nothing much else happening today.

Like, nothing. At all.

Seriously, I've nothing to say.

My mind's just completely blank. I think the effects of going to bed at two in the morning and getting up at seven have finally caught up with me.

I think I'll call this a mini-post. That means that I need a few things to link too...

This old comic from the 80s, starring none other than Chuck Norris, is absolutely hilarious. I really have a hard time believing that anyone ever took this seriously or even thought that it would be a good idea. I suppose there must have been at least a few people for it to get published but still...

And... uhh... hold on, I'll find something... okay, no I won't.

I'm going to bed.

Have a nice day.

A day of little things

I finally completed Mass Effect. That's kind of like doing something productive... right?


Well, it's the end of the day now and I've not really done much else. Woke up too late, I think. That always upsets my routine.

Come to think of it, my routine largely consists of doing nothing so it doesn't really upset it so much as it encourages me to follow it through rather than doing any work.

My hastily revised plan is now to work on my Computing project tomorrow as well as look over my Physics notes and identify any problem areas. With any luck, I should be able to get the coding done by Tuesday and, no matter what happens, Wednesday is constant Physics. If I still can't get it finished, I can always stall on Friday (we'll probably spend the lesson going over the prelim anyway) and have a go at it after the Key to Time marathon on the weekend.

I'll muddle through somehow. Just let me enjoy my ever-so-brief respite.


A couple of other interesting things happened today.

Some friends of mine randomly appeared on a certain very popular website that I won't link to because it's really not a very pleasant website most of the time. It seems it was a photo taken from someone's Bebo page though no one's quite sure how it ended up where it did. It could have just been a coincidence or it could have been a joke by someone who hasn't owned up yet.

Either way, it was extremely funny for reasons I won't go into.


I don't know if I've said this before, but the wireless network in our house tends to suck. It's like the walls are made of lead sometimes. We figured we'd solved the problem a while back by setting up Home Plug stuff so that I could wire my room and then adding range extenders so everyone else's computers would work.

It's a setup that's worked fairly well up until now, when one of the range extenders died last week. We had someone come out and look at it and he thought it might have got knocked or dropped. It didn't really matter since it was under warranty anyway and it was just a matter of sending it off to Netgear and waiting for a replacement. In the meantime, we moved the second range extender to where the first had been, since it was that one that gave my brother's room and the kitchen wireless access.

Then the second one died. It stopped working yesterday, apparently due to the same fault as the first. We know that this one wasn't knocked or anything so our best guess is that it has something to do with the power supply, which we left in place when the first one died and used when we put the second one it its place.

Since my brother doesn't like being left without internet, this necessitated a trip to PC World to find a Home Plug adaptor for his room that he could use as a stop-gap measure. We eventually picked one up, after having a little difficulty finding them and then more difficulty finding just a single one rather than a more expensive pair. Hopefully, once the extenders get fixed, he'll stop needing it and I can steal it off him to use with Linus and my Beaten Up Old Laptop^TM, neither of which are near enough to my current adaptor to connect easily.

While we were there, I took a chance to poke around the monitors as I still need to pick one up for Linus and the PC I'm planning to build. There were a few good deals, especially the ex-display ones that were going cheap, but I figured I ought to see if I could get anything better online first. I'll probably get round to that later in the week.


It's getting close to my arbitrary midnight deadline now so I'll call it quits for tonight. With any luck, I'll have got something useful done by this time tomorrow.