What purpose does a title serve in the grand blog of things?

The future is like a bus. You wait for ages and then three of them come along at once.

...

No, that's not right. Let me try again.

The future is a like... a charging hippopotamus. It sounds funny when it's a long way off but it's scary as hell when it's fifty meters away and closing.

Given that I have Higher exams coming up in a little over a week, I've given a surprising amount of thought to the far flung future (that's “next year” in young-people speak, I believe) today. It all came about because during PSE (Personal and Social Education, the most dreadfully dull and useless subject on the face of the planet), instead of the usual drivel about why it's a bad idea to try to direct large lumps of metal around a populated area at high velocities while inebriated, we had to look over “Skills and Qualities” sheets.

Now, these things come up about once every year, more often as university applications approach, and I've hated them since we started doing them. It varies a little time but the gist of it is, you write down the various extracurricular activities that you do, making sure to note all the awards you kick-boxing horse has one you and so on, and try to evaluate what you've learned from the experience. You're skill at kicking a ball around a muddy pitch while yelling at people is then translated into words like “teamwork” and “communication” and people are impressed.

But I don't do anything like that. I don't spend my free time doing sports or playing a musical instrument or doing work experience. I sit around and I watch DVDs and I fiddle around on the computer. That's not to say that I don't do anything; I write this blog, I do the VCOM podcast, I write the occasional comic strip, I do all kinds of things which, while I feel good about them, can't really be measured and quantified and turned into a good thing.

Maybe it could and I'm just far too cynical to see it that way. I've never liked the idea of summarising hobbies and activities into buzzwords and relying on them for your future. The whole process is just too random and, while I'm all for a bit of chance and luck, randomness in such important things has always bugged me.

Still, I have numerous little projects that I plan to start once the exams are over, though I would be dong them whether or not I felt that I might need them. For example, I've been meaning to read through a few Dummies books I have to raise my technical knowledge. I plan to completely revise and restructure VersusCOM (temporarily out of bandwidth owing to administrator incompetence), as well as getting some more stable arrangement set up with the podcast. I'm still determined to do my long-planned webcomic (it's probably been over a year now since I conceived the groundwork). If I can get my hands on a camcorder, I have a few parody things that I might like to try, along with some audio stuff for another podcast, perhaps.

Still, all that's in the future. Today's post has been a little bit more introspective than usual but since nobody reads this anyway, I feel I can use it to summarise stuff like this for my own benefit. And just so you feel you've walked away with some new and interesting knowledge...

Did you know that the hippo is often cited as the deadliest animal in Africa?

Read Skippy's post first

I really have very little that I feel like saying tonight as today has been a relatively uneventful day. Skippy has felt the need to put out another woodle (I may well use that as an excuse for not doing one this Saturday, you have been warned) and also to try to contact any half-decent artists out there who might be willing to draw one on a weekly basis. He actually asked for a “graphic designer” but since there are only about 6 people who read this blog, I figured we'd be better off setting the bar a little lower.

That's actually a rather odd expression when you think about it. Sure, setting the bar lower would help in a high jump competition, but it would also make limboing that much more difficult. Since the expression doesn't draw a distinction, I suggest that they be combined into a single sport, to be played simultaneously by a single competitor. I'm not sure exactly how that would work but I expect that it would be extremely painful.

In further response to Skippy's post below (since there is nothing to post about, but posts themselves), I'm not sure we at Dunhenry have a work ethic. Actually, I'm not sure I technically work for Dunhenry, but I'm going to say that I am on the off chance that somebody pays me. I certainly don't recall doing any work and we don't have that much in the way of ethics. For instance, our server is powered by burning kittens, shovelled into the furnace by illegal immigrant workers who also do website design for minimum wage.

Now, that's how you do a selfish plug (and that's also why I will never, ever end up in the marketing business).

Oh, and by the way. Those “creative minds”? We keep them in jars.

Not really a Woodle: Webbr

Since Alasdair's woodle was so artfully strange, I'm just going to post another Webbr woodle. It has a bad punchline, and might just be as bad as Alasdair's, but if we're going to have bad woodle's we might as well have two bad woodles. It could possibly make up for the lack of a better woodle. I have garden sheds full of woodle ideas, but nobody to draw them and not enough time/skill to draw them myself.

So if you're a graphic designer, artist or just a lonely person, email us at twtoday@gmail.com, or skippy@mactake.streamk.com and since we probably won't have much of a choice, you're quite likely to end up doing our woodle graphics. (which really isn't a bad thing.) It'll give you a glimpse into the creative minds and work ethic we have at Dunhenry. (If that wasn't a selfish plug, then I don't know what is)

Also, expect to see something about SaveNetRadio from us soon!

Miscalleaneous-tastic

Just completed tonight's woodle (see below) and, for all the incredibly low quality, I'm actually rather proud of it. In fact, I think I'm going to turn it into a series. A series of woodles, anyway. After that, who knows? Maybe a sitcom series. Movie trilogies are all the rage with the kidz theze dayz, that could work.

No real plan for this blog (or this post, for that matter) so I'm just going to do one of my (in)famous notes posts.

Note the first:
I've just been watching the first few episodes of Chad Vader, which is the reason I can't be bothered spending much time on this post.

Note the second:
Note how this supposed notes post only has two notes.

Yeah, I've got nothing else. Spent all my creative energon on that woodle. All I've got left in me are obtuse Transformers references.

This incoherent waste of time was brought to you by Alasdair Corbett, who is not a robot in disguise.

Woodle: Ohcrapi forgotaboutthewoodle againanditstoo latetofinda competentartist!

You'll have to click on it to see the text properly. That's the price you pay for not reminding me constantly when the woodles are due.
Sort-of written by Alasdair Corbett.
Sort-of drawn by Alasdair Corbett.
Director of Photography: Alasdair Corbett

932 words: why can I do that with this crap and not my English essays?

Today was shaping up to be a pretty bad day. I hadn't got that Maths homework I mentioned last night done, and wasn't going to be able to. My study period, which I could have used to catch up on the Maths or other studying, was taken up by an all school photo. It took more than an hour to get all the pupils in the school lined up on the big metal step things (that's a technical term) and get the photos taken.

The day took a turn for the better when they extended our break time, admittedly only to counteract the time lost due to the photo, but we still ended up with a slightly longer break and a slightly shorter English lesson. Definitely a win-win situation.

Yesterday, a plan had gone around amongst several of us in our lunch room, to bring in our DSs and spend lunchtime playing a few rounds of single-cart Bomberman. Between us, Sam and I bringing in our old DSs to up the numbers, we had 7 consoles and this naturally led to much exploding and merry-making. It also led to me winning.

We then shifted to Mario Kart DS and after 5 frantic races, I came in second overall after Sam. I would have been first if it weren't for three Shy Guys coming up behind me a matter of meters from the Cheep Cheep Beach finish line and bombarding me with green shells. The whole thing's going to be repeated on Monday with a few more consoles and Tetris. When one person said they didn't know what Tetris was I broke into maniacal laughter and then challenged them to a match. I've also challenged Sam Potter to a Tetris duel. To the death.

There really is nothing quite like having a bunch of friends in a room playing video games. Sure, online gaming's fun and you can play it with people you know, but it just doesn't quite compare. There's nothing like seeing the look on someone's face when they realise they've trapped themselves in a corner with two bombs. The little rivalries that build up over the course of a game are fascinating to observe, as challenges are set and met with glory or missed with embarrassment. Disconnecting just because you're losing suddenly seems like a much worse idea when the people you're pissing off are sitting next to you.

It all takes me back to the early days of primary school when, every break time, you could see little huddles of us wee children leaning against the wall, Game Boys in our hands and link cables dangling between them, Pokemon flitting back and forth and monkeys trading blows. That said, there were disadvantages to that little system. Immature people could quite easily come along and flick the power switch on those old Game Boys. When the Game Boy colour came along, they moved the power switch to the side but removed the method for locking in carts, leaving them vulnerable to being yanked out. The threat of cables being pulled out mid-battle was always a concern.

Fortunately, modern technology has advanced more than these people have and the DS has a method for locking in the cartridge, a side power switch which needs to be held up before it turns off and wireless multiplayer. I'm not sure if that's exactly the problem these features were meant to solve but it certainly helps.

Single-cart play has also come along, aiding multiplayer gaming on the go immensely. I can remember the first time someone saw a group of us playing a GBA game (still linked by ye olde cables, of course) with only one game between us and couldn't figure out what was going on. People who haven't kept up with the trends are similarly impressed by 7 of us sitting around playing each other wirelessly.

To return to my earlier, though not my original, point, I honestly prefer, and I think most people would agree with me, sitting in the same room with the people I'm racing, or fighting, or trying to shoot and bomb. Online play is an important factor, without a doubt, but it always annoys me when developers forego proper split-screen and smaller maps in favour of catering to the high-speed broadband , “it's no fun if there aren't sixteen players” gamers.

Is that little bit of playground history coming back into fashion? I certainly hope so.

To return, this time, to my original point, the day had another highpoint when, after a discussion with my parents got loud (it wasn't an argument, though Mum was getting as little annoyed that neither Dad nor I knew when her birthday was) my sister came downstairs trying to complain. I went into the kitchen while she was talking to Mum and Dad, I went into the kitchen and a minute later Dad came in to retrieve his wallet. Intrigued, I followed him outside and found out Erin was getting £20 in compensation money for loss of sleep. I ended up with £10. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm not arguing.

If this incident is any indicator, that little girl will go far in this world. And I'll be right behind her, mooching.



In entirely unrelated news, today is the tenth anniversary of development starting on Duke Nukem Forever. Joystiq had an interesting article on it which led me to this page, a list of all the major events which have happened since DNF began development. And it's still not out. Just thought I'd share that with you.

Warning: Whiny teenage views ahead

I am, once again, not in a good mood. It's something I've noticed tends to happen a lot around this time of night. There seems to be a curious correlation between my bad moods and my parents barging into my room and yelling at me for having the computer on or demanding to know why I'm not studying at 10:30 or, if I am studying, why I haven't got it done done before 10:30.

All this is compounded by various other things that have happened today, for which I have naturally been blamed. When no one told me that we were going to the dentist until it was time to go to the dentist, I get yelled at for holding us up. Naturally, it's my fault that my Maths teacher has decided that she wants the class to hand in those past papers that she said before the holidays were optional. And that she wants them in tomorrow.

It seems to me that there's no way I can win. Any explanation is simply met with a reiteration of previous ranting at a higher volume and with less rationality. My iMac has been threatened with being put on eBay (not that anyone but me and Erin in this household could actually set up an eBay seller's account) if it's not turned off “in five seconds”. Thank goodness for sleep mode is all I can say. The alarm having just been put on, I predict the next threat is going to come now.

15 minutes later and I was dead on. She even used the five second threat again. And again.

I'll think I'll drop that subject now. Actually, I now need to go. Less ranting tomorrow, when there's a semblance of sanity in this room. No time for proof-reading.

New Word Thursday: "Trivate"

For the record, this is a synonym not a new word. I'm sure there's already a word out there for this!

Trivate [trive-ate]
verb
1. To continually force the brain to be creative and formulate new ideas or content, normally on a regular recurring basis.
''I carry a notebook around with me all the time, it helps me trivate for my weekly column."

ORIGIN Modern English : Derived from 'contrive' ('triv'), and 'notate' ('ate').

Stress relief

I've already mentioned those ridiculous exam guides that come free with newspapers around this time of year. Today, we received a “leaflet” (lit: 3 sheets of paper, photocopied and stapled together) advising us on how to handle stress. Ways to calm down involve “relaxation” and “breathing”. My personal favourite was the advice that tells you to breathe both in and out. This stuff is truly inspired.

Everybody else got a laugh from this little gem:

“Creating mild pain
Pain effectively overrides all other thoughts and impulses. Even very mild pain – such as lightly pressing your fingernails into your palm – can block feelings of anxiety. Some people find it helpful to place an elastic band around one wrist, and lightly twang it when they are becoming anxious.”

Now, I follow the basic principle of pain acting as a distraction. However, given that I'm trying to concentrate, I seem to have a choice between distraction by anxiety and distraction by pain. I reckon I'll go with the option that doesn't, you know, hurt. Actually, that's pretty much my philosophy in life.

The third piece of hilariously bad advice is also to do with distracting your mind. Specifically, it advises you to, when you can't focus on the paper, take a few minutes and look around the room. Count the number of people with red hair, or see how many desks are in each row. Because looking at other people and their desks during an exam doesn't carry any penalty at all.

I've never been a great sufferer of exam stress, at least not since I sat my first round of exams. That said, I firmly believe that the best exam advice ever given came from Megadodo Publications, the finest publishing house on Ursa Minor Beta, as relayed to us by Douglas Adams.

“Don't panic!”

Undivided attention.

Take a religious building of prayer and place two very different people in it. One is a millionaire, he's praying for another $50000 so he can invest it risk-free in the stock market and pass the profit on to his wife as a birthday present. The other guy is in week-old clothing and he's praying for $50 to pay the rent and keep a leaking roof over the heads of his three kids and pregnant wife, for another week.

They both sit there praying for half an hour, both of them mumbling fervently; they really seem to need that money. Finally the millionaire turns to the other man.

"Mate? What are you praying for?"
The other man stirs, and replies humbly.
"$50, I need it to finish my rent payment so my pregnant wife can have a house over her head"
"Okay mate, $50? Its your lucky day. Here, take it; now get on out of here!"

The millionaire hands the other man a crisp, clean $50 bill; he rolls up his sleeves while the other man shuffles away proclaiming his thanks. The millionaire stretches his arms carefully, then resumes his prayerful position.
"Okay Lord, now that I have your completely undivided attention..."

Kudos to Tony, a true journalist, writer and generally inspiring chap.

Woodle: Webbr

Can't take it anymore. This is last weeks woodle, and it isn't so great but I just can't stand the thought of missing a week; it burns my very inner soul.

Trivial amounts of sleep

Ever get the impression that everyone else is working far harder than you?

Well, I did today upon discovering that almost everybody did far, far more work over the holidays than I did. That's a worrying discovery. Nevertheless, I shall soldier vaguely onwards and hope I manage to scrounge together enough facts to get the grades my ego and I require.

That said, I've also done nothing tonight, mostly due to just being way too tired. I got out of bed this morning while the hours on the clock were still in single digits. That's just plain wrong. Still, as always, more sleep is what I need and less sleep is no doubt what I shall receive.

I could just keep rephrasing the fact that I need more sleep for the rest of this post, but since I feel I owe you (whoever “you” might be) slightly more than that, I'll give you a random piece of trivia.

When TV shows don't simply have a magical database for characters to get their answers from, you may sometimes see search-wise.net popping up on the hero's laptop. It's been used in Doctor Who, Torchwood and last night I spotted it in New Tricks. Thing is, it's not a real website. It's just a simple front (as clicking any link on the site will tell you) created to allow TV producers to show characters running searches and get the tailored results they want. The things you learn from browsing Wikipedia.

Hadrian's Wall Syndrome

Typing this earlier than normal, since I'm going to have to get to sleep earlier, possibly even before midnight. Due to my bizarre semi-insomnia, this will probably entail going to bed about two hours earlier.

Those weird stomach pains I mentioned yesterday are still bugging me. Dispensing with logical diagnoses such as spending too much time hunched over this desk writing essays, or the fact that I've probably been eating too much chocolate over the last few weeks (come on, it's Easter. That's what the whole holiday is about!), I've come to a conclusion.

It's chronic Hadrian's Wall Syndrome.

To explain this will require a bit of background. In S2 (about 3-4 years ago, I'd guess), the entire Latin class (don't laugh, it was a mandatory subject) went on a school trip down to Hadrian's Wall. On the way there, I was sitting next to Sam, who, for no apparent reason, was almost doubled over clutching his stomach for a fair chunk of the journey there. The strangest thing was, it cleared up entirely at some point before we got there and everything proceeded as expected, with lots of old stones, fields, sheep and the like.

We never quite figured out what it was that caused Sam's half-hour-illness, but we did end up dubbing it “Hadrian's Wall Syndrome”, a term that we've since used on and off to explain away any old medical ailment. This is particularly useful, as Sam steadfastly refuses to visit any kind of medical practitioner, with a specific aversion to witch doctors and chiropractors.

Thus, my basic knowledge of medical terms (thank you, House!) leads me to believe that while his was an acute case of nothing in particular, mine is chronic. There's no cure for Hadrian's Wall Syndrome, although leading doctors have suggested that sticking your fingers in your ears and singing at the top of your lungs can make a patient who thinks they have it go away.

Meanwhile, in reality:

I'm actually fairly sure it's just from a lack of exercise and an over-abundance of sitting awkwardly in this chair all day. With any luck it'll go away once I get back to school. Assuming my school trousers still fit.

Speaking of which, I have to go get stuff ready for going back to school tomorrow, so I'll leave you with one little bit of information:

Sam wasn't the only one with a sore stomach on that school trip. Mine, however, could be explained by my consuming of a rather large bar of Cadbury's chocolate in under ten minutes while we were stopped midway.

Apologies and crap

First of all, I'd like to apologise for what is almost certain to be an extremely rubbish post.

Second, I'd like to apologise for tomorrow's post, which is also likely to be rubbish.

Thirdly, I can only apologise more for Tuesday's post, which will be posted while I'm in that peculiar state I am likely to be in after I get back from the first day of a new school term. I believe the clinical term is “dead”.

My eyes hurt, possibly due to hay fever, possibly due to something unknown. My nose is running for either the same or completely different reasons. The bizarre cramps in my stomach, however, are quite definitely due to some mysterious and unknown force.

Add to this the fact that my day was spent doing English revision (by which I mean a crappy essay on a crappy poem and answering some crappy questions on two crappy passages. The answers were pretty crappy as well, I guess.) and you can see why I'm in a bad mood, which is not in any way shape or form, a good mood for blogging. For examples of why this is so, see the following reference materials:

• The internet.
  

That said, I'm still fulfilling my self imposed obligation to write this nonsense. I'll try to produce something relevant and coherent in the next few weeks, once I'm done being ill, tired and fearful of uncompleted homework.

Until then, I leave you with this thought:

What evolutionary advantage do humans gain from beards?

And so it begins.

Every year, the season comes again. The season of darkness. The season in which old enemies surge forth. The season in which life is a constant struggle for freedom from invaders. The season of insects, coming in through open windows at night.

Seriously, I had to kill three of the little buggers before I could brush my teeth. It happens every year, at about this time, and it's particularly annoying in the bathroom, where we have to leave the window open or else the whole place gets fogged up every time someone has a shower.

It's an incredibly annoying problem and one I'm determined to fix. I'm not sure how, but it will involve acquiring some sort of thin fabric and affixing it some way to the bathroom window, forming a sort of primitive mosquito netting. Except replace the mosquitoes with whatever weird bugs are coming in my window. I'm not sure what they are but I certainly don't want three of them buzzing around while I brush my teeth. I love how my plans are so well thought out and specific.

I was kind of hoping that I could get some more ranting out of this little niggle, but due to time, imagination and laziness constraints, it would seem that I can't. So I leave you with one of those little “also” notes that I love to do.

Also, no woodle again. I did mean to get one done, I just... you know, forgot.

0845 Phone Scam

Seems to be another phone scam going on. A number listed as 08450229977 will call for 2 seconds to a cell phone, before hanging up. The victim is expected to be interested to see who called and therefore, call back, from then on I expect charges will be incurred or an advertising message relayed.

Just watch out for it!

My 50th postday

If I fail my exams, you know who's fault it will be? Jordan Mechner. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is far too good a game, and one I should probably have completed years ago, when I bought it. Now I have a Physics paper, three English essays, dozens of English quotes and more revision to do and I can't stop playing the bleeding game.

Oh, well. On to more important matters. Less trivial, anyway.

This is my fiftieth post to TWToday. I'm extremely impressed with myself. I don't think I've ever done fifty of anything with out any outside pressure. Sure, I've breathed in and out more than fifty times in my life, but there was more of a reason for that than “because I felt like it”. And don't get me started on air pressure.

I think it's traditional when you reach a milestone like this to do something special. TV shows often have either very important or very funny episodes to mark the occasion. Bad TV shows have clip shows. Magazines look back on the previous years of publishing. Webcomics creators like to make cameos in their comics, giving themselves a pat on the back. Everyone wants to thank their viewers, their listeners, their readers, etc.

I don't think I can do any of those things, since I don't seem to have any viewers or readers (I may have some listeners, but I'd never know and neither would they), and in the grand scheme of things fifty posts probably isn't that much. But it represents something. I'm not sure what, but it might be determination, resolve, the courage to stand up for what you believe in every day, the feeling of immortality that comes from putting your views out into the world... or that blogging is a highly addictive and dangerous pastime. It's probably that last one, considering all the sleep this little hobby has robbed me of.

Anyway, I haven't really got much to say (I thought I had but I seem to have forgotten it all) and I promised something special for this, my fiftieth post. So here it is.

I have this really weird tickly cough. I'm not sure what's causing it but I'm starting to suspect that, because I haven't shaved, the hairs on my chin are running out of room and have begun to grow inwards.

If that's not special, I don't know what is.

Holidays

Having now had time to relax after my holiday, I reckon I can get back to posting and though the memories are rapidly fading, I figure “What I did on my holidays” is as good a topic now as it was in Primary 3.

I think I've mentioned it here before but I can't be bothered checking. I was staying at a lodge at Cameron House, on the sunny shores of Loch Lomond. I am not a big fan of holidays in general. My philosophy is that if you want to spend weeks away from your home and all your stuff, chances are you'd be better off spending the money on new stuff rather than rental cars and room service.

It's not just the lack of my room with all my carefully strewn stuff, it's the tremendous pressure that comes with being on holiday; that is, the pressure to be on holiday. To do the things that people are expected to do on holiday. To go swimming. To go on shopping trips. To see “the sights”, whatever they may be. To eat out in overpriced restaurants.

I don't enjoy doing those things at home, but being “on holiday” dictates that if you don't start your days with a morning swim, if you don't come back with a load of trinkets and souvenirs to shove in a drawer, if you don't have half a dozen blurry photos of every interesting looking rock pool, if you haven't “sampled the local cuisine”, then you've just wasted your time.

I enjoy wasting time. I happen to believe that that's what holidays are for. That pressure is what often spoils holidays for me. I don't like swimming, for many reasons, mostly a general dislike of exercise coupled with a dislike of being in a relatively small body of water with a bunch of total strangers. The fact that without my glasses I can barely see a bloody thing clearly doesn't help. And yet, about twice a year, we go on family holidays and even though none of us swim regularly, despite there being a pool about five minutes drive from our house, we always go swimming, just because it's five minutes walk from our room.

I could go on and on about why I don't like the usual idea of a holiday, with reasons ranging from a hatred of the atmosphere in hotel restaurants to a general reluctance to spend days in the company of no one but my immediate family.

But I happened to quite like this holiday, at times. Specifically, the times when my parents were off doing holidays things and I was left at the lodge with Sam, Erin and Interchangeable-Friend-Of-Erin No. 12. The times when, instead of being made to do some of the “I'm sure it'll be great fun but you'd never catch me doing it” style of activities, I could sit back and watch a DVD, mocking the Street Fighter movie (is it my imagination or is Jean-Claude Van Damme's primary method of transportation fly-kicking?) and seeing how long it takes for Sam to catch on to the fact that you can tell if House's team have found the right diagnosis by the DVD timer.

The best bits were undoubtedly when, instead of sitting in the back of a speed boat freezing my face off, I was sitting in a comfy chair watching Jon Pertwee fry some Autons. When, instead of sitting in a restaurant overhearing stilted conversations from other tables while ignoring the one at mine, I was lying on my bed putting together tiny Lego models and idly wondering who would win in a fight between my recently purchased Roboreptile and Sam's Jango Fett/Slave 1 Transformer. When, instead of standing about listening to fascinating facts about wallabies on the isle of Inchconnachan, I could sit with a laptop and type up notes for a Doctor Who fan film, wondering if it will ever come into being.

I'm going to have to wrap this post up now since I am again being rushed to bed inexplicably early on the basis that if I'm not, I'll be tired for my exams. In three weeks. That said, I think this has been a decent enough summary of my views on holidaying. Tomorrow is, I believe, my fiftieth post on TWToday. I'll have to find some time tomorrow to spend on that, after knocking off the huge amount of holiday homework that I've left untouched until now.

Also, Skippy remembered to post the Holiposts and seems to have remembered that today is Thursday, so he gets to live.

On an unrelated note, it turns out there is a use for that little shelf above a fold down bed:

New Word Thursday: 'Islelings'

Islelings [ile-lings]
noun
1. The rubber left over on (for instance) a table after erasing something with a standard rubber eraser, which has somehow found its way onto a photocopier or scanner. This results in a irregular ink pattern that resembles an island viewed from space.
''The quality of this brochure is terrible; it has been covered in islelings, and the color is all wrong."

ORIGIN Modern English : Derived from 'Isle' ('isle'), a singular island or peninsula (esp. small); and 'ling' ('lings'), any number of long-bodied edible marine fishes.

I am angry

This would have been a blog post about my holiday.

About the good things and the bad.

I had several ideas that were funny and original.

I needed all of twenty minutes to put this into practice and if the universe, and my household in particular, were a sane and rational place I would have had those twenty minutes.

But no.

I've been given ten minutes to get to bed because last night, when I was in a totally different and unrelated circumstances, I went to sleep later than usual. My mum has just come in and decreed that I have ten minutes before she yells at me some more and then spent four of them annoying the hell out of me.

One thing which I believe tops the Grand List of Things that Annoy the Hell out of Alasdair is people telling me to do things which I'm already planning to do. Telling me to get my homework done as I put one textbook away and open the next. Telling me to wash my hands as I reach for the tap. Telling me that I need to get to sleep after a late night despite me telling them I was going to do exactly that just an hour beforehand, without prompting.

I hate that. I despise that. You already have every intention of doing something to achieve your own goals, but all that happens is that somebody else gets a smug sense of superiority out of seeing you carry out “their” instructions.

That's why I'm typing this. That's why I'm angry. That's why you have to read this tirade, because I have no time to do anything else. I've now run out of time so I'll no doubt be treated to a nice long lecture about the need for plenty of sleep even as I pull the pillow down over my ears.

I was having such a nice day until I talked to someone.

Desktop Tower Defense

I've been wasting my time. That's right. Wasting; and I love every minute of it.

I've discovered ( thanks to Alex Lindsay on tWiT MBW ... ) a game called Desktop Tower defense. Don't go near it, save yourself. Its like WoW, but way more addicting. Its an online flash game by handdrawngames.com, and boy is it good fun.

Check it out here.

Study? What is study? This game takes priority over all known bodily functions, let alone studying for exams that are far away. Okay so not that far away. Yeah, you're right; my exams are right around the corner. I should be dying of stress and heart failure, instead I've been stressing about whether or not little grey balls will find their way through my intricate defense systems.

So today, I wake up at about 8:30 and think briefly about all the poor state school suckers who had to wake up at 7:00 ( we have extra holidays, but spend more time at school overall so it balances out ).

I get my cricket gear on (after following normal hygiene protocols) and head out to Cambusdoon for some practice. Great huh? Believe it or not, I love it. My right hand is aching from two consecutive catches of balls that were at no ordinary speed. My lower-body is killing me from a dive, roll and long-stop hit in the thigh; and by jove am I glad that I wore a box today.

After practice I head over to a friend's house, do an hour or two of study with her before heading off home to catch Joey and some more Total Recall on Joost. Then, I settle in and spend the rest of my evening playing desktop tower defense. I have mastered the easy level, the fun 10k level and almost got good at the medium level which still needs some work.

Its eating my soul Alex, save me. Save me now! Oh man, I have DTD RSI.

By the way, we're on 69 posts now. Bow chicka bow wow! ( RvB style. )

TWHoliday 2

Tuesday's post, as written on Saturday.

So... Turns out I was right with that prediction about the Grand National I made yesterday, which you saw on Monday, which was still your yesterday. I'm not sure what place the horses I bet on came but none of them got me any money, so they're all losers, in speed and in spirit. Of course, the Grand National was several days ago now (the future now) but right now (my now) it finished an hour ago and I've only just checked the results. As Miles O'Brien once said to himself, “I hate temporal mechanics.”. That was in one of only a few DS9 episodes I've ever seen actually. Quite a good show it would seem.

I'll have already mentioned Doctor Who in a few hours, so I really shouldn't mention that because if you read Saturday's post then it'll just be the same description.

I really have no idea where I'm going with this so I'm just gonna give up and save it as a draft. It then becomes Skippy's problem and with any luck he'll publish it at the right time and it'll become your problem.

Have a nice day.

TWHoliday 1

By the time you get this, I'll be dead. Or on holiday without an internet connection, which is pretty much the same thing. I'm writing this a couple of days in advance and by now, by which I mean your now, my then, then being Monday, it should be posted by Skippy. Tomorrow, that's my tomorrow, your two days ago, unless you're reading this after Monday, I'll have to come up for something Tuesday. And before then I still have nothing for tonight. My tonight, your... screw it. Figure it out for yourself.

I think I'm going to try predicting the future.

Whatever horse I bet on in the Grand National will lose.

Tomorrow's episode of Doctor Who with the Face of Boe will be awesome and reveal that the Doctor is not the last of the Time Lords. Actually, by the time this is posted I'll have already seen and been able to post about that episode. Confused?

I will become addicted to this awesome little laptop I'm typing this on and refuse to give it back after we come home, not that we've left yet, but I already have the laptop. Now I'm confused.

I will not get any revision done either tomorrow or while on holiday and the last few days before school will be spent in a mad scramble to do Physics Past Papers and English essays.

That should just about do it. It's possible that I'll be able to get an internet connection a some point while away, but I wouldn't count on it since I have trouble enough getting an internet connection here. I may keep writing blog posts though, since I won't have anything better to do, other than watching the heap of classic Doctor Who serials Sam's bringing. What, you thought I asked him to come out of generosity and the need for companionship? Losers.

Woodle: Space Bugs

No explanations for this one!! (Skippy.)

Priorities

Well, this is my last post before heading off on holiday. I'm typing this on a laptop which is resting, strangely enough, atop my lap, while I watch Doctor Who Confidential. Since I can't really concentrate on typing and watching DWC at the same time, I'll just have to set some priorities. See you in twenty minutes.

Okay, I'm back. But I'm going to have to leave again since I have yet to pack any clothes for this holiday. I have the Gamecube in its carry case, a laptop already packed up and a disc holder filled with Gamecube games and DVDs, but I still haven't packed clothes, a tooth brush, anything like that. Priorities.

Anyway, the posts for Monday and Tuesday are online and ready for Skippy to publish (I know I keep repeating that but if he forgets, I have to start over and he dies). So I'll be back for Wednesday and there should be something up here each day in the meantime.

Also, this is the earliest I've ever written a full one of these posts. The hours on the clock are in single digits and everything. It's probably also one of the shortest and least content-filled posts I've ever done. Go figure.

Ideas: ever appearing, ever fleeting

I really need to take a leaf out of Skippy's book and start carrying a little notepad at all times, so that I can note down possible blog topics as they come to me. I tend to use my Pocket PC for noting down random things but I only have it on me if I'm at school or just sitting at my desk. I'll occasionally take it elsewhere but if inspiration strikes, I can rarely be bothered wandering off from whatever I'm doing to go and find it, or even a piece of paper.

I also need to start getting stuff scheduled in advance. I don't mean writing blog posts days beforehand (you'll see why that's a bad idea on Monday and Tuesday while I'm away) but having a woodle buffer (I realised literally two minutes ago that there's no woodle up for today; don't expect one) and maybe beating Skippy until he has a few New Word Thursday posts drafted.

I don't plan on getting any of this done any time soon, or indeed any of anything done any time soon except studying and, with a bit of luck, passing my exams. To summarise, I'm sorry about the relative shortness and occasional lack of quality in recent posts. I'll try to put them on my to-do list, once I find time to make a to-do list. Which will come after I find time to study. I don't know what I'm doing with all this time, but personally, I blame that comfy, comfy hammock.

PS: Doctor Who was awesome! And if you didn't spot the subtle hint to that deleted scene from Remembrance of the Daleks and realise the implication that the Doctor could well be both one of the first and one of the last Time Lords, then you suck.

Organizational shortcomings.

You'd think with the title of this post, that I'd naturally be making apologies about my poor organizational skills and blubbing about how my excuses just simply rock. ( I know that didn't make sense! )

Well in all truth and honesty, I'm an excellent organizer.

However, I just can't seem to organize New Word Thursday on time, but that's really down to my complete lack of ideas. Read up on this week's nwt here, as its been sort of obscured by our usual posts.

Ideas would be good people, send the nwt ideas to twtoday@gmail.com, or if you want it to go directly to me, and you have a mactake comment bundled in with it, send it to skippy@mactake.streamk.com.

Well, I went boating yesterday with Jimerson and Ben, we did a little fishing, rowed a dodgy boat and ate a tonne of lunch.

This brings me around to rant about my cell phone camera. Its disgusting. It takes 640x480 images, but even at its default and most base resolution, the image is pixelated. What gives? A camera that shoots pictures at X resolution, should not be pixelated at that said X resolution.

Anyway, I took an awesome picture of the water splashing off an oar, and Jimerson getting caught in a landing net. We didn't catch any fish, and I've completely lost the point of this post, so I'll stop now.

Wait, one last point.
Did you know that a total of 7 people cancelled on the day before the afore-mentioned trip? We had to switch it from a kayaking trip to a boating trip last minute. Disgusting, and they had one and a half weeks notice! It nearly, just nearly screwed us over completely, but luckily Dad forked out and got some boats for the 3 of us that remained.

So for the rest of the pictures:

And its a battle of giants... with a landing net.

I did absolutely, no rowing. Possibly because I couldn't get it to go in a straight line.

Pwned.

Check out that splash!

It's too late at night to come up with a pithy title

Now I'm working on tonight's post. That'll make more sense once you've read Monday's post.

Curiously, I'm doing two posts today and I'm still getting them done earlier than when I normally do one. Must be something to do with the extra pressure making me work harder. I'll use that as my excuse for revision work as well. Now, onwards to a topic!

You know those anti-drug adverts and educational videos where they have stories of people who died and interviews with people whose lives have been ruined? What if those start really working? I mean, what if they're so effective that nobody takes drugs any more? Where are the next generation going to turn to get the shit scared out of them?

Personally, I plan to let my hypothetical future-kids think about the matter and, since common sense seems to run in the family, they should be able to conclude that sticking highly dangerous and toxic substances directly into your veins is a bad idea. If that doesn't work, I'll just tell them that I did drugs. Kids hate to follow in the parents' footsteps so that should work.

Of course, I'll have to let the eldest take all kinds of enhancement drugs so that they can win the fight to the death against Sam's eldest child.

On second thoughts, maybe it would be best for everybody if I don't have children. Of course, that'd mean Sam would win by default and there's no way in hell I'm letting that happen.

As usual, I've completely forgotten where I'm going with this and since the time for posting is rapidly approaching, I'll leave you with the knowledge that Skippy is planning to post a New Word at some point soon. He advises that the best plan to make him post more often is just to club him with something. I don't know where he is exactly, so I'm just going to get out Citizen Cane and swing it around wildly. If he's in the country, I'll get him.

One final note. I was watching BBC 1 comedy tonight, QI and Have I Got News for You, specifically, though there was a gap between the two, which is when the funniest thing I saw came on. What was it? A BNP party political broadcast. The best part was when, after five minutes of slagging off every other major political party and putting up low quality images of their logo, the standard BBC disclaimer came up pointing out that what party it was for. Those crazy racists.

Hammockery

Raise your hand if you have a hammock? Now put it down, you look silly. Those of you who didn't raise your hand, go and buy a hammock. Now. Back? Okay, before you put it up, let me explain to you why you just did that.

I have a hammock. In fact, I have a photo of said hammock right here.



Hammocks are great things. I went outside earlier this evening to encourage the dog to come inside so I could feed her and get back to the DVD I was watching. Since she was reluctant to come inside, I just got in the hammock, thinking it'd take a couple of minutes for her to wear herself out barking at the dog next door and chasing phantom squirrels in the flower beds.

So there I am, hanging my foot over the edge of the hammock and pushing off the ground to make it rock back and forth (it's a delicate balance between being relaxed and looking stupid while losing blood flow beneath your knee). I stare at the sky because there's nothing much else to look at. Have you ever really stared at the sky? This evening it was baby blue over my head fading to off-white at either side with the sun going down behind me and to the right, turning the sky between the trees bright red.

Imagine it as a sky sandwich made from white bread with the crusts cut off and one corner on fire. That's what you get for using a cheap toaster. Maybe God should just jam a fork in there, see if that'll fix it. Maybe that's what lightning is.

Where was I going with this? Oh, right, hammocks. So anyway, I get so distracted by all these thoughts and images in my head that before I know it, it's twenty minutes later. In the end, I only went back inside because it was getting too cold.

A hammock is a great place to just sit and observe the world. Someone should found a religion based purely around hammock meditation. I'd join just for the fun of watching new initiates trying to sit cross-legged on a hammock.

So anyway, that's why you now have a hammock. You can string it between two trees if you want, but that'll make it harder to move around. Actually, attaching anything to a couple of trees tends to make it less mobile. But still, go put it together and relax for twenty minutes.

New Word Thursday: 'Abpodocate'

Abpodocate [Ab-podo-kate]
noun
1. The art of subscribing to an impossible number of podcasts or netcasts on iTunes, syncing them all to an iPod or media player and never, ever listening to them on-time.
''I've been abpodocating again, I have 50 new podcast episodes to listen to from about a week ago."
"I'm going to subscribe to that podcast and just abpodocate for a while."

ORIGIN Modern English : Derived from 'Abstain' ('Ab'), 'Podcast' ('podo') and 'Cake' ('cate').

I can't think of a note-related pun

A little tight for time since I want to get up early tomorrow and finally start some heavy duty revision (where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, every day of the holidays so far) so this is going to be another of my lovely little notes posts.

First up, another link to Skippy's widget since the post that introduced it is now hidden (slightly) beneath this one on the front page. I'll probably also stick it in the sidebar. Simply download the file, install it on your Mac (nothing for Windows users, though I think Vista has some form of widget functionality, not compatible with this anyway) and go to the Dashboard to read yours truly's latest posts. And Skippy's as well, if you can be bothered doing an awful lot of downward scrolling.

Okay, that was a little unfair. He is planning to post more, at least assuming he's remembered that tomorrow is New Word Thursday.

I'll be away Sunday to Wednesday this coming week and I'm not sure what the internet situation will be on the exotic shores of Loch Lomond, so I may end up relying on other people, a method I've found to be largely useless. In this instance, I'll just be setting up various posts (Monday and Tuesday at the least) as drafts and getting Skippy to publish them, thus maintaining challenge.exe, or challenge.app depending on your OS preference.

Probably ought to mention challenge.exe somewhere in the sidebar as well, since nobody has any idea what it is, as far as I can tell. It's just my wacky scheme to post one piece a day for a year, just to see if I can. Obstacles like holidays keep interfering though.

On a spooky note, my internet connection has been relatively steady all afternoon. Seriously, it's weird. And it's scaring me. Which is also weird.

No wait, it's gone down again. The status quo is restored and I can look into faster internet speeds and a new router tomorrow. All is well normal.

TheWorldTodayBlog Dashboard Widget

Well, it may not be good, but it sure is here. Read up on our posts from the ease of your dashboard. Requires Mac OSX 10.3 or above, and vague levels of intelligence. (I built it, you see.)

Download it here.

A day in the dull life...

I'm trying something a little different today. I'm just going to leave this document open and add little snippets to it throughout the day.

11:05
Having just replaced a light bulb in my bedroom, I could have sworn I smelled something strange and I did think that the bulb wasn't quite the right one. After sniffing the air for a few seconds and deciding that there was definitely something about that bulb, I look up. The light isn't even on. I'm not paranoid.

15:36
Kind of forgot about this thing... nothing much to say, except that I really don't like learning English quotes (which is why I haven't been learning any) and I really like chocolate.

17:01
Just returned from PC World with a new USB Flash Drive and a device that'll let me transfer stuff straight to SD cards, which will be useful since I can't get my PPC to connect to the Mac. Odd, since Microsoft has an awful lot of their software ported to Mac but not any version of Active Sync. It should also make transferring stuff to my GP2X a little quicker since I won't need to turn on the actual device every time.
Went to B&Q as well. I believe I've found the perfect paint colour for a replica TARDIS.

18:21
Seems like I'm incapable of blogging during the day.

20:15
This whole really-slow-liveblogging thing doesn't seem to be working out that well, does it? On the bright side, it's easy for me to write, assuming I can remember to do it.

21:20
Just realised that tomorrow is the 11th: one month till the exams. A month is a funny, relatively unspecific amount of time, but a very scary one in this context. I'm starting to think that I was wrong in my earlier post. It really doesn't seem all that far away.

22:38
I think I'll bring this to a close and post it now. Not sure how good this piece has actually been but it took me over 11 and a half hours. Doesn't really show, does it?

Mothers, don't let your daughters marry main characters in detective fiction

I just finished watching the BBC 1 show New Tricks, a fairly light-hearted series about three retired police officers called back to form a team that solves unsolved cases. As common as these “we're-the-unsolved-case-squad-nobody-knew-how-to-solve-crimes-before-the-year-2000” shows are now, New Tricks offers enough of a difference to keep me intrigued. However, due in no small part to too much time spent reading the TV Tropes wiki, I now have something of an eye for tropes and cliches on television.

One I noticed on New Tricks was that old policemen have to have dead wives. It happened to Jack Halford on New Tricks, it happened to Lewis' wife (I was watching Lewis earlier today and the fact that both he and Halford lost their wives in unsolved hit and runs is probably what tipped me off) and Jack Frost lost his wife to illness. In fact, I think having no living relatives is a job requirement if you want to run a CSI lab.

Bonus points are awarded if:

a) the copper's wife was killed before the series started

b) she was killed in any kind of unsolved case that the detective solves during the series

c) the detective has no children or they are rarely seen during the series

d) the detective's marital status is the first thing brought up by anyone who meets them for at least the first two series

I was just discussing this briefly with my Dad and he added George Carter of The Sweeney (also a hit and run, though one that apparently took place during the series) and George Gently (can't find a decent link) to the pile of crime-solving widowers.

Since a lot of these kinds of shows tend to focus largely on the cases from episode to episode, it's a fairly simple way to generate some sympathy for the main character without the need for additional actors to crop up once an episode. It's not unlike Disney parent syndrome, where in a kid-focused Disney movie only one parent, sometimes even just one grandparent or older sibling, will be shown with little more than a one-liner about emigration to explain the other guardians absence, and that's if your lucky.

The general principle is, if they're not absolutely necessary to the plot, they're not in the film, but the dead wives are often far more of a plot point than missing parents. Unless the police show has a case involving a missing parent, in which case the missing parent is the main point and the dead wife is a secondary point that's often brought up with the spouse of the missing parent.

Anyway, that's all I've got for tonight. Thank god for trope-ridden police procedurals or I'd have had nothing to write about.

Also, as a side note, here are some links to a Dead Ringers parody of Waking the Dead and another parody of Life on Mars, in which they point out that if they keep solving all their cases in the seventies, all those cold case squads will have nothing to do in 30 years time.

Another quick side note. Look below to see Skippy's first post in a while. I fear that this post has disguised his and I only realised it was there when I scrolled past the bottom of my post to find that little Photoshop job. Also, just call them lore gamers.

Rainy Sketches.

Today, it is raining. I am sleepy, and I distinctly heard a cat fall off my neighbour's shed roof; it made a splashing, screeching noise as it fell into a bucket, half filled with plant remains and dirty water.

So is studying on the agenda? Absolutely not; but since I'm a self-disciplined and upstanding member of society, I'm going to study anyway.

Right after I finish this blog post. Absolutely.

I'm very prone to taking an opinionated stance on everything. However vague that sentence was, you have no complaining rights, I've reserved them.

It's not a woodle, its not a real comic, I didn't make, or take these pictures, but I did draw them from photographs. For heavens sake, its not even woodle time, but I just felt that I needed to share this with you.

[Disclaimer] I'm Christian, therefore I can complain as much as I damn well want to about my own religion, so don't take it the wrong way, I don't want hate groups after me!


PS.
Lore Gamers, Alasdiar?
Loamers.... Lamers?

Or more spicy: l4mers.

Yup. I'll keep working on it.

Lore gaming

I've been reading one of those Halo tie-in novels recently, Ghosts of Onyx to be specific. It's hardly Shakespeare but it offers some interesting perspectives on the Halo universe, as did the rest of the series.

I've always had a healthy appetite for fictional trivia and books like this are always welcome, helping to expand the existing universe of games, films, TV shows, anything, by adding new characters and new backgrounds, explaining the current characters and their backgrounds. I'm always particularly fond of more information on games and the worlds they're set in. It's possible this is simply due to the fact that I'm more interested in video games than films, a fact certainly supported by my fascination with the worlds of Doctor Who and a few other TV shows.

Maybe it's the fact that games often present an entirely new and different world to explore and exploit. In the best games, worlds are designed from the ground up, with cities of adventure, legends and myths (which, by rights, have to be 100% true and the characters of which must be encountered by the player at some later time) to truly engage the player.

Or maybe not. There are some games where there are no plots and for very good reasons. Anyone played Tetris Worlds? As part of my hitherto unmentioned quest to play every version of Tetris ever made, I bought it for the PC. Turns out that Tetris isn't just about making blocks fall in the right way. Oh no, you have to make enough blocks fall the right way to activate transporter gates and evacuate your people to some ancient world. Or take tourists from some ancient world. Or Sea World. I wasn't really paying attention. Crummy version of Tetris anyway.

Then there are games which try, they really do. My weak and battered optimistic side likes to think that maybe, just maybe, they didn't have such god-awful catchphrases in the original language. Maybe that isn't supposed to be trendy slang but an alien language. My personal favourite example of this is Star Fox Command, a game with decent gameplay and nine different endings, complete with their own dialogue and clichés.

That said, I still played through all of Command, even though the gameplay got to be horribly repetitive and dull towards the end. Why? Because I was interested in how the different stories played out and what each would reveal about the universe of Star Fox and the astronomically illogical Lylat System. Seriously, some of the references to Lylat's astronomy are useless. Is it a solar system or a galaxy? Why are there those three nebulae all over the place? Is Solar a planet or a sun? Make up your freaking minds!

Where was I? Ah, yes. My fascination with fictional universes. I'm not sure if there's any kind of term to describe gamers who play games for their plots as much as for the challenge and who speculate about useless trivia. So I'm suggesting one.

Lore gamers.

I'm sure Skippy will be able to summarise it in a New Word Thursday at some point, or maybe I'll expound upon it some more at a later date. I hope I've at least given the gist of it here. Now, I must sleep.

I hate slugs.

Ever seen a bug, or maybe a load of bugs, in reality or on TV and then been unable to shake the feeling that they were on you? It's a damned strange feeling, almost an instinctive paranoia. I just found a slug on the kitchen floor and had to pick the thing up in a bit of kitchen roll and toss it in a flower bed. Still feel slimy.

Anyway, on to slightly less creepy and cowardly matters. I spent a number of hours today outside, putting seeds and compost in flimsy plastic trays and then tucking away the results in a small greenhouse. The weather was neither too warm nor too cold and there was next to no wind. There were no insects in the air but lifting up a plant pot revealed a large swarm of ants coming from cracks in the patio.

Spring has most definitely sprung.

I suppose spring technically begins in March, according to the meteorological definition, but since I live in Scotland, I don't tend to see the warmer weather that I always think defines spring until late March at the earliest, even if it's clearly not winter. It's a kind of unofficial tradition in our family that we always have one day of the year when we plant various seeds and bulbs that we've accumulated over the weeks before and, for me, that's generally when spring begins.

I don't really know what my point is here, simply that I like this time of year, when you're not kept in by cold or forced out by sheer heat and lack of industrial strength air conditioning. Not that such entirely prohibitive extremes are ever reached around here, but it's nice to be able to have a choice without that nagging little voice at the back of your mind saying “you can't go outside, it's freezing” or “come on, it's a wonderful day and it's way too hot in here”.

Other than that, I've really not much to say. Another excellent episode of Doctor Who tonight, though perhaps not one of the best it certainly shows promise and had various nice little references and twists.

Also, chocolate. That's what I like about this time of year. Chocolate. Eggs, bunnies, anything, it's all made out of wonderful, edible chocolate at this time of year. And it's not warm enough for it to melt in your fingers, either.

Woodle: Tech Support 2257

Written by Alasdair, drawn by Skippy

Another very untidy room

At some point on the 11th of April, in just a few days, I'm going to realise that my Higher exams, those same Higher exams which I have been repeatedly and reliably informed by teachers will influence my university choices, my possible careers and very probably the rest of my life, are one month away. Right now, I should probably be worried, but it seems like a month and a few days is a very long time. Not long ago, a year was a very long time and in a few days, the month will seem like a very long time and so on until I reach the time frame, maybe a fortnight, where every thing seems like a very short time.

I'm tempted to call this “the calm before the storm” but, given that this first week of the holidays is simply a short reprieve between the warnings of wisdom of teachers and the worries of parents, “the eye of the storm” seems far more apt.

I really ought to be worried, I really, really should. My stomach ought to be filled with butterflies every time I twist my neck and glance at the stack of textbooks and sample papers on my floor. All common wisdom, if not common sense, tells me that I should have some kind of plan for what to study and a very definite where in which to study. Those older and more experienced than myself tell me I should be doing all of the above, along with much, much more when my thoughts turn from April to May.

But I'm not worried. Any butterflies are being quite thoroughly digested. Common wisdom goes ignored, as common sense dictates it very often should. Next week goes unplanned and the week after that is irrelevant. The older and more experienced people I talk to are, perhaps unfairly, ignored as my thoughts stay firmly grounded in April; in now.

I'm not entirely sure what those thoughts are. Imagine my head like a room, full of people. In the middle of the room, talking and having fun, are all my normal thoughts. Those day to day thoughts about what I want to eat, what video games I want to play, what's on TV. They're all in the centre of the action.

At the back of the room, locked in a conveniently placed cage, are thoughts about exams and university and so on and so forth. School related thoughts. I know they're plotting something, but I don't know when they'll strike.

Occasionally, one of the smaller revision thoughts will sneak out and get part of a practice paper done before being squashed by my ego, who then returns to leaning against the wall absent-mindedly swinging a set of keys around his finger while giving everyone the uneasy sense that he's in charge in this room.

Creeping around outside the room, poking his head almost invisibly over the windowsill, is a suspicion that the normal thoughts and the hard-working, exam thoughts should really be in opposite positions and that if the my ego doesn't use those keys very soon, he'll find himself severely damaged.

So that's my mind as it stands right now.

Oh, and the part of my mind that can't stand overcomplicated wordplay is banging its head against a metaphysical wall because of that “sneaking suspicion” bit two paragraphs up.

New Word Thursday: 'Ritiji'

Ritiji [Rit-tige-gee]
noun
1. The love or passion of tidying or sorting files on a computer. The joy one feels while arranging and ordering computer files into tiny, perfect little directories, smart folders and groups.
Also: Ritijite (Someone who commonly experiences ritiji)
''Feel the ritiji? Now all my files are carefully pruned, ordered and sorted. I'll never be able to find anything ever, again."
"He is such a ritijite, in the nicest sense of the word!"

ORIGIN Modern English : Derived from the misty ratholes that form my logical thought processes at this time of night.

PS.
I was late. I'm so sorry. Technically its still Thursday though, and if I adjust the post time we can pretend I did this post in the morning, or we could not because I can't remember how to do that anymore.

Alasdair came up with the meaning for this week, I invented a really, really bad word. There, that's the credits, now stop waving those pointy sticks at me! I'm innocent!

If I can get writer's block, does that make me a writer?

I think I have writer's block.

I honestly can't think of anything to say. Maybe it's because the holidays, or at least these ones, really aren't a time for stimulating new thoughts or having exciting experiences (though if you want a plot summary of the first 2 seasons of Boston Legal, I can now easily give you that. Denny Crane.). Maybe it's just general laziness. I don't really know.

The point is, I can't think of anything to write for tonight and I can't be bothered hanging around till five minutes before midnight in the hope that inspiration will strike. So I'm just gonna put this up and say to hell with it, I need to get up before noon tomorrow.

But Alasdair, you say, this isn't a proper blog post!

Aha, I respond, yes, it is. And do you know why?

No, you say.

Because it's my blog and I can call whatever I like whatever I want, I calmly reply, before hitting “Publish”.

Tidying

Recently, I've been doing something that I periodically have to do, if I ever want to find anything, ever again. I've been sorting files on my computer. That's a very odd thing to do, I expect, particularly if you take into account my attitude towards tidiness in physical objects.

For instance, one of the desks in my room, an old computer desk that I got simply because my main desk was completely out of surface space, is currently littered with a Catbert doll, some foam discs from a toy gun, an Amstrad CPC 464 (the first “C” stands for colour), a stapler, a laptop battery, a small piece of Blu-Tack, a Dilbert desk calendar showing the date to be early February, a partially disassembled cordless phone, a copy of Private Eye, a Thunderbirds mug, a cardboard tube and various plugs and chargers for devices that I may or may not have.

Strangely, I know where everything is. More than once, when asked where something is in my room, I have been able to pinpoint it with descriptions such as “on top of the old TV, to the left of Catbert and underneath that old Palm PDA”. Of course, these directions are often suffixed with “I think”.

The point of all this is too show that I am not someone who sticks by the generally accepted standards of “tidiness”. I may have my own standards and systems which I stick by, most of which relate to Chaos Theory in one way or another. And, just for reference, that doesn't mean they're simply chaotic. No. I'll toss something in a cupboard quickly because I don't know where it goes. Then, the next time I have a handful of things, they get tossed in the cupboard because I can't be bothered putting them elsewhere and this is justified by my earlier act of using it as a dumping ground. And so the cycle continues, until either my cupboards or my mother explode.

Despite my aversion to real life tidying, I actually quite enjoy sorting out computer files. Unlike my bedroom, which is full of stuff I'm always using or have used recently, sorting stuff into directories every once in a while helps me come across stuff I haven't seen in months, even years.

Combine this with my habit of bookmarking almost every interesting page or article I ever come across, and organising bookmarks can be just as interesting and rewarding. I'll discover things that I can't understand my motives for ever bookmarking, I'll remember things that I dragged into the toolbar just so I'd never forget them. I've spent several hours doing this kind of thing over the last few days and I think I've barely scratched the surface. I've arranged various things into distinct, clearly labeled folders without any idea of what's actually contained in the web pages.

But I do it anyway, because I enjoy dredging up bits of the recent past and questioning my state of mind several months ago. Give it another few months, maybe a year, and my “downloads go to the Desktop” and “hey, that's neat *bookmark*” habits will again get the better of me and I'll open files, examine them, order them, structure them and ignore them. Because I can.

I'm a profoundly strange individual.

Where can I get a Zombie-English dictionary?

I assume you've all heard of Latin, language of the Roman Empire, language of scholars, language of the church, language of overachieving, upper class schoolboys, language of... the undead.

Think about it. Latin is a dead language. Indeed, the very phrase itself is often tied directly to Latin, both in people's minds and in their speech. But Latin's everywhere. It's in scientific terms, in legalese, often in impressive sounding phrases in everyday speech. It's legacy lies in practically every language of Western Europe.

It's most decidedly alive. But it can't be, it has no native speakers; that's the very definition of a dead language. So, it's neither alive nor dead. It's undead.

Latin, language of zombies!!!

Now it becomes clear why I mentioned that “image of a zombie indicating definite proof” yesterday. QED.

I can't decide whether I like or hate Latin. On the one hand, I can see that it has it's uses in modern society, the aforementioned scientific terms, mostly naming of species, and the importance some schools still place on it, though not so much now as just a couple of generations ago. Of course, I speak only about education in Britain.

On the other hand, Latin as a language seems to have too much weight placed on it for what it actually achieves in society. Children aren't taught any other ancient languages. It's been used historically, yes, but today it strikes me as something of an anachronism.

Still, I'm no expert. Those are just my two paragraphs of thought being put out in order to justify the suggestion that Latin is a zombie language. There's no real justification, I just thought it'd be funny.

Best legal defence ever.

Surprisingly little scrolling

I got nothing.

I was going to do that “nadda, zip, zilch” bit again, but then I remembered I'd already done it. I had some kind of idea for what to do, but I couldn't get an image of a zombie indicating definite proof, so that's been stalled.

Got Saturday's woodle up, finally, as you may have noticed if you can be bothered scrolling. Don't strain yourself, probably not worth it. The incredibly lazy among you can find it via the conveniently marked link in the sidebar to your right.

Well, I've fulfilled my blogging quota for the day. I understand visitor numbers for the blog are going up, we may even hit triple digits daily before.... the Apocalypse. Anyway, sorry about the brief post. Or if you prefer the short posts, I'm sorry but you seem to have chosen the wrong blog to read.

Woodle: What not to say during hostage negotiations

A study in mockery

Earlier today, I was reading one of those newspaper supplements that are responsible for the death of so many trees and brain cells during the run up to exam time. This particular one was from the Sunday Herald “in association with” Leckie and Leckie, “Scotland's leading educational publishers”. As far as I can tell, this means that it was slipped into the middle of a paper and written by people who otherwise simply reprint old exam papers and bind them together to sell to schools.

It opens with various pieces of general advice, for instance not to try studying in an ice crevasse without any textbooks and with a rock concert going on overhead, whilst hanging upside down. It tells me how I should exercise to avoid stress. I tried one that involved pushing back against my own shoulders for 10 seconds. Now my hands, arms and shoulders hurt.

Further advice encourages me to eat healthily and inhale and exhale. The brief summary to the side of the first page wishes me good luck with my “onward journey”.

And so, onward I journey into the more specific pages. I figure Computing, a subject that I'm perfectly happy with, might be a good place to look at, just to judge if this guide is any use.

The first handy-dandy bullet point tells me that I should find out when and where my exam is. An astounding revelation. I had absolutely no intention of doing that. Thank god I read this supplement. I wonder how they can possibly top that with point number two.

Bring in a spare pen or pencil and a calculator. Leave out your mobile phone, since it's against the rules to have one. Wow. That helps. So does the advice to study, to not get stressed and to know what's in the exam.

I could go on and on about these incredibly obvious points that, for the record, appear in all the other subjects as well, and indeed in all other revision guides. Eventually, most of them get to a few example questions and simplified summaries that essentially replicate what can be found in your textbook, but on a smaller and far less useful scale.

I'm not sure exactly what these guides are supposed to accomplish. Well, they're supposed to prepare me for exams, I gathered that much. The problem is that each subject has a different writer and they all go into too many generalities, some more simplistic than others. The question I ask myself is, could I do any better? Let's find out.

Alasdair's exam tips

1. Learn the subject before the exam. Learning it afterwards has proven to be incredibly unhelpful. Indeed, in one study, 100% of 5 year-olds who tried a Higher Maths paper failed, then passed 11 years later. Leading scientists have attributed this massive change to the fact that they simply learned how to do Higher Maths in the meantime.

2. Know how to read and write. These two simple skills can come in very, very useful during exam time. Being able to read makes both studying and examining questions that much easier. Writing is an invaluable skill when answering any question. Don't think that just because you learned them in nursery school, that these core life skills can fall by the wayside with colouring in and how to make a proper sand castle in the pit.

3. Make sure that you know your own name. It's invariably something asked for in every exam paper, often very early on. Without this simple fact, you could lose all of your marks.

4. Don't be on fire. Students, having heard baseless urban legends, have often tried to do their exams while on fire in the hopes that it will make them think faster. In reality, all it does is annoy those around you as you scream in agony. Be considerate and try to imagine what you would think if it were you sitting there, trying to do calculus while the air is filled with the stench of burning flesh.

5. Remember to let blood circulate around your body. In yet another study, 9/10 deceased patients failed to complete the full exam, thus robbing them of vital marks. Further investigation led to the discovery that the one that did complete the exam had in fact faked his own death in order to avoid Danny “Finger Snapper” LeBlanc, an infamous Glaswegian loan shark. Don't let that happen to you.

6. Everything but stationary and calculators are banned from the exam room. So no, you can't bring in your rabbit's foot, your plush doll mascot or your lucky laptop.

7. Cheat, but don't get caught. And don't tell the invigilator that I told you to do it if you do get caught. I have a reputation to maintain.

Well, I hope that helped. Maybe I'll expand that list sometime. And maybe, some day, in the distant future, yesterday's woodle drawing will arrive in my inbox so that I can put it up.

Good luck with not just your onward journeys, but your sideways and backwards ones as well.