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.

From January to June

I said I was going to do something where I looked back on the year, didn't I? Well, I've got nothing better to do, I guess.


January seems like a good place to start. I expect that at that time I was still getting to grips with my new iMac, as strange as that may seem now that my Mighty Mouse feels like an extra limb. I can't remember what games and so on I would've been playing at the time. It wouldn't have been too long after the release of the Wii and my acquisition of one, so I might have still been playing Twilight Princess. I could have finished it, but I recall I was still thinking about it and discussing it as it took Sam a lot longer to do.


February brought with it my Higher prelims, in which I managed to get all As. Somehow. I do recall that English was rather close but it was the same for everyone else who got an A in my class so we just assumed it was a really hard prelim. Oh, if only we had known what was to come.

It must have been sometime in February that Skippy suggested that we start doing a blog together. I'd had various ideas and projects swirling around in my head for months by then but I was having trouble actually following through so I agreed in order to prove to myself that I could keep something like that going. We put it off until after the prelims, at which point Skippy sent me a rough draft of an introductory post. I almost completely rewrote it and then published it in late February.


My regular posting didn't start until the 1st of March, when I challenged myself to keep up daily posts on a variety of topics for exactly one year. So far, I've made a pretty good job of that, I think. Skimming over some of those posts now, they seem to be a bit more light-hearted and relaxed than what I write now. I can't be sure, although one of these days I'm going to read through everything I've written here and find out for certain how it's changed.

March was the month I went up to Edinburgh to do a Chemistry competition of some kind. I'd completely forgotten about it until I read up on it right now. I've forgotten a lot of what happened in Chemistry, since I dropped it before going into Sixth Year. English, the other subject I dropped, and a whole lot of other stuff that happened in S5 seems like the distant past now. I'm not sure why.

Oh, and it was in March that I was playing the first Phoenix Wright game as well, having borrowed it from Sam... It's still on my shelf.


April... April... what happened then? Easter holidays, I suppose, and the build-up to the exams in May. I went through my general gripes about holidays though I did concede that that particular one had been quite fun – especially the bits that didn't involve anything that holidays are generally supposed to involve. While away, I made fun of the Street Fighter movie and watched House and then when I got back I had to panic about doing holiday homework.

It's remarkable how similar all my holidays from school turn out to be.


May held the dreaded Higher exams. I can distinctly recall the day before the English exam: I spent it lying on the bed in the guest room, highlighted chunks from essays and pages of quotes lying around me and my DS in sleep mode at my side. I somehow found the mental strength to study for most of the day, occasional snatches of Final Fantasy III the only thing keeping me sane.

As far as I knew, the English exam itself went fine. That afternoon, I headed into town with Sam and Sam to pick up imported copies of the new Pokemon games. We'd planned to spend the rest of the day there but it began bucketing down so we headed back to the school, hoping it would pass while we found shelter. It eventually did but by that time Potter had already started jogging home and Stafford and I had called my mum to come and pick us up. It sounds fairly miserable but it was a fun experience.

Interestingly, I suspect it may have been that brief stint of getting caught in the rain with Stafford's infamously unreliable mobile phone my only lifeline that truly convinced me I needed a phone of my own.

The rest of the exams... I don't have such clear memories of. I recall going down to the play park near the school several times and I think that that was this year. It might have been at Standard Grade, when we also did it. Who knows? I'm slightly annoyed that the exams next year, with their greater length and my smaller classes, aren't likely to lead to a similar situation of giving up revision en masse in order to play on swings.


With exams out of the way, June was a breath of fresh air. It also seems so very long ago, when we were trapped in that strange limbo between Fifth and Sixth Year, using our old form rooms but having three study periods a day and spending half of them just lying outside on the grass. That was absolutely fantastic. I think we eventually got told to stop but I can't remember if we actually did.

Then came the end of the term and the last time I would see certain classmates and teachers. I remember Speech Day being held in a local sports hall instead of the town hall, which was being renovated. I went up to collect my prize then I just went back down to my seat to sit through the proceedings. Luck and random chance had placed me next to my two best friends so I was able to pass the time talking to them. Well, during the rehearsals and before the event itself anyway.

At the end, I suppose the departing Sixth Year would have been doing what the departing Sixth Year always do, though I can't recall seeing them directly. They would have been hugging each other and some would have been crying. For many years, I'd never really understood why – I knew they were leaving but the friends would stay in touch. Now, I think I have some better idea.

That'll be me in six months. I doubt I'll be hugging anyone or crying but I'm honestly not sure how I'll handle that final moment of school life, knowing that I'll never again share a classroom with that diverse bunch of people, some of whom I've known for most of my life. Sure, I'll keep in touch with my friends and there's a good number I'll be glad never to see again but it's those ones in between that just sort of make up the background of my life without being close...

I'm not quite sure how to express it. I hope I'll have found a way in six months time. Even if the challenge I started in March has come to a close, I'll still keep putting my thoughts up here and, well, there'll be a lot of stuff going on then that'll give me some interesting thoughts.


And that's half of the year done in over 1200 words. Tomorrow, I'll do the other half and then New Year's Eve will give me some time for reflection and resolutions.


You know what? I feel good. I'll leave it to you to imagine why.

Icosahedrons Rock!

Today being the first of September, this morning I casually flipped over my wall calendar from August, read the Dilbert comics for this new month and went about the rest of my day. Then I glanced up and noticed that on September 1st, today, some asshole had written “TWT 1/2” in permanent marker.

Honestly, who would do that, going around and vandalising someone else's perfectly good calendar? And what does “TWT 1/2” mean anyway? Is it some kind of crazy spin-off blog, following the adventures of Skippy after he's afflicted with a curse that turns him into a girl when he gets cold water on him*?

Well, no. Fortunately for us (and possibly him but he's Australian, so who knows), Skippy won't be getting involved in any gender-swapping love icosahedrons here at TWToday. Maybe he thinks he can get away with that kind of nonsense at the MacTake but not here!

I forget where I was going with this, so I'll cut to the chase. I was the one with the permanent marker and I made that note some time ago to remind myself that today marks the halfway point for challenge.exe (that's the thing where I do a post a day. No, I don't know why I called it that either) and also TWToday's half-birthday.

So now seems an appropriate time to look back on how things have changed here in this little vertex of the interwebs. I wouldn't say that the blog has evolved, since it's all technically the same generation and thus evolution, from the strictly scientific standpoint, doesn't come into play. It's more like it's matured, like a fine wine, or grown, like moss.

Features have come, disappeared for short periods of time, then occasionally come back again (I still have to do tonight's woodle don't I?) but each night I've had something written, even if it doesn't get put up immediately, owing to technical problems. Since I'm the one setting this challenge, I deem that to be perfectly acceptable and within the rules. And no, you can't see the rules. They're a secret.

Anyway, it makes me realise that I really need to do more with this blog, rather than just punching out some inane nonsense each day. I mean, today has effectively just been me saying that I've done this on many other days and that's pretty useless. So, I'll go get to work on tonight's woodle and try writing some more stuff, like a comedy sketch and my “fiction-that-still-needs-a-title” (a sane person would have said “as-yet untitled fiction”), tomorrow.

As well as doing more Visual BASIC. Assuming that I can comprehend the notes this time. And that the laptop I'm doing it on doesn't decide go BSOD again. Which it does any time I try to use the wi-fi adaptor after it's been in sleep mode. It's like clockwork... loud, clunky and useless for complex tasks.

Just because I can, here's an icosahedron. Thank you, Wikimedia Commons! And, on an unrelated note, why does Firefox's spell checker recognise "icosahedron" but not "icosahedrons"? Am I missing out on some sort of Maths grammar thing here?





*Irrelevant Ranma ½ reference FTW!!!**

**Irrelevant footnote FTW!!!

What to do, what to do

I'm still here and still eBaying. I still haven't done last Saturday's woodle, I promise I'll do it tomorrow when my wrists stop hurting like hell.


I had a topic for today but I've just realised that it really isn't a very good one. That made me realise just how few topical posts I'm doing lately. I've kind of gone into "diary" mode where, amidst a little bit of philosophy and humour, I'm setting down interesting events and thoughts that occur in my daily life. This has no real use to anyone, save a young historian in the 27th century who's doing his thesis on "Boring Geeks in the Early 21st Century". I wish him the best of luck.

But that doesn't really solve my problem of how I can do some more creative stuff with this blog. I say "more" but I'm not convinced that I've done anything creative yet. That's probably something I should work on, along with many other things. In fact, let's do a list.


Alasdair's TWTo Do list

1. Fewer bad puns
2. Get scheduled posts done on time
3. Do posts earlier in the day (dual advantage of being awake and not being able to talk just about the days events)
4. Re-read a lot of the earlier posts to see what I like and what I don't
5. Try writing some fiction stuff, it's not like anybody reads it
6. Kick Skippy until he gets off his ass and starts posting both here and at the MacTake
7. Have some better topics ready and roughly planned out
8. Don't do anymore rubbish cop-out posts, like this one
9. Get some more frikkin' sleep! (Not entirely blog related, but good advice all the same)


There you have it. Alasdair's plan for improving his blog in 10 easy steps, give or take. We'll see how that goes, I guess. A phrase the general sentiment of which I use far too often. Oh, well. I guess that if no interesting things happen I can always try to make them happen. It might spoil that guy's chances of getting his doctorate but he sounds like a bit of a tosser anyway, so I don't care.

Ah, I forgot to list options for the title

Hey, 150 posts on TWToday. 111 of them mine, not counting my woodles. I feel rather proud.

I can't be bothered doing some post about time or achievements or whatever, though it does seem like only yesterday that I started this little venture, so I'll run down my little mental checklist for my nightly blogging session.

Regular posts

Woodle

• No

NWT

• No

Great Slipper Experiment

• On hold

Possible types of post

Anniversary

• Already ruled out on account of being pointless and boring

Notes

• Not much to say unless I use topics that I want to expand on later
  

Topical

• Could mention intelligent design, due to a speech a friend of mine gave
• Discuss Manhunt 2 banning in the UK and resulting media frenzy? (Note: predict appearance of Jack Thompson within 48 hours)
  

Personal

• No, I'm still too boring

Site recommendations

• Not reading anything new, Pre-Order Pushers seems to have stopped posting

Crappy post

• Looking better and better as time goes by

Purely humorous

• Some ideas, too tired to elaborate on them at this time

Badly formatted list of stuff I didn't do

• Bingo!

Possible excuses

Studying for upcoming Maths test

• Plausible but false, even if it shouldn't be

Lack of sleep

• Unfortunately true, but overused

Blame Skippy

• The best course of action in so many situations

Claim it's fine and ignore any complaints

• Another winner, methinks!

Thus concludes this wonderfully written (and formatted) little jaunt into how my mind works when blogging. Once again, I've spent a bit too much time playing Advance Wars between the start and end of this post, so I'm just going to be done with it. By which I mean copy it into Blogger and doubtless screw up all the formatting (damn you, Blogger, why don't you just play nice with tabs?), add bold, italics, etc., put in the various links that you may or may not have clicked above and then spell check everything.

Then I start regretting that I didn't go into further detail about the Manhunt 2 ratings/ban debacle. Well, that's a topic for another day. Maybe tomorrow, if I'm not too tired after studying for that Maths test on Thursday.

Wacky, Wacky Web

The kind of stuff that happens on the internet never ceases to amaze me. People form communities, create stuff, destroy stuff, riot over stuff. In a world of hype and advertising, the internet is a true meritocracy where that which is worthy can flourish and reach an audience and that which is crap is relegated to pop-ups and press releases. And mockery.

However, that's not quite what happened here.

As I mentioned in yesterday's recap of the whole thing, Skippy posted about some phone scam back in April. Now, this isn't the kind of stuff we usually cover and I'm not sure why Skippy put it up here. But who knows why Skippy does anything. Not me and certainly not him, that's for sure. It seems that we now show up on Google searches for the scam number and we've been receiving comments about it on the original post by people who found the site that way. Presumably, they promptly left again and forgot all about it.

Now, we could have spent money on advertising or time on networking with other blogs or effort on our actual posts, but we didn't. And now we get incoming visitors thanks to a random mobile phone scam.

It's a funny old web.




Oh, and just to lengthen this post a bit (note my incredible use of over-spacing above, a technique I mastered in the olden days when essays just had to be a certain number of pages), Sam just sent me the link to this YouTube video. I don't think I've ever watched a full Yu-Gi-Oh episode in my life, but that's one funny video.