I don't have time to think of a title relating time pressure and Guitar Hero!

I've said before, I believe, that I enjoy working under pressure. This goes some way towards explaining why I've only just begun to type tonight's post at twenty to midnight. It also factors into the tale I'm about to tell you, concerning a particular event, and the series of further events that it sparked off, which occurred during my school day today.

The latest craze in the common room is Guitar Hero III on my friend Joss's Xbox 360. Now, I've nothing against Guitar Hero – I haven't played it very much but by all accounts it's a good series and I was considering getting either it or the related game Rock Band for my birthday. Guitar Hero is of course a music rhythm game, based primarily around rock songs.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of said genre but I do find it annoying when it's constantly being played, often badly, throughout the entire day – something made worse by the limited selection of people's favourite songs. But, nevertheless, it gets played all day.

Anyone familiar with 360s and their design flaws has now no doubt realised what happened not long after lunch today.

We first assumed and hoped that the 360 had simply overheated and that unplugging it and leaving next to an open window would solve the problem. Everyone, their entertainment taken from them, began to filter out of the room, save for a few of us, three to be precise – myself, Sam Potter and a girl called Philippa.

We decided after a time, when the console had evidently cooled down, to try it again. No luck. The Red Ring of Death was still present, mocking us with it's glowing... red ring-ness.

Our first plan of attack was to panic lightly as we tried to think of what to do. Sam and Philippa took turns pressing the power button in the hope that it would fix itself and I decided to pace up and down, occasionally yelling randomly.

We tried various different tactics – hitting it, turning it on and off again, hitting it harder, drawing a poor facsimile on the wall behind it to try and convince Joss it was the real one. The best plan we could come up with was telling him that it was stolen. In broad daylight. By Batman. Who broke it.

I considered trying the “towel” fix – wrapping it up to overheat it further and let the components, distorted by the heat, fall back into place for a short time. It wasn't until Sam Stafford got there that we actually plucked up the courage to try it. We used our blazers and had Stafford sit on it to make it warmer still.

After another half hour or so, we unwrapped it to find only two red lights instead of the three that show a fatal system error. Our joy was short-lived as it quickly returned to where it had been before. We knew we had a problem on our hands as the day was ending and one of us would have to explain what happened. I somehow drew the short straw.

The whole explanation, withheld until he was above me on the stairs and we were heading in opposite directions (me at great speed), took about five seconds and I ran out of there.

To be honest, we knew he wouldn't mind and he didn't. I can't say why but the whole ludicrous exaggeration of the situation made it an awful lot of fun.

I may go on more tomorrow but I've only got five minutes to publish this online so I'll have to stop for now. Still, I've managed over 600 words in fifteen minutes. Not too bad.

Right, nothing more that I can say until tomorrow. Sorry for the rushed post which may or may not be funny. I don't have time for a quality check.

Have a nice day.

Trade Fairs and Toothbrushes

I've seen CSI get a lot of stuff wrong but I don't quite know how the visual effects guys managed to screw up how contrast works.


My wound is definitely healing a bit now. I'm finding it easier to walk and the new bandage isn't nearly as complex or as large as the previous one. I'm still in bad enough shape to get out of doing any kind of heavy lifting in preparation for the school's Christmas trade fair. Actually, I don't think I even have to help out at all; I'm certainly not hanging around after school until it starts like the rest of my class.

My mum and my sister are heading along anyway so I figure I'll go along (in my own clothes rather than school uniform, so that I can just blend into the crowd if I see any teachers looking like they want helpers) and give a hand to my friends who are running the video games room. They've apparently had a lot of “volunteers” for that section but since they are trying to make money, they're going to have to turn most of them away. Still, they actually asked me to help out so I figure I should do what I can.

I'm also kind of screwed in that I haven't done a rather large chunk of Physics homework. In my defence, I didn't actually have the necessary sheet but I feel like I probably should have noticed that before tonight.

Not much I can do now.


I've got something I'd like to show you tonight. What do you reckon this is?


That's right, it's a toothbrush. Above it is the Apple Remote that I couldn't be bothered moving off my desk, but that isn't really important for the matter at hand.

Now, what do you reckon this is?


It, too, is a toothbrush. My new electric toothbrush, to be precise.

As you can see, it comes with a wide assortment of gadgets and gizmos, some of which wouldn't look out of place on the Starship Enterprise. In the centre are the various heads that can be attached – the ones on the right look semi-sensible, aside from the one in the top left-hand corner, which seems to be for people with... I have no idea. Probably useful for the Enterprise's dental hygienist to have all the same, given the number of different species onboard.

The heads to the left seem to be required for either flossing, scraping or detecting the tachyon signatures of cloaked Romulan ships. Then to the right, past the first set of heads, is some kind of strange and tiny comb that looks a bit like a stylised Blooper from the Mario games.

My personal favourite part is the “number pad” on the far left. Each of those numbers is a sticker which, as the diagram shows, you are meant to affix to the front of the holder. You should pick the number that represents the month three months from now, which is the time after which you're supposed to choose a new head. Never mind that those things last way longer than that and that such a system couldn't possibly work for more than a year with the stickers provided. You get free stickers!

Woo!


Anyway, I need to get up early tomorrow to pack some gaming gear as well as do my usual morning wound washing routine, so I'm off to bed.

Have a nice day.

Not the Title I Wanted

(Note: this was actually my second choice for yesterday's post topic and was partially written last night. I like it and I'm lazy so I've just changed the odd “today” to “yesterday” and gone with it. Also, I wanted to title this post “Yesterday's Enterprise Blog Post” but I can't do formatting on the titles. Truly, a great loss to the world.)


Yesterday was the last day before the school's half-term break. This also means that it was inter-house activities day, a day on which house captains wander around the school, pleading with you to make up the numbers for senior rugby and show pride in the house you were randomly assigned to when you first came to the school. At some point, sports of various different kinds are played.

This is not something that I enjoy. Fortunately, I've worked long and hard at cultivating a reputation as an unsociable and lazy jerk who hates sports in all its forms, so I'm never asked to do anything anymore. All I had to do yesterday, activities-wise, was the inter-house quiz. Which we won and which I provided numerous answers for. While trying to convince various S3-4 brats to shut up so we could here the damn questions.

First period was Computing. Registration in the morning finished a good few minutes early, so I just went up to the common room and played a friend at some variant of Street Fighter II. Managed to KO her right as the bell rang, too.

After that, I had second free and then the quiz. The real fun started after lunch, when the debating was held.

Debating at school is often fairly unbalanced. I always feel sorry for the poor bastard who has to stand up there and champion the right of the government to kick down your door and shoot your dog because you gave a civil servant a funny look. And, of course, we all have to sit on the floor for what is often the better part of two hours.

For some bizarre reason, Sam Potter, a friend of mine, had volunteered to be the questioner for our house and so, when he spilled something on his shirt, he obviously needed a replacement. Since this happened at lunch, right before debating, he needed it fast. He ended up taking mine and I ended up wearing an old t-shirt of his that he happened to have handy.

While I did have a perfectly reasonable and legitimate excuse for wearing it, I didn't particularly want to go out into the school and have to keep explaining it to everybody, so I began to consider simply staying in the common room rather than going to the debating. Skippy (I always say this, but you do remember that Skippy is technically the co-writer of this blog, right?) hadn't wanted to go either and wanted to go into town. I didn't really want to go into town and was a bit apprehensive about dodging the debating but when the time came, we just stayed upstairs when everyone else went to register.

When no one came to get us after ten minutes or so, we realized that no one was really going to and started to relax slightly. And by “relax slightly”, I mean “remember that another friend had brought in his Xbox 360 in anticipation of taking it to a LAN at somebody else's house”. Naturally, we located this fellow's bag, took out the 360, hooked it up to the good TV and played Halo 3 co-op for an hour.

A few people came in during that time but it was only a few members of our class who had done their bit at the debating and decided to take a break to get something to eat. Once it was over and everyone started to filter back in, a few people were surprised that we hadn't gone and most were fairly amused. One person in particular was more annoyed than surprised but, then, we had stolen his Xbox.

Technically, we were supposed to go to our class for last period but no one had there stuff because the debating was supposed to take longer and nobody wanted to go anyway, because we're Sixth Years and it was a class. So we stayed in the common room and had a generally pretty good time, playing Mario Kart and making jokes. One line of mine I feel I must relate, because I'm extremely egotistical. Sam Potter, who was a member of a team and so got a chair at the debating, mockingly asked everyone what it was like sitting on the floor. I replied that I didn't know, since I had been sitting on a sofa.


And that was my day yesterday. I have no idea why I felt the need to write about that. It might have made marginally more sense if I'd actually finished it yesterday, but even then it would have been pretty useless. I guess the point is that I really like days like that, right before the holidays when everyone is relaxed and I can get out of sports, sitting on a wooden floor for an hour and Physics last lesson on a Friday.

A few other notes, before I post this and go to bed at a sensible time so that I don't end up getting out of bed at noon again.

I haven't managed to post a woodle so far today. I may resort to a Stick Guys later or tomorrow, if I can't find the images I need to do a little edited thing.

Another day goes by without an update to Corbett's Fiction. I definitely intend to build up a buffer tomorrow and try to have regular updates starting from Monday. I know, I know, I said that last week. But this is a holiday, at least, so I should have the time.

I finally got round to playing MySims today, having been meaning to since last Saturday when Erin got it. It takes you a little while to get used to the building and design controls, but once you do, you realise just how powerful they can be. I also like how the character creation stuff has been greatly simplified. There's still room for variation, you just don't have to worry about the exact angle at which your Sim's chin meets their neck. I may even post a review of it on here.

Or do a review of it on the VersusCOM podcast, which shall rise from the grave at some point during these holidays. I have declared it, so it must be so.


That's all folks. I'm off to bed. Right after I read some more of the Agony Booth recap of Hudson Hawk.

School and Stupidity

Nothing quite says “Sixth Year” like a 96-match, winner-stays-on, 4-hour continuous game of Street Fighter II. People are bringing in more advanced consoles (note avoidance of the word “better”) than the SNES tomorrow, along with plenty of TVs.

You may remember that a few days ago, I mentioned I had fallen out of the habit of playing video games over the summer. I also speculated that this was because I consider gaming very much a social activity and that I'd probably get back into it once I got back to school.

As you may have guessed, I was right. After having been humiliated by failing miserably at SNES Tetris (the principles are remarkably different from Tetris DS, particularly screen width, drop rate and the lack of a hold ability) and holding my own in Street Fighter, I came home determined to practice all night if I had to. Which I did, more or less. I still intend to play some Final Fantasy III tonight, since a girl is beating me at it. That may sound ridiculously juvenile, but this is the internet. Everything sounds like that.

So, with all this gaming and schoolwork and such, I haven't actually had much of a chance to think about TWToday and what to write for it. I may try to get something written tomorrow, though what I could really do with is some easier access to a computer. The only one currently available at school, without trekking round classrooms begging, is stuck in the corner of the Sixth Year kitchen, its speakers having been appropriated for various iPods.

Still, I might be able to get it done if we can get into the quieter room (read: room without blaring crappy pop music). It would be even quieter still if we could shut the door. Well, we can technically do that already but we just can't get it open again, owing to a distinct lack of handle.

I know I seem to be doing a lot of complaining (which may be why you read this, whoever you are, but I don't like it being why I write) about the Common Room and school but there are a significant number of people in it whom I despise. Why, you ask? Simple. Many of them are imbeciles with juvenile senses of humour and no perception of reality.

How can I prove this? Why, a tale by firelight, of course. Monitor backlights also work.

A bit of background. The school I go to has a house system. The four houses are Nightingale, Montgomery, Churchill and Curie. Obviously, these are all named after various famous people.

When my friends and I were sitting playing Street Fighter today, we clearly overheard a rather (unintentionally) amusing conversation going on behind us. A girl we'll call “K” (later edit: not that I'll ever actually call her that again) comes in, squeeling merrily in the fashion that girls such as her do when they encounter others of their kind. She then states, in a clear and loud voice, completely unaware of the stupidity of it:

“I just found out that Montgomery isn't named after Colin Montgomerie!”

...

That sound you can hear is one of Britain's greatest military officers spinning in his grave.

What makes it even worse is the fact that several other piped up to not knowing that either. They then struggled to recall who it was actually named for (they got as far as some guy named “Montgomery”). This isn't even getting to the fact that the two men spell their names differently.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of shit that we have to put up with until we finally rise up and establish a ruling council of intellectual elites.

Unless you just went to Wikipedia to look up “Montgomery”, in which case you'll be cleaning toilets.

TWTurnip

Pliny the Elder once said that he considered turnips one of the most important vegetables in the world, ranking it "directly after cereals or at all events after the bean, since its utility surpasses that of any other plant." Of course, he said it in Latin, because he was Roman. And old.

He also thought that it was a great cure for famine, as are all foods, I suppose. In ancient Persia, turnips were long believed to be a cure for the common cold, and elsewhere, particularly in the British Isles, they were carved into lanterns before the popularity of pumpkins. This is in addition to their use as a foodstuff in many areas of the world.

Cultivation of turnips is believed to have started as early as 1500 BC, possibly before, as evidence shows that farmers in India were growing wild forms of the vegetable for the oil in its seeds. Other evidence point to it being grown in neolithic times, probably in the regions of West Asia and Europe, where wild relatives still grow today. However, there are no concrete facts pointing to the exact time period in which they were first domesticated.

Turnips have proved popular throughout history, and still are popular today, for various reasons. The Household Cyclopedia (1881) informs us why, via Wikipedia:

"The benefits derived from turnip husbandry are of great magnitude; light soils are cultivated with profit and facility; abundance of food is provided for man and beast; the earth is turned to the uses for which it is physically calculated, and by being suitably cleaned with this preparatory crop, a bed is provided for grass seeds, wherein they flourish and prosper with greater vigor than after any other preparation."

The robust nature of turnips, both in and out of the ground, have made them favourable in harsher climates, where they can be planted even in extremely poor soil and stored for many months after harvest, providing nourishment for people and animals. Humans tend to eat the smaller, more tender varieties while the larger varieties are grown specifically for livestock.

As of 2005, China was the largest producer of turnips in the world, before Russia and the USA. China was responsible for one third of the total global turnip output for that year.


Well, I did say I wasn't joking about the turnip thing. It's actually a fascinating subject but, alack and alas, I have run out of material to plagiarise from the Wikipedia article. So I'll just point you towards some of the Optimus Prime tribute videos (the first two are music ones and the latter two are more humourous) that I stayed up watching till about 1am yesterday. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Also Bumblebee. Made out of paper.

And, just because I can, this picture of a big ol' spider that we spotted scampering around its web outside the kitchen window. I couldn't get any pictures of it rapidly devouring a fly later in the evening because the camera was charging but I doubt that still images could have done it justice anyway. Nature is at its most beautiful while eating the rest of nature, as a (bad) poet might put it.

More shots here, because I'm addicted to using Picasa.


Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode on the Great Turnip Uprising of 1852.

Hey, I got to the end of a post on turnips without mentioning Baldrick. I wonder how that happened.

Captain's Blog 2: The Wrath of Spanners

Another day, another crazy email from Sam. Tested some of that retro bundle that I got yesterday; the Acorn Electron seems to work, though it would be better if I could get my old TV to tune to it properly.

I bought a load of Doctor Who books while in Glasgow this morning. Nothing particularly interesting but Erin spent most of the last few days memorising the TV series companions in chronological order and almost wept when she realised that there were others in the expanded universe.

Speaking of science fiction...


Begin recording.

"Captain's blog for today. We're still in orbit around Z138-Delta, awaiting a response to our report of high mineral content in the local asteroid belt. On the basis that, bureaucracy being what it is, we're probably going to be here for a while, I've sent Commander Darrell down to the planets surface with a scouting party to investigate a series of ruins on a southern subcontinent. We think that they might be the remains of an Sh'ladon colony, judging from the architecture. Since it's something of a hobby for Lieutenant Harper, I've allowed him to go down with Darrell and the red shirts to see what they can study.

Spanners is still out in the asteroid belt with shuttle 5. When last contacted, he was doing a space walk with a hammer and chisel to extract a sample from a large 'roid. That was... 12-ish hours ago. I've sent shuttle 4 with Science Officer Mendel to back him up in the unlikely event that he completely fouls up his ridiculous little jaunt. I've told Mendel not to hurry since if he is drifting he's got plenty of oxygen and time to contemplate his actions.

Ensign Tarvek is temporarily in command of Engineering. I'm not sure why Spanners assigned such a junior officer but he tells me that it was because she's "damned good at Monopoly, for such a young lass". I decided not to pry further for the sake of my sanity. That said, everything down in the bowels seems to be running smoothly.

With the exception of that pipe under my quarters. It has ceased to drip now but whatever was running through it apparently goes bad, judging from the smell. I've had Minx run a scan and it appears to be non-toxic, thus leaving why it set off the automatic alarms something of a mystery. Ensign Tarvek says she'll have it looked into as soon as she can contact Spanners and get the access codes for the air recyc. system. In the meantime, I'm sleeping in the corridor. It's rather undignified but it was either that or open the doors and vent the deck.

I think that about wraps it up...

Oh, other than following up that thievery report. I've been keeping track of what things have been going missing and where. It seems it started after that visit to Tarsus Station. I'm cross-referencing with shore leave and baggage reports... which is taking a while since Minx is in a huff. I don't understand precisely why but then I'm just the captain, why should anyone explain things to me?

I don't know why I bother."

Recording terminated.


Some more from the Captain and his crew there. I'm going to stick this up now, since I'm running out of time and ideas.

As a last minute link, anyone who's swallowed something toxic and needs to vomit should take a look at this video. Pre-teen Lara Croft... it's unholy.

And the 150th post by Alasdair is... about The Simpsons.

I'm currently waiting for my Simpsonized self to appear while Sam and Erin do a crossword on my bed. Well, the crossword's not actually written on my bed but they're sitting there while doing a book full of them.


It's a bit later now. Erin's gone to bed (a wise decision) and Sam is through next door, trying to run some kind of program that he just made up on my Amstrad. For my part, I've been fiddling around with Linus; I seem to have successfully installed aMSN but it requires something else (TSL, in order to use SSL, I think...L) before it will connect. I need to learn how to install stuff from tarballs. *Eyes Linux for Dummies book that he keeps forgetting about/his ego won't allow him to consult*.

I think we've invented a new game today which involves some charades and all the companions from Doctor Who. I may put up videos if I ever buy this camcorder.


I don't have much to say today, nothing deep, anyway, so I leave you with some humour. On the left, reality; on the right, what simpsonizeme.com thinks we look like. (Behind us is a purple towel that we held up to make the background less cluttered, not that it really matters.)

Sam: Somehow, he looks more normal as a Simpson.



Erin: Erin was the only one who actually edited hers after it was taken, presumably removing her glasses and making it look more like her.

Me: I shouldn't have specified that I had "scruff" for facial hair. Other than that, it's not too bad, other than looking almost nothing like me.

I'll probably do a short review of The Simpsons Movie tomorrow, depending on what I think of it. Gotta wrap this up because Sam is gibbering in my ear about SCSI hard drives and I can't concentrate. Hope the layout format of those images works because I'm not changing it now. (Note: it didn't and now I've had to fire up my laptop to edit them; anyone know some good freeware Mac image editing software?)

Another comedy sketch, but does he have a woodle for tomorrow?

I am a glutton for information, particularly behind the scenes stuff. It's even better if that information happens to be about my favourite industry, the video game industry. I can't recall if I mentioned it here but I was a big fan of Game Trailers' Zelda Retrospective series. The same guy is now doing one on Final Fantasy and one on Metroid. I found the Final Fantasy episodes a bit more interesting but I suppose I knew more about Metroid to begin with. Both highly recommended.

I also suggest that you take a while to watch the embedded video here, showing a presentation made by Will Wright (half-genius video game developer, half-machine) talking about his upcoming title Spore. I really want that game. And I really liked seeing how Wright thought about it and views it. Fascinating stuff.


I've done practically nothing today so I've nothing much to write about. I'm trying to get a camcorder of some sort so that I can record some of these sketches that I write (and hopefully encourage myself to do more writing), maybe as part of a VersusCOM comedy thing, a spin-off of the (currently comatose) podcast.

Anyway, I had an idea for a quick skit a few minutes ago, so here it is.


[A man is standing in front of a whiteboard. The whiteboard is mostly blank except for a few half-erased notes and doodles, some photos stuck to one side and a few other minor items along the edges]

Man: We here at VersusCOM are keen to take advantage of new technologies. As such, we're implementing a new technique called "white screen" technology or CSO, Crap Separation Overlay. What you see behind me is a blank white screen that, through the magic of technology, can make me appear almost anywhere. Such as Paris.

[There is a quick cut and then the board has a crudely drawn picture of the Eiffel Tower on it]

Man: Tokyo.

[The board has an image of Godzilla and a UFO destroying a skyscraper while out of proportion anime characters look on. Parts of the hastily erased Eiffel Tower are still visible]

Man: Outer space.

[A hand holding a pen quickly pulls out of shot after having scribbled the whiteboard mostly black, leaving a few dots for stars]

Man: Or even Antarctica.

[The board is plain white]


Would probably take a while to film but given the obvious poorness of it anyway, we wouldn't need to worry about being in the same position after the cut. Hmmm.... ("he says, looking at the whiteboard to his right.").

Did you know that if you do a full stop, speech marks and then close brackets before the end of a sentence it looks like a bizarrely mauled smiley? It does."). I think that thing's broken my brain.


Alternative opening lines included "We here at VersusCOM are keen to take advantage of...
...loopholes in copyright law."
...drunken women."
...cheap labour in third world countries."
...the space in our home, using the new range of folding furniture from IKEA."

Captain's Blog

It occurs to me that for about the first four hours after I get out of bed (and thus the first six hours after I wake up), I am a useless shambling wreck.


I've just watched Hyperdrive (not a bad show, could be better but has potential and some good moments) so I've decided to have a shot at writing some sci-fi humour of my own for half an hour.


Begin recording.

"Captain's blog for Tuesday the... oh, why do I bother dating these things? It's all timestamped on the index file anyway. Uh, where was I?

Ah, yes. Nothing very much happening today, just the usual interstellar dust clouds amongst vast, bleak emptiness. Commander Darrell requested that we alter our heading to rendezvous with a proto-star system so that he can get some photos for his little niece's school science project. He showed me some pictures of her, lovely little girl. Talented too, according to Darrell, though even he admits he's biased. Heh.

It's a few light years of course but we've got standing orders to investigate scientific phenomenon and nothing much better to do so I've had Minx adjust the ship's heading. ETA is... well, it was 16 hours at... and that was what? Hour and a half... no, two and a... ummm... I was never any good at time.

We should get there sometime tomorrow, is the important point.

Ensign Tarvek is still settling into Engineering. Spanners says she'll be fine after a few days getting to know where everything goes and who everyone is. Poor girl seems a little shy. Spanner's jury-rigged systems probably aren't helping much, they take a bit of getting used to. Doc tells me that it was only a minor electrical burn but Spanners is reluctant to tell me why reactor output has been routed through the data ports. See their individual reports for details, if you must know more.

That reminds me, I need to get one of Spanners' maintenance monkeys to fix that coolant pipe running beneath my quarters. Damn thing won't stop dripping. I've asked twice but it'd be faster if I just trained actual monkeys in spaceship mechanics. I've a good mind to pry up the floorboards myself and fix it myself but I can't find my wrench.

Which leads me to the spate of petty thievery onboard. I have some suspicions as to who's doing it but I don't want official records until I'm certain. Trying to nail it down but someone's taken my hammer, too. Heh.

What else...

Oh! That new safety video from Fleet Command arrived. Scheduled a showing in the mess hall on Thursday evening, should be able to catch most people. I'll have Minx shut down the auto-chefs in the crew's quarters, they'll have to show up. They'll hate it but the regs say that they have to be warned about... where is it... ah, The Many Dangers of Low Gravity Snooker. High Command really are getting desperate, aren't they?

Command input: delete previous sentence.... no that's not it.... Computer, erase previous statement... no, I mean the last three statements. Four!

Oh, nuts to it, nobody listens to these things anyway. Might give a 37th century archaeologist a laugh if we fall into that proto-star and the black box datacore survives.

End blog. Cease. Desist. Cancel. Exit program. Come on, one of these must work. Bloody Spanners and his firmware updates... I don't know why I bother..."

Recording Terminated.

"Cute, Spanners. Real cute."


A slice of space-life with the Captain there. Might develop this a bit further, since I've had some interesting ideas while writing it. Interestingly, it has taken about half an hour, as I predicted.


In other news, does anyone know what causes a problem with Skype that ends calls after 5-8 minutes? Might be to do with the contention ratio of my ISP, which I suspect is rather high. I've been thinking of changing it for a while but no one wants to hear it. Meh.

This sort of thing normally sorts itself out.

Is this the way to Resident Evil?

Good luck is: finding the charging cable for your wireless headphones lying on the floor
Bad luck is: losing your wireless headphones.

I'm sure they'll turn up.


I wouldn't say that today's NES disassembly experiment went off without a hitch but Sam and I are confident that, now we're a touch more familiar with the basics, we can repair the remaining five or so and turn a profit for them on eBay. Other than that, the day was spent doing crosswords, kicking ass at Wii Play and lying on hammocks. Boy, do we sure know how to have fun.

I finally uploaded that old video I've been mentioning for a while. Here's the YouTube version, which I think works at a reasonable quality.




I can't remember exactly what made me do this. It was about two years ago, probably not long after E3 where I saw this Resi 4 trailer, and when the Comic Relief version of Amarillo was still fairly recent

The two just sort of came together in my head and I started fiddling around with Windows Movie Maker and the above is the result. I didn't really do much editing; I had to cut the song off a bit early and I think I moved the title from the end to the beginning. I only yesterday added a brief credits bit to the end but other than those things, any cool synchronising of music and video is sheer coincidence incredible skill.

It's kind of a cop-out from making a real post but Erin's been bugging me to put it on the internet since I made it and I'm kind of proud that I finally got round to it after two years. I suspect it will now replace Bill Bailey's Love Song as the Flash thing on her Bebo page.

For my next trick, I shall require a Halo 3 trailer and a copy of The Smurf's Christmas Party.

"Boy writes blog" says Shocking New Government Report

There's something of a tradition in our family that whenever a bunch of us happen to be in the same room and there's a new programme on TV, we are obligated to mock it to the best of our abilities. Well, except for my mother who generally tries to make us be quiet by yelling at us loudly after we open our mouths. But that's a different story.

Tonight's edition of the Channel 4 news gave us some real opportunities. The first story concerned recent flooding in England, focusing particularly on a small village which had been hit particularly badly. Now, flooding is a serious problem and presents a large number of hazards, not to mention the loss of property, damage to homes and huge problems incurred by families that have to evacuate. I understand that. Channel 4 apparently doesn't, making a point of mentioning that some gerbils had been saved from a local pet shop, thus making everything better. After the piece, viewers were asked to send in videos and photos of flooding in their areas. Way to save on cameramen and travel expenses, guys.

But that's just the beginning and the end. The best bits, as with a sandwich, were in the middle. The presenter, standing on a bridge above an overflowing river, noted that the bridge was out of use for fear that it might collapse after a caravan smacked into while being swept downstream. Beneath the bridge, we were given shots of gas canisters from the caravan site being lodged at the base briefly before being swept along.

We suspected that the producer was secretly hoping that one of these would explode as the crew were on the bridge, thus securing him an award of some kind.

The presenter, having explained that she was a suicidal nut, told us that the army had been called into the area to assist in securing the bridge. Why we couldn't see them at all is anybody's guess. Maybe it was a one way bridge and the they were all at the end behind the camera.

Or maybe the army weren't securing the bridge at all. Maybe they were busy flying helicopters to rescue people. Yes, that's what they were doing, struggling against strong winds that had apparently started to plague them recently. Strong, magic winds that only affect low-flying helicopters, not trees, such as the large group of tall, and perfectly stationary, ones that were clearly visible in the background.


The other two stories of note definitely said something about the modern media's attitude to what constitutes news. Two people got hit by golf balls during a tournament today, a fact I happened to catch the aftermath of both events. Ignoring the more serious injury, the focus (indeed, it was the only accident even mentioned) was upon the woman who was hit by Tiger Woods, the golfer that people who don't know golf know.

The second minor story concerned a British racing driver, Lewis Hamilton, who had been in a high speed crash. We saw footage of the crash, a video of him wriggling his toes from his POV camera immediately afterwards and everything indicated that he had no serious injuries and was fully conscious the whole time.

Why is this even news?

Crashes are surprisingly common in a sport that involves hurtling very fast cars around very tight tracks for hours on end. The fact that he wasn't hurt is good news in one sense, but it isn't actually news. What kind of headline would it produce? "Man Completely Healthy"? "Nothing is Wrong with Racing Driver"? "Nothing to Read About Here"?

Still, he was English and winning at something, which makes him newsworthy. And anything that's newsworthy is an acceptable target for Corbett mockery. (BBC article about the crash)


I really didn't expect this post to be so long. Ah, well. Nobody's going to read it, I imagine, since everyboody who can read is totally engrossed in the new Harry Potter book. According to the news.

I think I'm growing a beard.

Can you imagine what it would be like to play Cluedo with Sherlock Holmes? You'd just sit down, set everything up and then he'd immediately announce who had done it, what you had for breakfast and that your girlfriend is having an affair with a chartered accountant from Chichester.

Poirot would be worse, I suppose. Twiddling his moustache and speaking in broken English so that nobody understands him. Any of the CSI lead characters would be worse still, constantly doing one-liners and trying to spray the little dagger with glow-in-the-dark magic blood-detecting Dettol.

Picture the scene: our heroes are having a simple game of Cluedo. With Horatio Cain from CSI:Miami.


Player 1: I suggest it was Colonel Mustard, in the drawing room with the revolver.

Cain: Sounds like someone [puts on sunglasses] drew a revolver on the good Colonel.

Player 1: That's not what a drawing room is for. Can you disprove it or not?

Cain: Not yet, but I know you're lying. [takes off sunglasses] The evidence will tell us all we need to know.

Player 2: Uh... right. Miss Scarlet, in the billiard room with the candlestick.

Cain: As the old saying goes, [takes off sunglasses having put them on while no one was looking] you can't play billiards with a candlestick.

Player 2: ...

Player 1: What the hell?


I've never actually played Cluedo, with or without fictional characters. I haven't watched CSI in ages either but now I'm inspired to, merely so I can mock it. Not Miami though. I lost interest in that show after I saw the episode where a tidal wave or something is used in a robbery and the whole thing ends with the chief scientist (and I, along with the CSI production staff, use the term loosely) driving through an exploding building in a Hummer trying to rescue a hostage who's been put there because... I can't remember if there was a reason.


That's all I've got for today. Tomorrow, I'll tell you why it's a bad idea to play Monopoly with... I can't think of a fictional character who's renowned for business skill. Ideas, people? Also, ideas for New Word Thursday would help since Skippy seems to have dropped it. He's busy redefining the paradigm of the Intertubes or something.


Corbett's log, additional: I just got an email from Skippy saying that his iMac has died, "literally". While the apparent misuse of "literally" bugs me, this could be a major problem for various reasons. I'm getting details now. I'll relay them tomorrow, if needs be. It will also likely come up on the MacTake.

Awesomeness and Doctor Who, not linked in my mind for once

I spent most of today watching a Doctor Who marathon. I have a few comments and gripes about that but I'll keep them to myself until tomorrow, when I've watched the last two serials I want to see.


You know what's weird? How people started using "+" to represent "and" and then other people started writing "plus" instead, which is actually longer than the word it was originally meant to be shorthand for.


So, I've had an idea. I think it might work well as a web cartoon but it's been kicking around in my head for a while, possibly as a film idea. I don't know why I let film ideas stay in my head. Probably something to do with hopeless optimism and rampant egotism.

The basic premise is that some guy has super powers that let him do anything, so long as it's awesome. If it's not ridiculously over the top and cool, he can't do it. Shooting somebody is outside his range. Shooting somebody with a laser gun is getting there. Lasers coming from his eyes is closer still. Shooting someone with a laser-chainsaw (somewhat like a light sabre) launching sniper rifle at point blank range would qualify.

There are a few secondary characters, most of whom have far more depth than the titular Captain Awesome but none of whom are as interesting.

So, I've compiled a list of things that Captain Awesome has to do at some point.

• Ride a dinosaur through the sun.
• Slam dunk a planet into a black hole.
• Repair a starship's faster than light drive while teaching someone how to dance, including moonwalking.
• Coding a piece of software to stop a virus that is about to detonate a nuclear bomb in an orphanage. This is made yet more awesome by the fact that it is done in binary and to the rhythm of Bohemian Rapsody.
• Have a gun that fires chainsaws. This may be in the style of a machine gun but a revolver would really be better.
• Surf on molten lava. The surfboard should be a Transformer.
• Break a dentists drill on his teeth. They may also stop bullets and/or bullet trains.
• Be able to breath and cook a light breakfast in space.
• Win a staring contest with a snake*.
• Never make a footnote like the one denoted by the above asterisk.

So, there you have it. Some of the adventures that Captain Awesome always has in my head. The two other characters are an evil guy and a damsel in distress type. Their mutual lack of interest in Captain Awesome may well bring them together in a touching love story. Until they explode.



*Snakes have no proper eyelids and thus do not blink. Instead, they have an immovable lens called a brille which evolved from a fusing of the upper and lower eyelids. Biologists believe that this was to combat either marine or subterranean conditions, the exact genealogy of snakes being a matter of debate. Both theories also explain the loss of external ears. The word "brille" is actually the German word for glasses.

More than enough crazy to go around...

Why do we put pepper on the kitchen table along with the salt? The only time anyone in our house has ever used it was when I grabbed it by mistake. I suppose it's just one of those things that's done because it seems right.


The advantage of being friends with a crazy person is that you get emails like this every so often:



And you get to send replies like this:



After a short bout of Gmailing, I ascertained that Sam had been fiddling with Shrinkwrap, an old computer of his, named for the fact that it looks like it's been shrinkwrapped. It hasn't. It's partially melted. That's not hugely important but it does foreshadow events to come.

Sam had discovered that Shrinkwrap wasn't starting up and decided to investigate. By plugging it in and poking stuff with his screwdriver. A similar strategy led to the destruction of his old VCR. Fiddling with the variable input (the difference between this and variable output is a very important one, as Sam has now learned) produced the above result.

In his own words:

yeah, i switched it to like 60V, because that was the most anything actually needed... plugged in 240V... and.....
KRAKKASLAM-BLAMMA-BOOM!

It's now a couple of hours after the event and he tells me that his room (henceforth known as "Ground Zero") still smells of smoke and that there is a grey patch on the ceiling directly above the epicentre.

The weirdest part? He's now thinking of starting a small custom PC building business.


I got the woodle up, though it's not quite the one I had planned. Eh. Now, if you'll excuse me, my brother just tossed me series 2 of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. It's a sad thing when I turn to absurdist comedy for a bit of sanity.


Epilogue: at my request, Sam has kindly provided us with an artist's rendition of the whole episode:

So this guy with a box on his head walks into a bar...

For my blog post today, ladies and gentlemen, I present a short comedy sketch that I just wrote. It may not be funny, it may not be spell-checked, but by the Spaghetti Monster, I'm going to find a camcorder and film it!

[an actor comes on stage with a large box on his head]
[he begins his scene]

Actor: Alas, my father is dead, murdered by-

[director tries to interrupt]

Director: Jeremy, just stop a second. Jeremy?

[the actor does not notice]

Actor: -my aunt in a fit of jealousy and-

[the director interrupts again]

Director: Jeremy! Stop!

[the actor now notices and turns to the director]

Actor: What? Is something wrong?

Director: You've... you've got a box on your head, Jer.

Actor: Do I? My dear chap, I think I would notice if I had a box on my head.

Director: Well... it's on there, Jeremy.

Actor: Where is it, where?

Director: On your head. Are you not having any trouble seeing, at all?

Actor: I had noticed the lights were a little dim. I thought it might be a thematic thing. Nighttime, midnight, our hero's darkest hour and so on.

Director: No, you've just got a box on your head.

Actor: Ah, could be, could be. Should I take it off, do you think?

Director: That would... probably be the best thing to do, yeah.

Actor: I was simply wondering if it was something wardrobe had done, I don't tend to pay attention to them very much.

Director: It... um... they might have... no, it isn't right. Just take off the box, Jer.

Actor: All right, then.

[the actor motions his hands as if wiping something off his shirt]

Actor: Did I get the blighter?

Director: No, little higher up.

[the actor moves his hands around his head, completely missing the box]

Actor: What about now?

Director: [getting exasperated] You missed it again, [muttering] you silly old...

Actor: Dash it all man, I can't do everything myself! Have someone take off this stupid box that you insist I'm wearing!

Director: Fine. Harry, could you...?

[he motions to the box and an assistant goes to remove it]

Actor: Hurry up, hurry up, I haven't got all day, you know!

[the assistant pulls off the large box to reveal another, smaller box underneath]

Actor: That's better! Now, get out of my shot. Where was I?

Director: [flicking through script] Uh, "alas, my father...". From the top, people!

Assistant: Adventures of Jimerson, scene 5, take 2!

[zoom out and screen fades as actor begins again]
[end]

I really want to see that film, in-joke though it may be. I may try this again in the future, if scripting inspiration strikes before blogging inspiration.

Hey, I found a use for these thingies - {}

My 101st post at TWToday, eh? That sounds like an excuse not to have a real topic if ever I heard one.


Actually, no. It isn't. I'll do all kinds of self-reflective stuff tomorrow. Or maybe I won't, since I'll be spending the evening trying to fix the hard drives on the PC that just died downstairs. Tonight, however, I have to write a letter to submit to my headteacher, explaining why I want to waste my time and effort doing menial tasks around the school for nought but a badge on my tie be a prefect.

That should make for some good mockery. Let's find out.

Sunday 10 June 2007
[Not when I'll actully have written the bulk of it, but an early date makes me seem prepared and eager... I assume]

Dear [Headteacher's name omitted to make it seem like it's important information and that there are enough people who read this to make it worth keeping a secret],

I would like to put forward my application for the position of Prefect for my Sixth Year [Translation: my parents would like me to put forward my application for the position of Prefect]. I have attended Wellington School since 1994, joining at the nursery level soon after Wellington began accepting male pupils [one of the few bits that isn't a lie, but it's not really relevant anyway].
Throughout the 13 years I've spent here, I have maintained a record of good[ish] behaviour and have had consistently high academic results [I'd give examples here, but I really hate to sound arrogant {and yes, you read that right; I don't want to sound arrogant}]. I believe that this sets a good example for younger pupils [most of whom I consider to be jerks in need of a good ass-kicking], something which is an important part of being a prefect [or, at least, I think it is. I'm not really sure what being a prefect involves].


It should probably continue on for longer but I haven't got it finished so you'll have to make do with that.

No matter how hard I try, I just can't get into the right mindset to describe myself in huge numbers of buzzword-laden sentences, listing all the things I've done in my life as if they were huge achievements. I suspect that that may be a problem in later life, but, being a teenager, I have the right to assume that I will simply deal with that in later life.

I hope you've enjoyed this little diversion. For some reason, I find it far easier to mock this sort of thing than to actually do it, which I like to think says more about this whole idea than it does about me. After I have the final draft ready, I might do this again, even if it's just as some additional thing. Apologies for the formatting.


There's no Great Slipper Experiment update for today (I think it's today that I'm meant to do them) since this blister is still bugging me. Even if it wasn't, it's warm enough now that I'm going without socks for most of the day, let alone shoes. I may just postpone the whole thing till winter.

Oh, and Skippy? Where are those @!$%*&% visitor numbers I asked for?!?!!

The Great Slipper Experiment

So, they reckon they've found Nessie... Again.


I forgot the woodle again. I might get something up tomorrow, if I don't forget. If I do forget, I'll probably just leave it till next week. You probably don't care about that, though, since you're still waiting for an explanation of the title.

A while back, I got a new pair of slippers. I noticed that these ones, despite being more or less the same as my old ones, wore out very quickly. The old ones were also decidedly shot, mainly due to my flat-footed plodding and the fact that, if I'm indoors, chances are that I'm wearing my slippers. The new ones reached a similar, perhaps worse, state far faster. It got really bad today when, as you can see below, the lining of one of the slippers started falling out and trailing along behind me.

Look, they're so busted,
they don't even go the right way round!

Fortunately, I had a pair of newer slippers sitting in my wardrobe, ready to replace the rapidly deteriorating new old pair, by which I mean the now-former pair that is in the picture above, as opposed to the new new ones that are below.



You know what, those are the new ones and the ones in the first image are the old ones. The old old ones have long since been consigned to the bin.

Being a scientific sort of chap, I decided that I would perform an experiment on these new ones, seeing just how long it took them to arrive in a state similar to that of the old ones. I then began to think of a few factors that I needed to consider:

1. What exactly is a "similar state" (and yes, I know the word order was different in the previous paragraph, you nitpickers) to the old slippers? This is fairly subjective but I reckon that I'll discount the lining falling out as that seems to have been a pretty random occurrence and just judge my results based on how worn the interior lining and the sole are.

2. How regularly can I check the state of the new slippers? I believe I can check them daily in a cursory way then post small updates weekly.

3. Since the summer months are approaching and the days are getting warmer, I may well wear my slippers less. I'm hoping this will be balanced by the fact that, as the summer holidays go on, I'll be at home, and therefore in my slippers, more.

4. This is the dumbest thing I've ever done, nobody cares and I'm going to forget about it by tomorrow. I haven't quite figured out a solution to this one yet, but I'll either find one or forget about it.

Now, the really hard part will be finding a way/reason to keep the old slippers around for comparison without having to justify this "experiment" to anyone. I'm sure I'll come up with something and I'm unsure as to why I'm doing this. I'm probably mad but you're not allowed to say that. You've just read a blog post called "The Great Slipper Experiment".

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”.

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.

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.