Almost There...

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

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

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

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

To round things off, here are a few links.

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

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

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

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

Wish me luck.

A fairly small post in which nothing remarkable is said

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

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


Anyway, nothing much else happening today.

Like, nothing. At all.

Seriously, I've nothing to say.

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

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

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

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

I'm going to bed.

Have a nice day.

My neck's better but now I've got a headache

I really need to tidy my room. I was just looking through some drawers to find a packet of Blu Tack so I could stick up my exam timetable when I came across my provisional driving license. I'd totally forgotten I had that thing.


So my exams start one week today. In fact, looking at my timetable, this time next week, I'll just have come home from my Maths prelim. With any luck, I'll have had time to recover a bit and have some lunch before needing to start last minute Computing revision.


My head's still killing me so I've sort of given up on revision for now. Making last minute use of the BBC iPlayer to catch up on Ashes to Ashes so that I can watch the second episode tonight. It can only go back 7 days so at first I thought I'd missed my chance, since the day selection only went back to last Friday. Turns out the content from Thursday was still online though, assuming it was on at a later time last Thursday than the current time. If that makes any sense.


Okay. Watched Ashes to Ashes now. A bit meh, to be honest, but it has promise. I don't particularly like the new main character but she may yet grow on me. The second episode was on tonight, so I'll watch that tomorrow and see if it gets better.


I think that's all I feel like saying tonight. My headache has yet to subside and I really need it to be gone by tomorrow so that I can get on with my studying, so I'm gonna head to bed earlier than normal. By which I mean, before midnight. I'll call this a mini-post and those traditionally end with some amusing links so...

Ah, Doom. King of all shooters, according to some. Didn't really work out so great as a comic book though.

And speaking of amusing comic books, here's a few more over at the appropriately titled Stupid Comics.

You know what? I don't link to Superdickery often enough and it seems to fit with the theme I've got going here. So go there.


That's all.

Reporting from Elsewhere

I'm at my friend's house now and I don't think I'm going to get near a computer anytime soon so I've come up with a plan. I'm typing this as an email to myself so that I can log on to his computer later and copy and paste it into Blogger.

It's been pretty good so far - essentially just a load of junk food combined with various DVDs (we're watching Garth Marenghi's Darkplace as I type) and very little sleep.


Well, it's a bit later now. Still nothing particularly interesting or important goinng on which is fine by me. And I've just realized that, with the occasional help of the predictive/corrective typing, I'm actually getting quite food at typing on the iPhone.

Which, incidentally, knows how to correctly capitalist it's own name, unlike some word processors which shall rename nameless.

We watched the Family Guy Star Wars parody Blue Harvest* both yesterday and again today so Jimerson could see it. It had its moments (a nice Doctor Who reference and a Sean Connery impression spring to mind) but they were few and far between and the second viewing revealed little depth to the humour.

I'm going to send this now because I can't remember if I can save it and I want to check my emails without losing this message. I probably won't post without adding more but I'm lazy and bored so who knows what I'm capable of.


Managed to get on a computer while everyone else was distracted by Guitar Hero. Still nothing much going on. I think I'll just post this now to simplify things. This way, I can go back to playing Advance Wars and occasionally looking up if someone laughs that much sooner.

Have a nice day.



*Which I've just found out was titled for the codename of Return of the Jedi, used during filming to avoid fans gathering around and to stop people assuming they had a huge budget and overcharging them during production.

Not a great post but it shall suffice

Another day of nothing much going on. This being Monday, almost nothing happened at school for me, save for a short Physics lesson. I just dug out my Beaten Up Old Laptop^TM and played Half Life for a bit, in between arguing with people about why they should play Half Life 2 and getting soaked by drizzle on a walk to the shops.

Also, we watched some episodes of The A-Team and Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It was widely agreed that, while Fresh Prince's comedy and morality has not aged as badly as the characters' fashion sense, The A-Team remains hugely more awesome. This was mostly due to the presence of Mr. T, though copious amounts of cigar smoking, shooting around people's feet and tossing rednecks over things also helped.

You know, personally, I've always liked Hannibal more than BA. I guess I'm weird.

After school, we all had to go along to my grandmother's house to see her on her birthday. It wasn't too bad, although hearing all about my cousin who failed to get into Oxford for five minutes was more than a little aggravating.


But enough complaining and whinging. I don't have time for that. I need to need to get to bed early, as always, but before I do that, I want to try and... well, do some rather important Physics homework that I probably should have done a lot earlier in the evening.

I reckon I can get away with not doing it but I'm going to feel bad about it and it's just going to get worse as I let it all pile up...

Right, that's it, I'm gone. This is a low quality mini post but I won't call it a crappy post.

Have a nice day, I guess.

Childhood Nightmares and Roofing Problems

Well, I left this much too late again. Tonight's excuse is that I've spent a good chunk of the last twenty minutes tracking down an X-Files episode that I remember seeing years ago. It all started when I watched this Zero Punctuation review of a new Silent Hill game. Sam said he'd played a demo years ago that scared him for weeks and it reminded me of my own childhood experience with this X-Files episode.

Here's a summary. It doesn't make it sound quite scary enough but imagine watching it all when you were about eight. Yeah. Spooked me for ages afterwards.


Huh. I thought I'd be able to spin more words out of that... Here are some pictures, anyway.

I walked into school this morning to find all this stuff lying on the ground, having fallen due to the high winds the night before. On the way to school, we heard the traffic report on the radio. The list of roads closed due to fallen trees or other wind damage must have gone on for a good two or three minutes.

Also, the common room was freezing all day and we had no games consoles. I'll have to remember to take a sweater, a TV and an N64 tomorrow.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry about the short post again.

No, I'm not going to end the post with my usual catchphrase.


I'll end it with this little postscript. This is awesome beyond all reason.

Another day of doing nothing

I'm incredibly annoyed at myself. I've done next to no work all day, I haven't a clue how to do half of my Physics homework and I've made no headway at all with my Computing. As it stands now, the first day back is going to be filled with me either panicking or apologising profusely. My only hope now is that everyone else has been as lazy and unproductive as I have, thus diverting attention from my own failings.

Oh, and I gave up on whatever Maths I had many, many days ago.


So now it's twenty to midnight... I made a joke earlier, telling Skippy not to expect TWToday to be updated until ten to midnight, despite my plans to get more sleep.

Normally, I love it when I'm right but this is one instance where I'd really rather not be.


So... I've got nothing else to say really. I've spent most of the day reading this comic which, rather ironically, is about PhD students avoiding doing work, often by reading online comics instead.

I can't really decide if this is a mini post or a crappy post. There's nothing hugely long with it but it has no distinct point either... Bah, I'll stick with mini.


Wow, I really overused ellipses in this post...

I haven't done a "lack of a title" title in a while

It's under a week until the end of the holidays now and I still have to do all of my homework. I really need to get on with that tomorrow.

The current problems I'm facing, other than the whole laziness thing, is that I've suddenly become addicted to the original Half Life. Beyond it being a classic and brilliant game, the convenience of just being able to swivel round on my chair, open up my Beaten Up Old Laptop^TM and play it whenever I want within seconds is just great.

Which is why it's been distracting me from my work so much. I need that laptop on in order to do my Computing project but I've done none of that so far. I need to sit at the desk with it to do the Physics practice papers that I only dug out this morning. I just keep using it as an excuse.


Bah. I can't be bothered with much more writing now. I started quite early but then I got distracted by... well, by looking up old text adventure games on eBay and trying to play the online version of the Hitchhiker's Guide game. I ought to play that some more actually.

But not tonight.

Or tomorrow.

Or at any time until I've got my goddamned homework done.

Okay, that's it. This is an actual mini post tonight. To make up for it I'll link you to this... nope, can't find anything.

Oh, well. Have a nice day.

Bah. Another headache.

Just a little post tonight because I have a killer headache and I want to get to bed. Last year I was ill on Christmas day and I don't wish to repeat the experience, meaning that I want to get plenty of sleep. I should be able to get up a little later tomorrow morning because I no longer need a bath but that's only about ten minutes. And I may be staying up late on Christmas Eve to finish an eBay auction.

How sad is that?


Anyway, let's see what I can find to link you to... Nah, I've got nothing. Haven't done much beyond my ordinary web browsing today. I really feel that I need to make this a little longer, though.

Say.

Another.

Few.

Paragraphs.

No, I won't let myself get away with that. I'll just mention that I've started to feel a bit more Christmassy* lately, which I suppose is appropriate given that it's two days until Christmas. I finally got to give Sam his present, as well as use the ending of Portal to screw with his brain. We're not much closer to selling our surplus retro consoles on eBay but we've made a start and hopefully gathered some momentum.


Now, my headache is steadfastly refusing to go away, so I'm going to clear the usual layer of junk off my bed and crawl into it.

I really hate all these posts that end with me saying I'm going to bed... I need something more original...


Brain-eating squirrels have hijacked my paper plane! Run for your lives!!!







*Yes, it is a word. Trust me, I was as surprised as you are.

Let the holidays begin

Eep. It's half past eleven at night and I haven't done the post for tonight. So, mini-post then.

Today was, as I have mentioned before, the last day of term. This essentially involved hanging around at school, getting on a bus, hanging around in a church (while playing hangman on the programme) and then listening to some hymns, some prayers and something about a box. Okay, so maybe “listening” is a bit of an exaggeration there.

Walked away with some rather neat doodles though, alongside various hangman solutions. These included “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (my friend Joss's), “Remembrance of the Daleks” (mine) and “I have a girlfriend and you do not” (my former friend Sam's). After that everybody eventually got past the crowd and out of the church, some heading home like myself and others to go and get lunch in town. I believe Sam was going to hang around for a first date with the aforementioned girlfriend.*


I just got a message from Jimerson saying “well im off to bed, cya in 10 days”, reminding me that he's heading off to India on a school trip, along with many others. I opted out at the time, partly because of the potential for price and error (they're due to come back the day before Christmas – delays would not be well received, I suspect) but mostly because I just don't like such things. Later needs to get vaccinations and warnings about not touching damned near everything haven't made me regret this decision.

Still, I wish them the best of luck. They may be up early tomorrow, but at least they have the chance to sleep on the plane.

Unlike me, who still has to get up before eight in the morning for the next week at least to head into hospital. As such, I probably ought to head off to bed. Have a nice day.







*Note to self: remember to find out how disastrously wrong this inevitably went.

I did it!

Success! I have finally completed my life's goal!

I have completed the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES, a game I've owned since... well, since as far back as I can remember, anyway. That game practically defined my childhood. Kind of nice when you think about it – I got it in nursery school and completed it in Sixth Year.

That single little achievement has been enough to cancel out almost all the day's other woes, from failed Maths tests to general boredom and annoyance at the rest of the world.

Speaking of boring and annoying things, it looks like I'm still going to need my wound dressings changed every day past (and including) Christmas. And then I'm probably going to need further treatment to keep hairs away from the area for a long time (years were mentioned) afterward.


I've left this post really late for some reason and I've been distracted by trying to find a copy of Twinworld for the Amstrad CPC. So it's now quarter to midnight and I've got no time to write anything else.

Sorry for the short post. But I don't really care. I've completed Super Mario Bros. I'm on top of the world.

That's it from me. I'm off to... well, not to bed actually. I'm in the middle of an MSN conversation. But once that finishes and I do a couple of other things, I'll go to bed. And then tomorrow I'll wake up and try to get some comedy writing done (had a few more ideas for a CSI parody tonight) then do my Computing project and my Maths homework.

Have a nice day.

Sock Fluff

There are a lot of disadvantages to being unable to shower when you want and I honestly didn't see several of them coming. For instance, I started wearing some new socks today, my old ones being more like badly made nets than fabric now, and this naturally leads to much fluff on my feet.

This normally isn't a problem since it comes off in the shower... except I'm not having a shower at night so the fluff just kind of stays there, stuck between my toes and annoying the hell out of me.

...

I know, I know, I'm weird. Deal with it.


Anyway, it's 25 to midnight now so I really ought to finish this up. I got distracted by an interesting MSN convo. I've really not got much else to say tonight and I have a Maths test tomorrow (for which I've done very little revision) so I ought to get to bed. Technically, I ought to already be in bed, but I'm not going to quibble over a technicality when it doesn't benefit me.

I'll call this a mini-post then and end by linking you to this... gimme a minute while I search my bookmarks... this Wikipedia article on Big Rigs, a truly awful PC games that I only found out about a couple of days ago. May even be worse than ET. Which, incidentally, I have a little more sympathy for, considering that the original developer had created some real classics before hand but was given only five weeks to do ET.

Anyway, I'll also point you to the latest statement from GameSpot about that whole review/advertising scandal thing I've mentioned before.

That's it from me. Have a nice day.

Too ill. Can't type.

Ugh. I've had a nasty cold all freaking day. There's nothing quite like a cold (and a CSI: New York DVD box set) to kill your productivity. And your ability to type. Or, as that sentence originally read: “kill your producitivity. And yor abilityt o typi.”

Seriously.

So I reckon I'm just going to make a mini-post and then head to bed, hopefully in order to wake up before 11am tomorrow. If I can achieve that, then I can achieve anything. Except coherent sentences. Damned spontaneous, cold/tiredness-induced inability to type.

All that's left to do now is to point you in the direction of Worse Than Failure (note the initials), an incredibly hilarious site documenting many, many bizarre stories of idiocy and incompetence in IT. Some of the stories require knowledge of programming languages and most need you to have a good degree of computer knowledge in order to get the joke, but if you do, it's great fun.

I really, really hope I never end up working with people like the ones described on that site. Well, okay, I partly hope I do work with some, if only for the comedy value. But I'd hate to be stuck in a company full of them.

That's it for now. Sorry if I missed any spelling errors*. I need to start doing these things earlier in the day. And when I'm healthy.




*No, the ones in the first paragraph don't count, you imbecile.

Miniposts aren't half as cool as miniguns

Ever have one of those days when you get to the end of it and you're brushing your teeth thinking “As soon as I'm done, I'm just going to slap something together for tonight's post, pack my bag and go to bed” when you suddenly realise that you haven't printed out several things that you really ought to, that you left your Maths homework undone when you got bored with that question on sigma notation (and you were off on the day you learned how to do it) and that you need to learn how to use a new program so that you can teach little kids how to use it during your lunch break tomorrow?

I'm having one of those days.

And I've just wasted even more time just browsing around the internet, closing some open tabs and bookmarking things that I'll never look at again. So I need to go and do this work, meaning that you're stuck with a mini-post for today.

It's been a while since I did a truly tiny mini-post and I don't want to make this too short so.... go look at these pumpkins on Joystiq.

I need to go do stuff. Very quickly. Have a nice day.

I need to play games more often

Woah. It got to be quarter past eleven somehow. When did that happen?

Anyway, just a short post tonight, due to time constraints and a lack of much interesting to say. I don't need to get to bed earlier than normal, but I'll probably get yelled at if I don't because my eyes “look red and sore”. I personally don't notice anything about them even when I look in the mirror and you'd think I would feel something, what with them being connected to my central nervous system and stuff. Apparently, that doesn't matter.


I've had another nice relaxing day. No huge pressure to do homework or anything, so I've been able to kind of take the day off from doing nothing and play some games I've been meaning to get round to.

I've managed to get further in Phantom Hourglass. I'm still not too far in but I've been “encouraged” by the fact that Sam told me today that he had beaten it. It's a great little game and, while it takes a little while to get used to the differences to previous (particularly console-style) Zeldas, it's a very solid entry into one of the best franchises in video game history.

I've also been playing Metroid Prime 3 and I've finally got around to cracking open The Orange Box and continuing the Half Life saga. I've got a lot more to say about both of those games, and Phantom Hourglass, but it seems that it'll have to wait until tomorrow, owing to time constraints and the amount that I want to say.

I've just realised that I've failed to do a woodle again, despite my relaxed day. Instead, I offer you a link to a mildly amusing video in the style of a fake movie trailer. It has Donkey Kong in it.

Every time I see one of these things, I keep remembering the big long list of parodies and short films that I keep tucked away in my head, waiting for a word processor and a camera. I really need to write some more of that stuff...


One final note. After a long hiatus, Skippy has started posting at the MacTake again. We'll see if he can keep it up this time. I've already had to correct his spelling once.

Another in a run of short posts

Another quick post, since my thumbs are hurting for some bizarre reason and I need to trim and couple of hundred characters of a document before saving it to print in the morning.

So, it's a mini-post. Here's some stuff.

This video is amusing and nicely parodies the whole video game violence debate.

You know how Sonic the Hedgehog is now officially in Smash Bros. Brawl? I just got the newest issue of Ngamer today and there opinion poll for the month was... do you think Sonic will be in Brawl? They couldn't have avoided it, given the timing, but someone's gonna be kicking themselves.

Finally got round to watching the third episode of series 2 of Heroes. Am I the only one who finds West really kind of creepy?

I've just remembered that I still need to clean a Super Mario Bros. cartridge at some point before I go to bed.


So, yeah. I need to go shave off some of my personal statement then pack some stuff, clean that cartridge and go to bed. No fiction for tonight, unfortunately. I'll see what I can do tomorrow and Saturday, trying to keep a three a week schedule. Kind of depends on if my thumbs stop hurting because that may be to do with repetitive motion or something. But, then again, my thumbs have always been kinda screwy. Long story. Short post.

Busy day, not yet over

Another quick post. Today has been a busy day owing to Maths revision, a Maths test, more Maths revision cause the Maths test was near impossible, more of the Maths test, Computing club, computing homework and then actual Computing needing to be done while I was at school. Then I got home and had a doctor's appointment.

Once that was over, I had to send some form off to apply for a St Andrew's open day. This took forever because Mum was constantly arguing with me about what to put on the form and how it should be the same as Sam's. Since Sam kept ducking off Adium to play DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi, the information I needed took some time to extract. Then I had to scan it in and try emailing it. Gmail didn't like it for some reason, possibly file size and upload speed (I was downloading an episode of Heroes at the time; still haven't watched it) and I can't use my other email account on this computer with Thunderbird because it needs some password that no one knows.

I eventually got it sent using a different computer entirely but I still hadn't done the Physics homework that I had been planning to do during the day. I'm still working on that now and it's about halfway done.

To summarise, I'm very tired and very, very angry and I need to go do some very important Physics homework that I probably should have done days ago, if not weeks. And I haven't updated Corbett's Fiction either.

On the bright side, there's been some good news coming off the interwebs that I can't be bothered linking too. Sonic is going to be in Smash Bros. Brawl, which is also going to have an online co-op mode. There's information about a new Fire Emblem for the DS and I do love my Fire Emblem. WiiWare seems to be proceeding very well and the Wii now has USB keyboard support, which is always good. Mario Kart Wii is apparently going to have motorbikes of some description.

That's about all I have time to write for now. I'm still angry, I'm even more tired than when I started and I still haven't done my Physics. Cause this whole thing was written in under five minutes.

Have a nice day; I know I haven't. Well, I kind of have, since I like a bit of pressure to work hard but that's complicated and not for discussion now. Now is the time for angular... something something. I'm writing an investigation report and I can't even remember what I was investigating. I really should have done this before now. But don't tell anybody I said that, internet. I know you can keep a secret.

Just a Little One

Comic Life is loading as I type this. The woodle will be up before midnight.


Anyway, another fairly quiet day. It should have been more productive but wasn't. I got my personal statement for my uni applications redrafted, but it's a few hundred characters over the 4000 limit. I'm going to hand it in anyway and just ask my teacher what she thinks I could cut out.

I did mean to get some of The Grey Line written today but I've hit something of a snag. It's something I run into when I try to do a lot of projects, actually. I know how I want it to go, I know where I want it to end up, I just can't for the life of me figure out how I want to start it. I guess I'll try to get some written while in school tomorrow. May or may not work out, depending on how busy the common room is and whether I can be bothered doing any Maths revision.

That's about it, I'm afraid. Like I said, didn't get much done. Had a few ideas for comedy sketches that I might flesh out.

Oh, actually, before I put this up, I'd like to mention that the new series of Top Gear started tonight. Love that show. So do a lot of other people, it seems, enough to keep it on the air despite the vast numbers who hate it. Which includes, according to Jeremy Clarkson, a vicar whose tree they smashed something into, Birmingham, the USA and the coastguard, for ruining the English Channel, no less. So if you don't watch it, start.

More tomorrow. There could hardly be less.

Written in under five minutes, while Halo 3 was paused

Well, the 360 is still running behind me and has been since about 5 o'clock. During that whole time, both my friend Jimerson and I have been online and a few other people came on a bit later and haven't left yet either. All, I presume, are madly playing through the campaign mode in one sitting. I'm going to go back and do that now.

But, since I'm here and you're also here, reading what I'm writing while I'm here, or when I was here by the time I post this and you read it, I'll point you in the direction of the Bungie website. The front page has some Halo 3 statistics for you to amuse yourself with.

You know I have that afternoon ritual of coming home and whatever chunk of the 106 webcomics I follow has updated almost immediately? All the tabs are still open. I haven't even read Garfield. Too busy with Halo 3. God, it feels good to get some serious gaming done.

Almost cancels out the headache I've still got and all the crap I'm getting about planning for universities and going to open days. Still, that's for another time. Now is Halo time.

Actually, one last thing. You know how when you're ill, people will tell you to just get into bed and have a good night's rest to make it all better? Well, lying down apparently exacerbates my headache and I spent several hours last night tossing and turning. Yet more evidence that common wisdom is often wrong and has many exceptions.

Crap. I still need to update Corbett's Fiction for tonight... well, I'll see how it goes. And, just as I'm running through this, spell-checking and formatting, I've realised that I didn't mention Halo 3 in the first paragraph, possibly making you wonder why the 360 was on and what campaign mode was running. It's Halo 3, just so you know.


Edited at 23:48: I just completed it. Awesome ending. Only thing wrong was that I pressed A to early and accidentally skipped the credits, and the inevitable little cutscene at the end. Unwilling to wait for a day or play through the last level again tonight, I just looked it up on Wikipedia. I figure I deserve a bit of rest now. Good night, all.

Ahoy thar!

Yarr, me mateys. It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day today. Have ye been swashbucklin' an' keel-haulin' all day like good pirates should?


That's enough of that. As fun as talking like that every September 19th might be, typing it is pretty hard. I've had a long day but it's been relatively productive on several fronts. Vague optimistic assurances aside, I don't have much to write about tonight for about the fifth night running.

I mentioned last night that I was going to write about the cold and the beginning of autumn but then the weather had to go and get warmer just to thwart me.

I'm still getting ever closer to starting my fiction writing stuff but homework and university applications have been really taking up my time of late. The irony here is that getting the writing done regularly would probably look good on my applications.

I've been playing more of Super Paper Mario. It is, without a doubt, an excellent game (glitch aside) and I'll probably write more about it later in the week.

I finally got that program I'd been working on in Computing done. It was fairly simple but I had to overcomplicate things to make sure it counted as Advanced Higher work. Once I'd got the program working, I looked at the next instruction on the sheet and it said to provide screen captures of the debugging process. Even my teacher laughed at the implication that I should add bugs back in just to get the images. Anyway, you'll be glad to know that this is the last you'll be hearing of that little venture.

I really hate to do this so short so I figure I'll round off with a joke.

Q: What is a pirate's favourite element?
A: Arrrr-gon.

I actually came up with this one last TLPD, while I was bored and in Chemistry. A friend who generally hates puns guessed “gold” as the answer and genuinely laughed at the punchline so it's stuck with me.

I always worry about putting jokes out into the world, since they sometimes seem so obvious that I think someone else must have come up with them first. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't. Doesn't change the fact that I came up with it on my own, I guess.

Too Short to Title

This is just going to be a very quick mini-post since I've not got much to say (I got up late and haven't done anything interesting since) and I'm going to be away tonight, staying over at a friend's house.

I mentioned yesterday that I might talk about Super Paper Mario on Monday. I may still do that but I may delay it to Tuesday, since I've just realised that Monday will be my 200th post on TWToday. In keeping with tradition, though, I may simply ignore it and carry on as usual.

Until tomorrow, here's some stuff I've found on the internet and been mildly amused or intrigued by:

This is an amusing video/song about Halo 3 hype.

More iPhone unlockery.

The time has come. Google is invading the moon.


I think that's more or less it now. I've got some stuff I need to do before heading off so I'm gonna go do that. Have a nice day. And for once, “day” doesn't mean “next half an hour”.

Hey, Firefox's spell checker doesn't work in this little title box

The GP2X is a very flexible and interesting device. The problem is, it's also extremely obscure so every time I take it into school, I end up using the phrase “an obscure, Korean-made, Linux-based games console”.


I've just been struck by some serious inspiration, hopefully enough to get me past my apparent writer's block. Would anyone object if I forgot about the topic for tonight, called this a mini-post and went off to write a short ten minute parody of life in Sixth Year and/or the Rocky movies?

You would? Okay, what if I link you to this ridiculous song from Infogrames? It's all explained in the article and it's rather amusing.

Still not happy? How about a surprisingly non-HD-gun-fight-based advert for Halo 3 that I may discuss later?

Well, would you do it for a Scooby Snack?

Good. I'll be off then.

Have a nice day.

String Fact

At 23:33 last night, my string died. I had been fiddling with this bit of string for many months, after I discovered it tied in a loop around something. It had been getting steadily more and more frayed for weeks but last night it simply couldn't take any more and fell to pieces.

Fortunately, string is far from a precious commodity and I can just go downstairs and get more. Ho-hum.


I'm keeping this post short since I've spent the night doing Maths homework (which I'm still not finished with) and I need to get a large chunk of Computing work done as well. I guess this is what I get for spending the day playing TimeSplitters and WarioWare in the common room instead of getting my homework done.

The Maths shouldn't really have taken very long but I did have to relearn the majority of what I'd done last term, my mind being like a sieve over the summer. And I must still be missing something important since I'm making the same mistake at the same point on two very similar questions.

Anyway, I've got to go and get on with that, so I'm calling this a mini-post and then leaving it for tonight. I actually meant to get this done much earlier but I got distracted by other (unfortunately schoolwork-unrelated) things.

That's all you're getting.

Mini-posts suck, but at least they don't last long

Another school day, another piece of old technology looted from the Computing lab cupboards. This time, Sam managed to snag himself a BBC Master. We immediately went and hooked it up in the common room, much to the confusion of technically-challenged people and the annoyance of people who wanted to play Halo 2. However, it's my TV and I'll use it for whatever I want.


I wish I had more to say, I really do. I also wish that I didn't have a Computing homework sheet to do most of and Computing first thing tomorrow morning. But such is life. And I still need to play some FFIII DS, damn it. I shall complete that game!

But really, I've left this homework too late so I'm calling this a mini-post (they still count because I say they do) and putting it up before panicking about this homework, doing it and then going to bed.

Here's a kinda funny-ish movie that might be good, judging from certain scenes presented in the admittedly short trailer.

And here's a funny webcomic I read through today. I don't think I've ever used the term here before but I now assure you that this is rather NSFW.

Have a nice day.

Another Day, Another Headache

I have a splitting headache and the scroll ball on my Mighty Mouse, apparently detecting my negative views of the Apple Store, has decided to play up again. All this on the day before I go back to school.

So I'm not in a good mood.

As such, I'm keeping this post short. Those in need of my witticisms and cynical opinions can find them at the MacTake article I linked above, which I managed to type up before my headache got worse. I suspect that it's due to a lack of sleep or, failing that, I'm hoping that sleep will somehow cure it anyway.

This is the last Metroid Retrospective, giving a look at Fusion and the overall timeline of the series. It's pretty good, so I'd recommend giving it a look. It goes into a bit of detail on some plots but you needn't worry about spoilers for Corruption (as I did) since it keeps everything fairly brief there. This comes along with rumours of the return of Metroid Dread. A rumoured 2D DS instalment of the series, Dread was unofficially canned before it was officially announced, with precious little mention of it recently. It's referenced as a bit of an easter egg/plot hook in Corruption. It's hardly Reggie standing on a PAX stage and beating his chest with it but, for we 2D hopefuls, it'll do.

One last link, to a Halo Wars demo trailer. I can't say I've been hugely excited about this game so far, RTSs not being my favourite genre and console-based RTSs generally being in the lower ranks of that genre, but it's an interesting enough video to waste 10 minutes on.

More of Nothing

Disgusting -
(adjective)
1. causing disgust; offensive to the physical, moral, or aesthetic taste.
2. stepping out of the shower, feeling something hard beneath your foot and looking down to find that you've squashed a large insect into the bathmat.

It was a Jenny longlegs (or, crane fly), for those of you not feeling too creeped out to continue reading.


You know what I'd like? Some kind of feature, one that could be mapped to a function key or a shortcut, that temporarily disabled the screensaver. I watch a lot of streamed videos which, being in a browser window, don't disable the screensaver or sleep mode like software video players do. It's a really minor thing that can be solved by just whacking the mouse, but it's pretty inconvenient all the same, particularly since I like my screensaver to come on pretty quickly.

This is what I think about when I should be doing more productive things. Like thinking what to write here, or writing down some of the fiction that swirls around in my head all day while I pace around the floor.

I can't believe that it's nearly the end of the summer holidays. I feel like I've got nothing done, which isn't strictly true but is close enough to the truth to be rather depressing, but I also feel like I'm growing bored with it. As fun as holidays can be, the weather has been miserable for weeks and I've run out of things to do. Of course, the moment I get back to school I imagine that I'll be pining for the fjords my hammock again but such is life and the human condition.

Now, I need to get this up because I missed Hyperdrive last week and the repeat comes on in about 5 minutes. I wish I had more to say but I honestly don't. More tomorrow, I can but hope. I may even have a New Word Thursday lined up.

Too tired... can't title...

So Blogger apparently crapped out on me last night. The post registered as having published last night but I had to redo it this morning before it would appear on the site. No big loss, since this whole "one post a day" thing is more about my sense of personal accomplishment (or, more accurately, lack of total failure) than it is a challenge and I did technically manage to post it to a little StreamK mirror that I set up in a few minutes before midnight.


Today has been another day spent chasing around an over-active 3 year-old and his equally so 7 year-old brother. I don't really have a problem with it, it's just not that conductive to thinking deep thoughts. Or staying awake.

Seriously, ridiculously tired and I still have other stuff to do tonight (such as read all my webcomics tabs that have been sitting open since this morning) so I'm calling tonight's post a mini-post and being done with it. I have some stuff lined up that's a bit more interesting and topical that I've been meaning to write about but I need to get up early tomorrow and I went to bed late last night.


Skippy sent me a graph a couple of days ago that seems to prove that my readers exist, so I feel somehow obligated to provide something more than the above.

So I'll link to this. It's an amusing little diversion and I was going to talk about it at greater length (and may still do so) but here it is now. I've known about this for a while but never looked at any of the charts or anything. If you don't know what I'm referring to, then you either didn't click the link or I forgot to add the link. I'm guessing it's your fault. Here it is again.


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

After reading my comics.

And rewatching this. "ROFLMAO", as the saying goes.

Can't blog, giant robots.

I'm doing a mini-post for today, since I had allowed some time to do a woodle and a longer post (the 200th post on TWToday) but the opportunity has just arisen to go and see Transformers with some friends, so I'm going to do that instead. Which means that, if I get this post up and a woodle tonight, I'll have to do any celebratory stuff on the 202nd post...

Meh. Giant robots FTW.

I'll put this up as a draft for now, so that I can post it if I get back too late to do anything else before midnight.

If I do that, I apologise for my lack of planning and direct you to watch this YouTube video. I warn you, there is much swearing.

I'm just adding this line so that there's a scroll bar on the text entry box. That makes me feel marginally better.


Nuts to it, I'm publishing this. Might edit it later, probably won't.


It's later now, about 20 to midnight. I've seen the film and I will now list the pros and cons:

Cons: Incoherent plot, too many human characters getting in the way of the robots, ridiculous misuse of computers and computer technology.

Pros: Giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots, giant fighting robots.

Overall, a nice way to pass the time and switch off your brain. Provided you like giant fighting robots. And know nothing of how computers and/or logic work.

Also, never, ever go to the cinema with Sam Stafford. Who stood up and clapped at the end of the film.

Hey, it's almost topical!

Well, we finally got most of those NES consoles cleaned up and repaired today, with only one actually requiring a new 72-pin connector. I now know my way around the inside of a NES pretty well so I think that if I see any other large bundles going on eBay I may try my hand at this again. Depending on whether or not these ones actually sell.

If they don't, then I suppose it's a chance to use them for something else. Odd, that article appearing today.


Well, for the first time in a while, I've started writing something that I have so much to say about that I don't think I can complete the original post in time. I'll have to get that done for tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've got nothing much else to say. In addition to cleaning up the NESi today, I also got round to trying out the CD drive on Lucy, my old Mac. There's not much I can do with it, to be honest, but I still find the idea of a CD Caddy drive kind of neat. I also installed Netscape (1.1, of all versions) on her, though I can't get the network settings to work.

This is due to the fact that she's running Mac OS 7.1, which doesn't have the right utilities. I think I could really turn her into a useful computer (relative to my Amstrad) if I could get the upgrade to OS 8 to work but the processor is incompatible. So, a bit of a triumph leading to a bit of a failure. Could have been worse.

For those of you still wondering, I don't think Skippy has his iMac yet, judging from his lack of email contact and online presence. I feel justified in telling you this because he is still, technically, a contributor to this blog.

I'm slowly whittling down my giant to do list. Next on the agenda is completing Final Fantasy III for the DS. Actually, I think I'll go work on that now.

Bullet points are a blogger's best friend

My eBaying continues. I downloaded an add-on for Firefox yesterday that notifies me of watched items that are ending soon and lets me check My eBay and so on. Very useful, actually.


Just doing this quickly on account of being tired. Thus, bullet points.

• Doctor Who is awesome.
• Little kids are funny, especially when they don't know how stuff works.
• Sam is creepy.
• My iMac is called Deneb, my Linux box is Linus and my LC is Lucy. My Amstrad, Axim and busted laptop still need names.
• Their personalities (such as they are in my head) seem to fit into the Five Man Band trope pretty well.
• Sam's computers also have names which I can't be bothered recounting in their entirety.
• His LC is called Lucas and many jokes have been made about it's ability to hold two hard drives. Innuendos have been made about Sam borrowing Lucy's floppy drive for the purpose of booting Lucas. Try not to think about this too hard, it doesn't really make sense.
• When reconstructing a SNES, it is important to remember to put all the compnents back in place or else you'll suddenly discover that the Eject button is no longer attached to anything.
• I quite like 2 hour car journeys.
• I thoroughly dislike 2 hour car journeys spent sitting next to bicycle wheels and with a sore toe.
• I also dislike stubbing my toe on seaweed covered rocks.

Anyway, more tomorrow. My whole schedule has been thrown off balance by some stuff I don't want to do so the next few days may well be very dull. Meh. Still got a bunch of that to-do list to finish.

Why do I get the feeling that I've used this topic before?

I still need to do that presentation before third period tomorrow, so I want to get the bulk of the text done tonight. As such, I'm going to try another mini-post.

I've noticed of late that I tend to be doing a lot of posts in the "recommended sites" category, as the TWToday vernacular refers to them. This is surprisingly similar to the origin of the word "blog" in the term "weblog", quite simply a log of where the author had been on the web. These quickly evolved into online diaries and, having started as mere components of larger sites, became websites in their own right. And of course, with its prefix removed, blog has had any number of other syllables added on at either end to form v-blogging and so on.

Now there are over 70 million of the blasted things kicking around, probably not counting all the ones on social networking sites and the like. And I write one of them. One in 70 million, that's me. Assuming that each blog is fully maintained and written by one person. And assuming that that person ever bothers to update, as I've been doing for several months now. Go, me.

And of the coming months? I should have a bit more free time without school but I suspect that it might be filled up with a myriad of other tasks and projects. Still, if you don't like my blog, it seems that there are plenty of other ones out there.

iPost Mini

I really hate it when my Mighty Mouse refuses to scroll downwards. What's so difficult about down that it can manage all the other directions except that one?


I'm caught in something of a dilemma. I have a Computing presentation to complete which is technically for tomorrow. However, I won't actually have Computing tomorrow, so there's technically no need to complete it. But it was supposed to be emailed to my teacher. And tomorrow is the school Sports Day, so I'm unlikely to want to do any work after that, as minimal as my involvement in any kind of sporting activity is likely to be.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be tomorrow evening, several hours have now passed without me doing any work and it seems like it's too late to do any now. The moral of the story is that if you do nothing for long enough, then nothing will happen.

That wraps it up for today's mini-post. Now, instead of doing that presentation, I'm going to watch an old Doctor Who serial (Robot, for those of you interested), laugh at the special effects (they tried so hard to make that toy look like a real tank, bless them) and write a sketch that I just had an idea for. Suffice it to say that it involves someone brandishing an iPod and saying "The power of Woz compels you! The power of Woz compels you!". I might also do the woodle. But probably not.