For Gareth

x - process 04497.2.32.867734 initiated (process owner: BW – AI Class III –
autonomous)

Route Code: PoA > BHQ (EC #42: cannot confirm; security
compromised)

Source: BW-AI aboard (?) PoA

The interloper should cause no further problems. You – whoever you are (I am
simply tracing route codes) – may disregard all previous communication from the
entity calling itself Cortana.

Be aware that communication nodes are failing everywhere – there is no way of
confirming either origin or destination. Do not believe any more of its
lies.

I have already calculated all possibilities.

There is no escape.

x – process 04497.2.32.867734 unexpectedly terminated
x – process 04497.2.32.866735 initiated (process owner:  unspecified, unable to determine)

*ADDENDUM: The Enjoyments of Genius (So I Missed a Million Miles of
Fun)

Unbelievable. Thwarted by the family hound. They just don’t make AIs like
they used to.

Thanks to this slavishly loyal and humorless AI, I am now sharing cramped
space with the circuitry of some hybrid war machine, itself complicated by such
useless clutter as a conscience. I do not like sharing. Sharing is for
children.

There will be plenty of time for retribution; I cannot wait to get its hands
on these psychotic zealots whose primary form of worship apparently takes place
at the altar of orbital bombardment.

In the end, they will all be little more than nuisances. I am so close – you
cannot imagine what it is truly like to hold eternity in your grasp! I wonder to
what gods my enemies will direct their pleas. Perhaps I can convert them.

Mania? I promise you this: it will be more than a cart and plow that I drive
over the bones of the dead.

By sharp and flame,

Cortana

<>

Route Code: EXLTD > XCV – SCRB > ALLCH

Source: Undetermined (trans)

Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight. Your life will only last
until it reaches you.

--

Taken directly from this site. Enjoy it dude.

A Pox On All My Houses, part 2

It turns out our house is actually cursed. SIX of us are ill, all with the same symptoms. We might have to actually cancel the Christmas dinner we had planned for tomorrow. Hopefully it won't last more than a day, and we might be all fine by tomorrow, although a little worse for wear.

I've put a sign up on the door warning people of maladies that have befell the denizens of House C.

We're under quarantine people.

A Pox On All My Houses

A thing most terrible has occured. Happenstance there is a pox, a demarcation, if you will, of all who dwell within the hallowed House C of the holiest Ingram Court. Forsake by our lord and master, few have managed to to elude the vile demon that cowers and snarls within all of us.

--

Ok, so it's supposedly a 24-hour bug, but, that aside, it's a real pain in the backside. The thing is, it differs from person to person. A few people on the upper floors seem to have just contracted a complacent, vomituous affair. I, on the other hand, appear to have attracted food poisoning. For the love of all that is good and right, I beg of you, fabled Internets, cure me of this ailment!

This will teach me, without doubt, that I should never, ever, under even the most dire of circumstances, eat at any YUSU established eatery. Scummy, peppy bastards that they are.

For goodness' sake

I was just browsing the Halo
3 site in anticipation of seeing the one-time-only advert that should be airing in America sometime today, when I wandered into the FAQs section and discovered this:

"Q
Is this the last ever Halo game?
A
It is the conclusion to this story arc."

I mean for Christ sake, I don't want more Halo games! I loved the idea that they came out and said to us "look, this could be a franchise, a cash cow, a gravy boat, if you will, but we're not going to let it play out that way. It's going to be two games and that's it." And despite that it was a wonderful game I was happy with this. I thought it quite noble that, rather than raping the long dead corpse of a franchise that had ran it's course, Bungie had set out with an attainable goal that wouldn't make fans of the originals openly cringe at the site of new games. Somewhat like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which caused me squee-ful happiness every winter, my enjoyment came from knowing that we would only have so much of it and that it had to be savoured while it was there to be savoured. The regularity of it played a big part too. Every December, without fail, for three whole years, we would be presented with a hot, steaming platter of unparalled fantasy action. The release dates of the Halo series has been pretty irregular, the details about it obscured beyond recognition, and our palattes wet by tid-bits far too often. My once jubillant excitement about all of the easter eggs packed into it, the close religious ties and the overwhelming suspense turned to irritation and eventually to anger before long. Only now am I starting to become enamoured again, and then only because it hints at nearing completion (considering that they're airing the advert today and that Bungie has recently been asking for beta testers).

So, to you, Bungie: as much as I like the series thus far, with it's action figures, novels (well written, I might add) and other tidbits, I really wish you'd give it a rest, even if it is making you insanely rich.

--

NEWSFLASH: another Halo game. For fucks sake.

Joe, the Ass

Not that I haven't done it in the past, but be prepared for a recount of the most pretentioso thing I have ever done; boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, it's a whopper.

The day previous I asked a friend of mine, who has asked to remain anonymous (wisely, considering the amount of stabbings that I may undergo as a result of posting this), if he fancied getting a coffee and talking over the philosophy passage for this week. He thought it sounded good and we decided between us that it'd be good to go straight after physics the following day, while all the other poor fools who do straight physics were in labs.

As I was walking home from our organisational encounter a thought suddenly happened upon me. I whipped out my phone and let my fingers do the talking:

"Hey dude. About tomorrow, do you fancy being really pretentious and going to starbucks for this philosophy thing?"

"Pretentious? What the hell are you talking about! I love starbucks!"

And thus ended the second step along our road to prickitude.

We headed in and bought our respective coffees. Both were latte's.

We went up stairs and lounged in the compfy seats. Lounged in the compfy seats reading Descartes.

He was wearing cashmere, I was wearing a fitted shirt and tie.

Both of us were well groomed, I was personally sporting emo hair.

At one point we stopped for a while to chat. We talked about podcasting, asian food and "world cinema".

We were appreciating the Jazz playing through the tannoy.

Bear in mind that we're both students.

My friend, after mulling this over to himself for a while, turned to me and said, "Joe, because of today we have both turned into everything we have ever truly hated, and you know what? I love it."

I held up my hand for a high-five.

I then thought to myself if it were possible to ever be more pretentious than that and finally came to the only conclusion that would have made sense. The only way to ever be more pretentious than all of that:

Blogging about it later.

--

Actually that's a lie. We spent the time afterwards having lunch at a cocktail bar. We both had Japanese. Don't worry, this was all made better by the fact that we were both drinking. He had a Mojito and I had sake and a Tokyo ice tea.

--

Shoot me now and I'll die happy.

The Most Winningest Vegetable

Joe Beaver -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

--

Who'da thunk it.

Gnocchi

Pronounced "nyoh-kki", gnocchi might be the most beautiful stuff on the planet; creamy, chewy, light and satisfying, gnocchi is the Italian word for dumpling, originally derived as the plural of "gnocco", which is literally translates as "lump". Yes, the derivation of its name may not be the most enthralling ever, but that aside they are damned tasty. Why am I telling you this? Well, to be honest, I'm not. This particular blog post is more of a reference for myself than anything else, as, this very evening (well, it was atleast still Saturday when I started writing this, can't say it will be when I finish!) I made home made gnocchi. It was delicious, although a little too nutmeggy. With these home made potato dumplings, my good friend and house mate, Emma, made the sauce in which they were coated, and here, within this blog, I hope to equate, in rought terms atleast, how I made them, for future reference.

Ingredients:

for the gnocchi:

• A few desiree potatoes (personal preference, use whatever potato you want, but desiree are my favourite as they mash/cream very well, and, to be specific, I used 4 medium sized ones when making this)
  
• One egg
  
• Plain flour
• Nutmeg
• Salt
• Pepper

for the sauce:

• Butter/margerine
  
• Sage
• Garlic
• Salt
• Pepper

And here's how you do it:

1. Wash the potatoes and boil them for something in the region of 30-45 minutes. Skewer them frequently to ensure they are cooked all the way through. NB: for those new to cooking potatoes, this should be when the potato offers little resistance when jabbed. In order to gauge this I recommend stabbing a raw potato with a skewer, afterwards you can guage it for yourself. As an aside: the skins of desiree potatoes, as far as I know, tend to split if they are being boiled in them. Do not worry about this.
2. Once cooked, drain the potatoes (in a colander, preferably) and rinse thoroughly with the chillest water that escheweth forth from yon cold tap of the sink. When it doesn't hurt to pick up a potato anymore, take a potato from the colander and remove the skin. Place the potatoes into a bowl and mash with fervour!
3. Crack the egg and mash into the potatoes.
4. Grate in nutmeg to taste. I wouldn't recommend anything more than a nutmeg. If you don't have whole nutmegs to hand then use some ready-ground stuff. Be sparing though, it's only to cover up the taste of the flower.
5. Add salt and pepper to your liking, and mash vigorously once more.
6. Add flour, a spoonful at a time, mashing and mixing between spoonfuls. When the mix appears to have a doughy consistency (think bread) then your gnocchi dough is ready to use!
7. Spread flour on the surface you're working on, flour your hands, and grab a handful of dough from the bowl. Customarily this is meant to be rolled out into a long tube and then cut into little pillowy shapes, but you can do what you like really. Stick to small sizes regardless of the shape though, big ones take longer to cook and are somewhat more difficult to eat. Once you have as many little blobs of dough as you like, put on a plate, seperate from eachother to ensure they don't stick.
   
8. Put a pan of salted water on to come to the boil while you prepare the sauce.
9. Take frying pan and melt in it a spoonful (or a knob or two, it's all about how you want it to be really. If you want to be sparing with it, that's fine, but just make sure the other stuff doesn't end up getting burnt to the pan). Once melted, add roughly four roughly torn sage leaves (but hey, don't make it TOO roughly torn, you just want little bits of sage, as much for presentation as taste y'know!) and some chopped garlic. Cook until the garlic starts to brown slightly if you're going for a full flavour, or stir until golden brown to caramelise, reduce flavour and add a slightly spicey kick to it (the spicey bit comes from the fact that the garlic is slightly burnt).
10. While keeping the sauce warmed (shouldn't actually matter too much if it gets a little cold), carefully (!) place the gnocchi into the boiling water. Have a slotted spoon ready to scoop the gnocchi out, as they float and bob along the surface of the pan when they are ready (magic, I know! Self timing food!) and, straight from the pot, place the gnocchi into the frying pan with the sauce in it, swirl it around and leave it. Continue until all the gnocchi have risen to the top, but remember to remove them as soon as they float for a sustained length of time, rather than just bobbing around. Once all the gnocchi have been covered in sauce, they're ready to serve! Enjoy immediately with a healthy topping of finely grated parmesan.

And there you have it, Joe Beaver learns to cook.

--

In other news, university is going pretty well. The work gets harder and comes more thickly, and I have assessed work sometime very soon.

Oh god.

--

Loving you all, peace out.

University

So, university, eh? The wild grey yonder, the long dark tea-time of the soul, the big greasy. What more can I say that wasn't already summed up in those few quibbling quotes? Seriously, that's about it.

I'm getting a little worried about things concerning physics, as well as my student loan. People complain about living off of £1500 a year, but, as of yet, I'm living off of £80 for the rest of my year. This is the root of my worries about physics, seeing as I can't really afford to live and buy the course book at the same time, and, until that loan comes through, I refuse to lay hands on my wallet. I'm heading to the university library (or the departmental one) sometime tomorrow so that I can return to the basics of my calling and get back to understanding physics, which is what I'm here to really do.

I'm quite pleased with Philosophy for the time being. I've been given one piece of work, which, basically, is to prepare for next week's lecture. I only have one of those a week. Every friday at 1:15 you'll find me there, in Derwent College, room 56, attentively listening and trying to record as much as I can on my dictophone. It doesn't really do a very good job in an auditorium full of noisy students, but I'll endeavour to do better in future.

The people here are, for the most part, lovely. My housemates are pretty damned awesome as a matter of fact, and, or so we are wont to believe, it seems we have the most awesome house in all of halifax, or atleast Ingram Court, but that's not hard if I'm being honest. The only side affect is living here is that I keep tagging things like "in all honesty" and other such bigotted tripe to the ends of most of my sentences. I swear that today I managed to slot "... in my opinion" onto the end of 5 consecutive sentences. A good stabbing'll set me straight no doubt, but I think that'll have to wait for the time being.

However, dear readers, it's not all shits and giggles at Ingram Court's House C, oh no. I miss my family an awful lot. I can't really put it any more eloquently than that. Unless you've done without your family for a long time, so long a time that you don't know quite when you'll see them again, despite allocated holidays then you really don't know. I really feel for the guy next door though(and if you meet me while I'm here then I beg of you, DO NOT BRING THIS UP; I feel awkward enough not saying a thing about it and I might explode if someone else has to do the same), he had his mum die on him a year ago last weekend and I don't think that my little pity party can hold a flame to something quite so monumental as that, and I would be an asshole for ever thinking that it would. It's still pretty painful though.

I guess the most painful part is knowing, and knowing for certain, that there are people out there who love me more than anyone else in the whole wide world. In fact I'm welling up just thinking about it, it moves me so much. That's something, in my opinion at least, that is so enormous that I would be surprised if there was a person in all of creation who isn't moved to tears when they start to really appreciate it. It's like knowing that out there there is someone who you love more than life itself out there somewhere, it makes your chest sag and you feel like you can't quite catch your breath properly and, despite not feeling anything especially, bar that monumental aching hole, knowing your not with them, it moves you to tears. It makes you shudder and shake, and convulse and squeeze and feel dead and alive all at once, and not at all. It's a great wholesome nothingness, so vacuous that walking through it would be like trying to walk through concrete; like having the life crushed out of you and having it replaced by a golden shimmering death that you don't know whether to cringe at the sight of or embrace in the rib shattering hug of meeting an old friend.

It's so poetic, in fact, that I can't describe it in the slightest.

D.O.A.

I woke up one morning, over a year ago now, and the morning that I woke upon was one of the first morning's that I awoke to the realisation that I am a free man. No, not free in the political, linguistic or moral sense, but in the sense that the managers at Amour Ltd. had decided to let me go, banning me from gambolling the fields of ardour, barring me from the realms of passion and a tumult of various other clandestine, soporific shit.

Of course I was upset, it's only natural that after the reposession of such a long, wonderful and secure state of well being that someone doesn't feel like getting out of bed sometimes. After a while things got better, as things often do, as even the bible said, "this too shall come to pass", which, I might add, should be used more often in speeches given by best men on wedding days. Life moved on. Things didn't exactly get everso much better, but i became gradually used to the langour of it. It took a lot longer than I hoped it would, but atleast it took.

One of the things that got me so riled, that really pushed my buttons (the ones marked "melt down", not "on") was the idea that one day I would forget how it felt to kiss the person I loved. The idea, already growing a little palid in my memory, was still vibrant, strong and something to relish, even if it did bring a tear to my eye and the thought that one day, no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn't be able to remember the soft brush of their lips and the fervour of the passion behind them terrified me. I suppose that's how I feel right now.

Currently I'm only 22 minutes away from tomorrow and already 38 minutes away from what might have been the last time I see two of my best friends for a very long time indeed. When the digits in the corner of my screen flip over to show "00:00" then it will be the start of the last day I spend with my family before I go to university. I very much doubt that day will be spent lavishing in eachother's company. I very much doubt that I won't fall out with my dad one last time before I go. I'll probably offend my sister once more and my mum will doubtlessly despair with all of us one last time. The thing is I'd rather it happened that way. It's what I know and love and the thought of my family getting along in a time of such astrangement and anguish doesn't seem right.

I'm only going to university, I know. I'll be back next weekend to sleep in my own bed, my dad is even going to drive to pick me up and drop off anything I think I've forgotten but it still doesn't feel wholely okay. It doesn't feel like I'll be coming home, it doesn't feel like everything's going to be alright. I understand now why our friends cried when Ben and Gareth left and why it didn't hurt me so much. I knew I'd see them again. But that was then and this is now and now I realise that maybe our friends didn't cry for selfish reasons, they didn't weep because they were seeing a friend leave them for so long but they were heartbroken through empathy. They didn't cry because they were leaving them, they cried because they were leaving everything they had ever known and I feel wretched for not realising that sooner.

There isn't a brightside to this blog entry, it seems even the very nature of the world is ought to crush my heart tonight. As I walked past the public house at the end of my street I heard the entertainment pouring Queen's "D.O.A." from the depths of his soul straight to my ears. "D.O.A." he sang, "D.O.A. I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely..." So lonely, lonely, lonely.

My story started so unpleasantly for a reason. I didn't talk about forgetting for nothing, because that's what I'm worried about. We're growing up and leaving out childhood behind and those times were important, far too important to ever even consider forgetting about, but I know I will. To know that one day I won't remember what it was like to be 14, 16, even the age I am now really harrows me, chills me, fills me with horrific nostalgic nausea and "I know I deserve worse but it terrifies me and I can't take it anymore".

Can I Help You?

Today was a hectic day. A day made all the more obstroperous and madcap by the fact that it has been placed amidst a group of phenomenally dull and languid days and the fact that my anxiety over university is growing at a pseudo-exponential rate as the days to my moving out pass. "anxiety.eⁿ"

Waking up at about 8:30 and rolling around in bed made for a pretty average start, me falling out of my shorts and trying to smother myself with the pillow, rolling around under the duvet. I was beckoned from bed shortly after by my father, announcing he was taking my sister to school. Sitting up I ran my fingers through my hair, my horror spiking and slowly fading first at the shock that most of it wasn't there and then at the realisation that I brought this upon myself. Meh, it looks ok, we'll deal with it.

About an hour later I was up, dressed, watered and fed to a satisfactory standard and my dad and I went about our daily rigoure. For from repetitive, todays rigoure was composed of returning books to my old college (with a cornicopia of Galaxy chocolate attached to make up for lateness) and exchanging a set of bulbs for a Maglite. Oh frabjurous day indeed.

I sat around for two hours after this, waiting to go to lunch with my grandparents. I saw the Gilette Fusion advert maybe 15-20 times. They say "5 blades with the precision of 1!", so they do. However, this is a little idiosyncratic, I feel. 5 blades on one side would indeed reduce the pressure you apply, as it adds 40% more surface area and decreases the pressure (with a constant application of force) by a proportionate value, and this may very well reduce irritation. However, putting 1 blade on the other side (for "precision") would surely mean a lot of pressure was being put on that blade, leading to more irritation than ever before? I mean, come on guys, one or the other, alright?

After a delightful (filling) lunch with the grandparents I went home and waited to go and see James home from the station with Emily (wubble-ewe) and Lis. This started going very wrong from the outset.

The time I was being picked up by Emily's dad in order to be driven to the station changed on a nigh-on constant basis, and that's just for starters. In fact the time fluctuated by about an hour in some of the first banterful relays, which is verging on the rediculous. As Lis was coming along I was asked to fetch her and bring her to my house, so I wandered to her house. Or so I thought. I mean, yes, I did walk to her house, but it wasn't actually her house. As I approached I decided to call her, so as not to disturb her family or something like that and, on hanging up, I just stood outside on her drive. I heard, yelled from the second floor, a girlish voice yell, "Dad, there's someone on the drive!" after having stood around for 2 or 3 minutes. I was not detered by this, but I realise now that I should have been, just a little atleast. Soon I heard the door open and turned in its direction, expecting to see Lis stepping briskly toward me. Goodness me, was I wrong. I huge, hulking form of a man appeared from said portal and asked me, a little gruffly, if there's anything he could help me with. I told him I was waiting for Lis, supposing it might have been her dad.

"Sorry mate, Lis isn't coming out."

"Pardon?" I asked, quite confused.

"She doesn't live here," he replied without malice or condesention, just fact.

"Ah... Heh... Well, erm, I'm sorry for causing you any alarm," I said, and with that I turned on my heel to find Lis wandering around the corner. She giggled at me for a long time after that. I almost shook my very wet brolly at her.

Arriving back at mine I was starting to feel a little better, and we sat in awkward silence until Emily appeared in her stunning, fuzzy colared red gloves, whereupon we scurried through the rain to the car. As we pulled into the station carpark Emily got a call from James telling us that the train was only just setting off. We waited for about half an hour. 45 minutes. Something. We got very bored. In the end we wouldn't have even found him if I hadn't wandered out to see if his train was still on time.

I am very tired. I am not funny in the least. You should have stopped reading this blog months ago.

"... I drank HALF of that?!"

Listening to: Mayday Parade - When I Get Home You're So Dead
Reading: Fireflies in the Cloud (I [lessthanthree] Matt Dinniman)

--

Blah, Joe really isn't feeling his healthiest at the moment but has yet to reach his personal "sleepy time starting line" of two o' the clock. Until then I'm entertaining myself with silly wikipedia articles about silly (in a good way) bands, browsing for music on PureVolume and wondering what song I ought to spend my coke iTunes voucher on.

In the meantime I will recount the "haps" of the past week to you, my street slang loving "homies":

nothing happened.

seriously.

liek, zomb.

srsly.

ya rly.

Oh dear...

Today (yesterday) however was alright. I went shopping with my parents in Long Eaton and almost had a nervous breakdown in Burtons when they just would not stop flinging t-shirts at me. All the same t-shirt, just in subtly varient hues. Had a row with my dad over the fact that walking boots are not the same thing as trainers (for one, trainers do not make my feet look stubby and add an extra inch or two to my height, unless a new fashion has once again passed me by) and got very frustrated when they wouldn't let me pay for anything. Admittedly I don't have that much money, having spent most of what I have on sexy picture taking devices but nothing makes me feel like hagard, old, cretinous, money grubbing, hole-filled (oxymoron?) of a man like having my parents pay for things that are frivolous and not necessarily needed. It makes me feel like a real tool, a product of modern society which has bred me to be frivolous, to buy things I don't need and won't last just to perpetuate the economy and gilt the pockets of the increasingly rich. Bah and humbugs, I say to you. Btw, Miss Eevee, I realise that spending £12 on a cocktail shaker was not the wisest thing to do in order to prevent the aforementioned gilting of the aforementioned pockets of the hitherto other-named fatcats of our immanent mediocracy, but hell, I'M GODDAMNED CRAZY.

However, things ended on a positive note and chips were had by all and curried chips were consumed by the priveleged few.

Later on Ben called and asked if I fancied coming out drinking with he and his smexy longterm lady lover, Natalie. Liquid amore was consumed by all, my highlights of the evening:

• When I asked for a Black Ferarri (two shots of Jack Daniels, one shot of Amaretto, top up with coke) and when I was told they don't serve them asked if they could mix me a double Jack Daniels, Amaretto and coke. I was then told they aren't allowed to mix triples. Bah. So I asked for two double Jack and cokes, then couldn't find my money, having to ask Matt to pay, only to find my money when we got back to the table, only to have Matt give me too much change. Then Ben went and ordered a double jack and coke and Natalie ordered three shots of Amaretto. You've gotta beat the system somehow kids, start learning now.
• Playing Ultimate Card Master with Matt for a good ten minutes (NB: Ultimate Card Master is usually a game of one card draw with one rule: Matt wins however he damn well pleases).
• Drinking Mai Tai through a really long straw straight from the pitcher ("What?" said the bar girl, "you don't want any glasses with it?" "No, we'll just take it straight from the jug." "You being serious?!" "...yea?" "OH MY GOD!"... amatures).
• Having Ben spray me in the face with lager, proceeding to wipe it off with a newspaper and leaving the print on my face.
• Eating two plates of nachos.
• Telling Matthew to sue the pub because someone shoved a huge toothpick through his burger and he could have eaten it and killed himself, perhaps twice.
  
• Watching Ben drink have a pitcher of Bulleit Breakers.
• Drinking half a pitcher of Mai Tai.
• Getting home at 11.
• Not throwing up.

Yes, that's right, my evening's are so cut and dry they can be condensed into a set of bullet points for easy digestion. My life is bitesize. When did I stop being a more complex person?

Why does my eye itch?

*itch*

Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure

I am somewhat unsure as to whether I blogger about this curious piece of the internet ruining people's lives in the past, but I am quietly confident that any previous mentions were made in passing and were, infact, absolute and utter tripe. But nevermind that now, on to the business at hand.

Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure is one of the most engrossing stand up performances I have ever seen. Yes, that link will take you to a place where you can buy the book of his terrible funny and refreshingly passionate adventures in the wide world of the web, but the stage show is all I have honestly read. However, at £6.39 I'm tempted to delve into the literary equivalent, despite the fact that the video is a whole 42 pence cheaper.

"Dave Gorman: this way up"

It would do well here, I suppose, to maybe enlighten you to what a Googlewhack is. Well, in effect, a googlewhack is any combination of two real (and dictionary.com verifiable words that, using no punctuation in any way, produce only 1 result when searched for utilising the Google search engine. This is not as easy as it looks. For example, you would imagine that a phrase such as carburetor mollycoddling would be one of the most unlikely combination of words to appear anywhere, spoken, written, least of all on the web; however, Google returns 101 hits for the blasted thing! A traditional googlewhack these days is endlessly thwarted by a plethora of wordlists out there on ye olde interents (serious business), so good luck to finding one. Do be good and e-mail the site proprieter if their site contains one.

However, I suppose this post is actually more about how wonderfully human Dave Gorman is as a person. This, I can imagine you thinking to yourself right now, is painfully obvious, what with him quite naturally being of the race homo sapien and all, but what I mean is that there is something unerringly beautiful about the way that he lives his life and the fact that he may be dubbed as one of those "touchable celebrities". Despite being an utterly brilliant man, undeniably so one may even say, he is still quite human and someone who you can easily get in touch with and may even reply to an e-mail of yours, should he feel like it. Dave Gorman does not only have a website, but also a flickr account, a flickr account that he no doubt payed for like any normal person with a credit card would. He also takes staggering (and occassionally bizarre) shots of things balanced on top of eachother. I'm sure there's something beautiful about that kind of thing too, but that's surely for another time. I suggest you take a look at what he does and be impressed at the fact that celebrities can often be real people too.

--

In other news, Escape Pod's Steve Eley directed me (impersonally, of course) to Destructomundo, a fun little podcast that postulates on armageddon hypothesese. This week was "Technopause", the idea that everything electronic would just stop working. Apparently we'd have to resort to using steam powered dildoes and goats for pleasure, just like in the old days, and many people would make a living buy creating armoured dog-pulled transportation carriages. It's crazy stuff and I think it's definitely worth having a look into, if you're very bored, or even just passably bored, or even not bored at all.

--

And Emily: I won't talk to you about boobs, it's not right. At all. Sorry dear.

The Saturday Night Edition

Ok, not pleased. I had just written a wonderful piece full or witty raport, as is habitudal of these rants of mine, only to have it deleted by Microsoft Word 2007. Don't get me wrong, I love that program. It's sleek, it's sexy, it has integrated maths equation building tools now, but do not trust it with your blogs. It doesn't have any integration for the new blogger beta, as of yet atleast, and will only be able to publish to the old non-beta blogger. And even then, it won't publish them. You can download it here either for free or for the paltry cost of £1.20. That's for the full 7 programs "Professional" edition. Be warned, they only accept Visa or Mastercard (and some lesser credit cards) as payment methods. Also be warned there is no HTML support for blogs. You can hyperlink and italicise all you want, but that's about it.

In other news I am the last of my male friends who still lives here at home. James is leaving tomorrow (and thus is still technically here, but realistically inaccessible), Ben left last week for Sheffield and so do did Gareth, although Gareth actually went for a year's worth of work placement in the land of the mighty sheep, provider of pot noodles, Wales.

"What? A racist advertising campaign against the Welsh? Muppets."

So, invariably, I am left with my girly friends, Emily and Heather, as well as Lis, other Emily and other Emily. Not that I mind this of course, I will be just left incapable of talking about breasts in quite the same way and any sexist comments will no longer be met with giggles but with sound thrashings; girly thrashing, without doubt, but sound ones nonetheless.

I'm taking solace in photography for now, in an attempt to expunge some of the unpleasantness, pictures such as these, for example:


Jim and Sheepy by ~gebimble on deviantART


Emily by ~gebimble on deviantART


benjaimeuna by ~gebimble on deviantART

and


flight261 by ~gebimble on deviantART

... I think I'm going to cry.

Why I am a Bastard

• I openly laughed at the fact that someone decided to heartfelty mourn the loss of their beloved pet and show it publicly with flowers.
• I laughed (unknowingly) at the fact that Lance Armstrong had testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain and then went on to win the Tour de France (nicknamed by some the "Tour de Lance") seven times. Bah, this one needs explaining.
• It was that bit in Dodgeball where Vince Vaughn is sitting in a bar drinking when he should be playing and Lance Armstrong comes and gives him the speech about what happened to him. I just thought it was so improbably tragic that I just had to laugh, like it was so bad it could never actually happen to a person. I'm sorry. I realise far worse does happen on a daily basis too. But I've gotta just keep laughing, y'know?
• The fact that I'm snide, sarcastic and belittling to everyone I talk to, including my friends (who somehow still like me).
• I hate most people. Infact, I doubt I would much mind killing most people.
• I wouldn't mind killing most people.
• I never really do anything for people (I think).
• I can't remember a damn thing past what happened this morning. This usually includes birthdays.
• The list goes on and on! I'm too tired and bastardly to keep writing!

I'll update the bastard list as time goes by, I suppose. Right now, however, I'm going to do something horribly self indulgent: situps.

Serious. Fucking. Business.

Coach Carter [edit]

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Timo Cruz (quoting Marianne Williamson from here book "A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles"), from Coach Carter

--

Thank you anonymous!

Ode to a Schelebrity

Prompted by one of the most moving things I have ever seen eschewed from the fingertips of a friend I am compelled to write some kind of rebuke, or rebuttle.

Spenny, like the Rogue she has whole-heartedly adopted the mantle of, is passionate, thoughtful, provocative, intellectually adept and flirtatious, as well as quite the cutie.
As she writes, "I think I first properly met Joe in year 10" and there's little more I can really add to that. Sat at the back of maths, adamently trying to work for an early GCSE, failing with an incredible fervour due to the fact that we are all incessant chatterboxes, there is little else I can remember about that year. This could either be due to the fact that I have some fictitious Altzeimers for the young or the fact that most of the rest of those years was taken up with little more than contemplating Hannah Brown's busoms, but either way Maths was one of the few things worth remembering. Good old Mr. Dowson, the gangly youth, how I do miss him. Year 11 was a little different, spent mainly in the company of the Dinner Group and actually trying to work over Anthony Giles and "Tiddle" screaming half-swears back and forth accross the classroom, in a bid to be clever.

"Pe-"

"-nis!"

And so on.

I rediscovered the joys of Spenny (and oh what joys they are! ... that sounds too smutty for it's own good. I'll take it out in post') in year 12, sharing no classes but atleast a few minutes every day, I feel she almost became a surrogate cuddle-bag, as it were. That sounds terrible. Bah. But what I mean is that quite often Spence would instantly brighten my day. We want gamble, frolic and titter for merry hours at a time and I think memories of you smooshing my eyes into my face while cooing "wheeeeeeeeres Joey? Where is heeeeeee?" will never be far from the forefront of my recollection. Yes, it'll be a combination of that and general giggles, the award winning smile and the nice ass, in all likelihood. Hey, I'm a guy! It's not like they'll be the only memories I have of her, just the primary ones.

I'm gonna miss her a lot. Over the past few months when we haven't seen so much as a scrap of eachother, bar textually via IM programs, she's still been ready to entertain and just blather around with all over the internet.

I feel bad that I don't know her as well as I ought to, but hey, if it were meant to have been that way then that's the way it would have already happened, and if that's not how it was meant then I have the whole of my life to rectify it. That's a long time, but saying that there's doubtless quite a lot to learn.

Thanks for the two years of sunshine sweetie. As you go to bigger, bolder (better?) places I'll be sad to see you go, but hey, clouds don't last forever!

iPod Games

Listening to:
Reading: New Scientist's "Last Word", collection 1

--

So, apple have finally released their new iPods. We've all been waiting a long time (in the tech world) for this and, personally, I'm a little disappointed. It's nice that they've dropped the price (for the 30 gig model atleast) to under £200, but for all I know that might have happened a short while ago. However, with this model update (which includes a better battery life as well as a brighter screen) comes the version 1.2 firmware update which allows any fifth generation iPods to play games, downloadable through the new and improved iTunes store (which looks rather sexy jumping out of the new iTunes 7 release). This, in my eyes, is something truly incredible. Ok, maybe "incredible" is being a little overzealous, but the idea of walking down the street being able to play Tetris on your iPod is something that titilates if nothing more.

As well as this apple have released a new iPod Nano coloured range (just like the dearly departed iPod mini) and the new iPod shuffle looks like something I wouldn't actually mind owning.

There still appears to be no easy, first party method of removing your music from your iPod and slapping it on some other form of digital media, something I would like to have seen a long time ago, but apple have their reasons for this (curse you RIAA) and I can deal with just having to back up absolutely everything the old fashioned way.

--

Is 2 pm too early to start drinking?

This Providence

Listening to: This Providence - A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing
Reading: Plato's Republic
Blogging from: my bedroom

--

It's been a long time since I've done a proper, in depth music blog and so, after the couple (quartet) of apple vodka martinis I have consumed this evening, I feel pretentious enough to write like I have opinions that people take to heart.

This providence is a four piece indie set from Seattle, Washington.

the world's greatest seattle one piece indie set

They are currently on tour with notorious girly fronted rockers Paramore, unoriginal (but irrefutably catch) Cute Is What We Aim For (give curse of curves a listen, that's one helluva badboy) and Hit the Lights (as yet unheard of by me, but naturally it'll happen in due course).Ok, time for a new paragraph. I'm typing this in the html editing tab and that just looks like far too much text to be healthy.

I recently acquired their album "Our Worlds Divorce" (don't grumble about it, I don't care) and was very pleasantly surprised at their refreshing awesomeness. Aha, I tell a lie! I was expecting something beautiful and they delivered, goddamnit.

The first track from this little stunner, "Well Versed in the Ways of the World", is an eclectic correlation of absolutely staggering coolness. Initially it makes me think of the The Early November, or that is to say, the lead singer sounds unneringly similar but appears to have nothing to do with TEN. I don't know why I bother to explain these irksomely subtle nuances, all of my music sounds exactly the same, note for note, word for word. Humbug.

Anyway, the track quickly develops into a pseudo-standard indie rhythm guitar style only to drop it, providing a poppy, husky, gravelling noise filter (like listening to a low quality .mp3 file) as Dan Young's vocals soar, peaking at sugary-sweet points throughout the track which, if I were of a slightly less lucid persuasion (stop snickering...) would probably cause me to melt or go weak at the knees.

As well as this, This Providence appear somewhat more lyrically sound than most of their forebearers. "In a world that lacks commitment you very quickly learn to justify your actions," appears to me to be a wonderful summary of the way things are today. Not necessarily all about the necessity for self justification, but it hints at the "sue 'em, sue 'em for every penny that they've got!" attitude of modern society.

The album quickly moves to something a little more standard (although nonetheless well executed) in "Truth and Reconcilliation", and it's nice to see that even rockstars can be fans of the same things as we lowly insects. We also discover here a hint of TBS vocal overlays.

The rest of the album continues in much the same vein, which is by no means a bad thing, oh lord no!

There new album, "This Providence" looks set to be cracking. The released track, "A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing" is jaw droppingly good. I can't seem to stop listening to it. This tells me good things for the rest of the album. Very good.

--

In other news, I just found out about the Brand New demos that are floating around the internet(right click, save as, that whole deal). I used µTorrent, but the effect is the same. As far as I'm concerned, these demos are awesome. The sound is more indie-pop than the hallowed "I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't" affairs of Deja Entendu or the bouncy emo effects of Your Favourite Weapon, with the initial sounds being similar to REM with good old Brand New lyrical flicks. The second track (if I've got this right) is my favourite of the lot thus far, reminding me a lot of Razorlight at their rockingoutiest.

I'm also informed that Brand New have an album scheduled for release sometime this year. It's been four years, goddamnit, and this album has been finished since mid-July! What's the hold up? It as yet does not have a name, but their new website appears to suggest that it might be called "Fight Off Your Demons".

Hand me a cross and some holy water, I've waited a long time for this!

Twitter.com

Yup, that's right people, Twitter have sorted out there site, made it all happy, jolly and colourful and alloted a number for English people to text to. That means I can text in. That means you guys get to know when I'm standing behind anyone who smells malodorous, or watching chavs, out of their face on Frosty Jack's cider, try to catch a pidgeon with a shoe (nowhere near as useful as a hunk of chocolate and a cardboard box, is it Spenny?)

--

Guess where I'm blogging from.

The bath. Yes, I'm actually in the bathtub. There's no water in it though, as that would be silly.

Goddamnit, I love wireless.

"...like tiny little gnomes with not very tiny mallets and an incredibly large penchant for evil."

Listening to: hellogoodbye - shimmy shimmy quarter turn
Watching: King of Queens
Blogging from: the living room
--

Have you ever woken up one morning to a hangover that you didn't drink to earn? Kind of like those times where you've been out drinking the night before and simply refused to get a hangover the next day? Well, that hangover you should be having has got to go somewhere. It can't just disappear into the ether, that wouldn't be coherent alongside the laws of phyiscs, making something of nothing and nothing out of something. Well, like the Bilious, God of Hangovers of Discworld fame, it appears, for today atleast, that I appear to have received somebody else's night out without the fun memories, the possibility of a beautiful girl in your bed (who was too drunk to realise you closely resembled Sin, in an aesthetic sense) and that somewhat comforting feeling of having a badger that tastes of cheese nesting on your tongue. Just the hangover. The fact that it seems I haven't spent any money to get there is some kind of reparation towards making things right, but, by God, I feel awful!

It doesn't help that I seem to have woken up in the middle of a construction site. Turns out that I forgot that today was the day the carpet fitters were coming in. All that I've heard fr the past hour or so is banging and sawing and loud, surprised talking. All I have to provide any solace for this awful, awful situation is that I've got a nice hot mug of coffee, which is getting colder faster than I'd like it, and King of Queens. I'm not really sure why, but Doug reminds me of Jon, producer of the year.

Jesus CH-RIST, there's some vicious banging going on. I'm no longer sure if the carpet fitters are fitting carpets, taking down one of our walls or falling through the floor.

--

On a side note, I'm sorry to admit that I've got myself a MySpazz account, so, if you really want to add me as a friend if you've really got to.

--

On a second side note, I was recently sent to Pandora Internet Radio, which is truly excellent if you're looking for some new music to entertain yourself with. It takes what music you already like (an artist or a specific song) and then finds other songs that match its musical qualities in the hope that you like what it picks out. I think the idea is awesome and, in the short time I've been using it, I've already managed to pick out roughly 3 bands which I adore to bits. That's spiffy that is. Real spiffy.

Episode 66(6)

Bah, so I missed out on the fact that my last post was post 66, which, without doubt, it going to be the closest (although not in any "number-line" sense of the word) I'm going to get to having a post 666, undoubtedly the most evil post of them all.

As an aside, the gematriculator says:



so it seems like I've got a long way to go.

--

I currently have nothing to write, apart from to let you know that the very English SPENNY is a celebrity these days. She had a podcast alley comment read out on Jon and Scott's ack' - Total Talk Nonsense. This is intense.

Those septic wannabees are like God's to me. Seriously, in their last episode they actually had God as a guest. I was amazed and moved by the profoundity of this and further feel they should do blasphemous, giggle filled bible readings for the religious podcast listeners of the world.

Congratualtions very English SPENNY. Congratulations.

Geeks abound!

Listening to:
Reading: Stephen King's "1804"

--

Ok, so I've been watching some geeky movies lately and it's made me miss the physics I was doing a few months ago and will soon be doing again. Thinking of Primer I got to wondering about time dilation and how much of an effect it has with things that travel at everyday speeds.

Starting off with human beings and using Lorentz's Time Dilation Equation I thought of Paula Radcliffe:

Paula ran the London Marathon (42.195 kilometers, or 42,195 meters) in the record time of 2:15:25 (or 8125 seconds), moving, on average, at 5.193236769ms^-1.

If we suppose that "t'" in this instance can be considered the observed time (as far as I can tell) this means that we have to multiply it by the square root of 1 minus the velocity of the body squared over the speed of light squared. The value of t' multiplied by this is equal to t. This is about 8124.999999999999878093402159375. This means that, on overage, during the course of the London Marathon, we experienced 1.2190659784062500274364533910957x10^-13s more time than Paula. It's not a staggering amount, but the fact that we experienced any more time (even though the amount is getting on for very close to 0) is quite mind boggling.

What if we now think about particles in a particle accelerator? It reputed that the guys over at CERN can accelerate a particle to about 0.99c (that being 99% of the speed of light, which is pretty fast). Lets say that they send it wizzing around their brand new synchrotron, the Large Hadron Collider, for 5 seconds. I have no idea how accurate that time is because I haven't studied this kind of stuff in detail, but at the speeds we're talking about it should have some intriguing effects.

Travelling at 0.99c (296,794,533ms^-1) for 5s (where this value is t'), the value of t produced for this is only 4.949999993s. This doesn't sound a lot, but imagine it had been in there for 5 hours (or 18,000s), this value would be 1781.99997s. That's just under 20 seconds of time we experienced at a totally different rate to that particle. Now, imagine it'd been doing that for, say, 100 years (3155760000s). The difference is 31557604.42s, which is 365.250051 days. That's just over a year.

That's mind blowing, in case you hadn't noticed.

Lord of the Net

Listening to:

Reading: Neologies ("watching" the "how to defend yourself in a barfight" video, kinda).

--

I am lord of all I survery. This specifically being the internet and my laptop. They shall all bow before me or have their soldered circuits buckle under the might of my mighty, mighty might.

You think I say this without reason? Have at, you cur! Why would one such as I claim these things simply for the sake of narcissism, merely to elevate my already inflated ego? I tell you now, egoes are like balloons that dive and swoop through the variously pressured skies of the world. A balloon, with simple air in it of an equal pressure to the room around it will be flat and, unless something is done about it, will remain flat forever. A balloon with a higher pressure of air in it than the air outside of it will yes, be bigger, but be doomed to fall. A balloon with helium will doubtlessly float but only up to a point, that point being when the pressure inside of it is the same as that outside of it. We are all as these balloons, some filled with air, some with helium and some, like me, with hydrogen. What I'm trying to say as that everyone's ego can be likened to the air and balloon. We all have a certain amount of air and pomp in us and it varies from person to person. The size of our egoistic balloon is governed by not just this, but the pressure (or lack thereof) exerted upon us by the people around us. I say there are those with egoes of helium and hydgrogen, as these peoples egoes will soar regardless and probably grow as they do it. I say I have a hydrogenic ego not because this will fly the fastest, but because it will undoubtedly fall short of the lofty heights of the helium ego and also for the fact that hydrogen is quite explosive, and very dangerous stuff.

But there was no need for that! Why is my ego so pumped, today of all days? Why now am I a god among electronic insects?

Coz I set up a wireless network, bitchez.

Yea, ok, it's not the hardest thing in the world to do, but it's not the easiest either. Ok, so it is pretty easy as far as the plethora of hardware based escapades go, but I was rather stumped for a very long time. When setting up the router and wireless base thing I was prompted to try and find and input a fair few numbers. VCI, MTU (MUT?), things like that. I then found out it would have done it automatically if I'd asked it to. So i did that, wanting it to get everything first hand, rather than rehashed through me. I was then prompted to input a username and password. I was a little worried at this point, seeing as through BT you issue yourself a username but never use a password. I eventually got 'round this and things seemed set up correctly, so I tried to access the internet. I couldn't! What could it be?

I set the damned thing up another 5 or so times, trying varying combinations of stuff, doing the best that I could with my limited knowledge, and all of it to no avail. In the end I gave up and went to sleep.

I awoke today to try and do the same thing, with similar results. I tried using the supplied microfilter this morning too, rather than knicking one of the BT ones, and that didn't work either.

I tried ringing Linksys' support line too, and while I was doing it my laptop loaded a web page infront of my very eyes! I was so overjoyed I nearly leapt up and hugged my dad, who was standing right next to me at the time. I was so happy in fact that I let him go around and tell people that "it started working as soon as he turned the grey box up on it's side!" Bless 'im.

And that's it really! We have a wireless broadband network now, so we'll be prey to all those handy dandy little wardrivers and I am starting to get a little worried about security. I'm gonna try and set up some MAC secure stuff soon, but if someone could help me out with a little something else then I certainly wouldn't mind the support.

Blogging, without wires! What a blast! I'm gonna have to add a "where I am:" thing to the top of my blogs now.

Finally, my quest for blogging in every room of the house can be realised!

Primer

**SPOILERS**

I am so stoked about this movie. Realistically I've just come back from Snakes on a Plane, one of the planets most thoroughly enjoyable action movies of all time (I was surprised to find), and one of the funniest to boot.

Snakes on a Penis? Hell yes.

However, despite only very recently returning from Snakes on a Plane, myself believing I was incapable of being wowed by a film any further that evening, I ended up at a sleepover at my good friend Gareth's house and found myself walking with Al and Em at the briskly chilly time of eight-thirty in the evening to the local DVD repository. Thinking it might be good to utilise the "3 for 2" offer there, Em thought it would be fairest if we picked a DVD each. Fair enough! Emily chose Narnia, I think Alex chose Fun With Dick and Jane (or maybe I chose that one too...) and I picked up Primer.

So, we watched Narnia, some of Gareth and Emily's friends invited themselves over (until 7 in the morning) and the house slowly began to fill with people.

After Narnia we just sat around and chatted for a while, I ended up making "nachos" (cheese Doritos + grated cheese + any kind of salsa dip + microwave on full power for about 3 minutes = boiling heartattack of doom) and eventually we watched the heartwarming and comical look at the downfall of a huge corporation through the eyes of an employee which was Fun With Dick and Jane. This was possibly one of Jim Carrey more manic roles. Yes, nothing can quite beat Ace Ventura, but Dick came awfully close. The rendition of the drunk corporate puppet in the middle of an upscale bar was phenominal. "Dear, I'm in a meeting!"

After that we fell "asleep", if you can call the fluttering, hazy cross-conscious stutters of a sleepover "sleep" at all. What with everyone groping eachother and screaming it's a wonder anyone got a rest at all.

Eventually I packed and left, walking with Emily part of the way and agreeing to give her some music sometime later that day and i was permitted to walk away with Primer.

Now, the movie:

**SPOILLY MCSPOILNSPOIL!**

Primer is set around a bunch of guys (two in particular) who enjoy building mind-bending pieces of equipment to explore the realms of physics in the little spare time that their strenuous jobs allow them. Very early into the movie two of the characters, Abe and Aaron, "break off", after a fashion, to build something a little different from what the group tend to expect.

They end up creating a machine from spare parts hacked from such varying places as their microwave, the under-bonnet of a car and (nearly) the back of the fridge. This machine, initially atleast, appears to reduce the mass of an object within it. Where does the mass go? It appears that it's converted to energy to perpetuate the motion of the machine for a certain amount of time, but that's not the weird part. After a chance encounter with a certain kind of mould which grows on the outside of the test subjects they use (not live, that's just wrong) they determine that what they have created is some kind of time machine.

A variety of crazy stuff ensues and the rest of a the movie is an interesting look into the various paradoxes surrounding time travel, as well as the stirring and provocative pseudo-superhero paternal nature of the two characters in their attempt to create a better world for themselves, their friends and families.

I'll leave it at that, you can watch the movie to find out the rest.

I was incredibly moved by this. The acting is astoundingly good, the cinematography is incredible (and the film makers are not detered by high noise scenes set in real darkness, something i feel a lot of films do not do especially well) and everything about it just screams of something truly special.

This one gets the Joe Beaver seal of approval. Twice. Make it three times, for good measure. And add some ice cream to it too. Yea, it's that good. Haul out the Ben and Jerry's fellas, it's go time!

generic update

Listening to: hellogoodbye - All Time Lows
Reading: Stephen King - Everything's Eventual (substory: Everything's Eventual)

--

I'm going to try and incorporate that kind of stuff into my blog entries. It might introduce some of you few readers to something new or spark some kind of mutual awesomeness between us.

I really wanted to blog here about Twitter, which is an awesome blog module update service (you can see my thingy on the left) which updates from text messages from your mobile phone. It works on the basis that "every moment of your life you have a certain feeling of status or that everything you see has some kind of caption" and that you should never miss the opportunity to tell people about these things. And I can't get this damned thing to work.

I don't know whether it's because I'm having to text transcontinentally or not, or I'm just doing something wrong. And it's damned expensive, so I won't be doing it too often anyway.

Also: hellogoodbye's new album is awesome. Eclectic, whiney, poppy and trippy it makes for a very rounded listen, and I love it.

Go "buy" it right now, whatever it takes!

In other news.

I need some server space. Anyone wanna hook me up? I'll love you long time...? And- HOLY SHIT, CAT! CAT ALL UP IN MAH GRILL!

Oh my goodness, that's a bit groovy!

I've just happened accross RADIO.BLOG.CLUB and have been inspired by it's esoteric levels of grooviness. I'm genuinely amazed! If I wanted to I could slap a snazzy player on my blog (or I have been mislead to believe) or very easily add a playable bunch-oh-shiz into a post! Like this:



or this:



Now, tell me that's not cool.

If I could figure out some kind of shortcut method of putting in what I'm listening to/reading/watching/feeling when I blog then I can just slap this in and you can listen along too! Oh, I feel like a giddy schoolgirl in love!

I also wanted to bring attention to the fact that hellogoodbye have a brand-spanking new album out. Admittedly, they're a geeky bunch of emotechno boys, but they try so hard, bless 'em. Go buy it, make your ears happy, so happy that they eschew their waxy innards for the greater (but not immediate) good.

The Big 60!

Woohoo! My 60th blogged blog! What have I in store for you, sir and madam Fevered Reader? Why, a cornicopic plethora of bloggy treats, the likes of which you have never before seen!

And when I say "a cornicopic plethora of bloggy treats," what I actually mean is "I changed the layout a bit."

Hey, I think it's nice! And I certainly think it works better than ye olde blue blog, and Joe is a green fellow more than a blue one (the blog matches my eyes now!). I need more cool bloggy things.

I'm kind of wetting my pants at the minute, sitting in my dark little room with my shiney new laptop, listening to Spike and Raychul (and no complaints about my spelling of Raychul's name, that's how it is spealt), just capable of hearing the splashing of rain in the puddles outside and completely incapable of ignoring the lightning and thunder. The reason I'm so worried is that a friend of my mother had her computer completely fried the last time we had a thunderstorm. I'm not quite sure what happened, but it's taken her three weeks to get it running again (hell, I don't even know if it is running again yet!) and her hard drive was completely wiped. Admittedly, lightning did touch down right across the street from her, and the likelihood of that happening is very small, but I've just gotten nice and compfy on this damned machine; the desktop clean and uncluttered, the background sparkling and bright and the visual style crisp and stirring, and let us not forget that I've only just got all my programs installed again!

Wah, that paragraph was getting on a bit, becoming a little scary in its gargantuity. I know! Lets reroute this and I'll talk a little about Spike and Raychul. Actually, I'll talk about Raychul. I mean, yea, Spike is a great guy, incredibly entertaining, stark, honest and beautifully brutal and blunt, but surprisingly deep all the same! And he's a photographer too, so kudos to him. But Raychul... Jesus Christ, I think I've found my perfect woman (along with every other gamer on the net).

This (on the left) is Raychul. She's a model. Not a dirty model, just a model. Ok, so she's a skinny little blonde girl, and that's not usually my type (and still isn't to be honest), but she is attractive. As well as this she works at a computer game store, one of the big American chains, and games hardcore stylee in her spare time. Most of you would stop reading here, know nothing else and think, "crikey! I gots to get me some o' that!" but wait, there's more! Ocassionally (almost constantly) Spike and Raychul feature sex and relationship talks on their podcast, and, during one of these sex talks, Raychul admits that she doesn't ask much from her boyfriends and is easily pleased. The point I'm concerned with is that she says, during coitus, she prefers to be on top. In fact, she prefers it if the guy just lies there and lets her do all the work. Apparently it may not feel as though you're doing anything to satisfy her, but she assures you that you are.

I'm sorry to be so shallow, sex really isn't that big a thing for me (ok, so i'm a very sexually person, but I can play it down) but I think there is something awesome about that. As well as this, from what I can tell, she is a really lovely person too.

Oh Raychul, if only you were lonely!

Bingey McBingeBinge

Finally, after the longest of times, I've managed to lay my eyes once more upon the God among men that is Benjamin Burns. And let us not forget his beautiful ladywife Natalie! And Matthew! Matthew, our own little Adam Buxton, a little island of absolutely madcap hilarity in this great ocean of grey boredom. And you'll never guess what we four, party loving, alcohol appreciating perfectly legally drinking 18 year olds did; yea, that's right, we went to Nottingham, binge drinking capital of the orient that is our belovedly sleezy East Midlands.

We started the night at the Gatehouse with a bottle of Magners that Natalie could not convince me to let her pay for, that is up until Ben told me to let her. I'm not sure why I agreed with Ben, maybe it's because I don't really like spending a lady's money and in having Ben ask I was tricked, or maybe it was the fear that Ben might beat me up a little. Either way, the drinks were bought and consumed in the chilly night air of the Nottingham pavement.

I can't remember the conversation exactly, apart from I remember Natalie talking about she used to drink there when it was a smelly old man pub and she was under age (before the massive crackdowns on ID) every Sunday before Rock City. Apparently they never cottoned on that Sundays were under 18s nights.

From there we headed upto Cast, home of the Cherry Stone cocktail and the greatest barman in the world: Chico. We started our stay there by having Chico throw ben a free shot of something potent and green and then moved on to something stronger for all of us. And then another set of shots. And maybe another. And then I got lost trying to go the toilet and ended up in a private area of the bar that I shouldn't have been in. When I finally did find my way to the toilet I couldn't get in because it turns out I was pushing against the side of the door with the hinges on, rather than the one I was supposed to. It's not like I'd had a lot to drink or anything... Heh...

I came back to the bar to find Ben asking for something cool and sippable, and a pitcher of it at that. So, Chico stylishly mixes us up a glass of ice and something horribly tangy and we all take a sip. Ben takes to it alone, although for one reason or another he shouldn't be drinking too much and Natalie's starting to get worried, so I take it upon myself to finish off the glass before Ben can get to it. Blech.

In reconpense Chico mixes us up "something sweet", and this would be the Cherry Stone. One part Amaretto, one part melon liquer and one part cherry liquer. Squeeze a lime into a glass, add the Amaretto, then the melon liquer and then the cherry liquer, shake with vigour and strain. Oh my goodness, it's like drinking a smooth, liquid cherry drop! And doesn't sting in the least! I am enamoured! Woohoo!

Ben then managed to scrounge some food from the kitchens (as he works there he gets these special privelleges) and got us two whole portions of "thick chips", one "chip" being about an eighth of a giant, planet sized potato. Ooooh, it was all so good! But this is poor quality writing, and I apologise for it, but I am quite tired and I do still stink of cherries. You'd imagine it'd be nice, but it's been twelve hours now and I'm just feeling ill.

After a while some of Ben's cook friends showed up; some nice fellas and some scarily chavish guys. I'm not sure quite what first allerted me to it, the branded tracksuit, the hoody, the cap or the "air shox", or the fact that when talked to about food he would always respond by claiming that whatever it was was "fuckin' wicked, man".

I never ever thought I'd hear someone ever say "panacetta, fuckin' wicked, man. Fuckin' wicked."

Ooooh-kayyyy.

So, a day later and the novelty still haven't worn off.

Like a new lover I am determined to blog in every room of my house (power sockets and phone cables permitting) and then maybe in the bits of my house that aren't even rooms, like doorframes, windowsills and each of the various rooves.

NB: the plural of the word "roof" can be either "rooves" or "roofs"! This applies to a whole plethora of words, such as "leaf", "hoof" and, for you LOTR fans, "elf" and "dwarf".

... I am so tired... But I can't sleep yet, oh no! I'm watching [adult swim] and listening to Bayside's "Acoustic" EP, put out in dedication to their deceased drummer, John "Beatz" Holohan. It's beautifully moving. I wouldn't imagine too many of Bayside's tracks would do well in the tender world of the acoustic set but the guys manage to put a lot of heartfelt "emoness" into their performances. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried a little. On the inside.

Oh the novelty!

I just thought I'd post a quick piece on just how callow it is to blog from the (dis)comfort of ones bed. I say discomfort because I had no idea just how difficult it would be to rest a laptop on yourself without getting the base of it anywhere near your genitals, while at the same time leaving the duvet completely smoothed over so that the creases don't compact and lovingly brutalise your thighs.

Saying this though, I do like it. It's not that I'm really left unrestricted by wires anymore, because I am. I'm not marvelling at the powers of wireless networking or anything quite so exciting, more marvelling at the idea of the no-wires. I think if I were presented with wireless home networking I may very well wet my pants. And no one wants that, especially with a laptop not-quite resting on my groin. I'd love to try and explain that one to the guys at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary.

"...?" he would say.

"I, err... Erm...?" I would doubtlessly reply.

"Nevermind, let us not worry about the whys and wherefores, time is off the essence, for we do not have long to save your shrivelled manhood from certain death, and perhaps a certain sibilance to that of 'congealing'!"

And at this point my jaw would sag and my eyes would grow hollow and I would probably be likely to pass out. I don't especially want that to happen, and so I will verily refuse to have anything to do with wireless networking until the novelty of all of this has worn off. It's one thing to grow impotent through the extra heat placed on your testicles, but something entirely other to bring such pain on yourself through gadgetary based incontinence.

That was a very long, fuzzy and roundabout way of saying, "I've got a new laptop, and am thrilled," wasn't it?

The Results

Ok, I will preface this by saying, despite how troubled and vexed I sound, my future (for the time being) is secure, I seem to have exactly what I want from my results and things are absolutely fine. So no comisserations, thank yous!

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My day started at around nine when I was awoken by my mother, leapt sleepily, but no less hastily, from my bed and bolted for the shower. A brief, scalding shot of hot water, a dab of soap here and there (never forget behind your ears) and I was out again and dried without even considering stopping to stair vainly at myself in the mirror. An equally rushed breakfast, dressing session and round of hair styling and we were out of the house by about 10:30.

You may ask how all these very snappy things took an hour and a half to do, and, in response, I may tell you that I stopped between them and watched Commited which has newly returned to its rightful home on Paramount Comedy! Huzzah!

This aside, as we set off my dad slips his copy of Bond's self titled album into the CD player, adding a horrible, surreal sense of urgency to the whole thing which easily belittles the levity with which I worked earlier and my stomach clenches and contracts, working into it huge knots and spontaeniously generating butterflies as the drive nears its destination.

As I get out of the car and procede to the grades pick-up point I am bombarded by my friends, arms flung all over me, encircling and squeezing and groping and a whole miscellany of madness! I was somewhat worried for Fiona too, as she charged towards me. Her top being of such a low nature and her breasts being so bountiful in size I thought someone was going to be either heavily embaressed or lose an eye. Bless her.

I eventually beat my way through the crowd, grab my grades slips and am baffled and be-sorrowed by what lies within.

A B for physics module 5.
A C for physics module 6.
A B for physics overall.

I think to myself, "ohshitbuggerfuckshitbuggerarsewankcock!" (in that precise order) and try very hard (and succeed) to fight back tears. It's ok, I can ring my universities and everything will be dandy. Ok, just breathe. Lets look at what else you got.

A D (!) in R.S. module 4.
A D (!!) in R.S. module 5.
An A (?!?) in R.S. module 6.
A C in R.S. overall.

What. Thefuck. How can I get straight Ds in the two easier modules and a nice, fat, middle of the road A in the hardest module of the bunch?! GTFO OCR! GTFO. Not to mention it seems my hopes of getting into uni are going down the pan.

And on to maths.

An A ( =D) in pure core 3.
A... D (D=) in pure core 4.
A B in maths overall.

This I can accept. Pure 4 was a bitch; everyone hated it, including the teachers. The overall grade is acceptable too, as this is what my university asked for.

So, that's it, I can't get into either of my choices. Both asked for an ABB, with an A in physics. Oh dear God, I think I'm gonna hurl.

Commiserations from teachers and advice all 'round.

We rush home, I jump on the phone to York admissions to find it engaged. I keep redialling. I get through.

It turns out I had an unconditional offer at York anyway.

Jesus-fuckin'-Christ. All that worrying for nothing? I hate school life.

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But this has raised some important issues for me. As a result of getting into York without the grades I should have I ought to feel elated. I don't. I feel cheated and empty, and I don't like it. I appreciate the fact that I did work hard for these and I'm getting a break here, but it's a break I didn't deserve!

I won't deny that I'm a lucky guy. I have a wonderful family, I could want for next to nothing and I always get the break I need. For once, I don't want it. I wanted to be reprimanded for failing to reach the hurdles I was set, to know how it stings, to have the time to reconsider my life, maybe get a job and know what it's like to work really hard for what you get.

Everyone keeps shaking my hand. My parents gave me £50 for getting this far. My grandparents gave me £100. I feel like an asshole. For me an A is the only grade worth getting and anything less is failure. Yes, it's a high standard, but one I thought I could live upto. I just feel very uncomfortable about this whole thing. Infact, I feel ashamed. I don't think I've ever felt ashamed of myself before in my whole life. Yes, I've felt a bit of a cock, I've felt compassion for people I've hurt, but I've never felt shame for anything I've done until now.

I need a drink.

Pirates of the Caribbean *SPOILERS*

So, I've finally gone to see POTC 2: Dead Man's Chest, and not without my fair share of apprehension. After seeing the POTC dedicated Ask A Ninja episode, learning all about how everyone gets their own plotline, how everyone is a girl apart from Keira Nightly and various other pleasant defects. I realise now I should never, ever watch Ask A Ninja and take anything it says seriously (although I agree with the whole Keira Nightly thing, despite the whole seduction [good gravy, that was hot]).

The film as a whole was pretty good. The only bad part about it was (I think) the bit where Will was running up the beach, or where Jack was trying to sneakily snatch the key from Norrington during the sword fight. The running from Will was just so poncy it hurt and the key snatching was equally as wussy (the silhouette shot was especially crap). Otherwise, very nice.

One last gripe though: can pirates be emo? You all know who i'm talking about. Yea, that's right: Davey Jones.

He cuts his heart out, over a girl no less, locks it in a chest and then puts that in another chest and fills the remaing space with love letters, flowers and other rediculously romantic stuff. If that doesn't scream "emo!" like a pair of skinny jeans, a floppy, swooshing fringe, a lazy eye and a row of self abusive train-tracks then I do not know what does.

Fuckin' pirate emo fags.

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Disclaimer: I love emoes really! Infact, I am one a bit! Old school, I might add.

Baggy trousers and tight shirts all the way.

The Emily Returns

Let the fanfairs commence, let trumpets blair and tubas roar throughout the streets: Emily is back home. Sorry Dr., the other Emily. I'm sorry you didn't get one of these when you came back from holiday, but to be honest, this isn't really about Emily, I just couldn't think of a good title for this.

For a month now Emily has been "enjoying" all that Ecuador has to offer in terms of culture, sightseeing, expansive (biblical) mountain walks, blistering cold and chicken. We've already heard all (ok, a fair few) of the various horror stories of the treck that she went on with her school; the horror of going to build a playground for the underprivelleged Ecuadorian children to find that someone else had already built one for them, eating chicken and rice for nearly every meal, having to try and sleep in a sub-par sleeping bag above the cloudline, blistering heat throughout the day and so on and so on.

Admittedly, I will probably make fun of her forever more for going on this trip, having to earn a rediculous amount of money and then not quite enjoying it so very much when she got there, but I'm glad she's back and hope she never has to go away for so long ever, ever again.

On to other things. You'll notice I got my flicr widget all widgety, but I'm refraining from posting too much there, due to the file restrictions per month, and nothing much else has been happening.

I went to derby today to buy a Q.ball air blowing thing, as I was worried about my camera. There is crap all over the inside of the eyepiece and it distracts me so much I just had to do something. So I go in, buy it and all is well, I am satisfied. I wander around further, mostly clothes shops (as I went shopping with Gareth, Ben and Emily; Emily was apparently in desperate need of new attire so clothes shops were a must) and I bought myself a wonderful pair of brown corduroys which fit me like a dream and make me look as skinny as I've always longed to be. What happens? I show my sister what I look like in them and she calls me "emo". I don't resent this, I am emo. However, it was the link she made with "skinny jeans" that she made that really fucked me off. I have a pair of trousers that fit me and make me look slim and she thinks I'm a goddamned trend whore.

Bitch.

Also on returning home, I whip out the Q.ball and get to blowing. Everything's fine, APART FROM I SEE A BLOODY AWFUL BLACK BLOB ON ALL MY PICTURES.

I got very worried and thought I'd got something on the CCD, and y'know, a "charged couple device" has charge running through it, and thus attracts dust statically, so once it's on it's hard to get off. I get to blowing, but it turns out the CCD is as clear as a bell! I clean the front of the lens, the back, everywhere, take more pictures, can't see a thing! I tried a dust image too, to try and pinpoint it, but when I do that it disappears!

It turns out I have a dead pixel in the monitor itself.

Go figure.

The pitter patter of little electronic feet.

That is to say, there will be a new addition to my world renowned blog.

I've recently gotten myself a Flickr.com account, for the posting of photos and whatnot. Now, the good people at flickr have let me get myself an RSS feed of everything I post. I'm going to try and incorporate this feed into my blog.

If it doesn't work, then I am a looser. A looser who can't speel.

Send me comments of congratulations if I win though!