I <3 Trans World Sport
I know I've probably said it before but I really really love Trans World Sport. For those of you who have never seen if in its 16 years of production its a TV program which pretty much has all the sport in the world and its about an hour long. Something about it, perhaps the way its presented, the voices of the presenters or its editing just makes me love it. Its like the greatest TV program of all time and its history shows this. Anyhow most channels buy it as a 1 hour spacefiller in the morning and I've just realized its on Channel 4 on a saturday morning at 8 :D w00t. There I was thinking "damn its made to fill space on International TV but its not available where its made?" and its been right under my nose for so long. Aww yes :D something to set the VCR timer for (And hopefully if I can get the blasted thing to get a frikkin decent signal; my MyTV TV on my Mac - planning on using a booster or feeding it through a Video machine so I can use its S-Video port which probably doesn't suck as much ).
Speaking of which Pete my next door neighbour is going down to london in his van on monday for some business stuff and he's volunteered to take me down with him so I can run up to the flat and bring Genevieve back here!! w00t!!! My mac!! Finally! So long without it! No offence to Trevor here, my iBook but I really miss my G4 and have a lot of things to get done on her - Installing Jaguar onto Trevor, Playing WWIIOL and WC3 (using a friend's version till I have actual money to buy one with), and all the card production.
What is more is that my Media-production-thingy job looks like its going to come through! On Wednesday I'm going into the production office with Kris to spend a day showing what I can do, I really ought to brush up on my Flash as its a bit rusty. In fact I might use the Crimson Mace website as an excuse to work on it for practice, when I get my computer back from London :)
I went to see Bruce Almighty on Saturday - V-good film and extremely funny. Good to see Jim Carrey back on form as his rubber-faced self :)
In other news I've managed to convince Conrad to buy a Mac. Well actually I've convinced him to buy a mac when he next buys a computer which will probably be a long way away since his current computer is reasonably new and spiffy but he's had enough of all the crap windows keeps throwing at him, the fact that the person told him, when he handed over the comp "whatever you do don't touch the BIOS" leads me to believe its something like a heavily packed closet - like when a kid "cleans" his room and just shoves it all in there - which when opened will result in a whole lot of nasty stuff flying out everywhere.
Its been a good week for Macs. A load of people over on Slashdot have been trying to discredit Apple's benchmark figures. I'll weigh in on the subject:
Firstly the SPEC tests were done as fairly as was possible and using the best results they could tweak from all competing systems (even turning off Hyperthreading on the P4 Chip because it made it faster for the compile).
Secondly if Apple had just used its own compiler (codewarrior for instance) the G5 would have looked obscenely fast, to be fair they ensured that all used the same compile.
and Thirdly those users on slashdot, after Greg Joswaik, Apples VP of Hardware actually called Slashdot to explain why the benchmarks were fair, called for information on how good the individual apps ran (because the apps were more important to them... after the benchmark had been proved true :D)
The results actually were on the site, naturally people don't check information before they flame :D - a complete stuffing for all PC systems by the G5 in Photoshop and a framerate drubbing on the highest maxxed out Gaming system available in Quake 3 Framerates.. Suck it :D
I've just endured two sessions of ignorant PC users bashing macs and I just love to put them right :D Its as if they've typed "Macs Sux" so many times in IRC that they've started to believe it despite what the facts tell them hehe
(NOTE: Woot! New blogger kicks ass :D Its a lovely interface, just thought I'd share that with you!)
Later
John
How's you?
Well after doing a whole load of article writing (although in fairness I am actually behind my quota by 2 articles for the past week or so) and reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Oh yeah!! That's my pot(ter) addiction dealt with) seems I haven't had a lot of time to write on this blog as of late. Not to fear, I will return to more regular writing as soon as I've got my head around a few things. The thing is that writing an article for Kebeol.net isn't just writing the article itself its also about the layout and picture finding and stuff because the pictures are for me, half the article. This generally means that its a longer process than it could be. What's more all the HTML coding is done by hand. Sure I've written up HTML templates for my image insertion tables but they still have no less than 4 variables to be filled in, along with the time it takes (albeit a short one) to reformat the images I use to a size better suited to the article. I really ought to work out a way to script all of that stuff but since I haven't used Applescript in a long time it might take a while for me to do this.
Still I enjoy the writing and looking at the finished article, what's more our Hits are still steadily climbing as are our visit totals. That said I've been under slightly more pressure now that Conrad and I (although primarily myself because he hasn't got time to write more than 2-3 articles a week) have been doing all the reporting/posting for Kebeol because of Kev and Beth's new timetables. Therefore I've had to ensure the writing has been of a sufficient quality to merit people's continued interest, so far it has been (people must really like reading about Alchevien Struggle because that's all we've got on there more or less :D).
Oh I suppose I better fill you in on that too. Alchevien Struggle is the CCG Conrad and I have been working on for a few weeks now, its moving along speedily and would be even faster but for the fact that I accidentally took home the notes which Conrad normally uses to determine cost and stuff (all the balancing issues are mostly his department) and haven't met up with him since Saturday. Most of the development of the Mage cards was done online but nearly all of the creatures were done face to face on saturday which helped speed the process up (we have only another 9 more to do of one mana type) and then its onto Equipment and Spell cards.
I've been the chief layout designer for the moment although I won't pretend the cards are looking anything more than shadows of what they will do when they are finished. Still, all the layout work and physical card design has been my department so far with Conrad giving the OK to my designs and offering tips and information.
We're looking to bring on Tom Goodacre and Lee Wood onto the design team. Both are friends out of the group I used to go to the club with and both are great guys and avid gamers. I have other friends who play Magic but this doesn't really make them gamers as they tend to be more Magic orientated. We feel both will add something to the mix to spice things up.
I have to say I'm rather pleased with myself so far, many of the card mechanics and abilities have been of my own design (with the obvious exception of Conrad's Single Handed effort on the Confederation of Free States Mages to mirror my own with the Veltorian College Magi Mages) and years of gaming and creating games have left me with a brain full of useless ability making information :) A lot of my work is visible in the creatures. Power and stats tend to be allocated by Conrad and I tend to weigh in on the abiltlies front with his help obviously.
All in all its a fun venture and its been going well. What's more its not entirely without a commercial element because some time in the hazy future we might actively go and solicit publishers for it (naturally after a lot of work and other sets), however as I said that's a very far off possibility. In the meantime Conrad and I are just enjoying the fun which creating this game brings. In fact he's probably online as I type this but I can't go online until my Father calls from Hong Kong (don't want to tie up the phone-line for that).
Insects
A couple of nights ago I made the fatal error of forgetting to close my window at night. I had spent the day with it open because, lets face it, guys smell. We can't help it and it doesn't matter how many showers we might take, the cumulative effect of us staying in rooms for prolonged periods of time is ultimately a bad smell. Therefore by motherly edict my window whilst I'm at home remains open during the day. I like it, it gives me a nice breeze from the river and I can hear people chatting as they amble by my window remarking on how lovely their friend's dog is looking, plus I've always had a bit of a connection to water and love having it next to my dwelling as I had in Sandy Acres which was about 300 Meters from a river, Gold Coast which was right on the sea front and this place which is on the banks of a river which as I look outside is shifting by at low tide.
Anyhow I was online and had neglected to shut my window whilst nightfall had come and my lights in my room were still on. I looked up to my horror to realize my ceiling was blanketed in a mass of really itsy bitsy flying insects. What followed was a massacre as I armed myself with a folder and laid waste to their legions. The whole debacle lasted about half an hour with me occasionally mentioning to people on MSN that I was going straight to the Hague after this undoubted warcrime. The final score was something like Me: 483 Insects: 0. I Roxx Nature :)
In fact so substantial was my kiling spree that I was later able to swat and scrape up a sizeable spider with only 2 ply of Kitchen towel. Naturally the "Swatting" took place by hoisting my mother's immensely heavy handbag to a decent heigh and letting it fall, Wiley Coyote style onto the little bastard who had stood perfectly still the in hope I would just walk past him. Nevertheless I feel my brave efforts in scooping him instead of just leaving it till the morning were commendable.
Anyhow the moral of this story is that Air-Con is a right not a privilege. Learn it Britain! :D
Later
John
Absolute.. Unparalled.... Joy!!
I just spent the last weekend reading the new harry potter book and Steve jobs just announced G5 powermacs which completely destroy every other chip out there making them the fastest computers in the world, with cool new designs. There is also iChat AV which is the best Videoconferencing software in the world with all the normal apple ease of use and a device called iSight which is a camera/microphone utilizing all that incredible apple design. Plus Panther is incredible!!! Aw Man!! I can't even speak this is all so cool!!
I'll get back to you when I stop doing my macuser victory dance
"My comp is faster than your comps
my comp is faster than your comps"
Later
John
The death of BB4
Jon just got evicted.. Jon's Geek Army are in dissarray as are loads of posters on the official C4 forums. Simply put Jon had 69% of the vote to stay on BBLB and E4 and when it came down to it the producers pulled out all the stops to get rid of him including a vicious campaign on the net and in editing (being a video editing afficianado myself I found particular delight in pointing out the exact moments where scenes were spliced and manipulated to bring down the great Jon Tickle).
To be quite honest I have no idea how it happened. However any posts on the C4 forums questioning exactly what happened have been summarily deleted. BB chose the evictee and in all reality thats the bottom of it.
At the moment I'm hanging around bitching with the folks of Jon's geek army. They seem like a nice-enough bunch so I'll probably be sticking around in their forums for a while to come ;)
Tomorrow I'm off to see Bruce Almighty. One of the things I loved about having broadband was that I could watch all the movie trailers on apple's quicktime site and therefore know about movies way before they were released here in the UK. Bruce Almighty represents close to the last ones I saw before I was obliged to vacate the London Flat and all the broadband contained within.
I am simply going to HAVE to go to london to cancel that Broadband and truck back my computer.
In other news Apple have leaked information about the G5. I say 'Apple' when in fact it was some web-monkey who accidentally hit a post or publish button somewhere or who had screwed with some image naming/src targeting resulting in the G5 specs being posted instead of the G4. The results are quite an eye opener.
I sincerely hope Jon Tickle sets up a weblogg. He's very web literate (and should be having been on the net since at least '95 according to Jon's Geek Army's usenet searches) and it certainly would be nice to get a dose of the Tickle Meister after having had him so cruelly ripped from our screens.
Noone and I mean Noone gets the kind of response Jon got when he came out of the house except the winner of BB. C4 Producers really made a daring gamble on targeting Jon this year but unfortunately it's exposed their workings. Shame really, its nicer to be manipulated if you don't know its happening :)
Later
John
Summer Antics
The question of whether it is possible for a summer to go by without my friend Richard committing a sex act with an under aged nymphomaniac is answered once more with a resounding no.
There exists amongst my group of friends "The Curse of 14", it afflicts certain members of our group and provides limitless fuel for mocking and laughter. Its origins are famous and so I ought begin there in order to better enlighten you as to the nature of the hex.
It all started about 2 years ago during the summer of 2001 when it transpired that Richard had gotten laid. Kudos was lavished on the guy and many props were offered to him, until he revealed that the girl was of the tender age of 14. Now let me make a few things clear, her age is certainly not an indicator of her being some nubile young virgin, the girl in question ( a certain 'Stacie' ) can be accurately described by the application of the term "Slag" and her previous sexual partner was a 21 year old. In all fairness she 'seduced' Richard (albeit in about as unsophisticated a manner as was possible) however the undeniable truth was that Richard had slept with a 14 year old and this would never be dropped.
The summer's transcript was interspersed with references to that very special number, indeed Richard himself was often just called '14' for effect. Then at the end of the summer Carl Bailey - one of the most vocal teasers, performed a similar act with the exact same girl. His activity was probably far worse given that he actively pursued relations with the girl and to all intents and purposes achieved his goal through the less-than-noble pursuit of getting her absolutely smashed. Carl had also spent time before that attempting to get his leg over with Richard's Sister a girl of equal intellect and promiscuity. Things did not bode well for the group.
The next to fall prey to the curse was Andrew. Although he has not to my knowledge, engaged in a sex act with an underage girl, he has spent the past 12 months in clear pursuit of that goal. Firstly with Stacie (will that girl ever keep her legs shut?) and later with Julie (Stacie's friend).
And so we come back to Richard and Sunday. Apparently Julie's friend Lucy (Dear god its like some bizarrely slutty sisterhood of underage essex slappers! - and must they all have names ending with "ie/y"?!) asked Richard in no uncertain terms, for permission to, and I quote, "Suck his dick". Richard contends that there is only one real response to this question but I would rebutt this assertion with the fact that the inquisitor was not even out of Secondary education (assuming she didn't drop out of school). The act was later confirmed by what I read of an MSN chat log between Lucy and Julie, the absolute absence of education has rendered both girls incapable of constructing coherent sentences or even employing rudimentary grammar but the overall effect is a rather detailed (and unwanted I might add) description of the exact proportions of my friend's wedding tackle and the girl's technique (NoOoOooOooooo!! make the bad text stop!!!).
And so it continues.
The only members of my group of friends who have not engaged in illicit illegal sexual activity are:
Ben: Because he's practically married already
Matt: Because he's in the RAF and the only action he'll be getting would be an unfortunate incident in the shower room
and Myself, because the only time I came close to illegal sex was with a girl who (thankfully) wouldn't date me because I was going back to Hong Kong. In truth she was about to turn 16 anyway.
However aside from the 5 full months of mocking which lie ahead for Richard (which I will joyfully engage in with absolute enthusiasm, in fact I have altered the 'De La Soul' track "3 (its the magic number)" to a more appropriate Integer) the whole debacle saddens me slightly.
To complete my post I would like to put a shout out to my two uncles currently getting the lives paid for out of my father's fee notes whilst I job hunt -
"I won't pay I won't pay ya... No waaaaay... Na-na why don't you get a job?"- The Offspring
BT Anytime... Except now
Hoorah! (incidentally there's lots of swearing in this as I get gradually more and more pissed off as I write :D Just a warning ;) )
As I am writing this I cannot connect to the net, the house ISP is BT through their Anytime package which famously became "sometime" a while back when they decided that people who had paid them for a flat rate unlimited access service weren't actually entitled to use it for unlimited access. I chose BT for a number of reasons. The first being you can't beat the phone company: Its a fundamental rule of our society, there is no way to beat them through customer service or even legal means - they have diplomatic immunity practically so ultimately they were going to fuck with my internet connection any way I looked at it, either through charging me in some roundabout way for using the competition or through cutting my bandwidth.
The second being that it wasn't too bad a deal when I started. £15 for a month of unlimited access isn't that bad and the speeds are comparable to all other Dial-up ISPS. However after constant service outages and other things I hate BT with a passion. One of the primary reasons for hating BT was their handling of Broadband (First stalling, then only selectively installing, then overcharging to a truly extortionate degree and finally stalling the competition like a m*********er) meant that if you want to buy a broadband access from BT, you first have to pay for "installation" that means some guy has to look at your exchange box and re-arrange some wires - this mutha costs £60 apparently! Then you have to buy the modem, thats right, you have to fork out cash for a frikkin piece of junk that BT is pimping on all its customers.
Anyhow it was this hatred of BT which led me to go with One.tel for my broadband and guess what? They screwed me over too! They just secured billing for the next 3 months in one payment from my direct debit just before I was about to cancel their service -3 frikkin' months worth of payment!!- the result? My bank account just choked majorly and I am now over my interest free overdraft facility
The only good thing to come out of this is that I happen to have my modem still from One.tel but I have to head to the flat and cancel my account because I don't have the apparatus to do it here (namely my account number) in Colchester, so I actually have to get on a train down to London to cancel this thing, naturally that's another £15 I can't afford and in addition to this I won't be making that trip if that's all I'm doing because my computer is still there, the computer I desperately want to bring down here because my Grandmother is going to break it soon.
Every f**** time I see the old bat she tells me "Oh you don't need your computer do you Johnlouis?" Which is granny speak for "I'm going to pack it away but because I'm about 4 feet tall and 70 with the strength of half a 6 year old I'll fucking drop it and crack your ridiculously expensive LCD display. Why? Because I need to busy myself with something so that I don't think about how badly I've fucked everyone over!" Arrgh!!
Anyhow next year I'll be cable broad-banding (those who played Magic the Gathering 'back in the day' will realize the play-on-words there) with my mates in the flat we go to so my expenses will be less and I might be able to fetch some money for my modem online. After all its better than paying BT £60 for something which is provided for FREE in every single other fucking country when you sign up for broadband!
Right Flame off :)
Later
John
The sun today is glorious. Thanks to Mr. Bush and American industry (responsible for 25% of the worlds greenhouse gasses) English summertime rocks! We have had beautiful sun and heat all week and indeed before that!
My sister got back from a party she went to last night at about 10 am this morning. She stayed there but ended up walking from town back home. Bizarre!
I managed to find my old bracelets in the wooden pot by my bed, They are leather bands with silver bits on them and stuff. They totally go with the beach-sitter look I was cultivating in Hong Kong with my hawaiian shirts and linen. I felt compelled to wear them as I am also, by freak chance, wearing a long pair of orange shorts, they are about the same colour as those flotation devices that people throw at others at sea but they actually don't look too naff. We get seagulls here, living on the banks of a river, in fact one just honked or squawked, or whatever the onomatopoeic term might be, so we get the sounds of the beach too. We are however sadly devoid of tiny scooters whizzing past so I'll have to wait for my holiday to Italy (16th of July! Woot!) for the full experience.
Kebeol.net is really picking up traffic and fast, we've more or less trippled our visit levels and done something evil to the hits because of our spiffy level of updates. That said it has been a bit slower on the update front this week as Kev has had to re-sort all his school stuff as he's moving up to AS Levels now :) University holidays kick ass.
Conrad is heading back to Colchester next week which will rock as we will have more time to work on our CCG (which has been reported on in a series of articles on Kebeol) and game. Wizards of the Coast have decided to start making superb Magic cards to piss me off and I've missed about 4 superb sets. Lets put that into perspective. I miss the 4 best sets ever built but I was around for Homelands, Chronicles, Alliances and Fallen Empires. Without question the 4 shittest expansions ever built for Magic The Gathering. Looks like I'll have to work double shifts at whatever job I end up working at in order to buy boosters and stuff.. Grr... All the money I make over the summer should be spending money :( God bless ridiculously thick grandparents.
I also have my possable wooden bloke on my desk again. So far he has been moving position whenever I feel like it. First of all he was "Gene Kelly" wooden man, in a classic Gene pose, then he was "Michael Flatley; lord of the dance" wooden man and then my sister moved him to "bruce forsythe pose" wooden man. He was "Michael Owen" wooden man when Owen scored 2 goals in England's international game and is presently "Homeboy" wooden man, adopting a side-leadning arms crossed pose popularized by such rappers as Puff Daddy and Dr. Dre.
Right its time to go and sit outside :)
In fact to quote Mr. Billy Joel and the greatest last verse in the history of music:
"I've told you my reasons for the whole revival Now I'm going outside to have an ice-cold beer in the shaaaaade Gonna listen to my 45's Ain't it wonderful to be alive When the Rock and role Plaaaaaays, yeah! I'm keeping the faaaaaaaith.. Yeah yeah yeah yeah Keeping the faith"
Later
John
Woot
Hello All
The RPG is doing great, my character, Ignatius is really coming along nicely and he's been a lot of fun to play. What's more I went into town today and filled in an application form for Essex University Part time employment stuff. When I got back Kris offered me a job as a mac-operating multimedia techie - Can you say "JOY!!!"
I do a lot of Digital Video editing and I totally dig all things Multi Media related so getting paid for it is gonna rock royally :D
In an idea world I'd be spending my earnings on cool things for my macs and stuff but I live in a world where I had to spend all my £1000 overdraft on food when it was supposed to be Emergency/Fun money because no-one told my grandmother to shut her frikkin' cake hole for 6 years and neither of my uncles there have worked since October (and worse still, out of choice). Consequently I have to spend my earnings on paying off my overdraft so I can spend it next frikkin' year on more food and transport ffs!! What's more I have to pay rent next year! Rent!! That's gonna be up to £100 a week!! Is there going to be money for that? Bollocks there will be!! But there'll be money for other things!!! Arrrgh!!!
Some things really piss me off, those are some of them.
HK$6 Million... £35-40 a week is what I got last year.
Still today has had some highs, in fact two in particular:
The Joy of Tech has a superb fathers day geek humor comic
and the ever fantastic Penny Arcade has a wang joke.. I've been missing those :)
Now I need to inquire as to how much I'll get paid as a techie. It had better be at least £5 an hour :)
Later
John
Tustran
I've just joined a Forum based RPG. Conrad had been trying to get me to join one on a forum called Perfect Existence. The idea behind a forum RPG is that the forum has many many boards for each location and basically every interacts through it and does the whole RPG thing (killing monsters, beating people in) however I had an aversion to the Perfect Existence RPG for several reasons, the first being that it was a big fat load of anime. This may make me seem a heretic amongst the geek community but I hate the Japanese aesthetic. I grew up in Hong Kong and all the local cartoons there are (obviously) anime and I just can't stand it. There are a lot of great things about Asian culture, generally in Hong kong it is the family values although there is the ever pervasive pursuit of cash. The Hong Kong people are also very industrious and hard working and take pride in their jobs.
There are a lot of good things about Chinese, Singapore Thai and Vietnamese society but I have a problem with Japan. It is a culture developed at an astonishing rate which unfortunately left a great many holes. The most obvious of these is the nature of sexual attraction in Japan. Society has engineered it so that men all lust after girls still in Secondary School in the customary sailor outfits worn as uniform by most. The result of this relentless pursuit of innocence is that grown women have to hug teddy bears and giggle naively in order to compete. Its just not right. This unfortunately permeates all contemporary art forms and it is especially evident in Anime where girls can only be about 16 and have long legs :) I never even felt anything when looking at Asian art to compare with the Sistine Chapel or the work of any renaissance artist, it is a soulful experience to view great art and it really touches you and inspires you. The most I get out of Asian art is "hmm. That's cool". I have viewed all kinds and its just not my bag.
Basically reading the Perfect Existence forums was like watching one very long Anime movie. Things like:
"Kinjoji flips onto his left hand and then spins 3 times into the air with the fire of a thousand suns burning in his soul"
However Tustran is set in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG System so its at least more my cup of tea. That doesn't mean that I can't find something else to be pissed off about ;) Namely one person who is quite blatantly a 13 year old boy who is pretending to be a 21 year old Female... Now I'm sorry but no actual girl says the stuff he says :) He's just got a very distorted view of what real girls are like because he's just watched too much Anime :D If he tries to give me "Huggles" I'll be kicking his scrawny pre-pubescant ass :)
later John
Mm....Foodstuffs
I feel the urge to eat a banana sandwich and yet I sit here eating Noodles. I suppose the little voice in my head saying I didn't need any more carbohydrate is nullified by the fact that I would otherwise be eating these noodles. I think I'll go and change my food.
*5 minutes later*
Dear sweet lord this is goooood banana sandwich. I haven't had one of theses in a while. Its like all... Banana'y and stuff.
Anyhow I have spent the last few days at Home after a weekend at the farm with my mates. It seemed to be the last night we would be spending there as Granny has finally put the place on the market with Visitors to look at the place. However she hasn't had any offers which come close to what she wants for it (and in all fairness what it's worth, the land alone is massive and the house is vast).
However it does seem to pull the carpet out from underneath my summer, combined with getting a Job I don't think I'll be able to capture and of Summer 2k1:( I had hoped that last year's failure to follow was due to a change of circumstances (namely matt's absence and the poorer weather) and that we would get back to it this summer but it seems that someone has a desire to piss on my parade.
Still we have the holiday in Italy to look forward too *chews some more banana sandwich*
I am a bit melancholy at the moment. I just can't seem to fathom the way that my childhood seems to have been ripped out from under me. It seems a bit dramatic (and I hate all that melodrama some teens spout) but I figured that I had at least another few summers of fooling around with my mates before I had to enter the real world but situations as they are I don't think I'm going to get that =/
I've applied for another job, this one is working door-to-door for Childline. The pay is very good and the hours don't bother me (although there aren't many of them) and it has the added bonus of being something I believe in; Childline is a wonderful organization which I consider to be a manifestation of just some of the loads of good which gets done by charities in this country. Of all Childline performs perhaps the greatest service - allowing a free phone number for children suffering emotional or violent abuse to call for counselling and free help. I mean I can whinge about not having a summer but they don't have a life.
The family decided that as I was looking a bit down in the mouth they would let me have my own room, so we spent friday and the weekend clearing out the downstairs box-room and redistributing stuff so as to leave me with a bed, a cupboard and a computer desk, all that I need :D
Big Brother
Yesterday on the daily reccap both of the major gamers exposed their positions.
Firstly Nush in the bedroom when she was getting a talking to by sissy (blech). Did you noticed how she started wimpering? She turned it round so it looked like she was the victim, Sissy got drawn in and then in a moment of SHEER brilliance Nush actually got sissy to appologize to her which solidified her position as 'nice'. Definite Game There
Then Cameron REALLY gave the game away. A lot of people had suspected that he was playing the game and I for one had my suspicions confirmed. Cameron clearly agreed with Jon about the task but refused to do anything in fear of compromising his squeeky clean image, just like Justine he was frightened of being viewed as in cahoots with Jon so he refused to act.
Jon remains the man. He has many faults but he is an alright guy :)
Later
John
Blink182
Its been a while but as its summer I decided to plug Kevin the iPod into the Stereo and play all the Blink182 tracks from their CDs that my sister bought over 2 years ago. They really are superb still. I heard someone once say Sum41 were better than I almost threw up. All their stuff is just guitar riffs stolen from Blink and nonsensical lyrics which only have to rhyme at best, Blink on the other hand tackle nearly every facet of youth today with all the best songs for the best topics. I still have a whole lot of respect for them. That's not to say Sum41's In too deep isn't a great track, its just that its the only track which doesn't sound slightly contrived on their CD.
What's more they are releasing their new album this summer and lets just say that since there is not a less than incredible track amongst any of their previous work this album is a must buy.
Kebeol.net
Kev said we were aiming for about 2 news posts per person, per day so I've been keeping up with that but I suxxors at getting news, instead I write massive lengthy articles and perhaps a newspost or a smaller article each day. Yesterday I continued my Games from My Past series with an article on the Star Wars CCG and then wrote an article on Big Brother about what the housemates could buy on eBay with their £36 quid, (rofl!) food ain't helping them thats for sure :D
I've been really getting back into my writing and having Kebeol.net to post to has really got me excited about writing again. The layout possibilities, the look of the site the feel of it, its all top notch and it inspires me to create better articles. I've finalized my article layout style so its not going to change in the foreseeable future as I like it and it suits the site well. Another day means more writing :D What shall I target today? :)
Summer Job
I phoned up Essex University based on a tip-off that they were looking for people to help out in the canteen which will be used by foreign students (read: Totally hot Italian girls) so I now get to go and grab an application form at the University.
I've been obliged to get a summer job because despite the gargantuan sums of money earned by my father very very little trickles down to me and my immediate family. If I want to pay off my overdraft for next semester I'm gonna have to work my ass off. What's worse is that next year I have to pay rent which means I'll be getting a job whilst I'm at University. I know it sounds bitchy but I really shouldn't have to go through this and not in a "I'm too good to work" way but in a "with all the money my father brings in I shouldn't have to work" way. Its not elitist its just part of the fundamental rules of our society, the father provides for his children until they fly the nest and if he can he pays for them to goto university. If I lived in a council estate or had a middle class family earning I wouldn't expect anything of the sort but goddamn my father is the highest paid barrister of his age in Hong Kong and the best barrister in Hong Kong. Yet all the money he earns gets siphoned off to pay other people.
I know that for writing this I'll get a load of bollocks from some people saying "Yeah this is just the way the family is run" but they can just go f*** themselves. If I see them getting a job then I'll shut up but until then whilst I am a law student working through summer to survive financially and they are living as an adult off my father's fee notes I'll keep bitching about this.
Besides which those people don't read this blogg and the only relatives who do read this blogg don't live off my father's earnings so I can explode like that with little fear of repercussion.
Big Brother
I think if Jon survives the next eviction against Justine (which I think he will) he'll be like Paul was before - The Unflushable housemate :) Even if they nominate him again the person who he'll go up against is bound to be Fed and the public will vote out the gangly scottish man :)
There is a lot in the media against Jon. Last week Grayham Norton (or "The Housemate Assassin" as I like to call him) dug the claws into Jon but he survived and I think that this week by backing Justine for eviction Grayham has realised that Jon is a survivor, albeit a bit of a boring one :) Soon Jon will be the tactical voting equivalent of a brick wall :) No-one can come up against him mwhahahaa! If he wins his next vote against Justine then Fed is ROYALLY screwed :)
And to be honest.. Justine is getting a bit too whiny for my palette :D
John = Dark Lord of the Sith so he will survive
*yoda voice* However.. 2 there always are... A master... And an apprentice
Which one of the poor housemates has John willed into joining the dark side?
Well to carry the analogy further Dark Lords of the Sith in the movies always prey on those with internal conflict and Fed has plenty of that right now. What is more, in order to succeed his master an apprentice must cut him down - In the evictions which I predict will be Jon v Fed next week :)
All is going according to plan! mwahhahahhahah!
Later
John
Gig'ery
I went to see a band which my sister knows called "Haitus" play at the Sound Stage pub. They were quite good although as per usual the levels were totally crap and set up with the express intention of causing damage to your inner ear :)
The quest continues to find out exactly what was the "house double" I drank with my coke. I asked for a bacardi and coke and the bartender said "how about a house double and coke, its cheaper", he repeated himself many times which I assumed was a result of him not being able to hear me over the noise. So I nodded my head and bought it. As I drank it I thought; "How is a double of whiskey/rum and coke cheaper than a bacardi and coke" and hence, what the hell kind of moonshine whisky is this? :D
I had taken Richard along as well, although he arrived late and missed Haitus, instead watching a band who's first single was called "Jesus Mohammed Fucknut" - Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? :)
His reason for being late however, was completely understandable. He works at Argos on the afternoon/evening shift unloading all the packages which arrive for the storeroom. Unfortunately 2 events have occurred which have made his job significantly harder.
The first being a court ruling against Argos for its part in a price fixing scam, to the tune of £19 million. Unfortunately (albeit naturally) Argos have decided not to let their profits take the hit and instead have elected to kick the employees for their illegal activity. The result is that stores are no longer allowed to hire new help and are unable to pay overtime to employees.
The second is the realization by Richard's fellow storeroom employees that they haven't done any coursework for the past 6 months resulting in them all summarily quitting their jobs.
So now one man has to do the physical labour of 6 and he's not getting paid overtime. I'm guessing he's not going to be there much longer and let me say that the Argos in Colchester is now royally screwed
BTW I've posted another article at Kebeol.net - I'm a writing machine haha :D
Right time for bed
Later
John
ROFLMAO!
The Big Brother crew just failed another task! LOL! They failed the one before it in which they had to stay on a pedallo (one of those river boats which you pedal) and they had bet 50% of their shopping budget on that one. Then they bet 65% on this one and they failed it too! ROFL!!! They have £36 between 10 people HAHHAH!!!
I know its cruel but its so funny!! You shouldn't bet so much if all of you don't take the task seriously hehe!
In other news the Eviction is between John and Justine.
John is slightly boring and reads Star Wars novels. He is also a tiny bit obnoxious but generally isn't too bad.
Justine has been bitching about John for the past day and not because of him but because of the circumstances surrounding her relating to him, if you understand what I mean. He's done nothing wrong to her but people sort of insinuated that they were a couple or something and she's uncomfortable about that assertion. However the way in which she is handling it is blaming John instead of the people who instigated the whole palava. What a load of guff! I'm voting her out :D Let my namesake stay! Haha!
Oh man I love Big Brother :D
Later
John
We Plug-Plug-Plug-Plug-Plug-Plug-Plug-Plug-Plug the whole day through!
My first article is up at Kebeol.net. Its called "Super Soaking" and requires you to click on the "continue reading" link to read it all but its worth it! I'm really pleased with it because its part of the new Kebeol.net, the one which is regularly updated and a good source of news and cool stuff. A joint effort between Kev, Dan, Beth (who gets back from holiday soon) and I. In truth I only know Kev but that was enough to make me jump headlong into the site when it was in its 2nd stage of life (looking nothing remotely like it is now).
I figure that I normally use this weblogg to express my ideas and sometimes these become sort of articles/essays, however the weblogg format really isn't ideal for this purpose. Consequently I'll be driving most of my creative writing into my articles on Kebeol.net. This also means that my ideas will be more 'fully formed' and easier to digest. I'm really diggin' the whole idea, the blogg remains, as ever an insight into my head and a diary of my day to day events, indeed it is what comes to pass and that is what it should be :) Those who enjoy my articles, essays and thoughts can read them in a fuller and better format on Kebeol.net and I am on the whole really more satisfied with the amount of creative fuel it provides me.
Cinderalli, Cinderelli!
Yes Disney songs do have all the titles I need :)
I woke up this morning to a mountainous pile of work. My mother now has a job helping disruptive kids (psychos) at TLA school so she is unable to get all the housework she wants to do, done. I therefore offered to do all the work she misses and after a day of that I can honestly say it is a ridiculous workload, and I wasn't even doing things like taking the kids to school or getting them up out of bed.
I also discovered that I am appallingly bad at ironing. Well in fact I am not bad, just immensely slow so I ended up giving up on that when my Sister returned home from her exams today. She took up the strain and I went online to talk to my friends.
All in all I am slowly coming round to the realization that tomorrow the same tasks (I believe) await me. It is not a terribly enjoyable notion :)
Well off to bed as it is pretty late.
Later
John
Washing Machine
Our washing machine has started making ridiculous noises. Why I'm not too sure - not being much of a brain on Washing machines, or indeed on most things mechanical. In order to save on the hassle and indeed the expense (although he declined payment) of hiring a washing machine repairman we instead called upon the services of Mick, spouse of Mary who both live in Fingeringhoe (yes the village is actually called that!). He stayed for a full 4 hours and in the end we managed to deduce that the pump was making the funny noises but was in fact working perfectly.
Thank heavens, all this means is that we can't use one of the wash cycles without really setting our teeth on edge - and we no longer have to take our washing to the farm (although the Maytag washer and driers there are incredible and a doddle to use).
Earlier today I had found out that there was no food in the house. And I mean nothing apart from bread and Chocolate Chip Muffins. Not being in the mood to eat excessive amounts of food (as I am slimming down for my beach lounging in Italy) I plumped for a single slice of toast but thankfully the family returned with an intermediate shop. We again have food in our house! Thank the lord!
In addition to the elimination of stodge in the ol' diet I'm also back on the exercise regimen I used to slim down last time I needed to. Its based on what I learned in the few years I spent weight-training and sparring with my Uncle Jason (a body builder and martial artists). I put on some serious muscle for a while and I've kept most of it. Its mostly thanks to my broad shoulders that I can carry it off without people noticing how pathetic my legs are :D (they aren't quite as bad as my uncle who has some pretty pitiful little ankles because he just wasn't built that way).
Kebeol.net
My new article is up! Wow 2 articles in 2 days! This time its the first in a series of articles in which I will be going through CCGs and RPGs I have played. The series is called Games From My Past and can be found at Kebeol.net. Today's article focuses on Marvel™ Overpower a fun superhero based cardgame which my friends and I played for a month or so, which is still looked back on fondly :)
Examy
I have yet to find out how Conrad did on his Roman Law exam, which was his last one. I just realized the reason for this is probably because he is currently getting himself very, very drunk :) Hehe! Hope he did well and I suppose I'll find out in the morning. Chiara my sister, had her Graphics exam and a Math exam which sounds like fun. I reckon she did well in each as she tends to work hard, significantly harder than I :D
Well time for more surfing!
Later
John
Server.. Arse
Saturday's post today :)
this was written on saturday but wasn't posted. Anyhow here it is:
Sorry for the complete lack of updates but it hasn't been my fault :) (it never is :D) the server went down for reasons I'm not quite sure of, I'd imagine Kev'll have the answer and his blog's URL is located in the left menu. Anyhow good to be back online.
I'm currently in Colchester living up my summer vacation - Wooot!! It's going to be fun fun fun in the sun sun sun :) First on the purchase list is a supersoaker water pistol - although to be fair its more a water rifle. The idea is that I get all my friends and I to buy SuperSoakers and continue the Nerf-Quake outdoors :D
Of course one must remember a few things.. The first is that I'm a god with a watergun. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet but when I was a kid I had a SuperSoaker 50 (which is still sold today as a "classic series") and I remember it for its superb sniper capabilities. I used to have a sniper's nest at the bottom of my garden in this big housing area on the South Side of Hong Kong. Every few minutes during the massive "water wars", in which kids of the area would be divided into 2 teams, there would be some unlucky boy who chose to walk up the steps from the underground garage.. He'd be soaked with a few pinpoint precision shots and a call would go out "Swaine's Sniping Again!!".
My super-soaker oddessey continued later on in life when, on my last day at Shatin College, my year decided that we would all come into school in "Cowboys and Indians" regalia. Which is the easier costume I ask you? Jeans and a flannel shirt or moccaisins, linen, leather and a bigass headdress? (with warpaint for good measure). I was the only Indian (apart from Alan who didn't do much soaking as I recall) all the other guys were cowboys and the plan was to have a water fight in the main grounds at break time.
However Big Chief Speaks-much-crap was packing serious heat. A super soaker of massive proportions who's codename escapes me. Anyhow it was about assault rifle sized and I had spent the last 3 weeks training in my back garden with the specific intention of bagging as many 'kills' as possible. I could swivel and hit a coke can at a distance of 15m. I was good.
The fight was epic.. Everyone looked at my weapon and realized I was intent on another battle of the little bighorn. They had foolishly chosen water-pistols, I had water-heavy-ordnance. One guy decided to open up the battle. He took a few finger pressure pistol shots at me. I just let loose and sprayed his face off. And so it began with about 5 guys (all in good fun you understand :) ) rushing me as often as was possible. (but retreating under a hail of high-pressure and highly accurate water). Caleb, my incredible tall friend decided to try and lob a water balloon at me. It ricocheted off my waist. I turned round and sprayed his trousers (which were at about head height, seriously this guy was TAAAAALL) in emulation of that classic kid's prank involving the re-direction of a bathroom tap. All in all I think I got everyone :) Although I did manage to shoot Helen in the face which probably wasn't part of the plan (haha!) She came a bit too close weilding weapons which were quite obviously held for the intent of squirting me, she maintains that they were not but my über combat reflexes forced me to react :D
The score was somewhere in the region of Cowboys: 4 Indians: 257
Anyhow I intend to pull off some of my fancy moves against my mates this summer and with a decent assault rifle configuration XP310 at a mere £9.99 my inner child can frolic once more.
The only problem is working out what the f**** all these names mean!!! XP - CPS - EPS I mean which is better?!?! What do they do?!?!? do I want Xtra Power or the Constant-Pressure-System. I think the one I used then had a CPS but what about that Xtra power?
I think it's gonna take a while to decipher
Haircut
I had myself a haircut on saturday. The best thing about getting your haircut is that afterwards drying your hair is so much quicker. Its a silly thing but I like that fact. Possibly the only attractive feature of baldness :)
The cut is actually quite a bit shorter than usual. Although thankfully neatly skirting the length at which my hair "does a biff" (biff being the name of the villain in the Back to the Future movies - think the first movie for this particular cut) and just sticks up stupidly.
I went to the farm over the weekend with Richard, Ben and Matt. We bought water guns. The rest you can probably guess yourself :) Never has so much playing of counterstrike or halo provided so much fuel for fun. We totally got into the whole 'Water Wars' thing just as I had when I was a kid. Which reminds me the post on the similar subject is still on the other computer as I was unable to post it owing to this the server's assault by hackers. Not to worry though as plastic-rabbit is back in business. What is more Kebeol.net is also up in its new form - a blogg as its easier to update and provides a solid stable framework for our random postings.
Afterwards we got in a car (Bens) and proceeded to perform numerous "Drive By's" ie; soaking people as we drove past them. Of course I say soaking, at the speed we were going we couldn't get them drenched by any means, most of them just sort of looked around for where the rain was coming from. Apart from one brilliant head-shot on some guy waiting at a zebra corssing by a rounderbout. Quality fun and most people seemed happy for the cooling down as today was a swelterer by English Standards.
Right I have more to do. Time to get back to regular posting as summer is here :D
Later
John