July 31, 2003
Untitled
Currently Listening To:I'd Rather Be In Love from the album "The Spirit Room" by Michelle Branch
Someone finally took the time to slap the bloody ignorance brigade into shape after all their lameass "G5 benchmarks faked" crap. Read it here. The only problem with it is the constant wintel user bashing which doesn't help his argument which is otherwise sound.
I was on an MSN chat channel with some idiot who tried to claim they were faked. Sadly I don't know much about compilers so I couldn't say much. Now I'll just link the bitches up :)
At the moment MSN is currently 'updating itself'. Basically I started up the official app because I wanted to group chat (Fire doesn't yet support Group Chats, although they have someone working on it according to the Sourceforge page). It signed me in and then asked if I wanted to update.
Given that its current incarnation looks like it was sewn together by a 4 year old and scattered with brightly coloured blobs I am eager to see what has changed - god only knows they can't make it suck any more than it already does. Unfortunately the manner in which it updates is just as graceless as the rest of the application.
You log on, you start talking to people and nothing happens on the download front, no status window, no dialog box. Then after a few seconds it suddenly opens this status window which shows some downloading going on. However it also locks you out of MSN insofar as you can no longer type to anyone or select other windows. So in effect you basically have said hi to a bunch of people and now must ignore them whilst the update loads. Apart from making you appear very rude its extremely frustrating to see people going "Hello? You there?" In the end I quit it, told people what I was about to do, restarted the app to reopen the "update" choice window (because I can't find it in the app for love or money) and clicked "now". That's just poor ass design and to be honest I shouldn't accept anything more from Microsoft.
I'm off to the orthodontist today, after a prolonged absence effected by my father's unwillingness to pay orthodontists bills (its all about saving Grandad's reputation don'tcha know?).
No fecking way! The download finished and the application quit. I start it up and turns out its done sweet FA because its still asking me if I want to update! Man thats weak. If I gave a crap about MSN I would be seriously pissed right about now :)
- Update: MSN is still total crap :)
Later
John
July 29, 2003
FLAME ON!!!
FLAME ON!!!
Currently Listening To:Anthem from the album "Enema Of The State" by Blink 182
RIGHT THATS IT!! TIME TO RANT!!
*takes deep breath*
There's a reason why I'm currently playing Blink 182 at ridiculous volumes. Basically if you remember I wrote about this lovely house we were looking at moving into. Its a glorious farm house and everyone in the family fell in love with it.
The idea being that we move into it as a family (the 6 of us, because a certain member of my fucking famliy can't tell the fucking difference between what is family and what is family) and make it our home. Lots of assurances about it being our house and being lovely. Fucking yay
Then It became obvious a few days ago that we would be fucking sharing the house with my fucking grandparents. Yes THOSE fucking grandparents, The fucking retartded midget who made me fucking lock myself in my fucking room for 6 months whilst I was in London because I couldn't fucking escape her constant whining, bitching and moaning. I fucking hit the roof and had a lot of words for my father. In the end after a lot of discussion I didn't mind as long as my fucking grandmother was gong to stay downstairs in our house because lets face it the fucking cripple can't climb stairs and its funny.
Then today it transpires that the fucking midget went to see the house with her fucking measuring tape.. The bitch wants to move all her fucking furniture into the house!! FOR FUCKS SAKE!!! Every house of my fucking grandmothers looks the fucking same and its total shit. She has fuck all knowledge of interior decorating - as seem by the fuckloads of people who go to her flats she puts on the market and go:
"Hmm.. I'm going to have to fucking rip all this shit off the walls because its fucking lame. In fact I'd rather take a second look at one of Saddam's palaces in Iraq that just had the fuck bombed out of it because it looks better"
Then it fucking turns out that the bitch is going to be 'paying' or rather she is under the impression that she is paying for the house - in fact the money will be fucking coming out of her account because the bitch finally sold a fucking horse. Lets put this shit into perspective:
Who earns all the goddamn fucking money for the family? My father
Who the fuck lost $10 Million on fucking horses in the past 6 years? Who the fuck? GRANNY THE FUCK! That's who!!!
SO HOW THE FUCK DOES THE BITCH THINK SHE'S PAYING FOR THE GODDAMN HOUSE IS ALL THE FUCKING MONEY FOR ALL HER FUCKING SHIT CAME FROM MY FATHER'S HARD WORK!? FUCKS SAKE!!!!
My father is like "oh I don't like this sort of family fueding, I'm just being pragmatic" because I'm laying into the cow at the moment because I've had e-fucking-nough of her! For fucks sake Dad! I know you don't read this blog because the only fucking member of the family who reads it is my aunt. My Uncle Jeremy caught wind of the stuff I was saying about my grandmother being the fucking dotty madwoman she is though a conversation with my Aunty Jan who thought he read it and he told me to stop talking about that shit. Well my Aunt apologized profusely because she's a really nice person and I said that I didn't blame her because she didn't make my family the fucking gestapo.
All this fucking shit about not saying anything about what the family is like because the Hong Kong press would have a field day is bullshit! I COULDN'T GIVE A FUCK ALRIGHT?!
For fucks sake ever since 1997 the only person who's taken the fucking rap for one stupid fucking decision made by my fucking demented grandmother has been my father to keep my grandfather's name clean. WELL GUESS WHAT ASSHOLES? He's retired and his name now don't mean shit!!
I'm not going to be fucking censored about how fucked up that side of my family is anymore. My fucking grandparents can go fuck themselves. I've had it with protecting family assets and 'taking one for the team' by staying in the same flat as Granny because at the end of the fucking day my family, my REAL family ain't shit on the big table of priorities. Its a fucking joke, for 6 years there's been money for other things but there ain't be SHIT for us, the DIRECT FUCKING BLOOD OF THE MAIN EARNER. How can you have a father who makes $31 fucking million dollars in 5 years and not see shit of it?! I'LL TELL YOU HOW!! BY HAVING MY FUCKING INSANE GRANDMOTHER SPEND $10 MILLION ON FUCKING HORSES AND ROLLING UP THE DEBT ON HER ENGLISH PROPERTIES THATS HOW!
"So Lady Swaine, What would you like to do now that your family owes various sources about $23 million?"
"Hmm. I think I'll mortgage all my properties and buy more fucking horses"
FOR FUCKS SAKE!! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF LOGIC IS THAT? You know why that's never been dealt with?! Because my fucking grandfather is too fucking drugged up to tell his own wife to shut the fuck up and stop spending imaginary money. I had 6 fucking months of that bitch telling me her fucking woes. You know how to get out of that shit Granny? Don't fucking spend $10 million in the first fucking place dumbass!! Mortgaging your fucking properties instead of selling it to kill the debt in the first place? Why that makes you a fucking MORON.
You know what?! I just got a fucking phone call from my goddamn grandmother talking about my credit card bill!! SHE OPENED MY FUCKING MAIL!!
For fucks sake she came up with this lameass excuse "Oh I didn't notice"
BULLSHIT!
You're the fucking woman who chased up HSBC for 4 fucking weeks because your goddamn mail didn't say "lady swaine" on it. How the fuck did you not notice it was for the attention of
MR JOHN LOUIS SWAINE
That doesn't look a lot like Lady Swaine to me Fuckface!!!
FUCK THIS ALL TO HELL
And so in summary:
1) Granny you're a fucking dumbass midget
2) Dad you need to fucking stop putting your other family before your fucking children
3) Grandad you need to fucking stop popping fucking antidepressants and fucking tell your goddamn whore of a wife to shut the fuck up and stop spending your money
Fuck this
Later
John
Chaptery
Chaptery
Currently Listening To:Dear Prudence (Dance Edit) by CO5
I'm currently drinking Red Bull from a glass which is not an activity I would recommend to any of you. Not only am I not a huge fan of the taste of Red Bull but the colour is (I am sorry to say) almost identical to urine. There's a reason it is sold in a blue and white opaque can. The same reason Lucozade's bottle hue is orange - by shifting the hue of the packaging slightly away from the yellow end of the spectrum Lucozade can fool people into thinking their drink is in fact orange and not piss yellow.
On a significantly nicer note I've been working on a fantasy novel. I've always wanted to write one but have never really had a story I felt justified publication. I take heart from Conrad's own writing as he is currently on chapter 7 of his brilliant Genaria saga and from having read some appallingly bad fiction in the past which did get published (I'm talking to you J. Robert King, author of the worst Magic the Gathering fiction novel; Bloodlines). Anyhow Alchevian Struggle now has so much cool backstory that its impossible to resist writing about it. In fact as I have been writing it out the plot has just become denser and thicker to the point that I am now certain it justifies novel length.
I have just finished Chapter 1 today so I'll start my plan of Chapter 2 after I've run the thing past Conrad and the other two Titans of literature - My Parents :)
Later
John
July 28, 2003
Mow-town
Mow-town
Currently Listening To:Jesus In A Camper Van from the album "I've Been Expecting You" by Robbie Williams
I just had to mow the lawn outside. It was the single most thankless and fruitless task in the history of gardening. We have a mower that is shitness, one of those Flymo jobbies, which basically have a 6v electric fan motor whirring inside.
Depressingly the things which needed to be cut were so tall that they were pressed down too far for the wretched blade to reach by the crappy sides of the blade shield. In order to cut anything I had to sort of sneak up on the grass and launch the mower, through the air, right on top of it. It was like being a ninja, only a ninja stalking in a small garden lugging an immensely noisy piece of gardening equipment.
It took a full 40 minutes for an area of grass only about 50 feet square as I mower-hopped my way around in a theatrical manner.
Boy and I glad I won't have to do that for a while :)
Later
Johna
Untitled (hey, it's better than "Gah!")
Forget the gushing praise I had earlier last month for new blogger.. Its a disgrace :)
Gah!
Gah!
Currently Listening To:Knock Three Times (Extended Edit) from the album "Natural Born Lovers" by Saint & Campbell
At the moment my life seems like one of those "choose your own adventure" books except that instead of "Investigate further, Run away" and other quality choices I have:
(=) Get pwned, turn to page 28
(=) Get pwned, turn to page 34
(=) Get pwned, turn to page 18
(=) Get pwned, turn to page 25
(=) Get pwned, turn to page 39
My mother is slightly stressed after about 9 hours of solid driving over the past two days, in gridlock M25 traffic so its best to non titilandus draca dormiens (its 'draca' because she's feminine.. HP fans can relax :D )
In other news Holy crap!! AOL just linked ICQ and AIM. Why am I so excited about this? Very simple - iChat now supports ICQ natively (by definition) although it only works with people using the latest versions of ICQ and apparently I need an AIM screen-name to use the function (not my cool @mac account) which seems a bit spurious. iChat > You all :D I basically got an email from Kev which had the link and the words "Who-hoot!" I followed the link and followed suit as soon as I read it ^^
More news later :)
July 27, 2003
Ack!
Ack!
Currently listening to:You stole the sun from my heart from the album "This is my truth tell me yours" by Manic Street Preachers
Man I just opened up my window to let some fresh air in and its as if someone is pumping raw sewage into the river not 15 feet away from my room. Ack!
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!
Listening to: Embarrassment from the album "The Heavy Heavy Hits" by Madness
I just cancelled my BT 'Anytime' package and subscribed to the Freeserve Anytime Package. I use Anytime in inverted commas for BT's service because, to be frank it was anything but. It might as well have been called "BT: Sometimes" or "BT: When we feel like it" because it actually had an hourly cap on 'unmetered internet access'. At the end of the day you were just paying £15 a month for 150 hours and there was no escaping that simple fact. Unlimited access my ass.
Freeserve was also cheaper, I do have a few worries - mostly with connection speed but to be honest it doesn't seem too bad thus far and Kev who's Warcraft III Battlenet Connection I have based my assumptions on, does live in Scotland which may account for his not-so-great ping times to Bnet.
Anyhow I called up to cancel my account and was entirely served by Overseas Customer Relations Executives. Basically BT is so cheap that they outsource as much of their switchboard as is possible to India. The people there speak very good English and you get the feeling they are more on the ball than the native BT assistants because they probably are - most likely with University degrees and such - but are getting paid more to speak English at a switchboard than as a manager or Junior executive. This is especially true in the Philippines were hundreds of incredibly smart people work as domestic helpers around the world because they can earn more than they would using their specialized skills in the Philippines - Our last Alma (domestic helper) named Mila (who we miss terribly at the moment) was something like a chief of operations at a factory in the Philippines and earned twice as much doing our ironing.
So I spoke to two Indian customer service people and got my account cancelled :) When they asked me why I wanted to cancel my account I had to resist saying "because its total shit!" and instead had to go for the more diplomatic "Service that doesn't suit my needs/features I never use etc etc".
Anyhow I'm all Freeserve'd up now so its back to marathon internet usage.. Wait.. Did I ever actually stop doing that?
Later
John
Major accomplishment
Major accomplishment
I wrote a whole 2 articles for Kebeol.net today. I wanted to write something but I felt that it would be better if everyone posted something so as to highlight the fact that we had all been on vacation and had not simply forgotten about Kebeol. Thankfully Kev obliged with a quick "we're back" post and I followed up with a couple of articles.
The latter was a slightly random humorous article. Speaking with Kev and Beth on iChat earlier, they said I came off slightly homophobic in it so just to warn you, I'm certainly not of that nature :) It was supposed to be more a sort of augmenting of this running joke Conrad and I have, and indeed one I have with my family: about 'Manliness'. Its just so comical because the pure distilled form of machismo is so thoroughly berated in todays society that it warranted a parading around :) The joke in my family is probably due to the fact that without any men in the house whilst my father worked in Hong Kong my little brother said he had to be extra manly (indeed the term used was "Mr. Macho Manly"). Chiara and I have been saying "Manly!" to each other for a long while since so when the opportunity came to tie it all together with another important facet of my computer-bound life (Manbran) and my search for Nutri-Grain, a cereal only found in Australia (and imported into Hong Kong), I couldn't resist :)
Oh yeah as I said above I've been using iChat to, well, iChat with people over voice comms.. Unfortunately my BT Time just ran out. My glorious "50 hours" of internet service for £15 a month. Thats just plain bollucks as I've said many times before. Indeed I noted before that I only kept the BT account because my guild site was still hosted by them, but since I bought www.crimsonmace.co.uk (or more accurately actually bothered to load the site onto it - had it for ages) that reason has more or less evaporated. Anyhow because my BT time ran out I've had to fall back on my emergency ISP "Madasafish" who are now dropping me whenever they feel like it (principally in the middle of voice conferences with Kev and Beth).
Kev has been moaning to me that I ought to change ISPs and to be honest I think I will. There is every chance that we will be moving into the big new house soon which will most likely have Broadband Access (it is very close to the university) and so as long as I could cancel the contract in time I might just tell BT to shove it and switch to Freeserve. It works out cheaper and I don't think they have a lame hourly quota on their supposedly unlimited internet access.
Right I'm gonna have another bash at speaking to Kev/Beth. This time I have headphones so I can better hear what they are saying.
Later
John
July 26, 2003
Well...
Well that's about as fixed as its gonna get :D
Just might have some time for a mug shot for the left hand corner but I'll get on that when I've had my hair cut and whatnot Lol
later
John
Comin in a different style!
Comin in a different style!
I screwed with the template today... Its a bit small admittedly but that can be changed later. I just basicaly learned CCS in one sitting but I think it was worth it :D
Later
John
July 25, 2003
House!
House!
Hello
I went to London last night because I had been asked by my Aunty Jan before I left for Italy to spend the night there in order to keep and eye on the packers who would be boxing up her flat in Chelsea. I happily obliged and was met with a rather vast quantity of high-quality food she needed dispensed with (you can't very well pack the contents of a fridge now can you?). It occured to me that I was actually going to be paid to sit on my arse, eat food, sleep and then open a door. It was at that point that I figured I was sort of like the totally unprofessional security guards you see in large apartment buildings - I liked it :)
Sometime in the evening however my lovely Aunt managed to break her finger packing a suitcase and had to go to the hospital to get it put in a finger cast. Consequently I spent the morning looking after Oliver and Tara (twins), my little cousins. I spent most of my time with Oliver, he's learning Drums which I didn't know (hell yeah, Drums kick ass. Me = Drummer) and we had a lot of fun, even whilst the house was being covered in cardboard all around us.
When I left the flat in Tite Street, Chelsea, I had to walk to Sloane Square as it was the nearest tube station. The walk takes you past the beautiful houses around that part of London (indeed some with those Blue "Someone cool lived here" plaques - Oscar Wilde is on her street :D) It was raining so I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up and hit the iTunes play button. The music which met my ears was nothing other than Madness: The Sun and the Rain, a song about walking around London in the rain and loving every minute of it. It was one of those moments where everything just clicked together to create a brilliant atmosphere and I had my love of London rekindled (it had been slightly dented by the 6 months I spent in my room not leaving it for fear of my grandmother's Dementor-like ability to sap the happiness fro my thoughts).
Then later on in the day, after I had gotten home and gorged myself on some truly brilliant pasta, we went off to take a look at the new contender for the title of our house. I can simply say that it was the best house I have ever seen. It was massive; 7 huge bedrooms and 6 Other equally vast rooms, had incredible grounds with absurdly massive trees and had a wonderful charm about it. I took a bunch of photos but for some reason ever since april of last year my father's digital camera has had trouble with shutter speed which leads to outdoor photos being hideously over-exposed. Not to worry though as I'll grab some more with my Camcorder when I'm next there and post them for you to see.
The house itself is a converted farm and requires a lot of work inside. Its not structurally falling apart or anything but the interior needs a revamp. Nonetheless, there is a lot of space in it and I am in love with the place already, as are all the rest of us.
My room would be the smaller blue room. Yeah I know there are 7 bedrooms but 1 will be needed for my Uncle Jason who would probably be staying with us and I dig rooms of that particular size. Big rooms make my stuff seem like its not a lot (which, in terms of pure volume is at least correct) and as long as the room can fit a double bed, my computer desk and a few cupboards I'm happy :D
Anyhow, more on that at a later date, now its time for another Holiday snippet :)
Luigi! Itsa me! Maaaaario!
On the day of our departure I was sitting with Ben and Richard and talking about what we would be doing in Italy. I said something about how good the food was (woot for stating the obvious :D) and how good and cheap restaurants were in Italy when Ben said something about all Italian chefs being fat, with a massive moustache and a string of sausages around their necks. Naturally this suggestion was laughed at as we berated his use of such a blatant stereotype for an Italian chef.
However on the 1st day, having eaten our Lunch at the Half-Board hotel we decided that the evening meal would be had at the little pizzeria my family had eaten at the previous year. It was a very small little restaurant who's tables were set out on a little platform out on the street, where good Pizza could be eaten and beer was served on Draught and cold.
We got there and after much maneuvering to get all 11 of us into position we all sat down. At this point the chef walked out to talk to us. Lo and behold the man was short, tubby, spoke with a ridiculously high pitched voice at times and sported a substantial moustache - he was in every effect the very image of the chef Ben had described the day before. As you can imagine we all cracked up and I had to give props to Ben, his skills of divination were far more substantial than I had previously assumed :)
Right I think I might do a bit of site re-design because there is only so long I can live with this template, especially in its current half-implemented form :)
Later
John
July 24, 2003
Untitled
Right I have a lot to write about concerning the holiday I just had in Italy so I'll be feeding it through the blog in bits interspersed with the normal stuff :D Today's entry concerns a curious phenomenon we noted in Senigallia.
Senigallia: Nature's vengeance
Ben throughout the buildup to the trip, constantly noted how much a fan of swimming in the sea he was and asked to make sure that we would each subscribe to this activity. We all agreed that it was a good idea and on the first day after our or arrival we were bound for the nearby beach. After scarcely a few minutes of tanning on the azzure ranks of deck-chairs we were asked again and again to go swimming, Richard and I consented and left our comfy baking trays to have a cool dip in the Adriatica. Ben took a few seconds to note that the water was not as clear as he would have liked before being summarily nipped in the toe by a passing crab. Realising that there would be far less competition for space further out the call was made for us to take on some deeper water. I was just trying to feebly repair my beach Sandles which had predictably fallen apart as soon as I arrived, when Ben let out a Sharp cry of pain and shouted "Something Stung me!" Naturally being men of iron constitution our reaction was a measured display of machismo and stoicism, manifest in the words "Change of Plan! Leggiiiiiiiit!!"
After a brilliant display of craven cowardice we recovered our breath enough to laugh about Ben's misfortune whereupon he was stung again With greater severity. It became plainly clear that Ben's malicious assailant was a jelly fish and we fled, as fast as was possible back to the umbrellas Screaming like girls. In a Matter of seconds a large cluster of red sores appeared over his arm and we began to ponder how to ease the pain. Well I say ponder but as any other avid watcher of friends knows the answer is disturbingly obvious; the correct prescription for the treatment of Jellyfish stings where no artificial medication is available is urea most commonly found in piss. One of us had to piss on Ben's arm and unsuprisingly he had made a miraculous recovery by the time I volunteered. We bought some cream Later on in the day and retired to the Hotel for some food.
In the evening all three of us shared one room in the hotel and were chatting for a while before tiredness claimed us and we drifted off into the twilight between waking and sleep. Suddenly Ben yelled out that something was on his back and from my view I saw him lob a large black beetle-like insect across the room towards the window. Truly nature seemed out to get Ben.
The final straw came the next night when Ben changed his bunk (the room had 2 normal beds which Richard and I slept in and a set of bunk beds) to sleep on the bottom bed. At almost exactly the same time as the night before a black beetle-like insect flew into the room and head right for where Ben would have been before, realizing his quarry wasn't there the little bugger zoomed out of the room again, presumably to report on Ben's location.
Suffice to say Ben didn't go into the sea, or anywhere which seemed vaguely feral for a good few days ;)
Duty Calls
Right I have a job to do today and it ain't my web-design gig. I'm supposed to go to London to house sit to make sure some packers can get through the door for my aunt who is moving from a ridiculously nice flat in Chelsea to what I presume must be a palatial property in Surrey. She's kindly paying not only for my ticket but is offering some remuneration for my services - Kaching! -
I'll be needing that to buy a new keyboard after having spent a week unable to fix mine without the proper tools (read: conductive paint). At the moment I'm using the other family keyboard. There were some rumours about a new apple keyboard in the offing (one which looks as cool as the G5's new enclosure) and I was looking forward to forking out the cash for one if it appeared at Macworld (now called CreativePro Expo) last week. However the new keyboard/mouse haven't so I'll be forking out for the standard keyboard which for some reason (when I looked last week) hasn't been discounted in the UK. The US store is shipping them out cheap but we UK dwellers have no such luck, even with my Higher Education Discount its still more expensive than the base rate US price now. I best check the store again because there's every chance that it has been updated in my week long absence.
later
John
July 16, 2003
Italy!
Italy!
Well Folks I'm off to Italy today!
Its looking good. Richard, who has never actually left the country is seriously looking forward to this holiday which my mother thinks is really sweet. Has to be said we're gonna have a superb time:
Richard: u know how little kids feel on christmas eve?
Richard: i feel like that
John: rofl
John: immense!
John: Wel I assure you that you won't be dissapointed
John: We are gonna eat shitloads
John: and sit on the beach
John: and check italian girls
Richard: lol
Richard: gg
GG is an abbreviation for "Good Girl" which my mates and I have been using for a while, it seems a bit harsh until you realize we all use it hehe.
Ben and Richard ought to arrive at 10. I'll make sure there are loads of photos and stuff for everyone along with my eventual full Movie which is always edited together. In fact Holiday Videos were pretty much how I learned my editing skills (in iMovie before and now in FCP 3.0). The only problem is I don't have much space on my drive so I might have to find a way to remove one of the others or burn a fully finished movie to DVD and forget the data. I suppose that is the best idea at the end of the day for me.
Anyhow, I need to plug Denning my newton into his charger so I best do that now. Can't have him out of batteries. I also need to use him to read my friend Conrad's awesome book Genaria of which there are about 7 chapters as of late.
Ok thats all done.. The camcorder is charged (both batteries) and I now need a shower
Catch you all later!
Enjoy your week!
John
July 14, 2003
Funtastic
Funtastic
Hiya
Things have been pretty hectic this side.
My father got back which was fun. He's been here a few days already and we've had more calls from granny than ever before. I don't know why to be honest as he really doesn't want to speak to her at the moment but she needs something to do. I can't look at her at the moment without feeling the urge to randomly pick her up and give her a 'rasslin suplex (haha I can almost see those cheesy fireworks going off around the room as per 'WWF' and some man wildly shouting "OH MY GOD!!" into a commentary microphone).
On the good news side we look to have a hit on our hands with my father's record business returning to the fore. Its a classic track and so far it looks like it'll be distributed by the biggest of the big boys. If things keep up its a definite #10 and a probable #1 UK chart contendor. I'm not going to say anything more about it lest it be all jynxed and fail :D If things go well I'll pipe up about it hehe. By far the best thing is that All our base are belong to us on this one so none of its gonna be paying for more frikkin' horses :D
 |
Mr. Wong's Salute to Democracy |
Warcraft madness continues and I leave for Italy on wednesday. Posts shall still be forthcoming as they were last year - assuming I can find an internet cafe or a computer whilst I'm there.
I'm off to post something for Kebeol.net :)
Later
John
July 12, 2003
Developments
Developments
The public just voted Jon back into the Big Brother house.. Oh god yes!! The tickleman is back!!! Jons Geek Army rides again!!!
bit more later
John
July 05, 2003
Warcraft 3 Madness continues
Warcraft 3 Madness continues
Each Game our team plays we learn something new and important. This time round I learned that if I changed my build order could own (and own I did :) ) and that after I have my 2nd expansion I might as well give up on Grunts/Tauren because I'll be savaged from above - I might as well just build Wyverns too and hope to have more of them because I'll be dammed if there's anything more to air combat than superior numbers in WC3 :) Thankfully the new expansion gives orcs a unit called the "troll Batrider" which has a 900 Damage area affect Air-only blast. In english it means death to anything with wings even remotely close to it and it starts with the ability :D That'll stop the mass wyvern'ing :D
I also learned that (having watched the replay) Conrad pretty much kicks ass. He carried the first skirmish almost single handedly after my Hero went down and Kev's riflemen were tied up by something else, (although my orcs remained) using his classy undead skills.
The last lesson was that creeping is good, first we thought creeping was good and did too much, then we thought that it was bad and did too little now we see that its just right™
In work news I did more stuff for the site and finished the splash screen (but for the buttons). Next is the main site layout and that should be me done tbh - the rest is content :)
Right I'll catch some Z's now
Later
John
July 03, 2003
FiddlyWell I've managed to hack
Fiddly
Well I've managed to hack together a sort of stand-in stylesheet using code I've gleaned from cached versions of the old site. Its not bad but its certainly lacking some important stuff and I figure its going to be a while before I managed to chop that in.. Still I'll keep trying
oh yes and did I
oh yes and did I mention that BlogApp also owned my Template? Sadly Blogger no longer have the Omni Nectar Stylesheet available (although they curiously still have the images and the sample blog on their server)
Grr.. I hope they get it back up because TBH all the other templates I have found have been total crap as you can see...
Insane!Ack!!! I just wrote a
Insane!
Ack!!!
I just wrote a huge weblog post to make up for my absence and BlogApp ate it! Doh! In fairness its not its fault really because I had it set to "clear edit field after posting" but I assumed it would only do that if the posting worked instead it happily deleted my post and threw an error message at me - funtastic.
Anyhow life is sort of insane at the moment on account of a few facts:
The first being that I now have a job - Miraculous :)
I'm working as a webdesigner for a media company. Its good because I get to keep my webskills sharp (although you wouldn't think it to look at this site) and do a bit of work on Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks.
The other good thing is that I get to work from my mac at home because the applications I need are here and its too much of an effort to drag me into a small little industrial park office for me to sit there and take up room doing a Job I can do just as capably from home. I've set up an iChat calendar so that I can dynamically update it with any info on what I am doing and my employer can know what I'm up to. If you are bored enough you can check it out, its pretty boring stuff but it really highlights the power of one of the superb apps that apple includes with your mac :)
The Second reason for my change of pace has been one game - Warcraft III. Obviously I have no money to buy it with but my friend Conrad was so desperate for me to play that he actually bought me a copy with his own money. Admittedly I intend to pay him back on that far off, distant day when I actually have money but it remains perhaps the most fantastic act of kindness I could imagine given that I would be sorely devoid of entertainment without it.
We normally play as a team with Kev and our 3 man team was having a pretty disastrous run until 2 nights ago. I pin our change of fortunes upon my actually following orders and that being a result of my changing heros.
We normally play a tactic of 'early rush' and whilst Conrad quickly amasses about 6 Ghouls and Kev a load of archers, I have about 3 of the ridiculously expensive Orc Grunts. Now there can be no question that Orc Grunts are the finest of early game combat troops - in fact they do ok Mid game too, but they really have to be in a decent sized group to be effective at first. 3 is not such a decent sized group, in fact 3 is a death wish so I would often hold off joining an attack until my hero had leveled or I had more grunts which ultimately meant that we often had attacks petering out or being overwhelmed by superior forces.
Then on tuesday I changed my hero to a Tauren Chieftan out of desperation and my luck changed. With it's 'endurance aura' it meant my grunts (and indeed any allied unit around him) were far more formidable. In fact I only lost 1 in the whole of the first pitched battle/base crushing despite only having 3 grunts. Its like having a bloodlust on constant cast to loads of units from the word go and our forces certainly showed what its capable of. So with the Chieftan I happily join assaults with only a few grunts in line as I know that they are in good hands.
Kev and I played a few battles yesterday without Conrad as he was "mentally exhausted" and hence unable to play WC3. I learned more about my new favourite hero:
Put simply: he sucks on his own - if he isn't in the thick of your group of grunts he's going down - he may have loads of HP but he has very little armour making him a big fat archer target. In the game we played against two superb Night Elf commanders (props to them because they made great use of the night elves' hide abilities) I made the mistake of following my generic tactics of "Bundle the hero" I know now that I would have been better served sending my grunts in to totally massacre the archers and engaging the hero mano-a-toro. Instead the little buggers made a furry pin-cushion out of my Chieftan and although I did kill their hero on several occasions he managed to escape and level a few times till he became higher than mine. I would have been better off getting the EXP from slaughtering the archers instead.
Still when he's with a whole load of allies his 'endurance aura' movement speed and attack rating buff is just insanely great! We totally overpowered our opponents with the faster murdering skills of our forces and all I used throughout was just grunts and the Tauren Warchief. My new plan is to stick to that until later when I'll tech to Witch Doctors (who needs shamans when I have a portable, always-on, mass-targeting walking bloodlust?) for the Stun Trap and the Healing ward (oh the cheese!) and Taurens (because the only thing more fun that bashing someone's brains out with a Tauren Chieftan and a dozen grunts is bashing someone's brains out with a Tauren Chieftan and a dozen other taurens :) ) Pure melee goodness with Kev supplying the ranged firepower and Conrad the meatshields (ghouls) and perhaps a billion or so Crypt Fiends.
In other news my Aunty Jan is coming to visit tomorrow to drop off her kids here so they can have a play with their cousins over the weekend. She is the only relative I know who reads my blog (she actually found it by accident) and is probably one of the 3 people who still do given my current state of inactivity :) ) Still with a bit more resolve and focus I ought to be able to fill out some more posts than normal :)
Later
John