Snow. Glorious Snow.

Another pre-post explanation.  Oh joy.  Anyway, I've been busy lately yada yada yada yada *random babbling*.  Enjoy the post.

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It's funny how frozen water is so much fun.  Despite being surrounded by water -and being made of 80% of water too- in Britain we find snow to be absolutely enthralling.  Most of us anyway.

Maybe it's the the frequency of occurrences, which is roughly for one day every year where we get "real snow".  Which stays on the ground and allows us to pelt unsuspecting family members and friends with large, densely-packed frozen blocks of destructive ice.  Talk about fun.

This 'snow day' also seems to come no where near Christmas, might I add.  It comes in January/February time; or in the case of this messed-up 2008 year: March.  Even though we've passed the Spring Equinox already.  Oh wait, it's also FRICKIN EASTER SUNDAY TODAY.  Easter is generally not associated to snow, methinks.  Nevertheless, snow is still fun and it's a rare occasion to be able to go out into the garden and build snowmen and generally have a good time.

I also played badminton today, and I'm surprised to say that despite not playing since... well, few months ago.  I still got it!  I won every single game I played today even though I was playing against my various uncles and friends.  Who, I might add, play weekly.  Things are funny this way, although my smashes have gotten slightly weaker -that may have been partly due to a slight injury to my right shoulder- my overall performance seems to be improved.  And I have exercised in yonks!  Haha.  I rule.

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In other more awesome, video-game related news.  I picked up a XBox 360 after the price drop, and I've been playing on it quite a lot.  Even though I only have three games for it (Assassin's Creed and Halo 3 came free with it, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion which I bought separately).  My thoughts on the games:

• Assassin's Creed:  Free Running is AWESOME.  It's amazing how I just need to push the analog stick forward and literally hold two buttons and I'm like totally parkouring like a pro.  Missions are kinda generic though. Not enough proper assassinations.  Frame rate dipped majorly once, hopefully was one-off.  Altair sounds kinda... emotionless.  The whole sci-fi element is ok... could've been better.
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:  Good.  Very good.  Endless amount of things to do.  You can practically do anything you want to do, be a thief and steal, become a warrior or whatever you goddamn want to do.  Although things are a bit too patient for my liking... I prefer more fast-paced action and less questing.  But I'm still enjoying it.  Will probably pour a ton of time into this game.
• Halo 3:  Yea... about this.  Well, I got my sister to pay for half of the 360 (yes, sly me) and apparently she doesn't want me to play Halo 3 until the other controller arrives.  *sigh*  Things are complicated.  Should be able to play soon.  Looking forward to it.

I'm also fearing the worse with the 360, hopefully no RRoD issues pop up.  I'd be seriously pissed if it does happen.  Well, I guess placing it on the carpet doesn't help.  It's cos the Wii got here first and had first pick at where it's going, and it's looking awesome where it is, and the 360 is left out of the cold without a proper home.  And I got think of anywhere to put it because of it's sheer size.  It's FRICKIN HUGE compared to the Wii.  Hell, the power brick itself is about the size of the Wii.  Woah.

A)

B)

 C)

Exhibit A:  The three consoles together.

Exhibit B:  The 360 and it's -frickin huge- power brick.

Exhibit C:  A funny comic highlighting the fact of the gigantic power brick.  LOL

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I also got a new mobile.  For free.  :D

 

I originally had a phone ages ago (one of those old gigantic brick of a phone Nokia) but that broke after much abuse.  I never used it much anyway, and I couldn't be asked to get a new one during the last... um... 6/7, possibly 8, years.  See, kids.  This is procrastination at it's best.  I put it off until recently, when my uncle asked if I wanted a new phone.  I was like: 'Yea, sure.  Why not?'  Since I've found that having a mobile would be increasingly useful lately.  I should explain how I got this phone for free:

Well, I have an uncle.  Who just so happens to work as a electronics wholesaler for this giant Trans-national electric monolith (which I have no idea what it's called) and he gets, shall we say, stock (remember the laptop?).  And this phone just so happened to have like some faults on the case (like some letters missing of the branding: Auto Focus is now just "to focus") and some of the keypad parts are scrapped off for some reason.  Apparently it happened in delivery or something.  And so, he can't sell it as new and decided to give it to me.  Score.  Works perfectly too... well, I think it does.  I'm still lacking a SIM card for it and a charger, mind.  He's getting the charger to me next week, the SIM card I'm getting tomorrow.

You're interested in what phone it is?

It's a Sony Ericsson K800i.

Ooooh, snazzy.

It's not exactly a new phone (came out in 2006 or something) but it works.  For intrepid photographers out there, you may realise that "Cyber-shot" is a line of cameras manufactured by Sony.  And you'd be correct to think that.  The K800i was made to feel like a camera (which is certainly does) and boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera complete with a xenon flash, a protective lens cover, and a new "BestPic" bracketing feature, and were the first to be tagged with the Sony Cyber-shot branding.  Part of that may have, or may not have, been taken directly from Wikipedia.

It's not exactly a small phone by today's standards (it's 106 x 47 x 20 mm and weighs 115g) but it fits snugly in the pocket easy enough.  I also like the matte black.  Very stylish.

So what have you learned?

Having an awesome uncle owns.

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Now, I'd like to spare some time to talk about the blog for a second.

*ahem*  *clears throat*

HOLY- <THE FOLLOWING IS CENSORED.>  -WITH A SANDWICH ON TOP.

The blog has unwittingly passed the 10,000 hits mark (according to the hit counter on the sidebar, currently at 13194) and has lately been averaging 100 hits per day.  That's one hit every 14.4 minutes or so; which is pretty awesome for a blog that started less than a year ago.

After looking at the Analytics data, funnily enough there seems to be a high percentage of referrals.  Around the 70/80% mark according to Analytics.  After a little detective work, I've found I'm getting a ton of hits from Google.  "WTF Google?"  I hear you ask.  Yes, Google Images as a matter of fact.  Just search "Chuck Norris" on Google Images right now.  Don't worry, I'll wait for you.

...

Done?  Well, let's see here.  Yes, the second picture is indeed the one I put in my Chuck Norris post.  And seeing as Chuck Norris is like an Internet cultural phenomenon I'm getting a ton of hits.  It's certainly one unusual and unorthodox way to get hits, I'll give you that.  But hey, whatever works.

 

As for the Media Project I posted in my previous post, it's garnered a measly 97 views as of press time.  Even with 5 links linking to it, with mine being the highest with 8 clicks and the other 4 being bulletins from MySpace.  Oh god.

It's not quite taking over the Internet yet, but we're getting there.  97 people at a time.

Here's the video again for anyone who hasn't yet seen it:

If you don't like this. There's something seriously wrong with you.

MEDIA PROJECT COMPLETE

This was a triumph.  I'm making a note here:  HUGE SUCCESS.

I'll keep it short and simple:

Prizes (not really) to anyone who can guess what the song is...

We poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this so I'm expecting appraisals only.  ONLY.

Got that?  Good.  Now that's straightened out...

Originally, there was meant to be a post a few days ago showing the longer, not final version of the above video (which you can watch here).  But my computer died on me, literally.  I had to reformat it and revert it back to factory settings.  Damn laptop.  Now, I've lost all my documents/music etc.  Oh well.  Nothing there that was particularly important... I guess.

In celebration of the completion of our project we all went out to McDonalds today.  Yum yum.

 

NOTE:  We know about the poor dubbing and whatever.  It adds to the comical effect... supposedly.  For the record, I blame it on Kennie btw.

Poker Night

Sorry for the late post and it took up a kick up the ass from Daisy to get this going.  Btw, the "kick up the ass" was figuratively speaking not literal.

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So, Poker Night... yes...  that was last Friday...  hm...  let me just recollect my thoughts on that night.

Wait, before that I got my results for the various examinations I did in January.  And the result was me having a AS Level in Maths with a Grade B!  Which is not bad for one term's work.  Normally, an AS Level takes one year to get but we did it in one term.  Talk about speed.  I was something like 9 marks off an A which means I'm retaking my C1 exam (since I got a lowly 65 marks on it: a grade C).  If I get 74 marks or higher on my resit I get an A!  w00t.

Even so, there are some monsters in our class.  One guy managed to get 99%, 98%, 99% in his exams while one girl managed 100% on one of her exams.  D:

It kinda puts things in perspective, A levels seems worlds apart from GCSE.  It seemed like it was yesterday when I was doing my GCSEs.  I recall lining up on the playground waiting to go in; everyone was holding a book doing some last minute revision, but I was mainly giving out answers to certain questions the others may have.  Even with my lack of revision in GCSEs, I came out with some awesome grades.  It's also true that I failed to revise for my AS level exams but that's not the point...

Oh and I also got my Media exam result, I got a:  Q.

Wait, what?  A Q?

Yes, a Q.  No idea what that means?  Neither did I until that day.  It apparently means the loss of the actual exam...

THEY LOST MY FRICKIN EXAM PAPER.

It was seemingly lost in the post.  WHY THE F*CKING HELL WAS IT IN THE POST IN THE FIRST PLACE?!  WE'RE IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET, COMPUTERS AND EMAIL AND YET YOU SEND IT BY SNAIL-MAIL?!  WTF?!  HOW HARD WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO HAVE IT SCANNED INTO A COMPUTER SO YOU CAN HAVE SEVERAL BACK-UPS?!  Stupid asses...

But oh well, nevermind.  They're not calculating a guesstimate grade from my MED2 and MED3 modules.  Which could be a good thing, especially if I was going to get a bad grade in my exam anyway.  If I do my project well and MED3 good, then automatic A or B or whatever.  Some people who got Us and Es and whatnot were actually like: 'Why couldn't they have lose my paper?!'  T'was funny really.

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*ahem*

Anyway, Poker Night.  Yes.  I seem to have collected my thoughts now.

I arrive at roughly the proposed time (6PM) to find the front door unlocked.  So, I waltz in (like I always do) only to find Daisy's dog run straight down the stairs to greet me.  Ok... Daisy's mom was on the phone to someone or other; I made it all the way into the dining room (I think that's what the room is used for) and decide it would be better for me to turn round, close the door behind me and knock.  I do that.

I'm greeted in my Daisy's mom and make my way to her room.  Ben's there -Daisy's boyfriend- a few awkward glances and several offline messages later (since Daisy thought I was still home because I was still logged onto messenger) it's noted that the rest are coming.  We make our way downstairs to the dining/kitchen room and Ben has to leave for some reason that seems to be lost on me.

Anyway, people start arriving.  I think Gavin arrives first, followed by Laura and Matthew and lastly Ashley.  The lazy bugger.

We sit down, get comfortable and get ready for some awesome poker.  Oh wait, and a lot of talking it seems.  It takes a while for the chips to be set up and shared among six people, mainly the women did it -Daisy, Laura and Matthew...- while Gavin, Ashley and I mostly sat there whining about why Daisy didn't do this before hand.  It was the classic: 'Oi, woman.  Work faster!' situation.  That never gets old.  NEVER.

Finally things get going.  Cards are dealt, Gavin being dealer first.  I knew this before hand and used this to my advantage as I sat in one of the late positions.  I had to explain this concept to the others later on as some of them were kinda like novices.  XD

Things get under way and I soon amass quite a large stash of chips.  This is helped by the fact that I was dealing quite a lot too (thus meaning I had the advantage over other players) - we weren't taking turns dealing so quite a lot of us actually had unfair advantages over the others but whatever, it's only a friendly game.  I believe I was chip-leader for a while until Matthew decided to bet away most (if not all) of his hundreds away to Daisy even though he had nothing.  Even if it was a bluff, it was an extremely bad one.  Meanwhile, Ashley spent most of the time forgetting that we were playing on a glass table and showing us his cards under the table.

Some other things happen, but I forget so you can marvel at this awesomely funny GIF of Gavin while I try to think of other things that happened.

Meanwhile, I became the hulk:

And Gavin was "green" with envy:

 

HAHA!  Marvel at my 1337 photoshop skills.

To be totally honest, I don't really remember much else about that night.  Some stuff happened, like how Matthew lost all his chips and ended up being the dealer for the rest of the game.

Eventually Daisy won, because everyone decided to go all in (yes, me too - despite already folding before hand).  Which basically meant that the last few hours of hard-work winning chips was all for nought as everyone gambled there chips away in one go.  Not very clever but hey, it was for fun.  I didn't even have anything going for me but I still did it.

All in all, Poker Night was fun.  And it provided quite a lot of amusement from my otherwise dreary and monotonous working-life (nah, only joking, my life is never dreary and hardly monotonous).  Unfortunately this night won't be on for the next few weeks due to some issues that I can't be asked to state (or try to remember) here.

So, in the mean-time while you're waiting for my next post:

Caution: PORTALS

The Science of Jinxes

I'm sorry for not updating.  I've been busy and have been putting off doing this everyday of the week.  No seriously, it's been procrastination after procrastination.  Just be glad that you got a post this week.

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Before we start, I think it should be noted that the Jinx I'm talking about is not the superstitious folklore-y type Jinx where it basically means:

• A sort of curse placed on a person that makes them prey to large numbers of minor misfortunes and other forms of bad luck;
• A person afflicted with a similar curse, who, while not directly subject to a series of misfortunes, seems to attract them to anyone in his general area.
• An object or animal that brings bad luck.
• A common slang term used when two people say the same thing at the same time (said as a game amongst the young and young hearted which suggests some kind of spooky supernatural interference).

No.  I'm talking about these sort of Jinxes.

Why the hell am I talking about Jinxes?  It's a funny story really, and it all began in maths today (surprise surprise).  For the story to make some sense we've got to rewind a bit to the part before the whole jinxing occurred.

*Fails at attempt of doing a rewinding sequence*

I believe the lesson started with talk about the bible.  I'm not sure how or when it started but it just did.  Emma, being a Christian, was defending the bible... from something...  I can't remember that either.  Hey, don't expect me to remember everything.  It's not particularly important to the story anyway.  I recall her saying that the bible was right, and I was kind enough to point out that the bible states that not only are women evil but also that the chicken came before the egg.  The age-old riddle solved, perhaps?  No.  First of all there's a small problem with the bible, men wrote it.  So, the chances that all the stuff that happens in the bible is true amounts to about 1%.  Especially all that Genesis stuff, since you know, we weren't created then.  But anyway, I'm not here to divulge into the whole religion controversy.  I have a religion and I'll stick to that just fine:  Consumerism.

You may be wondering what the bloody hell is the above paragraph got to do with the story I'm about to tell.  Well, not really much.  I just thought you'd like to know that.  It serves a (slightly) deeper purpose too.  It's my set-up for a sucker-punch later on.  You'll see.

Anyway, the jinxing started when Sue (the teacher) asked us what to use in this formula - which I will not attempt to type out now.  I'm no fool.  Suhaib, Kiddle and Emma all said: "PRODUCT RULE!" at the same time.  I should note that these were the other 3 people on my table, and I didn't say anything because I wasn't particularly listening and I cba.  Suhaib then said: "JINX!"  This being a long time since I had done/seen something like this I thought the other two would dismiss it as a child's game.  Oddly enough, Kiddle doesn't.  He clamps his trap shut (a rarity, believe me) and does a zipping motion across his lips.  For the next half an hour or so, he doesn't speak at all.  It was only 10 minutes in that he pointed out -by writing on his pad of paper- that Emma was also jinxed but had been and still is carrying on talking as normal.  After a short discussion, Kiddle put this on his paper: "GOD WILL PUNISH YOU!" (ZING!) or something like that - which is the aforementioned sucker punch by the way.  Which amassed much laughs, I assure you.  The following few minutes consisted of how Emma was going to hell/purgatory or whatever.  Which was hilarious, since everytime Kiddle wanted to make a comeback in the argument he'd have to write down on the paper; and I walked in and enforced the 6-second rule (where you can't comeback after 6 seconds).  This made things even funnier, as Kiddle spent more time furiously scribbling on his pad at what can only be compared to "warp speed" than actually doing work.  Eventually he did give up on the argument though.

The next 20 minutes or so consisted of us torturing Kiddle.  I liked going with the: "Hey Kiddle.  What'd you get for this question?"  No reply, obviously.  I would then follow that up with:  "Wait, what?  I didn't hear you.  Can you speak louder?"

Yes, cruel.  I know.

But not as bad as what others tortured him with, like they would say half his name then stop.  Just stopping and starting at his name repeatedly.   It was like giving a blind man sight and then round-house kicking a large horse-driven war-cart filled to the brim of large, pointy maces coated with poison ivy into his eyes.  REPEATEDLY.  Yes, ouch.

He was actually freed from his demonic curse by, ironically, Emma.  Who pitied him and felt that it was time he got to speak again.  And because she did it accidentally.  To be honest, it'd had been so long since I heard Kiddle speak that I started to forget what his voice sounded like.  He broke out of his jinxed cage with a holler.  But that's not the end of the story.

Oh, no.

After about 5 minutes of Kiddle's release from his horrible and torturous affliction Sue (the teacher, remember?) told him to: "STFU!" in a more well-mannered way.  But that was what she wanted to say really.  Kiddle then goes on a rant to her about how she didn't notice that he had been jinxed for about half an hour before, even though she had come up to him and tried to speak to him but now that he can talk again he gets shouted out.

Life.  Ironic, isn't it?

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In other news -I use this term too much- our media project is finally picking up some steam.  It's pretty much done now, which is good.  Seeing as the final deadline is tomorrow.  *gulp*  Maybe if we spent less time messing about then it would be done by now.  XD

I'll be sure to post it up here when I can.  If I can, I'll give you a bloopers reel too.  There are some piss-your-pants funny stuff in there.  Especially the, now-infamous, car door scene.  I'll see what I can do. ;)

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Also, it's Poker Night tomorrow.  6 till 10.

This time I can actually go.  So be sure to check in on Saturday (I probably couldn't be asked to do a post on Friday) for the hellish antics of that night.  I heard the previous Poker Night went quite well, so hopefully this one doesn't disappoint.

In some less fortunate news, I won't be able to make Matthew's party.  :(

He just so happens to have it on Saturday, 5pm.  Which is the exact time I can't go.  F*ck.  If it was earlier, I could have gone for an hour or so, but damn.  Oh well, I'm sure there will be many more parties in my lifetime...  I'll just have to keep looking on the more optimistic side of life.

That about wraps up today posts.  Wish me look with my module results tomorrow!

Site Performance/New Banner

Ok, so I had some complaints at how much time it takes the blog to load.  Mainly from one person, I'll leave you to guess who that is - it's pretty obvious.  I was told I crashed her browser with my blog.  PWNED.

She had a point though, I've tested it a few times and it does take quite a considerable time to load.  Well, that was before.  Hopefully I have dramatically improved the time in which it takes to load.  It should be faster now, since I've got rid of many things I didn't need but couldn't be asked to get rid of before.  Everything is simplified, somewhat.

The MP3 player is gone (how many of you used that anyway?), among a bunch of other things.

Hopefully, it'll provide a more streamlined experience - especially for you 56Kers since it seemed like it took forever for you guys.

The main problem with the blog, it seems, was my obsession of just wanting to "add more cowbell" as Rick (developer of PDN) would say.  He touched upon the subject here and it makes a lot of sense.  Adding more features and other crap doesn't necessarily make it better, sometimes you just destroy the experience for some people.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupry

Believe it or not.  I learned the above quote through Civilsation.  XD

I'll try to simplify things more now too.  If you're interested here are some load time figures for the current format of the blog:

Connection Rate      Download Time

14.4K                        387.41 seconds

28.8K                        197.80 seconds

33.6K                        170.72 seconds

56K                           105.71 seconds

ISDN 128K                 38.06 seconds

T1 1.44Mbps             10.79 seconds

 

As you can see, it's still not terribly good but before I think it took T1 about 16/17 seconds to load the page.  That's a pretty significant improvement.

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I've also got a new banner.  No trippy moving GIFs now.  Just pure and simple JPEG.

Here's a picture, if you are too lazy to scroll up: