One hour’s extra sleep. I like it.

I was in HMV yesterday and picked up Crimson Skies for £4.99. It’s in the ‘Explosiv’ range of cheaper games. The packaging is…what’s the word I’m looking for…awful. Here’re selected quotes from the blurb, letter by letter:

“Biig guns, fast planes, goreous dames.”
“Command daring aerial raids in downtown Manhattan Swoop low as you strafe enemy battle zepplins”
“1 tricked up planes, 24 missions and a full cast of dangerous characters”

However, the main description is just cool:

“It’s 1937. Air pirates roam the skies over a shattered America. You are Nathan Zachary - dashing air pirate and ace pilot. Lead a squadron of privateers in thrilling ground level missions. Along the way romance a bevy of dangerous femme fatales, but be warned - these beauties can turn on you faster than a Fairchild in a terminal tail spin.”

How could you not want to buy it The packaging says that it doesn’t support XP, oddly. I ran the demo fine, so shall let you know if I have any problems…

At once and now without compare
I seem alone upon my chair
I see the world; it’s not complete
Of things and whatsits not replete
A garden lacks a sometime grace
A wonder grown in pride of place
Perhaps it needs a bigger tree
I’m surprised it’s not obligatory

Today I closed down Ballistic Duck Systems. I’ve been preparing for this for a while, and today the letters went out to my clients. I’ve shut down the website too, though the email addresses will still work. Although I liked the idea of running my own computer company, I wasn’t terribly good at it, and was increasingly unhappy. Kate was the only thing keeping me going for most of this year, and even before we split up I was thinking of cutting back substantially. Mum and Dad have been rocks over the last few months while I’ve been deciding what to do and basically rebuilding myself from the ground up, and I’m incredibly grateful to them. Also Ben, Lynsey and Nod have been great listeners and have shown me that nobody thinks I’m a failure, which is something I was worried about, and I owe them huge thanks too.

So here’s the plan. I’m working on two A-levels from home through the National Extension College. One is Maths, as it’s always riled me that I dropped it early at college, leaving me with a D. I think that I now understand the value of learning, something I was completely unaware of at college, so I should do much better this time around. The other is Physics, a subject I’ve become increasingly interested in over the past couple of years. I’m filling my time with piano lessons, computer games and reading; I also want to get into a regular routine to get some good writing in. My writing course fell by the wayside a bit during my OU courses, so I shall try to get back into that. I’ve got to be more social as I’ve realised that, despite my theories about doing fine on my own, I’m at my happiest when surrounded by friends, so shall try to proactively arrange get-togethers and similar.

Assuming that I enjoy the physics A-level as much as I think I will, the plan is to then do a physics degree. Of all the universities I’ve visited Oxford is by far the nicest, so I’d love to go there. I’m not as brilliant as the people I know who went, though, so we’ll have to see how the A-level goes.

So that’s that. Another new beginning for me. I’m hoping that this one won’t falter. I’m simultaneously scared and excited. Last week I received an email from myself sent exactly a year ago. I can’t imagine where I’ll be this time in three.

I was just, ahem, looking at who won what in the National Television Awards, when I spotted the following, which I can only interpret as sign of the apocalypse:

Five secured its first nomination for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in the most popular drama section, but lost to ITV’s The Bill.

If you need me I’ll be digging a bunker.

I’m back.

And tonight I keep coming across interesting links…For example, the always fascinating duck-billed platypus has, it seems, ten chromosomes that decide their gender. XXXXXXXXXX makes a female, XYXYXYXYXY a male. I like that. I also quite like this forum post. I don’t like so much that John Peel died at 65; he always seemed pretty cool. I’m reading this and it’s hard to believe that such actions could even be attempted in a modern election - I don’t really see why it isn’t a much larger story. More in the news is the hunting ban that has again been rejected by the House of Lords (push it through using the Parliament act, I say). A little further away, the Cassini spacecraft has just made a close pass of Titan, which will hopefully produce the best images yet. Titan’s a huge mystery and there are no photographs of surface detail as yet (well, unless you count this), so this will undoubtedly greatly aid understanding. Speaking of all things in space, have you ever seen the moon look larger on the horizon than it does in the sky? If, like me, you’ve heard and believed that this is because the atmosphere acts as a lens, you’d be wrong…And while we’re mentioning articles that will completely change your outlook on things, this has to be read to be believed. I’ve been interesting in neural networks since reading How The Mind Works, but had no idea that they were so advanced! And to finish off there’s the always guaranteed-to-cheer-me-up penguins.

Oh yeah, as Ed pointed out, Nod wants you to look at his wishlist, because Christmas is closing in fast…

I’m off on the boat for a few days - just until Wednesday, most likely. My website appears to have broken overnight without me doing anything, so if anything seems off that’s probably why. Whatever, it’s definitely not my fault. How could you even contemplate the notion.

Think you’ve seen it all? You’d be wrong…

Before you start reading, go here. Then here. And here, too. I was just looking at my website statistics, and spotted an interesting little trend…It appears that my lollipop picture has a little cult following. I’ve got lots of referrals from assorted forums and personal websites. It turns out that my picture appears in the first 30 or so results in a google images search for ‘lollipop’. I’d highly recommend that you not try this out for yourself without google’s Safesearch enabled, though, as some of the other results are, well, gross. So that was an interesting discovery.

We’re not talking about Astronomy exams, btw.

This is what the US PC Gamer magazine has to say about Half-Life 2:

“Half-Life 2 is arguably the best game ever made to date. It is a groundbreaking experience in interactive entertainment,” states PC Gamer’s Senior Editor, Chuck Osborn, “While some games have groundbreaking visuals, or intellectually-challenging gameplay, or perhaps a cinematic story with good voice acting, not one has ever delivered the complete package. Half-Life 2 nails it, surpassing the original in every way.”

Damn. Now I really have no way to justify not playing it, which means I’ll be needing a new graphics card. Which means spending yet more money. Ah well, if it has to be done, it has to be done…I’ll be crying in a corner if you need me.

Ok, back now. It’s nearly Christmas! No Jeffersons tree yet, sadly. This is officially the most annoying and addictive game of the week. I think I’ve done well, then I appear about 3 from the bottom! How are these people so good!? I’d be rubbish on countdown. Now I’m hungry.

I’ve been trying to get past level 2 since year 9 and I just managed it! Celebrations are in order. This is a momentous day. Year 9. I used to play that game at 17:50 while waiting for the timer to click past 18:00 so I could connect to the internet at cheap rates. Before anyone downloads it and promptly gets to level 3 in a matter of hours, I should point out that I really suck at that game. Like, really. That’s why I’ve persevered for so long, I think. That’s made my week

In more proof that I have no shame, I took part in the ‘Great British Spelling Test‘ on ITV this evening. Yeah, it’s a stupid show, but you know me and my competitive nature. I got 43/50, which - screw modesty - beat the national average, but Mum beat me by one point. Damn that prerogative. Incidentally for anyone who watched it, their continual bashing of ‘I before E except after C’ was unjustified, as the rule is in fact ‘I before E except after C when the sound is ee’. That works in a far wider set of situations than the former.

I also watched What Not To Wear earlier. I used to really hate that show because the presenters always seemed to be unnecessarily mean, but I have to admit that today’s episode was very good. Trinny and Susannah are, actually, very skilled at what they do, and really seem to have changed their approach. I was very impressed with them, their results, attitude, and, I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind them giving me a bit (ok, a lot) of advice. So I now repent, and apologise for the many (probably snide) remarks I’ve made about them.

I have my OU Astronomy exam at 10:00 - 13:00 tomorrow. I’d forgotten how much revision sucks. I’m actually as worried about getting there as I am about taking the exam. It’s at Birmingham university, and I hate driving into Birmingham. I hate it. I can drive across the US no problem, but Birmingham? I don’t know whether it’s just psychological, but I get scared days in advance. I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight - that’ll make a change

Today I am a robotic boy. Ouch. I didn’t even know some of those muscles existed. Damn that badminton. I did, however, for the first time since returning from the US, get to sleep at a reasonable hour, i.e before 01:00.

I was going to write something else no doubt of great importance, but I’ve forgotten what it was.

Okey dokey. I stole this idea from somewhere else, but it’s a good one and if I give this disclaimer first then people might forget and I’ll look good. I want to create an ‘About Me’ page for this website, and need questions to answer. Many many questions. Ask me anything. Ask me in the comments, via email, Icq, msn, snail mail, hiking penguin, paper spitballs, yellow snow, I don’t care, just ask. Please

I rock at Badminton. I do, really. It may not seem like it when I’m playing, but you probably caught me on a bad day. I like to give other people a fighting chance, that’s all…

Woohoo! It’s not available on Steam until November 16th, the same day as it hits retail shops. A month away, but still pretty cool!

test

I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m going a bit nuts. I’m sitting here alternating between elation and despair, for no apparent reason. I’ve spent the last hour, when I could have been productively…er…producing, catching up on then reading back ‘issues’ of Little Red Boat. And at times, not seemingly related to what I’m reading, the world seems wonderful and full of balloons, or it’s just Apokolips in green suspenders. Everyone’s going out and leaving me on my own tonight, and I have no idea whether I’ll happily find something pleasant to wile away my time, or sink into complete and total depression. Both are equally likely.

You know what Channel 4 are showing this evening? The West Wing. The new series I’ve been wanting to see for the lives and deaths of 1,046,287 mosquitoes. Except that it started, with no fanfare (why would anyone advertise the best show on TV), the week I left! So I’ve missed 5 episodes. Thankfully, I bought the DVD box set already and had it shipped to me while I was in the US. Hah. Fooled you all, you scheduling turnips. I win. If there is a better definition of happiness than 24 new episodes of the West Wing sitting in a lovely box all wrapped up in plastic, just waiting to be opened, I don’t know what it is. So I’m going to finish watching my repeats of Series 3, then move onto brand new episodes. Sometimes the world is good.

I got a whole 6 hours of sleep between, your time, 14:00 on Sunday and 05:00 on Thursday morning. Boy did that suck. There’s no point me trying to do anything that involves much brainpower when I’m that tired. Case in point: Me: “Has anyone seen the remote controls?” Mum: “Have you looked on the lounge floor?”. Now, I was sitting on the lounge floor, so what a bloody stupid suggestion. Me: “Yes!”. Mum: “Well try again, they’re right in front of you.” And indeed they were. I spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday nights attempting to think about nothing. That’s really hard. I’m coming to the conclusion that sleep sucks. How do we get to sleep? I have no idea. I did everything I normally do, and was really tired, but nothing. No effect. Zilch. Nada. I hate that. I slept 2 hours on Tuesday night, so you’d think that by Wednesday night I’d be dead to the world. For this reason I bought some ‘herbal sleeping tablets’ yesterday. Control. Yes. That’s what I want. Maybe there’s a magic word that sends you to sleep, but you only remember it if you count all the prime numbers up to 1000, then forget it in the morning. Who knows. Anyway, the tablets worked, thankfully, so I am a *little* more with it today. It may not seem like it, but I am, really. Spacemen.

Half-Life 2 must be soooooooo close now. I even have most of it downloaded already. Not that I’ll be able to play it. My graphics card is now, it would seem, not fit to render pong. Why do I even have the pre-load going? I have no bloody idea. Maybe it makes me feel special. Maybe I am special, but just don’t realise it. Thinking about HL2 reminds me that I *could* play Doom 3 this evening.

Did you see what I just typed? I said that I could play Doom 3 this evening. That wasn’t true. You know why? DO I LOOK COMPLETELY STUPID!? Even total depression is preferable to complete stark terror. We had a new boiler installed while I was away, so the house sounds abnormal. I’d be scared bloody witless. You may be wondering how a computer game could reduce a seemingly grown-up competent eukaryotic person like me to a gibbering wreck. I suggest you play it, and once you’re out of therapy we’ll talk.

I missed International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Dammit! I’d best go now and find something to eat, before I go completely hyper and decide to iron my ears or something.