Where'd Everybody Go...?

My laptop's acting up :(

This morning it was working just fine; then the monitor randomly turned itself off. Figuring it had just gone into power-save mode, as it does, I jiggled the mouse a little.

Nothing happened.

I hit ctrl-alt-delet.

Nothing happened.

I hit alt-F4, in case it was trying to run a programme that for some reason didn't agree with it.

Nothing happened.

I did a forced reset, the loading screens came up, then it all went dark again. I gave it time...

Nothing happened.

I closed the 'puter to put it on stand-by in the hope it just needed to cool down.

Fifteen minutes later, it was back. Hurrah!

A minute after that, it went off again :/

Getting into a bit of a panic now (since it was looking like I wouldn't be able to access my work) I plugged in my memory stick and quickly copied over my Work file. The monitor went off again right before the transfer was complete, but I gave it a minute or two and stick's light ceased flashing to indicate the completed transfer. I then got it running again so I could safely detach my external hard-drive and disable the network, removed all the cables and closed it up for the day.

Tonight, I opened it again, just on the off-chance. It stayed on!

I thought, perhaps, there might be a corrupted file on my external HD that was sending things screwy, so I opted, to plug the rest back in and possibly see what was what.

I plugged in the power-pack first and, before I could even get the thing plugged into the wall, the monitor went off...

So I went to stand-by, unplugged the power pack and turned the 'puter back on. It has so far lasted through the latest episodes of Marvel/DC: Happy Hour, The Daily Show and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, as well as this post.

Though it's heartening to know there's life in this thing yet, the near-dead battery and the fact that I seemingly can't charge it and use my 'puter at the same time is troubling.

Hence, I may be quiet for a little while...

Oh yeah, and there's this one...

Wires Are For Wimps

Now excuse me while I find a rag to clean the drool from my keyboard...

And Suddenly the World Feels Lighter

It's official: Americans aren't quite as dumb as we all thought.

Good for you.

Just Another Reason Why I Love New York

New Yorkers showing solidarity for the bankers on Wall Street (as seen on last night's Have I Got News for You):

Perspective

We're currently doing narrative points of view for Prose Fundamentals and we were set a mini task for next week's lecture. First we were given this:

There are only five passengers on the bus. Thomas is trying to read; distracted by a small boy who runs up and down the aisle, giggling so much that spit covers his chin. The boy's mother shouts 'Billy! Billy! Sit your arse here!' as the bus lurches round a corner and the old man turns, studying the mother through thick glasses, before righting his shopping bags and settling again. The bus stops at traffic lights and Thomas folds his book, resting his chin on the seat in front. 'Good boy,' says the mother, 'Sit down. Sit down I says! Good boy. Here,' she says, passing the boy something Thomas cannot see. The bus is shuddering and Thomas sits upright, tasting the sour metal smell on his hands. He notices that the old man has also sat upright, staring intently at something outside. Then a horn beeps from behind and the driver curses and the bus swings into traffic. Thomas turns, pretending to check who has beeped but actually glancing at the girl who sits cross-legged on the back seat. He has been aware of her all journey - the crackle of her headphones; the smell of a perfume he cannot name. He thinks, perhaps, she smiles.

Then we had to pull prompts out of hat. Most of them were along the lines of Describe the scene in the first-person from the point of view of Thomas or Describe the scene in third person with limited omniscience focused on the mother. I managed to pull out 'Perspective of the "old man". First person. Past tense. Monologue told twenty years later.' Trust me to pick an easy one...

I'll never forget the last time I saw her. We would always meet for a cup of tea and a scone in the High Street at about ten o'clock. We'd been meeting like that for about three years, ever since I first moved to the area. We just happened upon each other one day. I was worried when she didn't show up that day. I remember thinking, I wonder where she is. I couldn't enjoy my tea and scone.

There were only a handful of people on the bus home. There were only ever a handful of people on the bus home. No one ever talked to each other in those days; not like when I was a boy. Everybody knew everybody. Not like now an'all. Everybody has to know everybody. Them bloody cards.

There was a woman shouting and swearing at her little boy. Horrible little thing, he was; running up and down, bothering everybody. She gave him some bloody chocolate just for sitting down. Only got something like that at Christmas when I was his age!

The bus driver was in a hurry as well. Nearly lost my groceries all over the floor. I'm surprised he even bothered to stop at the lights.

Anyway...that's when I saw her being put in the back of the ambulance.

I stopped off at the cafe a few times after that. Well, truth be told, I think I was back there every day for a couple of months.

Then I'd just pop in every now and then, y'know, just in case.

Eventually I just stopped going.

Resisting Temptation

I'm broke.

Okay, that's not entirely true; I still have some savings and an overdraft to see me through to my next loan cheque in January, but with several weeks of food shopping, three months of Mastercard payments, two birthdays and Christmas between now and then, it's going to be tight.

So seeing stuff like this doesn't help matters:



Want.

Can't have.

Bugger.

Still Alive

This be the main theme from the up-coming Mirror's Edge as sung by Lisa Miskovsky (who I've never heard of).

Kinda reminds me of Deep Forest.

Lacking Inspiration for a Team Name

Pub again last night. We've been the past few Sundays and played a lot of pool while the pub-quiz went on around us (we usually missed the beginning). This week, we decided to get there a little earlier and take a swing at it.

We won! :D

£25 worth of vouches at the bar. Not bad for our first go (especially as there were only 4 of us up against teams of 6 and above). Thanks go out to Del one of our points ;)

Next week, Lacking Inspiration for a Team Name return to defend our title.

A (not very) quiet weekend, all on my Lonesome

My house-mates...well, kitchen-mates (3 shared kitchens to each floor) have all buggered off home for the weekend, leaving things rather quiet around here, so I partook of some retail therapy and finally bought myself Metallica's Death Magnetic, marking my first full album download. Until now, I've been something of a CD purist, liking the feeling of having a hard-copy around, I suppose. Here, however, I don't really have room to start stocking CDs and, besides, downloading it was cheaper.

I'm impressed. Following the 90s, in which the band took a turn that attracted many new fans, but also turned many off, the band took some time out, went through some stuff, got drunk, shouted at each other, got therapy, went through some more stuff, got some more therapy and put it all out on St. Anger; the result being a lot closer to their thrash routes than before, but somewhat tentatively received given the often over-the-top rage of the album.

Death Magnetic isn't exactly a calmer affair, but it's a lot more balanced and vastly superior in every way. Hetfield has never sounded better, Hammet's fingers have evidently gotten more pliant with age, Ulrich still revels in beating the living excrement out of his drums and new boy Robert Trujilo is an absolute genius on bass.

Bizarrly, while in Primark, the guy at the counter asked me what I was listening to, I told him, and we ended up having a five-minute conversation about the virtues of Metallica in their 40s.

Random.

Anyway, my second iTunes purchase in as many days came with the news that Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog has finally been released in the UK.

I've just watched it again, and it is still genius!

Also, on a tenuously related note, I went 'round to another kitchen last night to drink, play cards and watch some horror movies: The Evil Dead and Slither (which also stars Nathan Fillion). I've never watched horror films with girls who genuinely scream in terror before. Even Metallica can't match the volume these two could produce. It was hilarious (especially when one darted under the table in sheer terror).

Sorry that's all a bit rush, but supposed to be going 'round to that kitchen now as we're all going to the pub to watch the England match.

Hope you're all having a good weekend!

Mark Steele on Darwin

In relation to my earlier posts about that old book with all the spelling, grammar and continuity errors in it, I thought I'd share a little something by a British comedian I doubt many of my American chums have ever heard. He's sort of the Billy Bragg of comedy:

I Demand to Know Why Nobody Told Me of This!

...?!

I'm not overly surprised that some backward freak could come up with something like the bible, but who, in their right mind, could possibly follow this horse-shit?

Everyone knows the story of Noah; commissioned by God to build an ark to take on every animal two-by-two (or by sevens, depending on which paragraph you're reading) so God can wipe out everything else He's created and start over.

What many of you might not know is the random little incident that took place right after the great flood. Receiving the blessing of The Lord, Noah settles down, plants a vineyard, gets rat-arsed and passes out naked in his tent, where he is happened upon by his son, Ham.

Ham tells his brothers, Shem and Japheth what happened and those two get a blanket and walk backwards into the tent, covering their father while being careful not catch a glimpse of daddy's tackle.

On waking, Noah 'knew what his younger son had done unto him' (that's right; it's Ham's fault dad got smashed and passed-out naked) and curses Ham's son, Canaan, to be 'a servant of servants...unto his brethren.'

So, let's just clarify: Noah - chosen by God to survive the great flood and carry on the species - got drunk, passed-out in the nip and curses his grandson because his son saw him.

People base there lives on this shit!

The Curse of Cain

One of the optional modules I chose for my course is Myth, Epic and Folk Tale, in which we study various old texts that have endured down the centuries and, despite having been reworked and re-edited time and again, have remained influential to this day.

Presently, I'm reading the King James Bible.

I've attempted to read a version of the bible before (out of curiosity), but couldn't even get through the first few short chapters before my attention wandered. Whether it's the version I'm reading or the fact that I have some genuine motivation this time, I'm now making better headway and have just read chapter 4.

By now, many of you probably know my standing on religion. No one can say with absolute certainty whether or not there is a god - some almighty creator who started the whole thing - but what I can say with a great deal of confidence is organised religion is full of shit. Everyone single one of them has been built up by a handful of people with an agenda to control the masses, and nowhere is it more evident than in their own teachings.

"You can do this. You can't do that. This group of people (who I just happen to be a part of) are always right and never to be questioned, and anyone who disagrees will be judged and punished by our particular all-powerful ghost (though if wanna take a few shots yourself, it can't hurt your chances of getting into that big glowing cube in the sky)."

That said, if that's what you're happy with and makes you comfortable and you don't try to force any of rhetoric down anyone else's throat, fine. There's no harm in that.

However, there is a particular group within every religion for whom that isn't enough. These are, of course, the fundamentalists.

Fucktards; each and every one.

For example, female VP wannabe Sarah Palin believes of her own gender; "...in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16) All of which seems particularly harsh when Adam's punishment for the same sin - eating of the tree of knowledge - was to eat from the tree of life and live forever, tilling soil and fucking his submissive wife.

Also, only 5 pages in and I'm already finding typos and continuity errors. When referring to God, the rule is to always use a capital - he is He; his is His; etc - so it's a little confusing when He's in conversation with Cain and the lower-case is used, especially when there's no paragraph break for a change in speaker and no quotation marks at all.

At this particular point, having just killed his brother, Abel, Cain is one of only three people in existence (himself and his mother and father, Adam and Eve), so he's talking about when he says, "...I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me"?

It's also worth noting the lower-case of 'earth'. Even if there were more than three people in existence - including himself - he's unlikely to meet any of them wandering around in the ground.

People take this stuff literally.

LITERALLY!!

If it wasn't for one of them being the leader of one of the most powerful nations on the planet, and another poised to potentially take his place, it would be hilarious...

Let the Right One In

Ending the Night on a High

So, as has become the norm since returning to studentdom, I was out clubbing last night. Come 3am when it was time to throw out the remaining punters, the traditional kick-out tune was played. Back when I was of an age of clubbing semi-regularly, that tended to be something along the lines of Sinatra's New Yor, New York, or some other swing classic.

Last night, it was thi (give it till at least the third verse):

The Fine Art of Debating

In reference to Obama apparently threatening Pakistan, McCain says a president has to be more careful about what he says. Obama responds by repeating exactly what he’d said about Pakistan, which completely flattens McCain’s lazy interpretation, then points out two examples of McCain letting his mouth go - saying North Korea should be wiped off the map and singing Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb Iran. McCain’s response? To once again reiterate his record in the senate (stopping short of certain decisions made regarding Iraq) and telling some irrelevant story about a woman giving him a bracelet at a town-hall meeting commemorating her son who died in Iraq.

Less than two minutes after Obama has said the situation in Afghanistan can’t be solved by more troop deployment alone and needs some careful strategy, McCain accuses him of not understanding that it’ll take more than just increased troop-deployment to improve the situation and some careful strategy is needed.

That was pretty much the theme of the whole debate. McCain accuses Obama of something, which Obama casually discredits or puts in context before bringing up two or three examples of McCain doing exactly what he’s accusing Obama of, to which McCain has no reply, or Obama says something that McCain immediately forgets and accuses Obama of having the opposite view.

The only reasoning I can think of for why people can’t decide who won, or even think McCain won, is that McCain appeared to be on the offensive more, while Obama was willing to admit when he was in agreement with McCain, but the fact is McCain was stuck with rehashing his campaign ads, while Obama was responding intelligently and articulately to the questions being posed and the responses from the other side.

Judge for yourselves:

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Usually I would leave the politics to The Big E, but earlier I read a couple of overviews on last night’s presidential debate, which essentially came to the conclusion that both parties handled themselves well enough and it’s difficult to say who came out on top. I’m now halfway through watching said debate and, so far, McCain is having his ass handed to him.

Both sides are spewing a lot of rhetoric, avoiding direct questions and criticisms from the other and generally reiterating the agenda’s they’ve been pushing for the last couple of decades (or how ever long this campaign has been running), but the one thing that has become clear is that, while Republicans have commented a few times that a lot of Obama’s proposals are little more than broad-sweeping statements along the lines of ‘This is bad and should better,’ it is, in fact, McCain who’s been spouting words to that effect in the debate.

While McCain talks about keeping up spending in certain broad areas and completely freezing it in others as a result of the recent economic crisis, Obama talks about going through everything with a fine-toothed comb and holding off on the nonessential aspects of some things, while recognising the immediate importance of all of them.

For example, McCain proposes keeping up defence spending, while freezing spending on education, while Obama wants to look at what can be held back on both so he doesn’t have to sacrifice either.

The problem with spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.

Obama

I’ve also noticed that, despite prompting from the moderator to do so, McCain is yet to directly challenge Obama on any point, while Obama (after a slow start) has done so a few times to McCain.

I’ll watch the second half tomorrow, but at half-time, McCain’s heading to the locker-room battered and bruised…

I have coffee, Kit-Kats and custard creams!

Mwahahahaha - bow down, fools!

*ahem*

I've been aheming a lot lately. 'Fresher's Flu' is in the air and everyone is either coughing, sneezing, sniffling or all of the above. My psychology tutor in college told me that there about 120 variants of the cold virus and once you've had one, you become immune to it. I think everyone's brought their own...

My first week of classes is over and what an interesting mix they are. Monday was Imaginary & Real Worlds in which we read a few creation myths, discussed recurring themes and how they tie in with superhero origin stories (i.e. all’s quiet, something triggers a metamorphoses, there’s a bit of conflict, some kind of resolution, but nothing’s the same again). We were also given a fifteen minute exercise in which to come up with our own creation myth or origin story.

No mean feat!

After that was our first Fiction Workshop, which is essentially the same as what I’ve done in previous creative writing groups, but with a little more specific work involved. That said, last week’s workshop consisted of sharing and discussing our favourite books, films and TV shows. The usual batch was on offer but we then had to think about how those things have influenced us as writers for next week (just a paragraph on each).

We also have to make five observations about anything, just to show that we’re being alert and keeping our eyes open for inspiration.

And we have to take something with us to read aloud and have critically analysed by the group. Fortunately I’ve got a whole portfolio of stuff to choose from :)

Tuesday was Myth, Epic & Folk Tale, which, it turns out, is actually an English Lit module. I left the class kinda daunted by the whole thing. We’ve got quite a long list of stuff that has to be read for the course, the first of which being Homer’s Odyssey for the 7th.

I don’t know if any of you have ever read Homer’s Odyssey. It’s loooong. And I am not a fast reader.

Also, it’s kinda baffling. The whole thing is laid out in a Shakespearean, poetic style and the language and structure make some of the idea hard to follow. All the same, I’m enjoying it so far.

The first assessment for the course is a deep, critical analysis of either that or The Grimm Fairy Tales, involving extensive reading and research. I’ve never been much for research…

Wednesday was something called Learning & Personal Development. Not a lecture, as such, more a way of helping us manage our time when it comes to assessments and seeing how we progress throughout the year.

It is an utter waste of time, which is ironic seeing as the main part of it is aimed at helping us manage what little time we have. They’ve chosen to do this by taking an hour off us every week (two on week three) and giving us an extra assignment to do.

Academics can be such morons.

I was hoping to get to my first mixed martial arts class on Wednesday evening, but GoogleMaps guided me around and around in the wrong direction before leading me to the back of the complex, which was all locked up. On reviewing the map and the satellite photo, I realised I could’ve just walked straight down the main road and found the entrance. GoogleMaps is far more detailed than other map sites (Mapquest didn’t recognise the address I was looking for), but its directions are pathetic)

Thursday’s are my day off. Yay! Every university student gets one, except a select few taking joint courses (that’s joint as in two conjoining courses, not joint as in the first thing that probably crossed a few of your minds on first seeing the word) who don’t plan their timetable well enough.

Thursday was the first Kendo session and I was really looking forward to going along and hitting people (well, being hit more likely) with big sticks, but I was too exhausted from coughing up chunks of lung to make it.

*ahem*

Finally, Friday was Playwriting Fundamentals. Again, this one was a little daunting because quite a few members of the class have done some form of playwriting, performance or drama as part of their A-Levels. I’m one of only two who have no experience in it whatsoever. However, I’m not too scared. As far as I could make out from the class, the trick is to be sparse with details and focus predominantly on dialogue.

I like dialogue :)

Incidentally, I’ve recently been reading R.A. Salvatore’s Vector Prime (the first of the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novels) and have realised that, as good as he is at putting together a good action scene, he sucks at dialogue. Otherwise it’s an enjoyable novel, so far. I hope to have a chance to get back to it at some within the next three years, though my reading lists are telling me it’s unlikely…

Anyway, there are two thing in particular that I find interesting about the playwriting module. First is the performance aspect. Unlike most writing classes where you would read out your own work to be assessed by the class and tutor, we’re essentially required to write scripts that will then be performed by other members of the class, and perform scripts written by other class members.

Secondly, we have no class on the 3rd and 17th of October. Instead we’re off to the theatre to take in a couple of performances. Beyond the odd pantomime when I was young, I’ve never experienced the theatre.

This Monday will be our first Prose Fundamentals lecture, which happens alternate weeks in place of Imaginary and Real Worlds. Hopefully that won’t bring with it it’s own reading list, though I hold out little hope…

In other news, I now have a full compliment of posters adorning my walls. Combined with the vast amount of drinking I did last week and already building stress over the workload, I’m feeling like a true student again!

Staying True to Source

It's often difficult for game-to-film adaptations. Certain things have to be done to placate the fans and certain sacrifices have to be made to make a a good film.

We're still waiting for someone to strike the right balance, but some decent efforts have been seen. In Tomb Raider, it was casting the perfect actress for the job (it was just a shame the story was so iffy). In Doom, it was including a full action-sequence shot in first-person perspective (it was just a shame the story was so iffy). In Hitman, it was some beautifully constructed action set-pieces (it was just a shame the story was so iffy).

The apparent supernatural bent being put on Max Payne is looking a bit iffy, but in terms of nice touches, this one is nice:



I particularly like the line, "I knew the sun would come up tomorrow, and I knew I would be alone to see it."