Mummy!

And I thought Mare's Nationals post was funny...

Geeks

Don't know anyone like this.

Hai

My japanese name is 原 Hara (wilderness) 翔 Shou (soar).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Technology - who'd use it!

I've joined the ranks of the passport holders since my passport arrived by courier on Saturday morning. I'm also waiting on getting a funky new phone to replace my old one, given it only recharges its battery after about 60 or 70 failed attempts. The charger interface has just never been working 100%. Thing is it was supposed to be next day delivery (or 2-3 day delivery) and I've had no word so far on it.

The Stu Mobile is sick - the horn is working less than half the time. I've been over to the local garage and they reckon its the switches on the steering wheel, not the horn itself, which means a bit of a job to replace the switch. Of course my car is supposed to have a 3 year warranty but my experience with Arnold Clark has been less than positive so far. I've a 10% discount card on all repairs and servicing which has not applied to any repairs and servicing I've received so far so I expect my warranty will doubtless only cover work done at Arnold Clark shops, or some other small print, of which there are no shops in Leicester.

The Kingdom of the Most Majestic Stu

I've been playing Nation States, which I found out about on Life 60 Degrees North. It's a game where you create a nation and each day a moral issue is posted to the web. You answer it and it determines your nation. Without further ado:-

The Kingdom of the Majestic Stu

Keep track of this every day - the country will change.

Alton Towers Photos

Finally uploaded the in-ride photos of Alton Towers.

Dr Stu on Dr Who

Just watched the first McCoy episode, Time and the Rani, on UK Gold (mmm... Sky Plus means I can watch shows that come on at 7am). I watched all the Colin Baker ones except the Dalek one which they didn't show.

Sorry Brad, but Colin's Doctor is awful.

Trial of a Timelord makes next to no sense. He pushes people into acid baths, fires guns and just generally acts like a roleplaying character with a very arrogant player.

However McCoy was brilliant during the first episode. Little things like solemnly taking his hat off when he accidentally led a monster to be blown up on a mine, while Colin Baker would've arrogantly swanned off making some sort of intellectual quib with as many words as his peripetatic diction would allow consummation of.

Mind you it's still not all grins, all Bonnie Langford seems to be there for is to scream at an annoyingly high pitch. I'm sure it will be a plot-point one of these days - maybe they'll need to break some glass.

Careful What You Say

I've ordered a mega cool 1 Gig MP3 player from Aria last night and am looking forward to getting it. One of the many cool features is it acts as a dictophone so I may do some audio-blogging while I'm on my hols and I can record the many, many witty conversations we have in the office. Can't wait to violate some human rights. And start calling the player "Diane".

More Office Humour

By demand from certain parties, more office humour involving B.

-------------

"Ben Shui"

"Ben Shui", not to be confused with "Feng Shui" is B.'s way of making a student-proof nest that discourages students from bothering him by making his office as inaccessible as possible without a five mile hike.

You might have noticed we redecorated the CW303 office. We got l-shaped desks. We chucked out old disgusting furniture, like B.'s old bookshelf.

B. when he got back on holiday couldn't live without it, as he has nothing to hide behind when students come in. B. stormed out the office suddenly and dragged said old bookcase into the office, placing it against the wall and then moving his l-shaped desk against the bookcase. I've a diagram for your reference... I also used to have photos of him struggling to stretch across his desk to reach books in the shelf, only to discover the desk completely blocked them. I deleted them for more interesting photos.

B. also put his partition at a 45 degree angle until he realised he couldn't get out of his chair, get out of his office space (once we shoved the spare chair he demanded for visitors in front of him).

Sadly the unique Ben Shui can no longer be seen as he eventually realised. However he managed to spend 2 days fiddling with his bookshelf non-stop

--------------

On the clock

B. sends round a high priority/urgent email that is going to take the student problem's database offline at 12 for 15 minutes. Not sure if it's 12am or 12pm (so he can take it off precisely at midday) he asks to make sure. Then at midday he tries to take it offline and edit it but the server has crashed.

Yelling about how unfair it is, and cussing and swearing like a sergeant-major B. has a kiddy-style tantrum and storms out of the office. One of these days I will get a movie file of these tantrums.

-------------

The Mary Whitehouse Experience (or the first time I suspected B. had lost his marbles)

Ben said one of the previous escapees from our office used to keep porn in the office.

Yes I was cynical.

But B. told me this was true.

Porn including such titles as "FHM", "Maxim" etc.

Now, if like me you were labouring under the impression that such things were not actually porn you were obviously wrong... at least according to Mr B.

B (pulling out copy of Maxim and shoving centre-fold in my face): "Look, dirty isn't it? Ugh, ugh..." (various other disturbing noises. I'm fairly certain he used the word, "Dirty" like the weird cleaner on that episode of Black Books)

S (rather dumfounded and shocked that B. would shove something he considers porn in my face): "Err... isn't that a lad mag. I mean she does have clothes on."

B: "Yes but its so offensive." (proceeds to show several other "pornographic" images to me and puts magazines back neatly in the cupboard).

S: "B. if you're so offended by them, why haven't you thrown them out. It's not like he's going to come back for 4 magazines from last year."

B: "..."

---------

Today's excitement is that last night B. was on University Road when a lady of the night propositioned him. And naturally he thought we'd all want to know about this.

S: "So were you so offended enough to call the police on her?"

B: "No, that's not my job."

---------

Nemesis

My Nemesis photo came in the post yesterday. I looked very very sick in it. I shall try to provide a scan of it at some point.

Office Humour

Some more wit from real conversations in the office. It helps if you're a programmer or read Dilbert...

In conversation about the on-line marking system we run:-

-------

S: "I'm a little concerned about your marking system, B. No-one else understands it."
B: "That's fine."
S: "But, what if you were run over by a bus or something."
B: "Well they could just go back to using the old paper system. It's fine."
S: "So why replace it in the first place, especially since maintaining it seems to take all your time."
B: "..."

---------

S: "How do you use the constants TRUE and FALSE in PHP?"
B: "Oh, I don't use constants. I use 1 and 0 in my code."
S: "I could believe that."

--------

Oh, and this gem ties into the whole TRUE and FALSE thing...

B: "I should do the Software Engineering module. I have an MSc in Software Engineering."
Various People in the Office: "Shame you never learned anything obviously."

--------

S enquires if B thinks he's a team player since he treats everyone else in the office like they were scum and villainy.

B (paraphrased): "Yes, I'm a team player, I just don't like unnecessary communication. I think people should communicate as little as is necessary. We need less effective communication."

--------

B (paraphrased): "My blasted CD-R drive doesn't work under Windows XP. I need Nero."
S: "Say, you have a CD-R drive. Why do you make poor U. burn all the CDs for the students on his computer?"
B (paraphrased): "Well, it's my CD-R, I paid for it and brought it in, I don't see why I should do it. Burning CDs isn't my job."
G. the Sysadmin fellow in the office looks at B. oddly.


(Page 3 of the Job Description: "assist with occasional teaching related jobs, including... creating of departmental software CD-ROMs...")

--------

In a discussion about answering student queries

B: "They'll need to employ someone else to do that."

(Page 2 of the Job Description: "Assist in providing a drop-in troubleshooting service for students run by the Department...")

-------

I've never seen anyone have so many convincing arguments for their own redundancy.

MP3s

I just got asked to go to the sysadmin's office - which is always ominous - and was asked why I'd put 200 megs of mp3s on the network. They'd been copies of some my car CDs I'd made using Realplayer and backed up on the network as my HD is due to be formatted. So I wasn't in bother fortunately, but I guess I need to get to speed on what and what not to do in this job of mine.

Dungeons, Outlaws and Death-Defying Stuff

Mare came to visit me on Saturday morning, flying in from Glasgow to the East Midlands airport. Which by the way lets you park for free for 30 minutes if you put the right ticket in the machine in the way out.


Anyway in a toss-up between going to Leicester and Nottingham we initially chose Nottingham and went into the Nottingham caves which go beneath the city and have a couple of "actors" pretending to be an incredibly grumpy underground tanner and a WW2 air-warden. And you get a funky helmet to wear for the duration, which is good otherwise I'd stand an extra foot tall with the lump I'd have got from banging my head on the cave roofs.

Then we went to The Tales of Robin Hood, which is where I got the offending green hat (something of a recurring theme that day). That's one of these multimedia places where they put you on a slow moving ride where waxworks are meant to jump out and scare you. Only problem was rather than being an engaging experience it was more of a cacophony of sounds and voices as you could hear what was going on 3 exhibits/waxworks ahead of you mixed in with what you were actually supposed to be hearing. Still it was fun, even if there was no real historic content.

Sunday was the big day we went to Alton Towers. It was a reasonably long drive, further than EMA apparently, and slowed down to a crawl as we approached the village of Alton (population 3,000, all theme park haters no doubt).

The fast-track ticket is £5 and lets you skip the queue on Oblivion, Air, Flume and Nemesis once. It sounds like a con, since admission costs £29 in itself, but the queues for Nemesis can be up to 90 minutes. So we recommend the Fast-Track ticket, or "skippin' queue" as a bunch of Glasweigans on our train-cart kept saying in a suspiciously have-you-seen-the-muffin-man way as the kept running up to the window and going "Can you see the skippin' queue?" "The skippin' queue?" "Look at the skippin' queue".

Anyway, some of the rides we went on:-

Oblivion, our first ride, which is a sudden drop down a dark, dark, dark pit. Which is very dark. And a bit scary.

Corkscrew, nuff said really. Bring a pillow for your neck.

Air, flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

Nemesis, which Mare discovered is a poor choice to go on straight after lunch.

Duel - my personal favourite, where you shoot the ghosts in the Haunted House. Sadly after the aforementioned Nemesis Mare didn't want to go on any moving rides.

Hex - slightly terrifying given how poorly strapped in I was, we were expecting a relatively dull haunted house.



Still didn't seem along enough to see everything, but we were incredibly tired (and wet after flume as the Photoblog will testify). A return expedition is planned to Alton Towers for around October before it closes, and the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned! I'm also waiting for the park to send me a photo of us on the Nemesis to come through, though there's a pretty cool one of us pre-soaking on Flume which should be hanging off Mare's fridge beforel long. Much fun!

Item of Interest

BBC7 Radio Station have started broadcasting the Doctor Who radio series with Paul McGann as the Doctor. Paul was easily the best of the Doctors I remember despite only getting one episode to act in. You can stream the complete audio for the various episodes, which are very, very good. I even invested in a copy of Storm Warning on CD a few months ago (it's apparently shortened for radio).

Not a Doctor Who fan. Dammit!

Return of the Cool Friday Links

Yesterday we went hunting for decorative items for our office and the two of us who could actually be bothered actually doing something to make the office look nice came back with several paintings. Given the recent redecoration I snapped some pictures. Here they are:-

A random piece of modern art

Andy, and our up-lighter

The Van Gogh Wing/Andy's Desk

A student's view of the room.

My piece of art

The amazing Ben (see below for opinions). I sent these pics out across the Departmental mailing list (since it's rare any of the academic staff visit us and at least one important member of staff isn't entirely sure where the office is) and within minutes Ben was suddenly tidying up his office. He's even asked me to replace this picture with one of a tidy desk. Very telling.

The Six DVD Star Wars Set

Lucas may be tinkering with all six films again? You'll need an IMDB account to read this. If it's true, interesting.

The Future is... Here?

I'll buy one of these for a dollar and I think I need a spare on the Island.

Strange But Gross

Only for those of strong stomach

Sith Apprentice

You're Fried.

Citadels of Gold

Just had a couple of games of Citadels, a German game I was introduced to by Mr. T. of this parish. Very good game - well worth checking out. I lost both times, though I was the first to have got to 8 territories.

Home Sick

It's official - after 3-4 weeks away from Dundee I'm beginning to feel a little home sick again. Admittedly this has been the longest I've gone before it set in (probably because where I'm staying is not a dump for a nice change) but last night I realised it'd been 8 days since mother-dearest had rung me up, and that she was supposed to have called me on Saturday. What didn't help was when I called last night she said she's forgotten to call me.

Even tonight I put on some Tubular Bells II mp3s I'd downloaded and it reminded me of when I first bought the album when I was a teenager and got nostalgic for the old days. Anyway it reminded me I'd been remiss in contacting the old gang, it's been a wee while since I really chatted with anyone.

New Office

At work we've had new furniture put in today and it only took 1 or 2 arguments with a certain person and him discovering that putting a book case between an L-shape desk and the wall is not a good idea. I've a humorous series of pictures of this fellow slowly realising his "Ben-Shui" was not exactly tidy, neat or clever, and that actually we threw out that old minky bookcase for a reason. Even as I type the wall of folders is reappearing.

I'm thinking of doing a newsletter with these photos in it as there are apparently a lot of people who used to work here who'd be interested in his latest adventures/fights.

Tantrums and Tea-Leaves

- Things are going well in my new place. I still need a new PC, but I also need a holiday more, so that's on the back burner for now.

- At the office a certain someone there threw a massive tantrum yesterday. After being away for 2 weeks during which time we were redecorating the office he discovered yesterday that the old tatty campus map we keep in the office has been thrown out. We're also trying to tell him to throw out the 20 or so massive accountant-folders (with memos dating back to 2001) and books like "Learn Access 2.0", "Learn Turbo Pascal" and some of the 6th Year Studies Computer Science textbooks I used in 1997 but he's insisted he needs them and on building a wall out of them between me and him.

The map was the final straw and sent him into a childish tantrum. He moved in all the old shelving we'd moved into a pile to be collected by the porters and is using them to stack his precious folders on. He's yelled at the poor fella who threw out the map to get him a replacement. This is the one co-worker who insisted we treat all his stuff with respect. So in general he's being an unpleasant S.O.B.

- In order to take the mick out of said prat I insisted on bringing in a piece of the rest of the detritus (bits of wood etc.) we also threw out and put smiley faces on them because they're so precious to me, Gollum! I have a photo of one of these essential bits of office furniture.

- The DVDs that were delivered to my old place have been opened by painters who are doing up the place. So far my landlord has located 2 of the disks, but the third one is nowhere to be seen.

Why do the hard work?

A website that will write a computer science paper for you... SCI-Gen. More amusingly one such paper created by this was accepted at a Noddy Conference.

"SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research
papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written
context-free grammar to form all elements of the papers. Our aim here is
to maximize amusement, rather than coherence."

Might make a few myself.

I'm Back...

I'm back from my conference. And I'd like to start with a brief and hard-learned tip on how to give a talk at a conference.

Take the entirety of your power point slides with you. It can be rather stressful when you plug in your USB drive to discover only 9/10s of the file were copied. Thankfully this occurred during a dry-run, but coupled with the need for an hour's worth of revisions made for a very stressful evening and morning. However after some minor heart palputations and some elbow-grease the talk went okay however.

Bristol University's Wills Hall of Residence were a very pleasant backdrop, if a little too removed from the train station for my liking. At one point I was convinced I would be taxi-less and stranded in Bristol.

I'd also like to say I won't be taking any more Midlands trains than I can help. My 2 changes became 4 changes on Monday night when some poor soul died upon the line, and I was diverted owing to this "fatality on the line" (the official speak I suppose), missed a connection and got into Bristol around 11:15pm when I was aiming for 9:30-10pm.

In the meantime it seems Screenselect - dummies that they are - have sent 3 DVDs to my old address. I was planning to cancel and had reduced my selection of DVDs to below 10, not expecting a dispatch because of that. I hadn't changed my address though - d'oh! I suspect a call to my old landlords is in order.

Going to the Chapel, Not Going to Get Married

Went along to my first Leicester wedding (which I'm told seems to be a seasonal occurence). Much fun was had with just the right number of hitches (that's 1 for those counting) and after much confetti throwing (first time I've actually seen it at a wedding) we later sojourned to Castle Park for a picnic lunch that had far, far, far too many strawberries than can possibly be healthy and generally enjoying good food, good company and good weather. Photos to appear some time in the future.

The reception later that night was a little more Goth than I was used to, but the black and red theme meant the chocolate wedding cake was fantastic. Though I think I was the only person to wear pastilles.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet I caught the season opener for Battlestar Galactica's Season 2, though my ears were still ringing from the Goth music to actually hear most of the dialogue, and tried to fix my machine on Sunday. All I seem to have done is formatted my HD and my housemate's external HD and upgraded to a version of Wind'ohs that is giving a blue-screen of death and then resetting the computer.

Anyway, enough blogging for me. I'm off to Bristol to present the last of my PhD work at a conference, and I won't be back until Wednesday night.

Meal of the Month

Had the worst lunch today. I went to a pub round the corner from the uni for lunch, after having given a brief presentation of a prototype for my latest project and helped start to rearrange my office. Rearranging the office has been a real job, we've had meetings with our boss, with the HoD, with the systems guys, with one of the systems chaps and so forth so it has eaten up a lot of time this week. Entire afternoons have disappeared.

Anyway, if you can imagine the things in the Red Dwarf episode "Polymorph" that tries to strangle Lister you've a pretty good idea of what my spicky chicken looked like. 2 medium sized tentacles on a plate, with sauce on the side. For £4.

The pub dude told me there was no salad left in the pub. He asked if I wanted chips on the side. Then he told me they had no chips. Then he asked if I wanted ciabatti. And he gave me 2 dry pieces of bread.

Yum.

It's Official!

I'm dim. As part of the aforementioned lifestyle change from baggy jeans to shorts in order to prevent a heart attack at 25 in the latest heatwave I forgot to take my bank card out my jean's pocket. I didn't discover this until I was in the queue at Tescos with about £40 worth of food and £10 worth of change. Fortunately my pal Vincent Visa was there to spare me some embarrassment and they didn't need the PIN I've never learned in order to process it. It might've helped speed things up if I'd signed the back of the card however...

This is not the only thing - on Monday I'd left my security card in my lab owing to the lack of a back pocket in the aforementioned shorts.

Also work was relatively tiring today - the room is being decorated tomorrow. We found this out today. We had to move all our PCs, gear, furniture etc. from the walls and discovered we have far too much furniture, one of us is pathologically lazy and a certain someone else in the office's name means, "Son of the right-hand". A few things are making sense now.

Spam

I get spam. Lots of it. About 20:1 Spam to Ham ratio on my computing.dundee.ac.uk account. I got spam from Tony Blair yesterday. Today I got spam from megabus.com telling me:-

Our new buses offer:
• Reliability

Uh - excuse me? Reliability? Your new buses offer reliability? What the heck did your old ones offer? Gaffer tape?!

A Scene

I've had the same worryingly similar conversation in 2 months all to frequently. Picture if you will someone with a striking similarity to Captain Rum from Blackadder II. Picture me going with the nom-de-plume that is my Confirmation name, that of Edmund, and you're there.

Rum: Aaaaaaahrrrrr Aaaaaaahrrrrr Aaaaaaaaaaahrrrrr. Me laddy.

Edmund: Ah-haah-ah, indeed. So, Rum, I wish to play the Sims now. Farewell.

Rum: Aah-ahhh! [strokes his hand] You have a woman's game, milord! I'll wager that dainty game never weighed corpses heavily upon a muddy floor in Hell or worse.

Edmund: Well, you're right there. No-one dies in the Sims. It's a game of building houses, interior decoration and genetics.

Rum: Ha ha ha. -Aah! Your Sims milord. I'll wager it ne'er felt the lash of a burglar, been rubbed with flies, and then drowned in their neighbour's swimming pool to make a nice little gravestone.

Edmund: Goodbye you stark raving looney. The Sims is a man's game as well as a woman's game.

Net story - the Sims is a bloke's game! Discuss.

Monday's Chortle

I phoned my old landlord's today to ask about my deposit and the inspection. Apparently it was all fine, although he did comment that I hadn't exactly cleaned the place so it was spotless.

Anyone care to join me in an ironic laugh.

Another Heat Wave

They've finally done it - I'm wearing shorts. Outside of gyms I haven't worn shorts in public since Loch Goilhead in 1996, when the gym teacher, Ms. Cochrane-Dyet made some remark about me having nice legs. Wonder if that's related?

Lazy Weekend

It's been a quiet weekend aside from a few minor ups-and-downs. I've spent watching TV, DVDs and trying to fix my sick PC. Spent most of yesterday enjoying Sky+ and Monty Python Live in Aspen, and introduced my house mate to Lord of the Ring the Board Game. Today I tried to go swimming only to discover the local swimming pool is for local people (it's a private gym the all-too-eager-to-help wifie on the gate told me).

I've also discovered Colin Baker's Doctor Who is not too great. The Doctor is a pillock, and after regenerating into Colin is a homicidal maniac. His companion is a snivelling wretch named Peri who shows all the fortitude and wit of a battered wife.

Tonight's entertainment is Lord of the Rings Risk.

Today's Depressing News

It's been rough times - I slept in and didn't watch TV this morning so it was about midday when I heard about the explosions in London. The death toll has gone from 2 to 2 dozen with 100s of injury casualties and it's supposed to be the usual eastern suspects. I don't know anyone in London who's been hurt, and I hope no-one reading this has either.

Also it seems every bleedin' American on every forum, regardless of its relevance, seems to be using it as an excuse to post some 6+ paragraph rant on democracy and how great the UK is when it is teamed up with the US.

Daleks

We continue to do your nut in.

Jedburgh Photos Online

Now available on the photo blog.

Pretty Cool

This reminds me of a game called Pod we used to play in school. You tell the G8 to do something and they go off and do it in an animation. George does "War" quite well.

Washed Up Already

I've had my first goofy story to tell as I filled the dishwasher last night. My house mate likes to use a little Fairy liquid for pre-washing the dishes. I like to use more than a little. More than a little means bubbles coming out of the dishwasher. And bubbles lining the dishwasher. And the washing powder tablet was hilariously catapulted across the washing machine rather than in its slot.

Soon he will realise I'm not as smart as I seem and come to the conclusion I am a blithering idiot. Mwa ha ... oh wait. Cancel that evil laugh.

Too Evil

It finally happened. I found a roleplaying supplement I term too nasty to the players for my taste. I'm referring to a Warhammer supplement I picked up in Dundee last week.

The heroes set off a suspiciously Lord of the Ringsesque finale to destroy an artifact they found. And if they do all the heroes who used the artifact die in very very painful ways. Not much can happen if the PCs refuse to find them, and yet if they've played by the rules and stuck to the plot etc. they wind up getting horribly screwed. And they have to use the artifact to trigger the story! Worse it's possible for the 4 heroes dying to cause the death of every other hero in the party!!

As a bleak end to the campaign or a movie it works - but it seems really arbitrary and could leave a bad taste in everyone's mouths. And I guess it means no game next week. ;)

DVDs Ago-go

Still moving in - there are boxes strewn randomly about my room. I just hooked up my DVD player only to have to go all the way out to the car to get the remote control. I also think my PC is dying - it needs a new powerpack I suspect as it keeps resetting at really irritating junctures. I may need to take it to PC World or something.

Ironic given I've almost a PhD in Computer Science eh?

Which reminds me - I've not started by 6 pages of changes yet.

Instead I went to Nottingham today to buy some books, like Call of Cthulu the Game (finally time I owned a copy I figured), some reduced Freeport stuff and a copy of Cracker on DVD. Given I have 6 seasons of Hercules, some Kung Fu, 3 Screenselect DVDs, Prophecy Forsaken and XVids of the 1st season of Scrubs to watch I don't see boredom on that front being a problem.

Stuart's Peripatetic Links

Like Star Wars? Like the Princess Bride? Then you will like this file. Give it time to download.

There and Back Again and Again and Again

It's Friday, I'm knackered and I've clocked up 60 miles on the Stu-Mobile just moving stuff from a to b. I just got back from returning the keys to the Ullswater Dump and a hefty shop at Asda. For the past 3 days I've ate nothing but KFC, hasty cold meals between stops at the university, the dump and my new pad.

I've moved everything, books, clothes, CDs, DVDs, DVD player + TV etc. all sitting in various places waiting for me to find the energy to lay them out. I'm totally shattered - I haven't slept much with all the disruption and I'm supposed to be in town now, but I can't be bothered. I should also get round to uploading my photos of Jethart. But now I have access to a TV that rewinds the program I feel the urge to play, play, play and go nowhere this weekend.

And I need a bath, with the flitting there hasn't been time to wash. You really wanted to know that didn't you?

And now...

Blogging from home - the latest development. Woo hoo.

There and Back Again

I'm back - having left far far far too late in the day on Monday, around 12ish. About 9pm I returned to Leicester in the biggest thunderstorm I've ever seen (probably minor for down here). I dropped off a lot of my stuff at my new gaffe, looking and feeling a lot like a burglar in my rain coat (not to mention the constant illumination of the storm) and then went to the Ullswater Dump to watch TV, eat healthy stuff like Pot Noodles and generally kip at around 1am.

It was quite weird being home to be honest. Not much had changed. The roads were more of a mess. That's it really - a good chance to see folk, though a surprising number of folk were on holiday or otherwise engaged for those 5 days. Even the swimming pool was closed for that week exactly.

Oh and I got some photos of Jedburgh on the way home (and some Jethart Snails) to upload in the next couple of days.

A Few Words

Back. Dark. Stormy. Sunless. More. Tomorrow.

How did it go?

The following link summs it up (if it plays).

Mid-Viva

I'm still in my viva technically. We're on lunch break, with the examiners getting sandwiches and me suitably separated with a university lunch in the labs blogging away.

It's not going too bad despite the following things

- Someone stole the bus stop at the bottom of Balmossie Street which was mildly vexing.
- Someone spilled permanent marker all over my white shirt.
- My mobile has died again - the charger ripped the charge interface clean out of the mobile so I have 25% battery until I can get it fixed, or more likely get a better phone with free phonecalls and texts like everyone else.

Some of the questioning has been a bit gruelling, some of it has been a case of explaining things over again, but I think I'm getting there. And I have a lot of corrections to do... Apparently the damn thing's difficult to understand! But curiously I seem to be enjoying myself - the banter is actually kind of fun!

More when I return for the last part, which is meant to be quite short, and then face the verdict soon. Fingers crossed!

Home Again

Yes, I'm in Dundee now preparing for my viva (which is this Friday). Yesterday was a 400 mile trip but it was made more bearable with the Doctor Who and Da Vinci Code audio CDs I'd bought.

Don't try to study at a service station after 4 hours of driving. I looked at the front page of a paper and thought, "Nope", put it back in the enormous cardboard box and went for a real break.

I got home at about midnight, though I'd stopped for many many hours after making very good time along the Glasgow road. It may actually be further than going via Edinburgh but it is quicker because very little of it is single carriage-way with "294 people got killed here last year because some council member decided this road is especially narrow and treacherous" signs about the place.

Busy Busy Busy!

Haven't been blogging recently as I spent most of Friday on a university induction day. Long talks on equality policies, a game session to get us to find out info about the university and me asking a question on how to obtain a GP through the Uni that got everyone on the panels riled, sent 2 people running out the room and

I'm currently studying for my viva. Well, not right now, but I've done 3-4 hrs today of reading the entire box of papers I brought down with me. Abstract and conclusion only though for my sanity.

It's been ludicrously warm here. I've got my desktop fan on. The house has been unbearably smelly and infested by creepy-crawlies for some reason. I've had to open all the windows and clean everything in the kitchen, even using very dilute turps and water to mop up the floor (it was all I could find) on the tiled floors.

Also - Chris Eccleston won't be in the Dr Who Xmas Special I guess. Bummer. Nice writeout though.

This week I 'av been mostly watching...

Prince of Darkness: A group of physics students are asked to investigate this strange gravity defying green liquid in a bottle that has been sequestered in an old church and only recently found with the death of an old priest. They take Donald Pleasance with them. It turns out the green liquid is Satan and it starts possessing the various students. Damn freaky film - I haven't seen such a scary horror film in years!

Gattaca: Thought provoking film where future society determines you're position based on your genetic make-up. Lowly genetically unenhanced Ethan Hawke wants to be an astronaut so he has to pretend to be of the highest calibre of genetics.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: Terry Gilliam at his best.

Cube Zero: Prequel to the amazing film Cube. Much better than the sequel Hypercube. This time we watch the watchers of the cube and it's pretty interesting. Not as good as the original though!

Millennium: Yup - he's still catching those serial killers only now it turns out the Millennium group were behind everything and are evuulll, despite the fact they seemed ok until about half-way through season 2. And his wife died. In a viral outbreak that killed 80 people. Which the Millennium group is responsible for apparently. I still don't understand.

His name is Darth...

This is very entertaining.

From the Makers of the Gamers

A Campaign Ad.

Appearing on TV Near You

Check BBC1's TV show "Bailliffs" in the next few weeks and you might see me on it.

Yes, coming into the house yesterday I stumbled on an "open this - don't ignore it" order for a Mr. John Mceever saying he'd not paid his council tax and that they were coming to seize his goods.

Obviously this vexed me, and after a somewhat irate call to the Lettings Agency I am told it is resolved and is a case of the council being too lazy to notice there's a new tenant.

Ho-hum.

Monday Blues

It's Monday and we've had 2 fire alarms already where the building has had to be evacuated. You see the Charles Wilson building has 4+ kitchen/restaurants that could set off an alarm. So I've visited the campus bookshop and CD sale this morning.

Ah - work is hard!

Sarbreenar Photos

As Mare pointed out the photos for Sarbreenar Lives are posted here. Admire the Harry Potter look-alikes, artwork and an unfortunate pose on picture 5.

Blast From the Past

Just found some embarrassing fanfiction I wrote many years ago when I was 17. Read the bizareness here, here and especially here as some nice chap reconstructed my original website + graphics. Obviously someone liked them.

Let this be a lesson - don't post on the internet stuff you'd feel embarassed reading 7 years on.

D'oh!

Can't believe i posted this...

its work on a friday and i have had a beer it is going to my head so i post about Weeble

Natalie Portman

Somehow I doubt this is going to work but good luck. Just in case I will register http://www.dateayoungchapmiasara.com

Steven Speilburg Best Director of All Time?

Empire Magazine in their infinite wisdom has named Steven Speilburg the best director of all time. Am I the only one who thinks Stevie hasn't made a really cracking good film since the 80s or early 90s? AI was ok, Minority Report ditto, the Terminal was too much a mainstream heart-warming Tom Hanks comedy and War of the Worlds doesn't exactly scream "Classic!" to me.

Similarly George Lucas is further down the food chain but there's something disturbing to me about a director who insists on using CGI for every bally scene. Thinking back every shot in Episode 3 seemed to be CGI. Heck there's even a shot in Empire of George digitally adding the backdrop of Padme's apartment to Ep3. Why the heck not just pay the dosh and build the set George?

Imminently Imminent

As the date of my viva becomes increasingly imminent I am getting ready for it by rereading my theiss and spotting all the now-glaring typos that were invisible two months ago. I've started writing the cliff-notes version with the average chapter being shortened to 2 pages, and I'm going to revise certain key papers. Oddly despite it being two months old now I've forgotten how many of the equations worked.

I'm sat at work today revising and making notes as best I can. Boo hoo me!

Happy Birthday Egor

Happy Birthday to Egor who has grown older and not wiser. Check the post next week!

Important Safety Film

Pretty important this.

Yes Sir.

Yes I went to Nottingham. Yes I had fun. Yes I even spent £25 on a hotel room despite the fact I live about 23 miles away (though it was about midnight on Saturday before the fun finished). No there wasn't any cross dressing wierdos, but there was much immaturity (beyond the normal civilised levels at times).

Yes the hotel was pretty disgusting. Yes it was better than my house. Yes I broke my diet and went out for dinner. Yes I paid £15 for a burger. No it wasn't worth it.

Actually it was pretty good fun. The first day was a battle mission, which I suitably tactically solved, followed by a suspiciously familiar ship mission. The second day was a bit more free-form, 50 adventurers raiding the enemy capital. It didn't really work, given that it descended into farce as my group of 4th level PCs rushed across town to take on some beholders only to remember we were 4th level and went back to the vaguely safe sewer adventure, only to face a lich. But I made 5th level, and I started at 3rd.

Oh and having flying boots is bad for your health.

Nottingham, No Service and Nietzsche

Well I'm off to sunnier? Nottingham for the weekend for Sarbreenar Lives against my better judgement. I keep hearing how brilliant Sarbreenar is compared to LG (despite the fact they nicked our plotline and now our venue) but I have yet to be convinced. Since this is meant to be the best of their events (and a 40 minute drive away) I have high expectations (though I'm only a lowly 3rd level peon, it is possible I might be totally unengaged throughout the scenarios, or killed very swiftly allowing me to visit Travelling Man).

Annoyingly I don't have any of my LARP stuff since pots and pans are more useful than a green medieval tunic (which I think makes me look like Da Vinci rather than a warrior) so I will be plains clothing it. I expect to take lots of photos of other weird people, including the all-to-eager to cross-dress male players with female player characters.

I got soaked to the skin today making an observation: the Leicester branch of the Bank of Scotland is fecking useless. Twice now I have turned up at great effort (I finengled getting out of work at 3pm) to go the bank before it closed. On both occasions I've been told by the teller she cannot deal with my query. In this case it was to set up a bank transfer for my rent, the last time it was to obtain a print out of my bank statements. Now the former should, in my opinion, be relatively trivial for a bank, but they keep directing me to the phone banking services.

I dallied at Forbidden Planet on the way home, read the entirety of Star Wars Infinities: Empire Strikes Back (a cunning graphic novel - they change one event in the trilogy and take it from there. In this case Han's tauntaun freezes to death before he can find Luke so poor old Luke dies of hypothermia) and as penance discovered it had begun pouring it down and both my jackets were either at home or work.

On another note I have resumed reading the Da Vinci Code and got involved in a conversation with the gym instructor about it, criminology and Nietzsche. In fact he thought I was a psychologist. People down here have the impression I'm some sort of intellectual. Thank goodness the charade is working!

Die Crazy Frog, Die!

Justice At Last!

If you have no idea what this is about, how I envy you!

Photos Are Coming...

It's nearing time for me to bid my palatial manor in Leicester's depressing city centre for my new place further from the city centre. Obviously I will miss sharing my third-hand bathroom with at times a surprisingly large cast of bugs and flies (and one slug that somehow got into the house and slithered in across my bathmat one day) and I will miss hanging my clothes over the radiator after washing them only to discover they're coated in 6 month old silly-string.

Anyway I'm going to take some photos of my old place for posterity. Highlights will include the smoke detector over the abyss of a stairhead (guess which one needed its battery changing, and why I decided I'd rather risk a possible fire than fall 10 ft. down the stairs), the jury-rigged lock I've made for my backdoor out of a latch with a screw-driver and the antique TV.

Goodness, roll on July the 1st!

Serial Killer or Progam Language Inventor?

A rather disturbing quiz. I got 7/10.

More Pointlessness

I'm a D4

Sharp, pointy and low-rolling. That's me!

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

I 'av been mostly playing

Beyond the Forbidden Forest: Killed demogorgan, wasted the worm (trick is not to run away, it always appears at one of the 8 cardinal points). End of childhood trauma.

Sims 2: Same as the previous game really, but with better graphics and AI. I was going to post the scary story of the serial killing McNasty Sims but they were drowned in the same pool as their victims.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time I played the original Prince of Persia (i.e. before 3D became cool) and I recognise elements in this. It's really quite good, I spent a lot of yesterday playing it. You play a Prince who unwittingly releases an undead plague, the deadites can only be killed by the magic dagger in your possession. Oh and it lets you reverse time (only by a few seconds but enough to make me wonder why I didn't reverse time so I didn't unleash the undead plague). The main character moves like Buffy, which is just as well as stabbing the prone undead with the dagger leaves you incredibly vulnerable.

Your lives are the ability to reverse time, even after you die. Unfortunately sometimes this doesn't really help or if like me you accidentally release the button you can use 2-3 lives at a time.

Nice game though.

Hitman: Couldn't even do the tutorial. It kept saying Mission Failed after I wasted some security guard even though I had no idea what the guy was doing in the tutorial, and he shot me first!

Half-Life: Shoot-em up. Not that impressive.

I 'av been mostly watching...

Total Recall: Ahnuld at his best. Well - nearly as good as the Running Man.

Millennium: Still plodding along at snail's pace through this depressing show I am now on season 2, where things begin to lighten up a tiny fraction, but it is still for the most part suicidely depressing. Somehow Satan Got Behind Me is one of the most darkly funny episodes of a TV show I've ever seen though - 4 demons in a doughnut shop that appear as cranky old men to everyone except Frank Black.

The Hunted: Christopher Lambert versus Ninja in modern day Japan. Those ninja have no chance!

Star Wars Episode 3: See below.

Teenage Ninja Turtles: I'd like to say it came on TV, but screenselect.co.uk sent me this.

Doctor Who - The Curse of Fenric: Just what the heck was this about? I rented one of the old Doctor Who episodes with Sylvester McCoy (remember I don't like Dr. Who, at least not the old stuff). This was totally incomprehensible. The Doctor and Ace seemed to run from location to location in an old WW2 army base/village with vampires, Russian soldiers and a bottle I never quite caught the significance of. Ace manages to tell Fenric how to defeat the doctor (going to the trouble of running around said village for no real reason) but the doctor does some clever mind-fecking and wins.

Not as good as Christopher Eccleston by a long shot.

Robin And Marian: Sean Connery as an aging Robin, with Audrey Hepburn as Marion. Maybe it's me but this didn't do it for me. The Sherriff seems like a decent fellow who gets killed by Robin in a fair fight, Robin is a looney who gets what he deserves and his merry band is pretty much wiped out. Depressing.

This has been a warm few days in Leicester. On Friday I thought I had a fever again, but it turned out it was just the humungous temperature around here and the sun. I had to switch my fan on in the office it was so humid. Of course as I walked home around 6pm (after I went to the gym - I figured if I could work out on a day like this I could work out any time I want) and thought to myself I could catch some rays in the park the sun promptly hid behind a cloud.

Saturday was quite warm, but not quite as warm. I got invited to a BBQ and met some new fun folk, which is always good, though I was feeling a little tired for some reason. Which is good because it's another long Bank Holiday weekend, not long enough to go back up north, but long enough to start talking to walls over the lack of social contact in my area.

Today was very cool, but quite nice. Did some shopping, bought some towels for ludicrously high amounts of money and discovered when it comes to buying games I'm your man, but send me to buy a pair of shorts, some towels or anything clothes related and you'd better allocate a few hours.

And I have tomorrow off... yippeee!

Message for you sir!

I came home last night to discover that a large box had been delivered to me containing those 8 books I'd bought online.

I've had 3 parcels delivered to the dump in the past month. Each and every one of them has not been delivered through my tiny-porthole that is allegedly a mailbox. Each and every one of them has said, "We're sorry you were out. We tried to deliver a parcel at "insert time I left the house + 1 hour". It's true - the first parcle came at 10:30 (I left around 9:00), the second at 11:30 (I left around 10, I was at the uni 'til 6pm though). Fortunately I picked them up at the weekend, and this latest one was left with my new neighbours who've moved in next to me. Very kind of them to save me another trip to the post depot.

Like my other neighbours I can hear them far too loudly through the paper thin English terraced house walls. It didn't take me long to discover the new additions had a baby. Humorous tangent - I was locking my door on Tuesday when I discovered a levitating baby head staring out of the adjacent doorstep, about 2 feet away. Needless to say I was a little surprised but it turned out to be the mother slowly walking out into the street holding her kid.

I digress but I should go on about my neighbours at some point, including Yorkshire Batman. But that is a post for another day.

The box had a ton of WFRP books including "Death on the Reik" and "Power Behind the Throne". I sat up last night reading the latter as I'd been looking forward to it the most. PBtT has to be the single most intricate and clever scenario I have read in a while. Court intrigue, drug addictions, sordid affairs all of which ultimately threaten the stability of the empire and are all laid bare to clever PCs. It's a genius of a scheme that Emperor Palpatine would be envious of. Fall-guys for the fall-guys, puppet-mastering and so on. The only problem with the module is it relies on the heroes showing initiative and investigating something which to swordjollies isn't that interesting. In about 3 weeks I've collected all the decent parts of the Enemy Within campaign (except the one which allegedly stinks). To be honest I wish I'd done this when they were cheaper (though I got most of the books for £10 a pop except Empire in Flames).

Revenge of the Sith

I saw Revenge of the Sith at the Odeon in Leicester the other day. Best Star Wars Prequel Movie ever! At least that's my opinion so far, I will need to see how it sustains repeat viewings. I thought the Phantom Menace was cool the first time I saw it, before I exposed myself to too much Jar Jar in repeat viewings. I suggest you only view on if you don't mind spoilers or have seen it yourself!

It was a great film but the goodies get their asses handed to them, and it is very sad in places. I was amazed they managed to get through it all as George had left a lot of story to tell in Episode 3.

The Pros:

- Obi-Wan vs Vader/Skywalker - worth the price of admission alone.
- Jedi at war - it was actually cool to see the 3D map table and command centres the Jedi had constructed to fight the Clone Wars.
- The space battle at the start is amazing and somehow the whole rescue Palpatine sequence reminded me of the rescue of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi. Except Palpatine's evil and they'd all be better off if they'd all crashed Grevious's ship and died.
- Lots of lightsabre battles.
- Minimal Jar Jar content. In fact I doubt he got any real lines.
- Yoda put through the wringer in a suspiciously Empire Strikes Back fashion. All he needed to do was lose his little green right hand and it would be very similar.
- Jedi killed off in a really cool Lethal Weapon 2esque montage (remember the bit where the evil South Africans kill all of Rigg's team in various bizarre and bloody ways).
- Much darkness. And cute kids being killed to show this a no-holds barred, dark story. Why on Earth they didn't maintain this tone throughout the trilogy I don't know. It seems crazy to start a trilogy you know is going to end in almost total darkness with a Universal certificate toy commercial, but hey-ho!
- New Planets - Sith doesn't dwell on any of the old locales of the original trilogy, like Tatooine (which we could never seem to leave in Eps 1-2). Coruscant is where all the action happens. Naboo and Tatooine on the other hand are only visited briefly. We visit two new planets, a water world and a lava world (wonder what happens there!). And we see Alderaan for about 5 seconds. Simon Pegg once said in Empire magazine that the problem with the new trilogy was it shrank the universe rather than expanded it. Thankfully Sith expands it a lot, whilst feeling the most like an original trilogy movie.
- Death Star - they avoided the chance for silliness by having this only crop up at the end of the film, and Moff Tarkin was only a small cameo, 0 line part. The guy even looked like a young Peter Cushing.
- Lightsabre fights. Lots of them!
- Christopher Lee - he's a Sith Lord you know? Thanks Palps - he's also a vampire, wizard, ex-musketeer, mad-scientist. I ain't messing with him!
- R2D2 kicks some ass. He even gets a body count, or droid count.
- No politics (except extremist politics), and finally someone used the Republic Senate chamber for something that didn't send me to sleep.

Cons:

- Bail Organa - A lame characterisation of a potentially interesting character. This represents a crucial misstep in the trilogy. Bail Organa, Leia's adoptive father, is totally underdeveloped in the trilogy. In the 2nd film his appearance was basically a cameo with the understanding that in Episode 3 he would have a larger part. One of my chums stated that his role in RotS is "getaway driver" and that is true. There is no references to the beginning of the Rebellion, which he is supposed to be a crucial member of and now that I think of it there is no real appearance by Mon Mothma (despite her getting an action figure and all, oh well).
- Qui Gon Jinn - Apparently we're meant to be believe Qui Gon gained the ability to cheat death and speak to Yoda. We learn this about 5 minutes before the end of the film because Yoda tells us so. Huh? Again, a misstep. I smell deleted or special edition scenes on the cutting room floor, as the book gives mention of Qui-Gon speaking to Yoda. If Liam Neeson has flown the coop they could've got the fella who did his voice in the Clone Wars since, according to the book Qui Gon can only speak, he can't appear as his body didn't disappear at the end of the Phantom Menace. Qui-Gon was about the only cool thing about the Phantom Menace in my opinion.

- Christopher Lee - not enough of him. He turns up, says a few cool lines and is unceremonially killed off. Grevious on the other hand was a much weaker (and CG) character.
- Grevious - I wasn't that taken with him. He could wield 4 lightsabers at a time but Obi-Wan made short work of him. In the Clone Wars cartoon he took down 3 Jedi at once on 2 occasions. Also his wheezing and coughing didn't exactly make him seem threatening. I also wondered all the way through Clone Wars why, given he was a droid or cyborg that the Jedi didn't force push him around or force grab his lightsabres out of his hands. Obviously they couldn't have Obi-Wan kill Dooku as that'd get in the way of mirroring the Vader-Luke fight in Return of the Jedi with Anakin and Dooku and needed an extra villain.
- Chewbacca - didn't do anything. Extended cameo really, though thankfully the scene with young Han Solo (being raised by Chewie) hit the cutting room floor.
- Padme - her role in this film seemed to be to get pregnant, give birth and die. And give Anakin an excuse to turn to the dark side. Now I'm not fond of overtly strong women (I'm reading the Authority ATM and I don't like Jenny Sparks much) but she had no action in this film at all. Mind you if Lucas had done his job she'd have been preggers by the end of Episode 2 in my book!
- The Exile - To me at least it didn't make much sense that Yoda and Obi-Wan would go into exile for 20 years. They didn't do too badly in fighting the Emperor (at least compared to Luke's effort in Empire Strikes Back) that a repeat try a few months or years later would be worth trying.
Basically it goes Obi-Wan vs Anakin and Yoda vs Emperor. Yoda loses, but isn't killed, while Obi-Wan wins but doesn't kill Anakin. Not bad - if they struck while the iron was hot and Vader was still being built they could gang up on Darth Sidious... after all nowhere is it said that the kids are absolutely crucial.
There should've been a better reason given (other than the fact it needs to segue with A New Hope).
- A few unwrapped up plot-lines - Who ordered the Clones? Well apparently it was Dooku, but you only find this out in one of the books in the Expanded Universe. A little line during the Order 66 sequence with, "I am the one who ordered my apprentice to have you cloned. Now I activate your secret programming" or something would be pretty cool. Also - why do the Sith want revenge on the Jedi? Because they're evvvuulll I guess.. And Jar Jar is still out there, mocking us with his possible appearance on Naboo in Revenge of the Sith.
- Probably the most cheesy bit of the film was when Vader learns of Padme's death. James Earl Jones doesn't do a convincing, "Nooooooooo..."

I'd heard rumours that Anakin's fall was really dumb. Some of it did smack of, "I must become Darth Vader in spite of all your good advice because the script requires me to", but not on the same level as the Padme-Anakin romance in Clones.

On the other hand it does smack a lot of, "Betray my life long family? Turn on everything I believe. Sure why not!" but it made the events regarding Anakin's mother in Attack of the Clones make sense - Anakin's desire to keep Padme safe drove him over the edge and into Palpatine's camp.

Mind you Annie was a little dense to note that Chancellor Palps, the chap who cares about the plight of his missus, was all too eager to leave Obi-Wan Kenobi behind on the Separatist ship at the start, and that if he thought about it the Sith were behind the whole attack on Padme in Episode 1. By the end of the film Vader is in the presence of Palpatine when he orders the Trade Federation droid armies disbanded as they are no longer needed. He even effectively admits to Skywalker that he killed his master, Darth Palegius. Is this the kind of guy you'd trust to keep your chick alive? Really gents?

The montage of Anakin waiting in the Jedi Council while Windu deals with Palpatine is pretty cool. However I got the impression he wasn't totally irredeemable until after he killed Padme. Despite killing the Yonglings. Mind you after the cutesy bit in Ep2 who can blame him?

To be honest part of the tragedy in this film is that the whole turning of Anakin to the dark side could've been avoided if certain characters had said the right things at the right time. If the Jedi had respected Anakin a little more and let him in on their plans and suspicions in full instead of acting as they did. Or if Obi-Wan had made it a little clear he had duped Padme into helping him at the end of the film.

Anakin had Obi-Wan as his buddy, while Luke had Han, who was not some distant and unemotional cripple. Don't get me wrong - Obi-Wan is the most badass Jedi in all 6 movies, but despite his name "The Negotiator" (and where did that come from?) he can't teach the Jedi for shit. Same with Yoda. At one point in the film a conversation is as follows:-

Anakin: Master Yoda - I'm worried about er... someone. I've been having dreams they will die.
Yoda: Are you close to this someone?
Anakin: Er... maybe.
Yoda: Fear of losing someone close to you leads to the darkside... let go of that fear.
Anakin: Gee thanks.

So basically Yoda is saying if you are worried your spouse/brother/best-friend/barber is going to be chainsawed to death don't worry about it. At least that's how it sounded - perhaps Yoda could've instructed Anakin a little more constructively, "Don't let the future spoil the present" or summik. I dunno - he's the wise one.

There's also a few missteps in the story. For instance Obi-Wan and Yoda are sneaking (I use the word generously) into the Jedi Temple in Coruscant and in the meantime Palpatine declares himself Emperor (despite the fact the war against the Separatists is over). Next we flip back to the Jedi Temple where Obi-Wan is referring to Palpatine as Emperor. How on Coruscant did they learn that he was being crowned? Were they chatting to Bail the Get-Away-Driver?

I note they've left it open for the TV show to follow the adventures of more Jedi post-Sith as it is made deliberately ambigious if any more Jedi escaped the massacres of the Clone Wars. Rumours say Bail Organa could feature, possibly even with some characterisation. I personally hope it doesn't turn into a huge epic where tons of Jedi escaped. I doubt we'll see Ewan McGregor cameoing (I expect he's probably glad all 3 films are over now), but Yoda could conceivably feature in a bridge-gap series as he's a CG character and the film didn't show him going to Dagobah (that scene was also cut). Obviously Vader'll be really easy to use as a character given every fan-film can feature someone who sounds like him. We can only hope Jar Jar figures prominently! As a dismembered corpse. Or we watch him disintegrated...

So the Jedi get wiped out because they're asses. It's true. When I was a kid I thought the Jedi must've been truly great, but if you play Knights of the Old Republic 2: Sith Lords you encounter the ultimate Jedi-wanker, Master Vrook (also in KOTOR1 but not as annoying).

Stu's PC (cue dramatic music): "I have fought against the Sith, they have begun to reveal themselves to me. I have healed my connection to the force and chosen the path of the light side. I am now a Jedi Master. I have united all of you surviving Jedi Master. Now is the time we must stand against the Sith and strike back."
Jedi Master Vrook: "No. We must wait and watch as we always have done."
Stu: "Gee thanks."
Vrook: "You are a danger - we must strip you of your force powers."
Stu: "Er... I think not!"

Sometimes they have it coming you know...

Dammit Gym!

"So - where's the changing room?"

These are the words I uttered as I entered Leicester University's gym, aka Greenhouse 2 in Yuppy-speak. Looking around I saw rowing machines, cycles and various other torture apparatus but nary a sign saying "Changing Rooms". Something you might think is relatively common place in a gym, in fact wiser men than I might debate is essential.

Boy are they wrong.

The fellow at the counter looked at me in confusion, trying to hear me over the excessive decibels of MTV. Guessing from my confusion that I was new to the gym he said that I couldn't use the gym until I'd been inducted for insurance purposes.

That was yesterday. I've just returned from my 6pm induction. Lots of nodding, mmm hmming and sarcastically thinking, "So that's how a bike works" whilst straining to hear the imparted wisdom on weight training over MTV's dull clatter. The induction didn't involve me actually doing anything so I could completely misuse all the equipment out of ignorance and the instructor wouldn't know given I noted his propensity for surfing ebay on his computer.

What was more amusing was the Italian chick who was also on the induction with me. She was even more obvious in her, "Why am I here? I know how to work a bike!" and spent most of the time chatting up the instructor afterwards.

Gyms not bad apart from the obvious lack of changing facilities. You walk from the main building I work in to the gym, which is great in sunny weather but if it rains or snows it'll be a bit of a problem. The other problem is they left the door open and its next to the field where they cut the grass, so my hayfever is acting up for now. Time to go home, take some hay-fever remedy and have some food.

I'm off to see Revenge of the Sith this weekend but I'd better finish off the Clone Wars soon. Expect intelligent commentary (on Star Wars) by Monday.

Dark Dungeons

Dark Dungeons - a scary, right-wing Christian anti-roleplaying comic, available here. I'm lucky enough to have a coyp someone gave me at a con. What a laugh.

It's also worth seeing Dork Dungeons - and the numerous other websites that "alter" the classic original.

Didn't expect to see on IMDB

Adolf Hitler has his own IMDB page here. I suppose he's made enough post-1945 appearances to justify it, and he commissioned a lot of films apparently. I suspect we all can guess at their subject matter.

Friday's Link: Diary of a Monster

My name is... Darth.

Also in other news, proof that people actually read this blog.

Warhammer Burning a Hole In My Pocket

Warning: Rated high for geek content. And poor financial management.

Ok - I cracked. After I bought Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay v2.0 in the shops I went to Nottingham and bought Part 1 of the Enemy Within campaign. I liked it. I have to run it. Usually with campaigns I have so little time I do a really detailed first part to the campaign and by the time ten to twenty weeks later the PCs have completed it I never have enough time to give Part 2 any justice due to terms, papers or an addiction to Sims 2/Knights of the Old Republic and so forth.

My "Crimson Ascendant" Greyhawk campaign was an example of this - Part 1 was tightly plotted up until the end of it, where it descended into a shambles. Part 2 was horrible and in the end I folded it after a session where I had a fight with a player (though everyone agrees he was asking for it, and he later apologised in what was that most humble apology I've ever seen). What really sunk it was when I realised I was rerunning portions an old, retired and frankly crap core Living Greyhawk module to buy me more time to prep a tightly plotted story.

The Enemy Within on the other hand is tightly plotted all the way through. And bits of it are by Carl Sargent, the patron saint of post-Ashes Greyhawk and dark gritty fantasy. It was voted best published campaign ever by the French, the first part reads like a Cthulu scenario. It was reprinted oodles of times. In short it looks like a lot of fun.

So in the space of two weeks I've found someone selling parts 2 and 3 along with a few other books. I bought them for about £12 a book, but bought about 8 books off him. Then I bought the sourcebook over Ebay for £20. Then about 5 mins I found the ever-so-rare, not really reprinted Part 5, The Empire in Flames for £25 and bought it right away. Naturally every stall at Gen Con UK this year will have it on sale for £15. :)

Annoyingly Part 5 was, when being reprinted, due for a complete rewrite as the original does not accord with established Warhammer canon (the Emperor dies and is replaced with a new one, but this ending is dropped as he wasn't inline with Games Workshop's epic hero who contributes to miniature sales) and it doesn't really wrap up the Enemy Within storylines at all. Unfortunately the reprint company folded and the author/CEO had lost all the data in a computer crash. But the original still sounds like a really good standalone adventure for ridiculously powerful PCs. Plus it was written by Carl Sargent so it can't be that terrible!

With me spending a ridiculous amount (£150) on WFRP stuff in the past 3 weeks (though to be honest that's only £50 per week of my self-made spending allowance and there's not a lot else I plan on spending my spare cash on at the moment). Usually I have problems dreaming up what to spend cash on.

Anyroads I need to find some victims to inflict this epic on. And I suppose I should buy Part 4 at some point, but it doesn't sound that impressive anyroads.

More Popular than Porn

Star Wars is a more popular keyword on Google than the phrase porn. Check it out for yourself here.

Get your crushed dreams over here!

I can relate to this auction. Little punk probably had it coming.

Store Wars

More entertainment from the Organic movement. Check out Store Wars I know I will!

Another Acme Idea

Beer is bad. Beer gives me ideas, and this particular idea came to me on the cusp of my third pint on Friday night in the Gateway, Leicester.

The Lovebike

Working to bring love in tandem with you.

A new variant on the speed dating craze - 10 bikes, 20 people, 10 male, 10 female. 60 minute cycle in the country - 6 minutes with each potential partner.

Sad thing - everyone agreed this idea would probably make money.

You saw it here first. (c) me and if you use it I will sue for money as I'm too lazy to implement this idea.

No Place Like My Old Flat

Went and looked at a potential house share today. The chap was very friendly, we talked about sci-fi and games for about 45 mins and rent stuff for about 15 mins. We got on so well he's given me a tenancy form to look over and consider. The house was in a nice area of Leicester, a short drive from the uni.

The rent was £320 including council tax, playstation 2 (must buy him an eye toy for that), broadband, sky digital, DVD recorder for said digital TV, fully furnished, working shower, garden. This is totally unlike the one I have which you switch on and goes from scaling to freezing (you have to pick your moments to avoid burns). I should point out the rent for "The Dump" is £300 and includes er... the exorcist model shower/flesh burner, some old 2nd hand furniture and an antique TV.

Gee - should I move?

A Rare Saturday Post

Ah, the joys of flat hunting. I phoned up my first possible the other night, who sounded really nice until we discussed when I could view the place. Every time I suggested she was either working, meeting colleagues etc. Then when I told her I was paid up in my existing place until the 31st of June (which I'd originally mentioned in my module) she quite cheerfully told me that this was a problem as she had other interested parties, but I could just pay her the rent for June and move in at the end of that month. I thought I'd discuss this with her when I meet her, but I summarised my thoughts when I hung up and said, "Bollocks to that" given I have over a month to plan my next move and this is the first place I've considered properly.

The other person sounds a lot more promising. Given it is £320 a month for a room in a fully furnished flat, all bills paid including Sky digital and broadband I am very tempted and this person actually read my initial email enquiring about the place.

In other news my mobile phone is now fixed. Of course I had no messages on it from people outside of Leicester (feel the love, sniff sniff). I now have the joy of owning two mobile phones, the one I own and the one my parents gave me to get cheaper call rates darn sarth.

Anyway I'm off to play D&D now, like all cool dudes should on a Saturday night.

Stuart's Friday Link: Mr T. Vs Everything

Man that Mr T. fights a lot of people!

Why Ep2 is better than Ep1

Star Wars Episode 1 was dire, while in my opinion Star Wars Episode 2 was ok if you ignore the romance plotline and the fact Amidala must change clothes 3 times a day in an attempt not to seduce Annie. Here's my reasoning:-

Darth Maul - what kind of villain is he? He does nothing evil at all, he says nothing and just turns up to kill and be killed at the end. Dooku did some evil goatee twiddling stuff, Vader killed his minions and hell, even the really minor villain in Knights of the Old Republic, Darth Badon, electrocutes a minion for bumping into him on the bridge of his ship. The least Maul could've done was obliterated a few 'helpful' Sand People or cantina-full of dudes.

The podrace in Ep1 took forever and to be honest it was so obvious that Annie was going to win it. In Ep2 however if they'd failed to catch the shapechanging chick the movie could've continued onwards, so there was some actual tension in the speeder chase.

Ep1 had a nicer lightsabre fight but they forgot about dialogue, which made the fights in Ep4-6 fantastic (especially Ep4 which is not exactly an amazing fight but has some truly, deeply inspired dialogue). Ep2 had two lightsabre fights IIRC and they all had dialogue.

Ep2 had a decent "Star War" as opposed to being about some pishy little system under threat by some Japanese aliens and their army of kiddy-friendly droids.

Ep2 had less Jar Jar and no other Gungans. Enough said.

Ep2 had Obi-Wan Kenobi actually involved in the plot, not twiddling his thumbs only to save the day at about 1h 40 mins into the film.

Ep2 had someone who could almost act play Anakin. Ep1 had that kid who sounded like he was reading off a cue-card. "Sandstorms are very very... uh... dangerous."

Ep1 should've kicked off the Clone Wars, perhaps with about 15 mins at the start of Palpatine becoming Chancellor, the Jedi finding young Anakin etc. and then forwarding to when he's a sulky teenager. Ep2 should've handled the Clone Wars cartoon stuff and some of the stuff in the comics too (really cool, dark gritty battle scenes with padawans turning to the dark side with WW1 equivalent horrors of war stuff etc.), Anakin becoming a Jedi, his marriage at the end of AotC, and Ep3 should be pretty much as it is.

My main problem with the prequels is they jump around too much. Ep4-6 had an identifiable villain in Vader (with Sidious in the background). Ep1-3 should've had Dooku as the Vader equivalent unit all throughout the trilogy. Instead we have Darth Maul in Ep1, Dooku in Ep2, Grevious in Ep3 capped off with the Emperor and Vader at the end.

The Man in the Hat

Proof that despite the fact I've been asked to help run a graphic's course in Leicester all my pals are better at doctoring images. The following continues from the Young Indiana Jones thread:-



Mare proudly present the poster for

Episode 22.5: Spring Adventure

Young Stuart Kerrigan and his chums were arrested by Mexicans, escaped from a penal colony on a boat and discovered they were in fact bound for Cuba. Fortunately Fidel Castro was on hand to discuss the finer points of Communism and in return for us respecting his personal beliefs the group is given a personal pardon for him and sent to Miami where we run foul of the vice squad and are asked to act as consultants on the set of Miami Vice. Edward James Olmos co-stars.

It's a Frickin' Great Big Worm Man!

Ok - here's the heart warming story of one man's battle against his childhood fears.

I play computer games. Probably too much. I always have done, except until recently when I was either to busy or had a life. Now I play computer games a lot more.

I own a PC now. I used to own a Commodore 64 and then a Commodore Amiga. I played games on my C64. One of them was "Beyond the Forbidden Forest". You played an archer who had to run through a 3D forest shooting bad guys (not bad, 3D in a game in the early 1980s). It was the sequel to Forbidden Forest, which you did pretty much the same thing in, but in 2D.

The only difference is that Beyond the Forbidden Forest had really scary monsters and gory death scenes.



Like a fricking massive scorpion that just appears without warning!



Or, what really did my nerves in, a fricking massive worm that came out the ground and ate you (not pictured above but it's out there somewhere dammit!)

And Demogorgon appeared in it too, but I never got that far. I was like 9 man. Massive worms appearing out the ground and devouring you while the music changed like in a horror flick and really scare a guy and I think they've left deep-rooted scars.

Anyway couple of weeks ago I picked up a C64 emulator CD with BTFF on it. I'm amazed how scary it is, I frequently start to boot it up and during the slow and accurate emulation of it loading feel a bit nervous and decide to boot up another more kiddy-friendly game like Outrun, which is stupid considering I play games like Resident Evil, Doom 3 etc. that are infinitely more scary.

It's official - I'm a wuss! But tonight I venture into the pixelized Forbidden Forest to kill demogorgon - or play Outrun.

News Update

So what have I been doing lately?

- Been invited to a wedding in Leicester (not a typical one either as it isn't formal gear apparently).
- Continued to have a fight with my co-worker when he decided to do yet another reassignment of the workload (can you say compulsive disorder?).
- Managed to drive my car three times now without some Ned feeling the need to create a near-death accident situation.
- Started looking for a new flat once I'm kicked out the dump at the end of June. This time I'm looking for a flatmate to keep me sane however. I've a couple of possibles to investigate this weekend.
- Bought £80 worth of old books online.
- Filled my freezer completely with food.
- Learned that grilled beef is very tasty.
- Actually done 30 minutes prep work for my viva.

Free Comic Book Day

Bored with Leicester's shops I decided to take a day-trip to Nottingham on Saturday, but in true Leicester: The Most Dangerous Driving on Earth fashion and to fulfill the need for the typical obligatory "nearly had a car accident on Saturday post" as I tried to pull out of my parking spot some wifie came whizzing past at about 20 mph and nearly took my wing mirror off. Once again I'd made the mistake of looking in my mirror, taking a brief second to decide what to do, and then do the manouever. This wifie took a good few seconds to break, reversed back and looked at me, decided I'd made a face at her and thought she'd chastise me for making faces, not signalling (oddly enough I hadn't because the road was empty when I'd checked) and generally being a bad egg.

I went off to Nottingham feeling somewhat restless due to this incident and wasn't cheered up much when a group of Neds decided to overtake me in the slow lane, doing a mere 100 mph with their rap music blazing out at a ridiculous volume that somehow was louder than my own CD player. Such people seem to be everywhere in Leicester and Nottingham, riding around aimlessly in cars. But despite this I made it with no more mishaps and spent about 30 minutes looking for the local roleplaying shop only to discover it nests on the 1st floor of a Gamestation shop.

I relieved them of all their 1st Edition books of my new craze, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and then discovered the wonders of Free Comic Book Day. So what's that then?

This is basically a day when comic book publishers release a number of er... free comics to promote their new and existing titles. Typically this is Issue 0, which cleverly comes before Issue 1 but isn't necessary to read Issue 1. The comic book shop puts these on a table and you help yourself to what you're interested in (or if you're like me, take everything).

Now this is my first such day as in Scotland it turns out most comic shop owners I know turn "Free Comic Book Day" into "Mildly Less Expensive Comic Book Day". For example I was talking to a guy about Conan Issue 0 last year, which I'd bought in a comic store in Edinburgh for 25p only to be told by this guy it was supposed to be a free comic.

The Black Hole in Dundee is a similar offender - in fact unsurprisingly the world's worst and most expensive comic store doesn't even run a Free Comic Day. It wouldn't surprise me if they ordered the stuff in and put a price tag on it. Mind you I've never forgiven the owner for telling me to leave when I picked up a Spiderman issue, got too involved in reading it and read a whole 3 pages of it.

Some of the free comics were very good. A Samurai story called Ronin Hood (very apt for Nottingham), a free Spiderman comic, a free Batman comic and some miscellanious crap for jobbing comic book artists seeking publishers.

On Sunday I made my first trip to Leicester's overpriced Odeon to see Kingdom of Heaven. Not bad - historically inaccurate, with all the Christians either being eviiilll or more or less agnostic, whilst the Muslims are portrayed as pretty moderate. Normally this can sink a blockbuster (imagine Braveheart with good Englishmen in it), with Druids being a good example of how a balanced portrayal of both sides can wreck a film.

Basically the overall message of the picture is that fanatacism is bad as it just leads to pointless deaths, but for the most part the only fanatics we see in the film are the Knights Templar, with the Muslims being displayed as moderate. This film seems to follow the worrying tradition in Hollywood now of making Christians fair game for making into evil-doers and whatnot, but negative portrayals Jews, Muslims etc. are all no-nos mainly because they write the scripts or have better representation respectively. :)

When Everyone Knew My Name

Another work from Mr. Kydd.

Stuart's Friday Link: How To Kill a Mockingbird

A very novel book report on To Kill a Mockingbird, and the sequel How To Kill a Mockingbird 2: The Return of the Revenge.

Dark Sci-Fi Better

Watching Firefly this week has made me think - science fiction seems to be going through some changes in the early 21st century. In the 70s-90s era science fiction was all squeaky clean Jedi, starship captains of "the finest ship/crew in the fleet" and so forth. Then by the 1990s things got a little darker - the Star Trek Federation actually had warships, Babylon 5 had religion, religious wars and invented mainstream sci-fi characters that had shades of grey.

Now we have shows like Firefly and BSG '03 that are very dark. Both are in the mainstream (BSG in particular, Firefly having done some weird phoenix thing by coming back after being cancelled at the 14 episode mark). Curiously Star Trek Enterprise and Star Wars both seem to be in trouble (though Episode 3 is going to be pretty dark and may redeem Star Wars if you believe Mr. Kevin Smith and it'll make money anyway).

Let's take Firefly as an example of darker sci-fi. The basic premise of the show is that the Millenium Falconesque ship Serenity goes from week to week going around space looking for jobs, legal or otherwise. It's a bit like someone made a TV series of the old computer game Elite in that respect.

The main character, Captain Malcolm Reynolds is a bit of a Han Solo type - brash, arrogant and frequently biting off more than he can chew he turns out to be one of those loveable scoundrels that'll rob you blind but never kills an enemy with a speaking part (not that Firefly lacked any recurring villains). He hangs out with his first officer Zoe, her husband the pilot, and a host of whacky sidekicks.

Or Battlestar Galactica '03 - a bunch of military nuts on a big boat with a bunch of civvies pretending they're in charge, with a bunch of sexy evil humanoid robots chasing them. Much politicing - much darkness.

By contrast Star Wars Episode 1-2 - a bunch of Jedi and Senators fighting to protect diplomacy and generally being polite to one another. No Han Solo type character to do the whole witty banter, only Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan Kenobi.

Enterprise - a rehash of the 60s Star Trek, missing the opportunity to use the grittyness of First Contact by making everything shiny and Star Trekky. The first episode showed promise, the second involved a nebula - surely a first in Star Trek - and I haven't watched another Enterprise show since then.

Work Thought for the Month

I am in serious danger of losing what little and diminishing respect I have for one of my co-workers.

2 Discoveries

I was off ill yesterday and spent most of the day pottering around the flat. I made two discoveries:-

1. Firefly rocks.
2. Being ill when you live alone sucks. No-one brings you chicken soup.

This week I 'av been mostly watching...

Firefly: I've only watched the first 6 episodes or so, but this is pretty darn good. It's a Sci-Fi Western with a Han Solo type captain, Joss Whedon's great one liners and as far as I can tell a decent potential for an arc plot. Naturally it was cancelled. But it's coming back as a movie, which is unusual.

Millennium: X-Files spinoff with Lance Henrikson as a criminal profiler. Originally I assumed this was going somewhere with an arc relating to the Millennium prophecies and a count down to 2000. Instead it has the usual but it turns out it was cancelled in 1999 with a rushed finale in an X-Files 7th Season episode (conveniently packaged with the 3rd Season boxed set). Not cheery watching.

Best of Monty Python: Thanks to screenselect.co.uk I have been watching the classic episodes of Monty Python. Brilliant. I think my neighbours heard me singing the lumberjack song.

Meet the Parents: Saw Meet the Fockers a while back and I couldn't remember some of the finer points of its prequel. Not bad, not hilarious though.

Doctor Who: Nice Dalek episode. Hyped up to be something it wasn't, but it was pretty darn good.

Addendum

Sunday I awoke with a terrible flu, which I was convinced was a combo of the lack of sleep and hay-fever from being in the park yesterday. After taking a hay-fever tablet I checked on my miraculously unscratched Stu Mobile. After more Sims 2 I decided another trip to the shops was in order. The evening was spent watching films and deciding that I did indeed have a flu, not hay-fever.

Monday was equally dull - I wandered down the market place as the mobile guy had said the part I'd ordered would be in on Monday. I was a little cynical myself, given Monday was a bank holiday. Obviously it wasn't a Market Holiday, or so I thought. I was wrong.

Dawn of the Drunk

Saturday night was poker night at a chum's place, so I went over and promptly managed to lose £5, reminding me never to bend my policy on gambling for money again. On the plus I managed to last 3 hours in the game and won my fair share of hands despite misremembering the rules.

More interestingly the game finished at 1am, and saw me driving back home. Getting into my car I saw a lone figure staggering down the street, moaning and walking in a distinct zombie-fashion. Some wifie had obviously had a skinful and seeing a car with its lights on at 1am assumed it was a taxi.

Now, if you've been paying attention to my photo blog you will notice that a lot of the residential areas of Leicester include narrow streets, some of which open out onto the main road, some of which don't. This one didn't and the only option was to somehow get past this wifie. Which involved reversing. Unfortunately when she was me reversing she tried to get behind me, which is nice and dangerous. When I went forward she tried to get collapse in front of the hood. When I tried to turn she was banging on whichever door was nearest. I even tried lowering the window and telling her to move it, which she took as an invitation to try to get into the passenger seat, which I had thankfully locked when I saw the way the wind was blowing.

Eventually I had to resist the temptation to go through her, knocking her down if need be and go all the way down the dead end, wait for her to catch me up and reverse at a ridiculous speed back up the road, turn, and zoom off, leaving her stood in the middle of the road.

However this had obviously vexed me, and affected my concetration as I nearly plowed straight into a taxi when I tried to do a U-Turn past the speed cameras in the left lane of a dual-carriageway. The taxi appeared from nowhere on the brow of a rise doing 50 mph (reasoning that past the speed cameras its fair game to drive at ridiculous speeds) while I was doing a mere 10-15 mph. It was kind of a check the mirror, slow down as I angst over whether I want to do a U-Turn or wait for a roundabout, decide there's no chance in hell of a roundabout because I am looking for one, remember the road was deserted 3 seconds ago so it's ok to full lock without a signal, have minor heart attack whilst thinking where the hell did that come from?!!

Personally I consider a miracle the car was not damaged, much less me.

I don't even remember swerving out the way of the taxi - I did feel a jolt as the wind generated by this errant and excessively fast taxi nearly blew my car over whilst I cursed having my steering wheel on full-lock to the right as this thing flew past me in the right lane.

Basically it felt like a forcefield went round my car and absorbed the impact, but I think more than likely I was just tired.

I went to bed, lay awake thinking about a near-death experience and convinced at the very least all the paint work on the car was gone. To add to the general pleasant atmosphere I was rudely awakened in the wee hours of the morning by a lightning storm. The bright flashing lightning really cheered me up.

So there you go - a story of conversing with the dead and nearly joining their ranks due to my tiredness and someone else's hurry to get their next fair. Joy... and the story of my 3 day weekend ain't over yet.

Mayday, Mayday!

I had a long 3 day weekend off this week, in keeping with the University's apparent policy of giving me a holiday every week I work in this place.

Saturday afternoon was a lovely day, probably the best I've seen since I arrived. I discovered I live minutes away from Leicester Castle and Castle Gardens. Dragging my backside away from Sims 2 I went to the park where the May Day festival was in full swing by 2pm. It seemed every Goth, Pagan and Gandalf-look-alike had turned up for the festival, and I wandered around, listened to the folk music, mused on missing the maypole dance and chilled for half an hour. Not much was happening, so I decided after spotting several Frodo Baggins-alikes to wander off into town. I should point out that as a stupid fool I forgot to bring my camera as I could've taken some interesting photographs.

Thankfully there wasn't a wicker man in sight so I snuck off into town and relieved myself of some hard-earned cash by buying more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books, namely the Bestiary and a compilation of adventures. I'm supposed to be buying myself the Sandstorm supplement to work on a Greyhawk arc, but I can't seem to find the will to invest the £25 when I could be investing it in stuff I actually want.