Lasers aren't the cure.

Scrawlings.

2011-05-13T18:08:00.004+01:00

Turns out, my parents bought a cheap tablet one time, and don't use it at all. I borrowed it and had a play around with it last night. This is what happens when I'm bored and just draw what springs to mind...

Probably not worth psychoanalysing..

[Quick edit] That thing in the hand of the bad self-draw was supposed to be hair straighteners, but, well, you can see what I thought it actually looked like...

50 Day Challenge - Day 26 Vwuuuuum A Group of Random Factoids.

2011-04-28T11:12:00.011+01:00

Bored. Haven't blogged in a while. A lot of these challenges are piffling and boring. So, here's four themes in a post. Four. Four themes. In one post. Damn the dangers, I'm doing it anyway!

HAWKMEN!

DIIIIVE!

#1 Favorite books

I mentioned this mostly under 'my favourite book', but just to illustrate things, here's a picture of a heap of my favourite books:

The bottom row is 30 (!) Discworld books. I think it is fair to say I somewhat like Terry Pratchett's works.

Above that lie (left to right):
Douglas Adams (Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy 5-part trilogy , two Dirk Gently novels, and the Salmon of Doubt - which is less of a favourite due to being both unfinished and severely unthreaded, kind of inevitable for an incomplete book).
Three Iain Banks books (I started on his stuff recently and it's so far pretty damn fantastic, currently still reading the purple one, 'Use of Weapons').
Vom Kriege (On War) by Carl von Clausewitz is sitting atop the three Banks books.
Four David Gemmel books (heroic fantasy hack'n'slash-not-really-high-literature-but-what-the-hell).
And finally, on the right at a slant, 'Day of the Triffids' by John Wyndham (who actually has a much longer name, according to wikipedia).

I would have included Lord of the Rings, but to be honest I think I really do prefer the movie version to the books, despite the heinous omission of the hobbit war in the films. And to be honest I should probably have thrown the 6th Edition Skaven book in there too. It was no great work of literature, but I think the stuff in it really was simply fantastic for drawing one into the background of Skaven. Great literature rarely has 20-foot mutant warbeasts with swords through their throats pounding century-old immortals into a fine mist with little other than their massive claws. And I feel great literature is probably a lot less fun because of that.

#2 A talent of yours

I don't have a talent I can readily elaborate on, so instead I will throw out my 'talents';

I can walk/bike a long way quite speedily (point proved this week, travelling 26.41 miles in 25 hours - at least 10 of which I was asleep for. 4.2 miles of that was on a bike, in half an hour, with a loaded bergen.)
I can ride a horse in a very basic fashion.
I retain a quantity of my Soo Bahk derived fitness (and with it can both kick and punch through a fence panel.)
I can hit a christmas pudding sized target shooting barebow from 30 feet away.

... Well this task makes me sound rather useless, really. And makes me sound far more brick-like adventure-type than I am. I can do maths and Englishes and sciences and that, and can kind of paint miniatures, and I think people think I'm a pretty decent Paranoia GM when I'm not failing utterly at updating.

But, yeah, that was a dull theme and kind of depressing! Moving on!

Wait, no, I'll just pause here to insinuate I have other, more personal 'talents', and wiggle my eyebrows suggestively at my readership.

Ok, now we can move on!

#3 Favourite places to shop

How can I tell this challenge was written by someone Not Of My Kind. I guess the closest places I have to answer this are my favoured clothes emporiums, but, of course, there's only really one, because they're owned by the same people. And I don't live near them any more, either. And also most of their ranges don't interest me. You know what, this is a terrible theme.

If a shop sells shirts with nice gothic designs, and fancy metal trousers, I like it, basically.

TERRIBLE THEMES! MOVE ON!

#4 Provide the HEX code of your favorite color

I... You... I... Wh-... But...

ಠ_ಠ

I like the hex code D1D440. It gives a nice pale yellow, and happens to be the colour I use on the Underempire - having toned it down from fluorescent yellow a while ago, and in turn from orange before that.

This kind of thing is why I decided to put four themes in post. I mean, seriously? It's almost as if people don't want to spend all day putting together massive blog posts or something. Either way, this seems to be a good length, so now I might try and do something productive.

Ciao, dahlings.

Update? More like guffdate!

2011-03-25T23:42:00.004Z

Nothing funny to say, little new to add. BUT! I'm getting out in the lovely spring weather for lovely long walks because, although being unemployed sucks, I might as well enjoy the freedoms that come with it.

And I found a pretty thing and I took a photo and it turns out that the photo is surprisingly good.

Look at the pretty.

Next blog post : Something people might care about!

I've not abandoned you, honest!

2011-03-04T03:14:00.006Z

I don't intend to completely abandon this blog, and I might even decide to persevere on with the challenge, even though I'm thoroughly adrift in terms of timing and subjects, but, really, I don't think any of you care. I just want to write some more vaguely amusing stuff. Or possibly use this as an actual blog type blog. But that seems unlikely.

So, yes. I could post at any time.

Any time at all.

You must be ever-ready.

Ever prepared.

How dramatic.

The only way I can convey the sense of drama is by embedding the video below. Turn up your volume. Let it play. Feel the drama. The tension. The sheer awe inspiring power of the horn.

Draaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

---

How about a blog within a blog?

[Update] This video was annihilated on copyright grounds. Right. Because a recording of that horn noise was totally damaging the profits of Inception. Fucking. Hell.

50 Day Challenge - Day 25 : THUMP Whatever tickles my fancy II.

2010-11-21T02:04:00.009Z

I just had a shave. A de-face-fuzz. A trim. A tidy up. Restubbled. Dehoboed. Now I feel all fresh and clean. But is it all that simple?

I would like to venture that trimming my facial hair is one of the most intense semi-regular activities I take part in. It's a journey through conflicting stages, multi-faceted and complex, with peaks and plateaus of emotional tension and trauma. And I shall now elucidate as to why this is;

The journey begins with me taking scissors to my face. Now, you must understand, that I, as a highly evolved sapient organism with extensive education in The Dangers of Knives and the ingrained instinct to not get intimately involved with sharp things, which no doubt saved many of my mammalian forebears from grisly fates on sharp things. Putting sharp things near my head is therefore pretty unnatural and is not something I am particularly inclined towards doing. My head, as you're probably all aware, contains a lot of things that are valuable to me. Eyes are pretty useful, ears are somewhat handy too. I quite like my lips, and more importantly, they are full of blood, which is very important. If you've never had an accident where your lip is massively cut, then take it from me - Lips contain more blood than anything else in the world. Even mammoths.

Mammoth. Despite its mighty size, it contains less blood than my puny face.

Behind my valuable face with its flat eyes, large nose, and so on, is my brain. I'm rather fond of that as well. Now, I know I would really have to be going it some to stab myself in the brain with a pair of scissors while trimming my beard, but I really have been spectacularly clumsy in the past, and if I'm not careful, it's probably only a matter of time.

So I trim my overly long fuzz with the scissors, being careful not to accidentally scissor off bits of my own chin or stab myself in the brain, and trying somehow to make this essentially random process result in evenly trimmed hair, in the right place. This takes a while, but eventually I'm done, and breathe a little sigh of relief. I try to idle a bit, and get myself back together after the danger of the scissors, but eventually I have to confront the next stage.

Although I try and keep my face stylishly stubbly, I have to keep it up near my chin, otherwise it tends to head further down my neck - a fine goal for a full beard, but not helpful in this scenario.

This means a razor.

The sharpest thing I ever deal with on any basis.

And I have to scrape it.

Across my face.

Not only is this terrifing from the angle that it is a massively sharp thing being pulled across my nerve-packed and blood-filled brain-protecting face, as well as my neck which contains all the essential tubes that keep my head so full of blood, but it's me doing it! I've proved startlingly incompetent at a great many things, and now I have to pull a razor across my throat.

At generally this point my brain steps forward with the phrase 'Cut-throat razor'. Now, I know I don't have a cut-throat razor, I have a 21st century wimpy man's face-softening razor. Cut-throat razors are the kind used by Sweeney Todd, to shave people. And murder them. Nevertheless, that's not what I have, but the words are in my head now, and I've got a razor in my hand and the words 'Cut throat' circling around in my thoughts, threatening at any moment to coalesce from a harmless fragment into a deadly instruction.

I could, of course, wimp out. It is apparently still possible to get a shave at a barber's, which seems an archaic thing to do - but maybe it's pleasant? I say could, but I won't, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, if I don't trust myself, how will I trust someone I don't know, using an insanely sharp thing on my throat? Worse, a barber administering this kind of service might actually use a cut throat razor! This sort of thing would make me incredibly nervous and twitchy - not good responses while someone's got a razor to your throat, but of course, this knowledge would simply make me more panicked because I knew my being panicked made it more likely that I'd end up as a pie. The other reason is because of one of the two things I have in common with Saddam Hussein : I fear assassination. Like most dictators, aspiring dictators, US presidents, any figure of authority in most third world countries, drug lords and gang leaders, there are no doubt literally several people who might kill me for some reason. And putting my life in the hands of a potential assassin, in exchange for not shaving myself, seems like a terrible trade.

So I have to man up, and face it. Accept the danger and make my peace with the gods in case I never return, and then draw this insanely sharp thing over my thin little paper-maché face, sculpted clumsily over what is, essentially, a water balloon filled with blood.

Then it turns out to not be so bad. I manage not to slice myself to ribbons or Sweeney Todd myself in any fashion. Which is good, because I need time to concentrate on The Faces.

If you've never watched someone shave, do it. There's a lot of facial contortion in order to get the skin taut in the right places, because the razor seems to work best then. When you're alone, it's perfectly natural, and all makes sense. You don't even really notice the weird weird faces you are making at yourself. Possibly because you're making sure you don't accidentally murder yourself, or just because that's what you've always done. But The Faces are extremely silly. I watch myself in the mirror, looking extremely smugly at the ceiling, to each side like I'm trying to drink something out of a cup taped to my back, through a straw, and glaring somewhat condescendingly at the walls, wearing an expression of smug self-satisfaction, or that of someone who's been unevenly botoxed.

But then I'm done. I go check myself out in the mirror, and; exhilaration! I survived! I feel an undue sense of achievement when I manage to tidy up the way my face looks using two incredibly sharp things, because it is the closest thing to mundane everyday danger I get, and my fear of my own bumbling incompetence makes my survival feel like a miracle.

I made it through. I rubbed a razor over my skin, and somehow if didn't cut me. I marvel at how masculinely tough my skin must really be, and spend a small while considering cracking walnuts between my biceps. Manly. After the rollercoaster ride of fear, relief, terror, and finally exultation, I leave the bathroom a changed man. A master of the blades. So skilled he can sever a hair from his face without harming the skin. A survivor.

I have passed through the shadow of the valley of death, and I fear no evil. I am a Man.

50 Day Challenge - Day 24 : CRASH My favourite books.

2010-11-15T20:45:00.005Z

Rubbish theme is rubbish. So it's getting dumped. So I'm advancing onto another one. Books!

Here's where I get to broadcast how much I manage to fail at literature, because, although being semi-articulate, and that, I'm actually terrible at being cultured. I read a lot, but most of it isn't books, and the books I do read generally aren't the ones people shout at me to read, because they're classics of literature, or because the author is awesome.

The main staple of my reading for a while now has been Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books, which are, as I probably don't need to tell you, great reads (almost) all around (I don't much care for Tiffany Aching or Moist Von Lipwig).

Also worthy of note are Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide, as well as the Dirk Gently books, which I possibly actually like more than the guide (more than books 2-5, anyway). Also to be mentioned are David Gemmel's heroic fantasy books, which might well be trashy rubbish, but they're still sort of fun to thumb through from time to time.

Everything else, well, I tend to spend all my time reading news and updates, games and wikipedia, rather than books, so I do come off pretty poorly on this one.

But I am reading through Vom Kriege (otherwise known as On War) by a certain Carl von Clausewitz. I've also got a translation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which I've been through a few times. So I might claw back a point or two there.

Intermission - Moar to come!

2010-11-08T21:54:00.004Z

So, I've not blogged for a while, partly because I've had trouble making some of these crappy themes any fun at all, but also because I've been distracted by things, as is my way.

This video is a pretty good summary of what I've been up to in the intervening time. I'm the one without a hat;

Hopefully I'll get back to blogging as of tomorrow.

50 Day Challenge - Day 23 : Face Morph!

2010-10-26T22:32:00.000+01:00

Face Morph?

Ok

Sure.

Why not?

It can't be that hard.

Be back in a moment, guys.

....

He's got a sledgehammer! Fuck this!

Ok, I'm back. That little plasticine sociopath's going away for good this time, or that's what the officers down the station told me, anyway.

Wait.

WHAT? The theme is some easy face maniuplation?

I nearly died out there!

God damnit, you guys.

[/cheap puns]

[content]

Plain me. With my 'Come to the Lake District' eyes. Hold yourselves back, ladies.

Old me. Apart from the fact I've apparently not washed once (or been caught in the rain or gone swimming, even) between now and the point in this photo, it looks quite realistic.

Baby m-OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF- ARGH?! AAARGH! KILL IT WITH FIRE AND PURGE YOUR MEMORIES!
Also, why does baby me have some brown stuff on his face. I hope that's chocolate.

Afro-Carribean me. I think I'd look more realistically 'afro' in old school blackface, than this.
Also, chin.

East asian (Chinese, you know it) me. This also actually manages to look half decent. Ish.
Also, Quin. (see what I did there?)

Manga me. Apparently in a manga work, my forehead would be made of water. Which would be sort of cool, I guess.
Also I have face-I-hope-it's-chocolate, again.

50 Day Challenge - Day 22 : Share one of your current favourite tunes.

2010-10-25T20:30:00.005+01:00

Music! I really like music! I'm going to take this opportunity to share all the music with people! Why? Why not? Music is awesome. So, hereafter, is a lot of music. :D It's a variety, so don't stop trying them if you don't like a couple, this is a spread of my musical tastes. I also put way too much on here, but I like sharing music. So here it is - in no particular order;

Industrial-related choons.

Brainclaw.

Laibach.

Nachtmahr.

Metal.

Rammstein.

In Extremo.

Megaherz.

Ruoska.

Nightwish. - Pre-singer-change.

Turisas.

Sabaton.

Remixes and the like.

TF2 remixes/covers

Up remix - Upular

Bill Wyman remixed, feat. metal detector.

Awesome game music.

Timesplitters.

Heroes III.

Command and Conquer : Generals.

Sonic Adventure 2.

UNEXPECTED LEFT FIELD BLINDSIDERS.

Scroobius Pip vs Dan le Sac. - Harriet's fault.

Galactic. - Indirectly, Tom's fault.

Perfection.

50 Day Challenge - Day 21 : A photo picture that makes me happy.

2010-10-24T23:59:00.001+01:00

Photos are cool and all, but, by and large, there are better pictures than ones taken on cameras. So here's a few of my favourites - a mix of stuff that actually makes me happy, and ones I just like.

IMAGEDUMP, AWAY!

50 Day Challenge - Day 20 : My favourite television program.

2010-10-23T23:59:00.003+01:00

Ohooo boy. It's video time, ladies and gents, of a few of my few TV programs I actually like!

Yes Minister
A cunning and clever program that probably gives a terribly accurate portrayal of the relationships between the government and the civil service they are supposed to control.

Red Dwarf
If I know you and you don't know this, I'm shocked. Amazing sci-fi comedy that is completely fantastic. And then Series VIII. :( I love the Cat.

The Good Life
UNEXPECTED LEFT FIELD BLINDSIDER, a silly old sitcom about a couple trying to be self-sufficient in their incredibly upper-middle-class neighbourhood. Also, Felicity Kendal was quite attractive, back in the day.

The IT Crowd.
Silly semi-geeky comedy focussing on an IT department of three people with highly dysfunctional personalities. Fun. This clip is part of the show, and I think should be enough to get you interested enough to look for more clips to explain it.

Black Books.
Bill Bailey. Dylan Moran. Tamsin Greig. Fun. Can't embed because channel 4 are weird. But I can link to a whole episode on youtube. Go watch.
Do it.

...so it turns out that I like sitcoms!

50 Day Challenge - Day 19 : CRASH A letter to someone that changed your life

2010-10-22T23:59:00.003+01:00

I'm trying to catch up, and I don't have anything I can topically rant about right now. So I have punted the 'whatever tickles my fancy' theme forwards in time, and I shall address it when I have an opportunity to be far more amusing than I could be with it right now. Theme management is a vital skill! So today's theme is as above!

Dear Jim!

Heya Jim, you handsome devil, you erotic baron of the Leicester area, you despoiler of ladies of virtue, nemesis of locust, and legendary buttock-bearer. I hope this letter finds you in good health, plentiful wealth, and in possession of inner harmony. It's weird, looking back, at just how much you might have changed my life's course. It's possible, of course, possibly even probably, that natural preferences would have emerged of their own accord. But it might have taken longer than it did, and time is precious.

T'was you that introduced me to a strange band, singing in German, apparently calling themselves 'ramming-stone'. Down this path I've ended up here, listening to brainclaw, having spent many years sinking into heavier metal and then, recently, slid sideways into electro-industrial. My entire musical taste was acutely focussed through your actions, and I have to say I'm grateful - It could have taken years to stumble across Rammstein on my own accord.

Similarly, t'was you that intoduced me to Warhammer. Through gaming and active membership on the Underempire for six years now, I have talked to many, great people, and even met a lot of fantastic people in the flesh - Dan (Burrows), Olly, Daan, Vince, Mich, Dan (Thraskittar), Tom (Scarfester), Holly, Eduard, Casper, Sneakyrodent and Warpsmith (sorry to those two, their names have slipped my feeble brain at this moment). I've met people from Canada, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands, gotten to know people from the US, Australia and New Zealand - Even Morky/Mr Wilmot, I might not have encountered were it not for you. I've had a hell of a lot of fun, made a lot of good friends, and amassed a legion. And it's all because of you.

Soo bahk? You. Through Soo Bahk I got to know Jake and Geoff, Alex, and everyone else at the club while I was there. It got me fitter and better in a lot of ways. Thanks for poking my cowardly ass into joining it. I'd no doubt be a different person today without it. Alternative fashion? You. I think you introduced me to Rag Freak and things kind of went from there.

Red? You. You kept in contact with her while you went out with her, and it was at one of your parties that I think I caught her clearly delusional eye, because I stole her hat. So all the fun I've had with her over the past three years? Your fault.

It's hard to think of anyone who's had such an effect on my life. So many things about me now are knock-on effects from you streaking across my path. I don't even know how I met you, but I can honestly say, I'm bloody glad I did.

Thanks, Jum. x

50 Day Challenge - Day 18 : Set or share a goal.

2010-10-21T23:59:00.003+01:00

I've got a few goals, with varying spans, so I guess I'll list a few, in no particular order.

Get a job.
- For obvious reasons. I'm broke, and would like that to not be the case any longer.

Develop moar friendships.
- There's been a lot of friendship drift over the past few years, with no significant part of this probably being due to my inherent dislike of most common socialising practices. I want to get back in touch with peoples as well as meet new ones, though.

Contact lenses!
- I'm working on this. Hopefully I'll be set with a week or two of trials as of next saturday, and then I might end up getting a heap if they work well. Then my big blue beautiful eyes will be unobstructed by glasses, for all the lovely ladies to fall into.

Get significantly fitter by next summer.
- I'm a bit podgy, I need to stop eating rubbish and do a heap more exercise. I'm just not fit enough at the moment.

Get significantly better at drawing.
- I like drawing, and enjoy being creative. Right now I'm practicing drawing characters from Mouse Guard, possibly with an aim to illustrate one of the games I am running. I've always enjoyed idle doodling but never really practiced or put in an effort to improve.

Stick with my current committments reasonably well, and not take on any more.
- I fly from interest to interest and I find it hard to force my attention back onto one specific thing. I hope to focus on what I'm currently doing, without digging myself more holes. I already feel really quite bad about the things I've started and then bailed on. :(

NaNoWriMo.
- Having said that I didn't want to take anything more on, I let Mork/Mr Wilmot bug me into signing up for the NaNoWriMo. It's going to be a warhams-derivative work, practically Skaven Politics : The Novel. I'm hoping it'll be an interesting experience, help me try and focus on a regular thing, give me practice at writing, be enjoyable, and maybe even restore my interest in Skaven a little. We'll see how this goes.

Get into horse riding.
- This one might be very difficult, might rely on the job being got. I like horses. A lot. I think it's time I got onto learning to ride properly and regularly.

50 Day Challenge - Day 17 : A photo that makes you sad.

2010-10-20T23:59:00.002+01:00

Each one of those points of light is a galaxy.

Even the smallest galaxies contain around ten million stars.

Feel insignificant and pointless, yet?

50 Day Challenge - Day 16 : Pictures of 5 celebrity crushes

2010-10-19T23:59:00.003+01:00

This would be a difficult post if I stuck exactly with a theme - I don't really get obsessed with people I don't know. At least, not the the point of 'crushes', or thinking I'm in love with them. And by and large the weird people paraded in front of us as models are so distant from my own world that it's hard to feel any real feelings for them. So this is more sort of 'Pictures of five people I always enjoy seeing on screen', post.

So here we go, in no particular order!

Judith Holfelder von der Tann
A.K.A. Judith Holofernes, Lead singer of Wir Sind Helden

She's pretty, in a way that very few 'celebrities' are, and she's a great singer. I have a weakspot for girls speaking and singing in German. :3

Helena Bonham Carter
Specifically as Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd

She pulls off gothy clothes extremely well. Again, pretty in a unique way.

Geoffrey Rush
Specifically as Hector Barbossa in Pirates of The Carribean

This is more about the character, to be honest, but every second Cap'n Barbossa is on screen is a second well spent. :D

Bill Nighy
:D

Again, this might just be the characters he plays, but I love watching Mr Nighy on screen - He's always great fun.

David Mitchell

No, he's not pretty. But his voice is so fine I end up hearing my thoughts in his voice, inside my own brain. And he's generally right about stuff, and is an all-around fantastic entertainer.

50 Day Challenge - Day 15 : Letter to someone I wish I could meet.

2010-10-18T23:59:00.001+01:00

Dear Morky/Zack/Mr Wilmot,

Hai!

Love,
Bob

Dear [Many various members of the UE spread out over 3 Continents]

Hai!

Love,
Bob

Well, that theme was relatively rubbish. There's a few other people, real and fictional, alive and historical, that I'd kind of like to meet, but the problem is that I really don't care enough about people. I wouldn't have anything to say to them apart from saying 'I admire what you do/did/will do', or hurting them. And this is ignoring culture differences and language barriers..

So the only people I could think of that I'd want to meet are the many, many various members of the Underempire that I've never met in Real Life. Also the ones I've met in real life, would be great to see again. :D

50 Day Challenge - Day 14 : A song from my childhood.

2010-10-17T23:59:00.003+01:00

When I was a wee bairn, my parents let me listen to Billy Connolly. Off of a record. A record. I must have been mad dinky, and I guess they didn't let me anywhere near... well most of Billy Connolly's stuff, but I most definitely remember this. I still sing it, from time to time. Mainly when I find myself in a field.

I think it left an impression, and formed part of my strong preference for making people laugh as a way of making up for my glaring personal flaws and lack of anything interesting to tell anyone.

I also never wear impractical footwear. Right now I own a pair of army boots. I wear them for everything. They're hardwearing, comfortable, waterproof. I can even ride a horse in them. I wonder if that's an upshot of listening to this song, 18 years ago?

50 Day Challenge - Day 13 : Whatever tickles my fancy.

2010-10-16T23:59:00.003+01:00

This could have been a continuation of the youtube videos, a topical rant, or just a general meaningless ramble. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to find some way to equal Tabby's brilliant post for this theme.

So blame her.

For this.

I know where I found it, but it doesn't make sense that it was there. I don't know what, or why, I might be able to find out who, but, really, this picture is perfection.

Sock suspenders.

50 Day Challenge - Day 12 : A Self-Portrait

2010-10-15T23:59:00.006+01:00

I got myself around to doing this - I didn't have a self-portrait until now. I think it went quite well, considering my general lack of artyness. It is badly asymmetrical.

50 Day Challenge - Day 11 : My favorite recipe

2010-10-14T22:31:00.005+01:00

I thought I was in deep trouble here. I'm not a great cook, and I barely call what I manage to lump together into edible heaps 'good food' - nor would I consider the lumping process a 'recipe'. But then I realised, maybe I do know some recipes - or at least, have the recipes available to show you all. And they're recipes for fun, as well as food! And they're videos!

I'm just spoiling you all, now.

50 Day Challenge - Day 10 : Letter to someone I hate most, or caused me a lot of pain.

2010-10-13T23:59:00.002+01:00

This one's kind of difficult, because, by and large, I'm a calm, fairly indifferent person. I'm not moved to emotion that often or drastically, and I've had a fairly undramatic life. So I don't really know who I could write a snotty or angry letter to. I've tried to make this funny a few times, but it's just not working out, so I'll leave you with this simple one;

Dear Humanity,

WHAT THE F**K?

Love,
Bob

50 Day Challenge - Day 9 : Favourite Bloggers

2010-10-12T23:59:00.002+01:00

It's mutual masturbation time! The mildly incestuous activity of pimping my friend's blogs to my other blogging friends by the medium of my own blog. It's sick and filthy, but the theme demands.

I don't read many blogs - so if I read yours, you count as a favourite! This small group is probably limited to;

The Tabbinator, who got me into this whole 'doing a blog challenge for no reason' mess.

The Gingerbread Lady, who got into this thing after me, and is now roaring ahead because of that whole 'vanishing for a week' thing I did.

Constantly Risking Obscurity, the blog of a member of an online Warhammer community I spend a little too much time on. An amazing painter and converter, Mr Mike's blog is a great read, full of fantastic pictures and painting tips that might help me, one day, make some models look good.

Z. M. Wilmot - No doubt appearing on book spines in literary-tome-emporiums near you, in the not-too-distant future, Mr Wilmot is a close friend who is, sadly, a long way away geographically. He's an absolute monster for motivation and does more productive stuff before breakfast than I get done in a year. He wrote a book last year, and you should all go and buy it. Do it.

Hyperbole and a Half, written by the delightful, unemployed, and clearly insane Allie Brosh, her fantastically written posts combined with the crude but emotive MSpaint illustrations make for some of the most entertaining reading I've found. When I have money, I will be wearing Hyperbole shirts.

50 Day Challenge - Day 8 : Recent photo

2010-10-11T23:59:00.002+01:00

This is another pretty poor one. Hard to make interesting. But that's ok because I'm trying to make up ground.

I'm a little confused as to why this theme exists, though. Basically everyone I still know has surely seen me at least relatively recently, and I don't really change that much. I guess this is a special day, just for the stalkers who I havent ~~been raped by~~ met yet. So, here you are, dear Stalkers - Bob in the lake district!

My facefuzz has since been trimmed.

50 Day Challenge - Day 7 : Youtube Videos Part 1

2010-10-10T18:12:00.003+01:00

The day 7 theme is 'a youtube video that makes you laugh'. I don't fancy that - though I will post some videos to that effect. So I'll probably end up doing youtube videos over varying days, in groups, depending on what I fancy doing when. Today's theme is closer to 'Dramatic Videogame Cinematics That I Consider Awesome'. So, enjoy! Watch these as loudly as you can.

Battlefield 2142 Intro

Mark of Chaos Intro

Age of Reckoning Trailer

Eve Online Dominion Trailer

HIATUS

2010-10-01T16:52:00.001+01:00

Just realising how many commitments I have online, now that I have to announce their suspension while I'm in the Lake District.

I'm going to the Lake District.

:P Come back next week! (the post I should've done yesterday will be MEGASIZED, and will appear on Sunday the 17th. Probably!

50 Day Challenge - Day 6 : What I ate today.

2010-09-29T19:12:00.003+01:00

Some Ryvita
Hula hoops
Two ham and mustard sandwiches
Pork chop w' carrots parsnips potatoes and cabbage
Banana and yoghurt.

I don't. I can't. Theme. Inescapably. Boring.

I think I might start combining boring days...

50 Day Challenge - Day 5 : Letter to an ex.

2010-09-28T21:55:00.005+01:00

These themes suddenly got terribly bad for being fun. Or interesting. Or even long in any fashion. Maybe this is because most people don't want to waste their entire evenings online, but, I'm pretty sure noone has anything better to do with their time.

A letter to an ex would be pretty short. And the only way I can think to extend this is to make it pluralise it, and make it letters to my exes. But I'm not a social butterfly, because I'm a grumpy, bitter, and cynical misanthrope, and so that only ends up giving me three letters to write, because for some reason that tends not to attract women. Or anyone at all. But at least this blog topic is relatively well timed. Apologies in advance for lack of funny, but, this is an impossible topic to work with.

So, I'll go chronologically;

Leanne.

It's been a long time since we met, that fateful day when our cars, and then our souls, touched. I've never been happier to be in a car crash. I knew I wanted to be with you, but we were young and foolish, we thought we had forever. Then the day came when I had to leave, it was hard to let you go, and somehow I never caught your second name - as entranced as I was by your long black hair, like sweet silky darkness. I sometimes wonder what could have been, but it would never have worked out between us - we both had a lot of growing up to do, we weren't mature enough for a real relationship. Maybe, one day, you'll cross my path by chance, and you'll be all I ever desired.

But I doubt it. x

Madame Geering!

Hi, hello, how are you? I hope your life is going better than mine, or that, at least, you're happy. I'd just like to say I'm sorry for the month we spent as a pseudo-couple, I was clearly not ready for a relationship of any kind, and I'm sorry you were the proverbial testing ground. I hope I didn't make you too unhappy, but at least you realised quickly, and got the hell out of dodge. I really am sorry I called you Frankie.

Best. x

Hi Red.

I enjoyed the time I spent with you - Including some of the best times of my life, but apparently you want something different now. I think I've said everything else elsewhere, so, best of luck.

x

50 Day Challenge - Day 4 : A photo of me from 10+ Years ago.

2010-09-27T23:53:00.007+01:00

This theme is quite dull, but I'm now incredibly cautious of the implications of trying to make something more interesting - That kind of thinking lost me the entirety of sunday evening!

I do now know where the photos are kept, but possibly not all of them. There are a million photos in there, though. A lot of them weren't organised, and I'm feeling lazy, so I scouted through just the organised albums.

Now, I could have put up a picture of me, extremely young, very blonde, and extremely naked. However, I decided not to - Partly because it would drive my female readers wild with unbridled animalistic lust, and partly because I don't know the legal ins and outs of posting pictures of tiny, extremely underaged, penis, and whether or not it being my tiny underaged penis exempts me from being arrested for posting it. I've decided to err on the side of caution, just this once.

Instead, I found this picture;

It has several interesting aspects.

1- I look as stoned as I do now. Maybe moreso. It's nice to know that I've always had that dopey, half-baked expression.

2- That arm. It doesn't look right. It might be the fact that the hand is sort of.. limp. That could be a dead guy's arm in a sleeve, there. Maybe it is.

3- My head looks like it has been photoshopped on. My massively reflective face surrounded by dark colours makes this look entirely fake. I look equally genuine in this picture. I don't know if this means the photo is simply bad, or if I have a head that's remarkably easy to cut off and paste onto other things - A disquieting notion.

4- I'm on a train. A steam locomotive. The driving force of the industrial revolution. A thundering iron contraption weighing as much as a main battle tank. I was a train nerd when I was little. Since then I've moved on to different things to be geeky about, but I still think steam trains are awesome things. Also, steam engines, for some reason, share a lot of things with steampunk. Unsurprising, maybe, but cool.

5- The pose. My body language is clearly me attempting to look wildly casual, on what was presumably quite an exciting day for little train-nerd me. I'm trying to look like I'm just leaning, casually, out of this boring steam locomotive, with an eye to pick up the ladies. 'They see me rollin'" and all that. I heard chicks dig the hot sweaty manliness of the driver's cab.

Maybe later I'll take you home and show you some of my wide-gauge bullhead. ;)

50 Day Challenge - Day 3 : My favourite film

2010-09-26T22:30:00.004+01:00

I have a problem here. First of all, I don't really have a single favourite film. I like too many, and can't even begin to categorise them.

So here's a bunch of my favourite films; The Lord of the Rings triology, the Pirates of the Carribean trilogy, the Underworld trilogy, The Matrix, Blackhawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates, Hero, How to Tame Your Dragon, Flushed Away, Evil Dead 2 (still haven't seen #3), Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Starship Troopers, Aliens... and there's probably more....

Now. That's not a very interesting blogpost. So I thought I'd take one of the films I like rather a lot, and take you all on a very special journey through the film, with me capturing important moments, and adding a running commentary, in the style of THE GODDAMN BUGS WHACKED US JOHNNY. This took a LOT longer than I had expected, but once you've committed, you'd just got to plough on through. It got a little out of hand.

The film? Fearless. A biography-picture-slash-wuxia movie about the life of a chap called Huo Yuanjia.

So, let us begin....

Our story begins in an arena in Shanghai

Huo Yuanjia will fight four opponents, one after the other. If he loses any of these fights, he has lost the match! His opponents will be three different types of facial hair, and a narcoleptic!

Hi, I'm the protagonist!

The three facial hair champions of the west, brave souls, all!

This bastard had better be awake for the fight.

First up : Irish O'Sideburnigans!

Jesus christ begorrah! Shoes!

My defeat was entirely unforseeable!

Next up, Sergeant Finelycurled VonPointychin!

You cannot possibly defeat my great long freudian spear, with it's smooth yet hard shaft!

Have at you, blaggard!

Sergeant Finelycurled : A completely surprising reversal has occurred!
Protagonist : It's not the size, it's how you use it.

Fear not! My humungous mutton chops and homoerotic smile shall win the day!

... well, fuck.

And, I'll tell you something, Jerry, they were this big. Literally this big. I do hope I can see her again... What's that you say about a fight?

The final challenger, the narcoleptic!

Dramatic closeup time!

Ow.

Our story begins with Yuanjia as a young boy, rubbing himself up against a door, as young boys of that age are wont to do.

His father is the master of a wushu school full of promising students, and Ted (third from left), who is a little slow.

Protagonist : I want to train!
Father : You have athsma and will die! GTFO!

This is Protagonist's nerdy friend, Nong Jinsun, who shall be reffered to as Nerdfriend. He does Protagonist's homework as well as his own. All he asks in return, is a little nascent homoeroticism.

He gets all he desires.

An arena in the town. Protagonist's father is to fight another master.

Our dads are rivals. We should be rivals too. Meanwhile, the man in the background is peeing on the leftmost child. His relief is evident.

Opponent studies the crypic message written on Protagonist's father's hand.

The message is not well received.

Bugger!

Protagonist : My father lost and now I'm sad.
Nerdfriend : A strange man took me off, did things to me, and bought me these new clothes. Aren't they just wonderful?

Rival : Haha, your dad lost, and now you're sad. Me and my posse are here to remind you of that. Try not to point out Jimmy's crooked neck.

Rival : Fight me if you dare!
Protagonist : Let's do it!
Nerdfriend : I'm.. I'm having a stroke.. you guys... pfnyaaaah...

TO BATTLE!

OH SHI-

Rival : Victory is mine! Bahahaha.

Being beaten sucks, I'mma stop doing it.

Our story begins in the house of Protagonist, now he's a young adult.

Hi mum! I got over my athsma, became a wushu master, married, had a daughter, lost my wife to tragedy, and did I mention that the last time I got defeated was by my rival when I was a small boy?

I wuv you so much that my face spasms.

A CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED

He's down at the old '100-foot-drop arena'.

Every wushu master gets his own pet hobo.

CAN THIS BE? The challenger is Mr Rival, who is also now a young adult wushu master who is undefeated!

Surely it would have been easier to build some stairs, than more than a hundred perfectly straight upright beams?

Rival : Watch out for that hundred-foot-drop!
Protagonist : What hundred foot dr- OH SHI! WHAT THE HELL?

Bravely our hero makes it to the top - But what lies in store for him atop this structure?

It doesn't really seem worth the climb.

The boot is in the other head now!

That actually looks kind of dangerous, guys. Can anyone tell me why we hold these supposedly friendly matches 100 feet off the ground?

Wait! There's something I remembered, I just have to show you!

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone...

That's possibly the best Tom Jones tribute I've ever seen.

Protagonist : I MUST HAVE YOU!
Rival : This worked out surprisingly well.

Crowd : What the hell is going on up there?

Protagonist : This plan didn't really work out. I just weakened my punch and hit myself in the head with a plank.

..actually, maybe....

...it did work out...

... damn. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Sweet. I wonder if anyone can beat me now?

CHALLENGERS HAVE APPEARED

Nope.

Protagonist : So, sweetcheeks, how about you and I go back to my place? I'll teach you some woo-shu? Oh yeah,
Victim : Uh... no?

Protagonist : It wasn't a question!
Victim : Help! Help!

Nerdfriend : Aren't you bored of hitting people yet?
Protagonist : Nope.

Nerdfriend : While you've been hitting people, I've started a restaurant.
Protagonist : Can I still pay you in homoerotic glances?

We want to join your Wushu school so you don't maim us!

Stranger : You have still not beaten my father, master Chin.

Pupil : Master Chin beat me up!

Protagonist : You're in a whole heap of trouble, Mr Chin. We must kungfufight!

Nerdfriend : You're a dick.

Protagonist : We could sit down here. There's loads of tables. Like this one here.
Chin : We dine on top floor! I like it up there!

Chin : I appear to be in a whole heap of trouble.
Master Chin has left the game

Protagonist : Who killed my daughter? (and mother)

Chin's son : I killed your daughter! (and mother)

Master Chin's son has left the game

A wushu master's hobo also serves to point out the futility of one's dreams once achieved, and the hollowness of victory that has cost you everything.

I'm going for a walk, I may be some time.

Protagonist : I have been taken in by friendly villagers.

Protagonist : I am learning a valuable lesson about respecting others as well as nature.

Protagonist : I am at peace, and am now enjoying passing wind, just like the other villagers.

Protagonist : I'm back. Help me, Nerdfriend, I need some money so I can go hit some people.

Hobo : While you were gone, I bought a hat! Now you are the hobo!

Sorry I killed you, man.

Bananaman has challenged any and all Chinese fighters!

RAPE. RAPE. RAPE. RAPE. RAPE.

Holy crap, why can't you guys build safe arenas?!

Protagonist : I was messing with you earlier. I now only hit people in the national interest.
Nerdfriend : Hooray!

Both : Now we run a wushu school!

Figures of Western power : A chinese bloke is hitting all of our champion people-hitters. Let's stage a clearly unfair fight. When he loses a fight so obviously and heavily stacked against him, we will be shown to be clearly superior, when ganging up on chinese people 4-to-1! It's foolproof!

Narcoleptic : Tea helps keep me awake.
Protagonist : I also like tea.
Both : I respect you.

Our story begins in an arena in Shanghai at the beginning of round 4 of a rigged contest.

I respectfully fight you with respectful respect.

OH NOES!

We are respectful equals! Respect!

Mmm, poison flavour.

We fight unarmed!

I may be ill.

Nerdfriend : Go to a hospital!
Protagonist : No.

Narcoleptic : Go to a friggin' hospital!
Protagonist : No!

Tag, you're it.

Blerk.

He's dead, Jim.

And there we are. That's fearless, summed up in a whole heap of screencaps. I hope I did it justice! :D

This entire post took forever. Next time, I'll just stick with the theme!

50 Day Challenge - Day 2 : Things that happened today

2010-09-25T22:23:00.004+01:00

You know who I am - now you need to know what I do. Notice the use of language here. You're not interested, you're not 'just curious', it's not an idle ponder, it's a need, a driving, burning, animal urge. Until you know what I do with a random day, your life is simply incomplete. Hollow and void of meaning. You can try and feign nonchalance and indifference, but you're only fooling yourself.

Luckily, this aligns with the arbitrary task on hand. Lucky lucky you.

00:00 - Still awake, wrestling with html to make this blog look good (or goodish), and with the internet at my parent's house. We have a wireless booster device type thing that allows you to use plug-in receivers to get much better signal for the wireless - which is normally extremely poor here for some reason. I've long held the belief that this house is built over a pocket of radioactive gas, a weird metal deposit, or a micro-black hole - Not only is the wireless signal bad, but there's also no mobile signal. Something about this place messes with electromagnetic waves. It's kind of concerning.

00:44 - Managed to bloody finish and post blog post for yesterday. Good start!

01:00 - Realise I should be in bed. Talk to people on the internet and fiddle around with more stuff.

02:30 - Go to bed.

10:30 - Wake up, fuzzy-headed with deathbreath. Try to remember dream. It involved being on a sinking aircraft carrier, but I can't really remember anything more than that.. Brush teeth to cure deathbreath and feel minty. Slope around fuzzy-headed while my brain revs up. Parents inform me some bushes need trimming.

11:30 Trim bushes. This is an unexciting task. Normally. Today we are trimming large bushes that have grown beyond reasonable size. To deal with these upstart mega-bushes, my mother has purchased a new tool. I call it the deathglaive. It is an instrument of hardcore gardening destruction. I spent a small while practicing what little staffwork I know, with it. I also cut some bushes.

I'mma garden your face clean off, boy...

14:00 - Helped dad take stuff down the dump. Yeah this was a pretty exciting day, thanks for asking.

16:00 - Parents and sister went to go shopping in Eastbourne. I went for a walk with the dog. It was a pretty beautiful day. Sunny enough to warm you up, but windy enough to keep you cool/cold. Had a great meandering walk up over and around Seaford Head. Some people reading may not know this, so I should explain, my parents live in an area of chalk downland, bordering the sea. The mediocre town of no real interest or value sits with the sea to the southwest, rolling hills to the north, and some pretty well-known cliffs to the east. From where I was wandering today, you could see the lot. Sadly, I forgot to take my camera. So I stole somone else's picture off of google maps' picture finder.

The Seven Sisters. Well. Six of them. The photograph is taken from the 7th, and that one in the distance is beachy head, which isn't counted for some reason. Maybe just because 'The Eight Sisters' doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well, or maybe it's a male cliff.

18:30 - Got home, helped make dinner. Then ate dinner. Excitement.

20:40 - Used free time to update the game of Paranoia I am running over on The Underempire. One of the players just shot a fat naked communist wallowing in a bath of melted cheese. If that doesn't get you intrigued, nothing ever will.

21:00 - Started this bloody blog post.

23:06 - Looked at time and went 'holy crap, this post took forever! Also noticed that I'd caught up with myself, and my day has been pretty boring. The best bit being a nice walk. I can't say I live a high-adrenaline life, really..

23:08 - Posted blog post!

50 Day Challenge - Day 1 : Introduction, Likes and Dislikes

2010-09-25T00:44:00.005+01:00

Tabby tabbinated me - I'm copying her in trying the 50-day challenge some of the things are shorter and easier than others - but it'll be interesting to do :D

So, I'm Bob, you probably know that, other people might know me as Stinkhair because I choose internet aliases without thinking them through properly. Also 'slicer, because when I'm not choosing simply bad names, I end up using ones that make me sound like a total psycho. I'm 21 and feeling it - Just finished royally messing up uni and now looking for a job so I can go back to the days of having numbers in my bank account that aren't prefixed with a minus sign. If anyone doesn't know, I love my long locks of hair, and live in perpetual fear of the day its retreat becomes too noticeable to avoid. Public opinion has it that I look like a young bill bailey. I hope they're wrong, but I fear they're right.

I contemplate my future in musical comedy. And baldness.

I try to be nice and friendly to everyone, and I think I do it well, given the evil haze of misanthropic cynical fury that lurks just behind my shiny greeny-blue eyes. I try to say witty things, but often it's just sarcastic racism, your mother, or innuendo. Sometimes I like to think I actually said something witty. Often I come up with something much sharper, a few days later. I'm a nihilist, a communist, a misanthrope, a cynic, a grudge-carrying wotsit, and an atheist. Musically, my main genre is metal - mostly hinging on whether the singer sings or not. I also have a thing for German music, which may or may not come up a lot.

Likes include; dabbling in history, war and related junk, tabletop wargames (Warhams!) and RPGs (Paranoia and Mouseguard!), computer games (hooo, boy...), martial arts (though I'm a lazy ass and haven't trained for years), swimming, cycling (I am not an athlete) and wandering the wonderful English countryside. Diet coke (I have a physical addiction to caffeine - no joke, quitting physically HURTS) and Wagmamas are the best comestibles, and being snuggled up warm in a blanket, especially on a cold or rainy day, is the best way to live. Excessive Britishness, capes, cloaks, trenchcoats, hats, and ridiculous accents are also good.

Dislikes; Capitalism, most people, both specifically and generally (for a lot of reasons), mortality, my own tendency to become distracted from the simplest of tasks, a fair few kinds of music (looking at you, R&B and death metal), and being in pain.

Now, that looks like very few dislikes compared to likes, but believe me, under those extremely expansive terms there falls an awful lot of very seperate reasons to dislike things. We'll probably cover those later.

And that's the first post done! If you learned something, well done, I hope it was an enjoyable read for all concerned. If not, well, there's 49 more days of this, so you'd better get out while you can.

Pictorial

2010-04-29T21:01:00.002+01:00

I drew a Mouseguard version of myself. Then I fiddled with photoshop. Still not good enough to colour it, yet. :\

Visual Stimulation

2010-04-20T14:23:00.007+01:00

Never seen my fair lady, never read pygmalion. Thanks to this, I am now cultchad.

Also, Politics.

Democracy - Where the common man is allowed to influence our country's leadership. This video demonstrates why this is a massively bad idea. Vote for Benevolent Dictatorship on May 6th - You need us, to look after you.

Things - Doom and so on.

2010-04-20T04:30:00.004+01:00

Just happened across this in a news story, blah blah blah, volcano, blah.

"Some years ago my friend Simon Winchester was giving a lecture in the US about what might happen if the dormant volcano under Yellowstone Park erupted. It would, he said, kill a vast number of people in the world. "Americans too?" asked a woman in the audience. She had clearly not heard of the late Permian extinction, sometimes referred to by geologists as the Great Dying, which occurred 250 million years ago and almost certainly involved vast volcanic activity."

People are stupid. -_- You know why this is stupid. I won't explain.

Other news:

Procrastinating hard - Read up on peak theory, quietly considering what likely seems like impending doom - Water, Oil, Metals and Food should all be supposedly peaking relatively soon. With apparently 3.3 billion people living in urban areas as of '07, anything interfering either production or transport will quickly lead to Hilarity for an awful lot of people.

We're on course for a laugh.

Music:

Life - So much I want to do

2010-04-19T08:53:00.005+01:00

Here's a snapshot of what's going on in my life - In 600*80 pixels of informative icons. =]

I also have a burning urge to rejoin MP and mod Dwarf Fortress to Skaven Warren. Oh dear.

Lifes - Things to do.

2010-04-04T03:33:00.015+01:00

Lots of work to do. Not been doing enough. Doing more tomorrow.

Miss my Red!

Dorf Fort 2010 is out. Cannot afford time to deal with buggy crashy game of doom. Apparently dwarf skin dissolves in the rain, leaving the poor buggers to bleed to death. Be glad we're not Dorfs.

Been modding Dawn a wee bit. Means playtest games ahoy. Rebalancing things from the hodgepodge they were. Orks, Guard, Marines should be done, now.

Pictures!

[Yes. Orks is da fightiest.]

Ratbumz - Exceedingly cute.

2010-01-12T03:40:00.005Z

I got a sudden urge to go play with my rats. So I did. And fed them and photoed them while I did.

I want to get a lot more pics of the pretty little things ^_^

They are adorables.

...my breadz!

Blog Begins.

2010-01-10T01:51:00.002Z

Smashed old blog. Didn't like it.

Currently : Work. Lots of work.